Messing With the Format

You may have noticed that the blog looks a little different.  I started out wanting to adjust the page width, because I got tired of embedding Youtube videos that display chopped off in the middle.  I was using the default template before, and it doesn't allow you to change the sizes of anything.  I settled on the first template I found that allowed me to rearrange things, but I'm still not satisfied.  I'd appreciate any guidance my readers can offer.

I must contact Google again about the advertising.  When I started writing tonight, the usual General Dynamics ad was showing, but when I changed the format, an ad for Christian vacation Bible school appeared.  That just will not do.  I will not allow this blog to be used to shill for any religion.

I'm a Bad Girl

Two Spaces After a Period: Why You Should Never, Ever Do It
It's the way I was taught to type, oh so many years ago. Writing on a computer is typing, is it not? I was trained to end a sentence, after the punctuation mark, with two spaces. Apparently this is improper, and has been for some time. How does one miss out on a point of style like that?

Another Nothing Post

I'm hoping to go to the movies later tonight, and I'm even planning to see a concert Thursday night, but in the meantime I'm going to drop this in as filler. A couple of the message boards I hang out on have threads wherein posters are asked to list the contents of their MP3 players. I only just started to really download music this summer, and in yet another sign of how behind I am, I still don't have an actual media player device. That said, I've got a ton of stuff on my hard drive. I'm going to give y'all a peek inside.

This is just going to be a listing of artists/band names. If I listed album and song titles, the list would seem to go on forever.

I like to think of my music tastes as eclectic. You all might just think I'm weird.

Acrassicauda
Aerosmith
Alana Davis
Alanis Morissette
Alicia Keys
Amy Winehouse
Andy Caldwell
Anthony Hamilton
Arcade Fire
Arkestra One
Artie Traum
Astrud Gilberto
Bebel Gilberto
Belleruche
The Black Crowes
The Black Keys
Black Sheep
Blind Faith
The Bloodhound Gang
Blue Six
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band
Boozoo Bajou
Broken Bells
Brother Cane
Butthole Surfers
Cake
Cathy Dennis
Chaser (remix of a Blue Six track)
The Chemical Brothers
Chris Cornell
Cirrus
Clannad
CocoRosie
Collective Soul
Corinne Bailey Rae
Coverdale/Page
Cowboy Mouth
The Cranberries
Dave Matthews
Def Leppard
Deftones
Deodato
Depeche Mode
Dishwalla
DJ Shadow
Dropkick Murphys
Duran Duran
EA Games Soundtrack (assorted songs from Mass Effect 2)
Eddie Vedder
Elbow
Electric Light Orchestra
Emiliana Torrini
Enya
Erin McCarley
Evanescence
Fatboy Slim
Federico Aubele
Fila Brazillia
Fiona Apple
Florence + the Machine
Frou Frou
Fuel
Fujiya & Miyagi
Galactic
Gary Jules
Goldfrapp
Goo Goo Dolls
Halestorm
House of Pain
Howard Jones
Ilaria Graziano
Imogen Heap
Iron & Wine
Jane Child
Jane's Addiction
Janet Jackson
Jeff Beck
John Williams (music from Star Wars)
Kate Havnevik
Kim Richey
Kinky
Koop
Korn
Lacuna Coil
Lady Gaga
Lauryn Hill
Led Zeppelin
Lenka
Lindsey Ray
Lindstrom & Christabelle
Lizz Wright
Loreta
Lusine
Maaya Sakamoto
Madonna
Mark Ronson
Maroon 5
Massive Attack
Maya Azucena
Men At Work
MeTalkPretty
Methods of Mayhem
Michael Bruce (remix of a song by Blitzen Trapper)
Ministry
Mo' Horizons
Moby
Mocean Worker
Mstislav Rostropovich
Muse
My Chemical Romance
Nickodemus
Nicola Conte
Nina Simone
Nine Inch Nails
Ocote Soul Sounds/Adrian Quesada
Origa with Heartsdales
Paul Hardcastle
A Perfect Circle
Phantogram
Portishead
The Prime Movers
Pumali Panthers
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
The Raveonettes
Rick Springfield
Rob Zombie
Robert Plant/Alison Krauss
Rodrigo y Gabriela
Sarah McLachlan
Scissor Sisters
The Seatbelts
Sencit
Sia
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Sixx A.M.
Skindred
Soundgarden
Stabbing Westward
Staind
Sublime
Switchfoot
Thomas Dolby
Three Mile Pilot
Tonic
Tori Amos
Train
Two Steps from Hell
U2
United Future Organization
Ursula 1000
Van Canto
Vanessa-Mae
Various (mostly Amazon sampler albums)
Various Artists (soundtracks and compilations)
Xzibit
Yeasayer
Yello
Zero 7

Now, I didn't download all of that. I've been ripping individual tracks off of various albums, trying to render my massive CD collection down into something more manageable. That process accounts for close to forty of the albums in my digital collection. I have some albums that I love in their entirety, but I also have quite a few that I bought in pre-download days just to get one song, hoping that I'd like the whole disc. That love didn't always manifest.

Around the World

I've written here a few times about my ongoing war with spam commenters. The first fake comments came from Chinese spammers, sending links to their chat/porn sites. A few days ago, I got one leading to a Japanese porn site. Saturday evening I got two comments saying "You have a nice blog," along with links to what appears to be a Polish-language banking site. I say "appears" because I don't trust anything I can't read.

This makes three countries I'm getting readers from, in addition to the legitimate site traffic. This is a positive thing, right? My blog is at least being seen by other people, even if it's not the audience I'm looking for. This reminds me, I need to look at Google Analytics. I haven't checked in a while.

Apparently, I Write Like Cory Doctorow

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

For anyone who doesn't know, Cory Doctorow is a blogger and a science fiction novelist. I am embarrassed to admit that I picked up one of his books and couldn't get into it. Does anyone else have that problem with my writing?

Nice Try, Spammers!

A few weeks ago I went back to moderating comments, because I was getting tired of weeding out all the links to Chinese-language chat and porn sites. This has not been a bad idea, because sometimes these would-be advertisers are the only people posting comments to this blog. That's not a complaint, merely an observation.

Anywho, I opened my Gmail box to find another comment awaiting my attention. The poster's name was listed in Chinese characters, so I was prepared to eliminate it out of hand, but I like to give everyone benefit of the doubt. I clicked through to my Comment Moderation page, and found the following message:

"We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty and some are dull. Some have weird names and all are different colors, but they all have to live in the same box."

Looks like someone nicked a bit of wisdom from a greeting card, and I would have allowed their comment, save for the link on the end to another porn site. So, to the spammers I say this, "Good show, and SOD OFF!!"

Weird

Two days ago I made the mistake of downloading a music file off the now-defunct Limewire P2P service. Somehow an infected file attached itself to the MP3, and a little while later I discovered that someone had hijacked my Gmail account and used it to spam my friends with a link to a phishing site. I don't think anyone opened the link, and most of my friends email servers bounced the message back as junk, but I had to change my passwords and log in again to make sure everything was secure. I thought I had done everything, but a moment ago I discovered I was Following my own blog. Weird, huh?

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

I love internet memes, to a point. This afternoon, a friend of mine posted the following on Facebook:



"India Foxtrot Yankee Oscar Uniform Charlie Alpha November Uniform November Delta Sierra Tango Alpha November Delta Tango Hotel India Sierra, Charlie Oscar Papa Yankee India Tango Alpha November Delta Papa Alpha Sierra Tango Echo India Tango Tango Oscar Yankee Oscar Uniform Romeo Lima India Victor Echo Juliet Oscar Uniform Romeo November Alpha Lima."

For those not fluent in NATO-standard alphabet code, it says

"If you can understand this, copy and paste it to your LiveJournal."

I had a LiveJournal once, and I still have an account (just so I can comment on other people's blogs), but I wasn't going to post all that (which I typed out by hand, just now), just for the sake of carrying on the internet's latest equivalent to a chain letter. But I decided to play along, so I posted a comment about not using LiveJournal anymore, and instead doing all my writing on Blogger. Which prompted a query regarding the link, only worded as

"Juliet Alpha Yankee Echo: Lima India November Kilo?"

Just out of curiosity, I did a Google search a few minutes (or is that Mikes?) ago for "India Foxtrot Yankee Oscar...", and it seems that this popped up on Twitter eleven days ago. I do not use Twitter. I will not use Twitter. I don't even read other people's Twitter feeds. I don't need to know about ANYTHING that badly. I don't think I've ever been that concerned with what John Scalzi calls "the blatherations of others". That might be a misquote (I think it refers to comments on his blog), but I feel it's appropriate. Now I'm sorry that I've perpetuated this thing.

Self Publishing Gone Hideously Awry

I saw this posted in a hobby forum under the title "Self Publishing Gone Hideously Awry". If you click through the title, it takes you to an Amazon page for a woman selling her own self-published religious tome.

What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?

"Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now With Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem!"

If Only It Were This Easy

You've probably seen this elsewhere on the web, but I'm at a loss for anything to post right now, and most of the blogs in my reading list are full of such heavy stuff, that I thought I'd try for a little levity.

http://i.gizmodo.com/5171112/japanese-boob-claw-machine-is-another-bad-way-to-claw-at-boobs

Only in Japan.