This will be my last post at this URL. Please go to thisisgina.com from here on in. I will leave this site (pages.cthome.net/dardis) up and running until I am sure that everything has moved in one piece. Here goes nothin'!
Season 4 begins tonight, at 10:00 P.M. (new time) on the SciFi Channel! Still wondering whether you should bother with the show? Think it's too late to get into it? Read on...
I went and did it - signed up for a Geocities Pro account and even got myself my own domain name. How's this for a clever and imaginative URL: www.thisisgina.com. The domain won't be active for about 72 hours, and I still haven't FTP'd the site to the new location, but I'll let you all know when it's time to update your bookmarks.
Most of the improvements that come with this new account/host will be on the backend - much more storage space, higher bandwith, and support for apps that my other host didn't have: php, perl, xml, etc. Not that I can personally write anything using those languages; but I may be able to find ways to improve the user interface with some pre-existing apps that are out there, that I've wanted to use but couldn't because they weren't supported by my host.
I'm hoping the changeover and transfer goes as smoothly as possible; however, I'd like to extend my sincerest apologies - oh, is that what you were extending? - now, just in case. Thanks!
Uh, yeah, right - Kelly was married to 15-year-old Aaliyah when he was in his late 20s, yet he has not had sex with a minor. I'm sorry, this guy needs to be locked up.
Michigan legislature wants to legislate toungue-splitting. First of all - EW. I'm so skeeved right now, I really don't want to talk about it anymore...but I will say I can't believe they're wasting the taxpayer's money on something like that.
My apologies for the lack of posts recently, but real life is impinging on my blog time. The switchover to the new ISP went pretty smoothly, and I'm happy so far with my connect speeds. My ISP is now SBC Yahoo! Dial, which means that I can access my mail via the web, whereas with SNET I was limited just to home access. The change was pretty seamless, too - no increase in my monthly charge, I can continue to pay via my phone bill and my e-mail address didn't change. Now I just have to work on moving this site to Geocities before it's gone!
What's been keeping me busy, though, is preparing my mother for her move. She's been with us for just over 10 months now. She's moving into my sister Mary's place in Rhode Island and we'll be doing the major part of the move on Saturday. Hopefully, she'll be settled in there by the end of next week. At which point, I will get my room back! Ah, privacy.
My Internet service is changing, and along with that so will the location of this page. I'm not altogether sure exactly when a switchover will take place, or even what that entails (I just got my new Internet software in the mail today), but if you have trouble in the near future accessing this site, that is why. I'll keep you posted as I know more.
Compassion is forgotten in the pursuit of a story. One of my best friends had something similar happen to her; her mother and brother died under tragic and somewhat sensational circumstances, and the local press was merciless in their attempts to talk to her. Finally, the unthinkable happened: a reporter came to the house, said she was a "friend of Ruthie's" (my friend's mother) in order to get her foot in the door, and proceeded to ask questions when she let her in. That was twenty years ago, but it looks like some things never change.
"Between 7 pm and 7:40 pm, the National Weather Service issued separate tornado warnings for north-central Fairfield County, southern Litchfield County and northern New Haven County." And we - myself, Sheila, my mother, the two dogs Petie and Marty, and the two cats, Macguyver and Winnie - were all in our cellar, waiting it out. What a sight we must have been, since we live on the second floor and have to go outside in order to get into the cellar. And poor Winnie - she's so ornary, I had to stuff her into a duffel bag, zip it up and run out and downstairs before she figured out how to get out of it (which she almost did!). The storm was pretty fierce, and things were a little scary for about 10 mintues there, but mostly we were just laughing our asses off.
Pakistan's President Musharraf assures the world that the current conflict between his country and India will not escalate to full out nuclear war. I feel somewhat reassured. I was reading some of the news stories about this yesterday and I couldn't even write about it, it frightened me so. That level of mass destruction and loss of humanity is beyond my ability to comprehend it. If I think about it too much, I can literally feel the panic begin to settle in, and then my mind just shuts down, a defense mechanism. I think a lot of that is a result of growing up when I did, before the Wall came down and relations between ourselves and the Soviet Union (the only other real nuclear threat at the time) thawed. Now, with the proliferation of nuclear weapon technology wider than ever (and in the hands of countries that are not particular friends of ours), the old fears are starting to awaken.
Brand new college graduate Steven Spielberg finally gets his degree in filmmaking. Hmm, I wonder what the chances were of him failing? And imagine the poor professor who had to grade his projects and papers!
Seriously, though, props to Mr. Spielberg for going back and finishing what he started, when he clearly didn't have to.
I think our sense of imperviousness as a nation, our naivete, and a false sense of security are as much to blame as any one individual. As much as I prefer that false sense of security and complacency, I bet that if there was the same level of high paranoia in the intelligence community as there was during the Cold War, the attacks would indeed have been prevented. I don't think the CIA and FBI should return to the tactics of the Cold War era (Christ, the CIA is largely responsible for creating the likes of Osama bin Laden, Noriega, etc.), but there has to be a middle-ground somewhere.
"I was aware of Ronald's body behind me, but it was a comfort not to be sitting at his side. Some people taking
watch beside the dead find their presence companionable, but I didn't feel that, not with Ronald. All I felt was
a great sadness. It wasn't for that poor boy, it wasn't even for Charlie or Mike or myself. It was a universal
sadness which seemed to permeate everything round me, the fresh breeze against my cheek, the sky where there were a few
massed clouds moving almost deliberately, it seemed, across the blue, and the sea itself. I found myself thinking
of all the people who had lived and died on this coast, and of the bones lying a mile out under the waves in the
great churchyards. Their lives must have mattered at the time to themselves and the people who cared about them,
but now they were dead and it would been just the same if they had never lived. In a hundred years no one will
remember Charlie, Mike or me. All our lives are as insignificant as a grain of sand. My mind felt emptied, even
of sadness. Instead, gazing out to sea, accepting in the end that nothing really matters and that all we have is
the present moment to endure or enjoy, I felt at peace."