Ganesha's Musings

http://ganesha.who-ur.com :)

So I've been browsing a Twitter friend, @jenn_if_er's blog, and she posted a neat game (Okay, done with the link bombs):
You google your name, add "likes to" and post the first 10 results. All in quotes. "Stephanie likes to" Let's try it.
Stephanie likes to watch television, listen to music and read. [I detest TV, but the rest is true!]
Stephanie likes to walk him on Joyce Barnhardt's lawn. [*snicker* the previous line: He'll eat just about anything and usually leaves big dog piles wherever he goes... which is why]
Stephanie Likes to Knit [I'd like to learn!]
Stephanie likes to laugh. [I LOVE to laugh!]
Stephanie likes to go dancing or play cards. [Both are entertaining]
Stephanie likes to have her own look. [Hm, Stephanie needs a make-over!]
Stephanie likes to spend time with her friends [Indeed!]
Stephanie likes to place hidden messages in her artwork [If I did do artwork, I'd fill it with hidden messages]
Stephanie likes to cook and mix things up and make a great big mess [*snicker* *looks at kitchen*]
Stephanie likes to read the New York Times on Sunday mornings [I don't discriminate, I look at all random news websites.]

Okay so Jenn did two, so I will too! Let's see what Ganesha brings up...
Ganesha likes to eat sweets. [Indeed I do!]
Ganesha likes to eat. [Yep.]
Ganesha likes to be kept clean and crease free. [Creases do suck, and showers rock!]
Ganesha likes to eat the same sweet as me, a doughnut like pastry in sweet syrup. [Sounds tasty!]
Ganesha likes to call this as a 'power day' [Power days are cool.]
Ganesha likes to be dumped into YOUR excreta? [Hmm, nope, I'm not into that kind of thing...]
Ganesha likes to eat ducks. [Not me, I'm vegan!]
Ganesha likes to eat. [Okay, I think we've established this...]
Ganesha likes to have fun made of his big belly. [ >:( No makin' fun of the belleh!]

Only nine results came up. Heheheh that was fun...

As you may or may not know, my family and I are flood victims. Not in the sense of having to climb on the roof and wait for a rescue boat, our former address was Mount Everest Drive for a reason, but we were living in a basement apartment of a building with crappy maintenance. During heavy spring rains, our entire apartment flooded twice. We had roughly two inches of standing water on our floor. The only furniture that survived are two desks, our son's bed, our bed frame, a dresser, and our DVD rack and (maybe) our entertainment center. Our apartment was too small to be able to construct our bed, so we were on box springs and mattress on the floor. When we pulled it out, there was black mold going up the wall on two sides of it. You get the idea. So now that we have a new house (yay!) we are severely lacking in furniture. Here is what we need:

• Queen box springs and mattress (and slats)
• A dresser
• Kitchen table and chairs
• A desk (preferably corner desk)
• Couch and love seat and/or chair (preferably matching?)
• Living room tables

Yes, I know these things are all freely available on Cragslist and Freecycle, but the problem is... We have no truck or the money to rent one. This move has left us wiped out financially. We live in Belleville, near St. Louis. What we can offer in return though is computer repair, as my husband and I are both computer technicians. I can also do web design, graphic design, and web hosting.
Here are a few more things we would love to have, but aren't absolutely necessary:

• Book/storage shelves for the basement
• Tall cabinet for kitchen to use as a pantry (we are sorely lacking in cabinet space)
• Pallets and plywood to create raised flooring for the basement to make it livable space (it's leaky)
• Pipe to bury to divert the gutters
• Kiddo table or desk and chair(s)
• Beanbag chair
• Weed eater
• Edger
• Patio table and chairs
• Piano (our son shows a lot of musical ability and I can teach him)

Please contact me on Twitter (@GaneshaXi) or email idontlook[at]gmail[dot]com.

Thanks for looking! :)

Well, it seems some people think that they are superior with their iPhone. While I find it highly amusing that the Applezoids find themselves superior due to A: The fact that they have all this extra money laying around that they can prove it by buying an expensive phone, B: That they relate to the "trendy" Apple dude (*snicker* keep dreaming), and C: That because the rest of the sheep of the world have used the above excuses, it's good enough for them, I find it laughable. People seem to think that because they have this big, expensive phone that they are "superior." This is what made me laugh, and what made me respond that "No, you're all just sheep for following the hype":

*eye roll*
So your PHONE makes you genetically superior, according to a study. Just the fact that someone felt insecure enough about themselves to create such a "study" and that someone else is insecure enough to identify with said "study" should be enough to make any thinking person laugh. But, like sheep, they must traipse along after the hype. I lol at this person on Twitter for a few posts, then they decide they are going to blog about how superior the phone is.
Just for the fact that @creativereason felt the need to BLOG about this is quite laughable. So, in response, here's what I can do with my $50 Windows Mobile device, which is a TMobile Shadow, or HTC Juno:

1. Make and receive calls (err, duh).
2. Send and receive text messages (yeah, I'm pretty sure all cells can do this).
3. Send and receive emails and use IMAP and use desktop email via Outlook.
4. Update contacts and calander without synching (via the magic of TMo synch).
5. Take pictures and send them where ever I want.
6. Use Twitter via PockeTwit.
7. If I had enough social networking sites to care about, I'm sure I would be able to update them all with ease. However, I just don't feel like I need 300 social networking sites to worry with. My Twitter updates my FaceBook. If you can't find me at either of those, oh well.
8. Dink around with my blog if I wanted to, but I have better things to do when I'm mobile. Like, you know, be mobile.
9. Listen to/stream music from the web and play it via BlueTooth to my car stereo. No need to blow money on satellite radio. I also have earphones if I'm out doing healthy stuff.
10. I don't care about sports. Thus I don't seek them when I'm on my phone.
11. See #10
12. Surf the web, which just about any Internet-capable phone can do.
13. I read enough of the Bible when I was a child to know it's not something I'm interested in reading again.
14. Read eBooks.
15. Watch full length movies.
16. I guess I could listen to my Pandora station if I cared enough to have one. If I'm really hurting for tunes, I can listen to my personal Shoutcast stream or queue up tunes via Winamp Remote so I can listen to everything I have on my desktop while I'm out.
17. I could probably check the weather however, generally I do that before I go out. Or look up at the sky.
18. Get turn-by-turn directions if I'm lost via Garmin GPS app.
19. Use Skype and any other messenger I want.
20. Take notes.
21. Watch web videos.
22. Use Google Maps or Live Search to find stuff that's around me. And yeah, I can talk to it.
23. I don't do presentations, so I don't care about remote controlling my computer via remote desktop.
24. If I'm at a party, I'm going to be DJ'ing via mixing software on my laptop. But if I wanted to just have mobile tunes, I can hook my phone up to speakers, or better yet, use Bluetooth speakers.
25. I could use Bkite if I had that voyeuristic tendancy. However, I prefer to not have people knowing where I am, or where they are.
26. Surf Wikis.
27. Check nutritional values.
28. Again, if I cared about sports, I could probably look them up. I have a browser. *shrug*
29. Check FedEx shipments
30. Err... use an online dictionary? o.O
31. Play any number of games while I'm bored. Or let my kids play games. I think all phones have them.
32. Look at FaceBook. Don't need an app for that, you can go to the website. There's a WinMo app for that too, though.
33. I have a calculator on my phone!
34. I don't use satellite TV. I like having a working television when there's a storm, when it's most important. Which is about the only time I look at TV.
35. Set the alarm, and snooze it if I want.

Okay, so there's his list. Here's a few of my bonuses, having a WinMo device:

1. I can do these things at the same time. If I want to listen to music and use Twitter, my music doesn't stop. My media players are nice enough to pause when my phone rings. I can surf websites without my messengers logging off.
2. I have a keyboard, which I can type on pretty quickly. Without looking, because there's a little bump on the keyboard to orient me.
3. Did I mention I can play my music via Bluetooth?
4. Get free applications by multiple vendors, as opposed to having to use one source for an app. And they are real apps, not just a website that you can download.
5. Play just about any media format I want, even DiVX.
6. Play Nintendo games.

I get OTA updates via Windows Updates (which it does on its own), and if there's an OS upgrade, I'm eligible for those too.

Really, it's just a freaking phone with a few flashy things. Who cares. A phone does what? Makes calls. The extra stuff is just bonuses. I could really care less what kind of phone you have. Mine does what I need it to, and it didn't cost a whole lot. Oh yeah, it also doesn't make me feel superior.

Well, the inevitable has happened... We are moving, and likely aren't going to be able to take our cat along with us. :(

Kitty is ~8 years old, indoors, litter-trained, declawed (I don't agree with declawing, her previous owner did that), spayed, and chipped. Our 6 year old son makes her nervous when he's coming after her, but even when he antagonizes her she doesn't bite or scratch him, will hiss at him to scare him off. She seems to get along fine with other cats; a cat had snuck in without us realizing it, and they were hanging out and getting along. She's pretty laid-back, and likes to sleep in your bed with you (but not on top of you, usually at your feet). She doesn't do anything naughty like get in the trash can or knock stuff over (normally, of course she will occasionally brush by stuff and tip it, like any other cat would do).

Her only quirks are the fact that she will occasionally over-eat and throw up, so I have remedied this by just feeding her about 1 cup of food twice a day. She doesn't like a smelly litter box, if it is too full she will poop (but not pee) on the floor in front of it. She likes to drink running water on occasion, so I'll periodically turn on the bath tub to let it drizzle for a little while. Wanted to get a cat water fountain, but never got around to picking one up.

She's a very sweet cat and I hate to have to get rid of her like this, but we need to get into a house, and no one wants to allow a cat (even a litter-trained one!).

**UPDATE** Kitty has a home with doggies and a sweet little girl! :)

If you are reading this post, you have likely found it from a social networking site, such as Facebook or Twitter.  And so has the US government.  What's this, you ask?  Let me tell you a little story.

A friend of mine from high school, always in and out of trouble with the law, recently got busted in a big drug sting in Wichita, Kansas.  He told me about the stuff going on with it.  One of the things he told me was that his girlfriend's Myspace and Facebook accounts had gotten locked out (after all of this went down), her password didn't work anymore.  When she went through password retrieval, the password had indeed been changed.  The password was "fedgov."  No one but her had known her password.  You can connect the dots there.
So since SHE was social networking friends with my friend, and he's friends with me... Am I  under suspicion for anything?  Who knows.  I have nothing to hide; if I didn't want people to know stuff, I wouldn't post it on the Internet.

So, still on the Facebook tangent... Have you ever noticed how it has "People you may know" there on the side?  And most likely, after signing up and plugging in your information, you will know a few of those people.  And those people know other people you know.  Etc etc.  And with the government watching all of this... Isn't it just a little bit unnerving?

If you live in the US, you either have a Social Security number or some other number identifying who you are.  This number is tied to your driver's license, your employment (which in turn ties to your housing, as they have your address), your utilities, your schooling.  And guess what?  That all turns around and ties to your name, which is on the social networking sites... And 'round it goes.

Meandering a bit here, but still on the subject.  My husband's car was in the shop, so a friend of ours went with me to go pick it up.  He drove hubby's car, following me.  I knew he wasn't too familiar with the area, so I kept an eye on him in my mirrors.  I checked, and saw he was no longer behind me, but saw a police car's lights flashing a block or so back.  I growled inwardly and turned around.  Sure enough, my friend had been pulled over.  The cop had been sitting on the side of the road running license plates.  My husband had an unpaid traffic ticket (the check got lost in the mail I suppose, thank you USPS), so he had a warrant for his arrest.  It was tied to that plate.  What other data is tied to that?  Hmm, I think you catch my drift.  It may be a paranoid rambling now, but it can fully come to pass in the not-so-distant future.

And even when there's no police around, there's always the handy traffic cameras.  And not only traffic cameras now, but also general neighborhood cameras.  Wired posted a story about this.  "There goes Mrs. Smith walking her dog."  Kind of creepy, eh?

Well, why don't we go so far as to embed chips into our body, so even when we are out shopping we don't have to fumble in our pockets or purses to pull out those pesky credit cards?  Sure, let's read about that right here.  My religious zealot mother claims this is the mark of the beast, but I find that more amusing than anything else.

Did you know your cell phone is a tracking device?  Yep, if it's three years old or newer, it's got tracking.  And your cellular provider most likely has your Social Security number on file.

But what about the kids?  Oh don't worry, we can easily track them to, even if they are too small to have a cell phone.  Now there's nifty devices such as this that allows you (or uh, who else?) to easily keep track of them.

Isn't it all just about enough to make you want to unplug and go hide in a hole?

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