March the 25th

Merry....

No one's hangin' stockin's up,
No one's bakin' pie,
No one's lookin' up to see
A new star in the sky.
No one's talkin' brotherhood,
No one's givin' gifts,
And no one loves a Christmas tree
On March the twenty-fifth.

Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends

I just love this poem - I hope you all have a delightful March 25th!

Meandering Monday

Well, well. It was quite a day at work and when I came home all I wanted was dinner and down time. Too bad! Never is life that simple! So, after cooking dinner, doing some errand running and whatnot I finally got some time to sit down and get online.

After meandering about the internet for a while I decided to find something new. I did this by going to a random blog and then clicking on one of the blogs listed in the side bar. I then repeated the random blog selections until I landed somewhere that caught my fancy. Which is where the above picture comes in. What you see up top is a lovely Holiday Cottage in the Scottish Highlands called Papa Stour's Bolt Hole. You can rent it out. I'd like to rent it out. All by myself. For about a week. Yeah - a week by myself....mmmmm, sounds good!

At any rate, since I'm not able to skip off on a holiday, post haste, I'm taking a little mental vacation this evening. I'll just imagine myself there, enjoying the scenery, reading, napping, taking long walks. I'll bet there's tea and scones. At Papa Stour's Bolt Hole. In the Scottish Highlands. No, I don't know what a "Bolt Hole" is - perhaps a place you 'bolt' to when you need a break? Don't make me think hard!

If you want to have a look/get more info:

www.papastour.com/holiday-cottage.php

Just a little something for Wednesday...

see more pwn and owned pictures

Congrats to this bill payer! I wish I were good enough at math to pay my bills this way! Love the memo line too....

The Irish In Me . . . .

There's so much to like about St. Patrick's Day and the Irish in general. Here are some of my favorites.

Waterford crystal: it's just so darn beautiful, no?

Potatoes: fried, baked, mashed, soup, hash browns - you name a way to make it and I'll eat it!

The Limerick: NOT SAFE FOR CHILDREN!!

There was a young fellow from Leeds
Who swallowed a packet of seeds.
Great tufts of grass
Sprouted out of his ass
And his balls were all covered with weeds!

Belleek porcelain: another bit of beauty.

Danny Boy: brings a tear to the eye every time...

Shamrocks: they are beautiful plants.

Jokes:

1) Two Irishmen, Patrick Murphy and Shawn O'Brian grew up together and were lifelong friends. But alas, Patrick developed cancer, and was dying. While on his deathbed, Patrick called to his buddy, Shawn, "O'Brian, come 'ere. I 'ave a request for ye." Shawn walks to his friend's bedside and kneels.

"Shawny ole boy, we've been friends all our lives, and now I'm leaving 'ere. I 'ave one last request fir ye to do."

O'Brian burst into tears, "Anything Patrick, anything ye wish. It's done."

"Well, under me bed is a box containing a bottle of the finest whiskey in all of Ireland. Bottled the year I was born it was. After I die, and they plant me in the ground, I want you to pour that fine whiskey over me grave so it might soak into me bones and I'll be able to enjoy it for all eternity."

O'Brian was overcome by the beauty of it and in the true Irish spirit of his friend's request, he asked, "Aye, tis a fine thing you ask of me, and I will pour the whiskey. But, might I strain it through me kidneys first?"

2) A man stumbles up to the only other patron in a bar and asks if he could buy him a drink.

"Why of course," comes the reply.

The first man then asks: "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Ireland," replies the second man.

The first man responds: "You don't say, I'm from Ireland too! Let's have another round to Ireland."
"Of Course," replies the second man.

Curious, the first man then asks: "Where in Ireland are you from?"
"Dublin," comes the reply.
"I can't believe it," says the first man.
"I'm from Dublin too! Let's have another drink to Dublin."
"Of course," replies the second man.

Curiosity again strikes and the first man asks:
"What school did you go to?"
"Saint Mary's," replies the second man.
"I graduated in '62."

"This is unbelievable!" the first man says.
"I went to Saint Mary's and I graduated in '62, too!"

About that time in comes one of the regulars and sits down at the bar.
"What's been going on?" he asks the bartender.
"Nothing much," replies the bartender. "The O'Malley twins are drunk again."

Green: it's one of my favorite colors!

Corned beef: mmmmm, so delicious...

and:
Yes, it's an acquired taste, I admit, but I sure do enjoy me a guinness now and then. It'll cure what ails you!


Did I miss one of your favorites? Do tell!

Friday LOL Fun

Lets kick off the weekend with some LOL fun, okay? Okay!

You Want it When?

I read somewhere that March 2nd - 8th is National Procrastination Week! I was going to tell you sooner but....

Did You Miss Me??

Well, even if you didn't, I'm back!!! Run and hide or welcome me into your web-world - your choice! The virus bastards may have gotten me down for a bit, but they won't keep me down! In fact, now that I have a new operating system, I'm hoping to see a lot less (if any) virus at all. You see, windows sucks(who knew?) well, probably lots of you)it's like a giant sucking vacuum for virus. Apparently the jerks who create malicious mayhem target windows because something like 97% of computer users rely on it. They put their virus where they can hack the most info and create the most trouble. Which means they target windows. Not that windows really sucks...it's just so very vulnerable due to the sheer number of people targeting it.

I keep up to date on my anti-virus stuff; I run anti-spyware and that sort of thing regularly. And still about once a year I get some major crud that requires major extraction by a local tech shop. I, like most computer users, am resistant to change. But I'm tired of losing files, bookmarks etc each time I get infected. I'm tired of the down time and expense. I'm more and more worried about on-line transactions 'cause the people who hack and create virus and steal our account info are getting better all the time. My tech guy has had a dozen people in lately who clicked on something that looked exactly like a legit microsoft warning, only to get infected and get ripped off. They had to change bank accounts, passwords etc. There have been many more, like me, who didn't lose money but had to come in for help. Some of the pop-ups infect your computer when you click the upper right corner to 'x' out of them. Oh, and there are little animated ads and pop-ups that you don't even have to click on to get infected. These jerks just keep getting slicker and tougher to beat. It's their job to get into your computer and sell your info.

Enter Linux. I've heard about Linux before and had spoken with my tech shop about it the last time this happened. The shop I go to is a small, family owned place. Nothing fancy, just some great, committed folks who are generous with their time, expertise and chocolate. Yeah, you heard me right. Chocolate kisses to be exact. Now, there are a bunch of different versions of Linux and they can all be downloaded free. They work approximately the same as what I had before except - DANG - this system has speed! Some things are set up a little differently but my daughters and I have had no trouble adjusting. There are plenty of tutorials available so I don't expect any problem. You know what I like about this too? My tech guy could have charged me a lot of money to set me back up the way I was before. He could have charged me to do this free download and get me set up with Linux. I called around and was quoted nearly $200 by a well known tech group. My guy charged me $59.00. That was to salvage as much of my old files/info as he could (including bunches of photos) and to give me a disk, new cable and get it all up and running so I could take my tower home, plug it in and go. Oh, and he gave my daughter and I an in shop lesson, and showed me how to do some things myself should the need arise.

I want to get a second computer, and when I do, I will buy it from the tech shop that did this for me. I will refer everyone I know to them.

Well, enough of that. I am sooooo happy to be back up and running. See you all again soon!

Aaaaggghhhhh!!!!

My computer has been horribly infected with some sort of nastiness. Try as I may (and believe me, I spent a lot of time on this weekend!!) I have not been able to de-bug the mess. So, my computer is going away to someone who takes money to fix these sorts of problems.

Hope to see you all again soon, on the flip side of this disaster.

Oh, and my daughter has a big project due friday....figures!

Evil, evil virus spreaders! I hope there's a special place in hell for the folks who create and spread this stuff...