Obnoxious Bitch
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
I’m Not Completely Worthless!
According to the Business Opportunities Weblog:
My blog is worth $2,822.70.
How much is your blog worth?
To be quite honest, I expected a big fat ZILCH!
Friday, September 02, 2005
Buff’s Blog Keeps the World Informed
Everyone’s calling him Interdictor, but he’ll always be Buff to me… someone I’ve argued with in the past, but has all eyes upon him as he and the directNIC crew blog and run a webcam from the Central Business District in New Orleans.
I’ve lots to say, but at the moment all I have time to do is link to one of the mirror feeds:
http://wss-vip.adv.xc.advection.net/event/adv/evt20050902/new_orlean/0250?ext=.asf
(Mac users should remove everything after the “?” to play)
It’s simply unbelievable what’s happened to the Gulf Coast, and the situation in New Orleans is something out of a fucking nightmare. I’m still hopeful that people will pull through for one another and things will get better. I have to be, or I’ll collapse into a sobbing mess…
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Internet Music Meme 2005
Well, shit! Les threw down the gauntlet and asked me to participate… and after all he’s done for me, how could I refuse?
Considering the fact that I’m the child of a musician, and have been one myself since the tender age of 3, I’m almost ashamed of how little music I personally own now, and how disconnected from today’s music I’ve become. I rarely listen to music on the radio anymore, because it sucks ASS. In fact, most times that my radio’s got music playing on it is only because the kid insists she’s going to throw up in my car if she has to listen to talk radio.
So… on to the questions:
Total volume of music on my computer: Well, a search of my computer on the extension .mp3 shows 178 items. 83 items or 374MB are a bunch of songs from Cowboy Bebop that my nephew ripped from his CDs recently; 7 items totaling 1.8MB are clips from software tutorials, and there’s also 6MB (3 items) of some Christina Milian song that I’m sure my Princess downloaded back in 2002. Using just the items I know are MINE, I come up with 83 items, 312MB - I don’t know how long that comes out to in play time, but it ain’t much! Not to mention, it looks like the last time I put any music on my computer was back in February - April of 2001 (10 whole songs), although most of the rest of the 83 was done in 1999 and 2000, when I ripped a couple of my Twisted Sister CDs and some Dr. Hook. Pitiful.
The last CD I bought: That would be Black Sabbath, “We Sold Our Soul For Rock n’ Roll,” a compilation; along with two “Ten Best” CDs by Pat Benatar. We went into Sam Goody’s when we were at Universal City Walk a month or so ago, and after at least half an hour of browsing, I brought my choices up to the clerk and said, “Go ahead, say it… I know I’m living in the past!”
Song playing right now: Nothing, nada, zip, zilch. I don’t really listen to music on my computer, and in fact, I don’t even own a stereo (though I did just buy one for the Princess as a graduation gift).
Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me: Damn, it’s way too difficult to narrow it down to just five! In spite of my recent falling away from music (especially TODAY’S music), the fact is that it’s always been such an integral part of my life that there are probably hundreds of songs that mean a lot to me, and have provided a sort of soundtrack to my life. The kid always ribs me because whenever we’re in a store and there’s music playing, I seem to know all the words. I always tell her, “I was a singer all my life… it’s my JOB to know all the words!”
In no particular order, just a few of thousands of songs that matter to me and the reasons why they’re on the list:
Back in the late 80s I sang in a band called Poverty. It was the height of the Glam/Metal era and we were quite unlike all the other LA bands of the time. In fact, we were “grunge” before there was such a thing. At one point we had a “manager” who insisted we MUST do at least one cover tune in order to get gigs. Rather than lower ourselves to playing some other rock band’s material, my guitar player (who was from Detroit) and I decided to find a Motown or R&B song to suit. “Use Me” became one of our best songs, and one that our fans just LOVED. At the time, it was nearly 20 years old and almost none of our fans had the slightest clue that it wasn’t something we’d written ourselves, prompting me to ask many of them, “How the hell old ARE you anyway?” I really wish we’d recorded our version, because I think we did a damn good job of making a great song our own. I think Bill would’ve liked it… I know I loved singing it!
One of the best songs about the dangers of drug addiction I’ve ever heard, not coincidentally released when I was broken-hearted over a guy I loved who left me to run off with the daughter of his meth dealer. That event was just one in a string of tragedies as an increasing number of people in our social circle got all fucked up on drugs, and inspired a Poverty song called Prisoner. It one of the few songs we DID record, using ancient 4-track technology. Recently when we were reminiscing over all the old lyric sheets I kept, the guitar player said it was a great song, and was quite surprised when I reminded him that HE, not I, wrote it… Heh.
Yet another song that reminds me of someone I loved and lost
Picking just one Twisted Sister song is difficult because there are so many of them I just love, and which got me through my late teens and early 20s. UTB has the distinction of being the song that got on the PMRC’s “Filthy Fifteen” list, and put Dee Snider in the hallowed halls of Congress to speak at a hearing that resulted in those “Explicit Lyrics” warning labels that the pussies in the record industry rolled over and agreed to put on records (and still show up on CDs 20 years later). Tipper Gore is either a retard or has some deep-seated issues and/or fantasies, if she couldn’t tell the difference between lyrics dealing with fear of surgery and lyrics “encouraging sadomasochism, bondage, and rape.” Dee has my undying respect for being the only heavy metal artist with balls enough to fight for the First Amendment rights of the rest of metaldom… even though in the end the Washington Wives of the PMRC got what they wanted. Apparently even high-powered politicians will do damn near anything when their supply of pussy is in jeopardy.
My dad loved this song, and so do I. “When you believe in things that you don’t understand then you suffer / Superstition ain’t the way.” True dat, Stevie!
Five People To Whom I’m Passing The Baton: Hmmm… another toughie, especially since I’ve few bloggers amongst my friends and family. I’ll go with Marsha, Jessica of PrimalX.com, Brian, Tony and Deborah.
Hopefully those who don’t have blogs of their own will come and post their entries in my Comments!
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Fuck It, I’m putting it up incomplete
Although there are still myriad changes I wish to implement on this new version of my blog, including a complete change of colors and the header graphic, I’m just going to go ahead and switch from the Blogger version to the Expression Engine version. In addition to the overhaul of the look and feel, I haven’t tweaked the templates to my satisfaction, nor added in the links, dynamic elements, banners or buttons I want to include… but what the hell - publishing it in its unfinished state will serve to shame me into working on it sooner rather than later! It’ll be just the kick in the ass I need to get crackin’!
Here goes…
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Trying to catch up
I should have been making entries for the past few weeks, since there’s been quite a few things going on. Quite honestly though, when I’ve not been too tired or too busy, I’ve been feeling too ill or else I’ve been just too damned lazy. I’ll take a quick stab at providing at least some highlights (or lowlights as the case may be).
We met some very nice families at the Myositis Association event a few weekends ago in Universal City, Juvenile Myositis: A Conference for Children and Families. It was great for the Princess to meet other kids who are dealing with some of the same things she is, and for us to meet other parents and share our experiences too. I also found out about a new organization, The Cure JM Foundation and I hope to get more involved with them somehow. The rarity of Juvenile Dermatomyositis makes it difficult to get funding for research, and Cure JM is committed to finding ways for the much-needed research to get done, and to spread information to the public. Our kids deserve at least that much for all the hell they go through, living with an incurable autoimmune disorder.
As for my own physical health, I’m still feeling really shitty (literally and figuratively, hah!)… exhausted, with a bellyache that ranges from simply rather uncomfortable to “Screw this, if I don’t eat today, maybe it’ll stop hurting so much!” I’m waiting to hear back from my GI doc as to when they’ll start the Remicade treatments for Crohn’s Disease flare-ups. If we can get this flare-up under control and get me back into remission, I won’t have to worry about another bowel resection for a long time. It was 6 years between my first and second surgeries, so at least this time it’s been longer, and there’s far less narrowing than there was before. All this “good news,” and I haven’t been on ANY meds for almost 4 years now, which really IS a bright spot! I need all of those that I can find right now.
Is it wrong that sometimes I feel like just copying and pasting parts of the Key Findings of the Study at Voices of Crohn’s in an email to all of the people in my life so they might understand a little better how difficult it sometimes is for me just to do something simple? Feeling lousy SUCKS, and feeling guilty for feeling lousy just makes things worse. But feel guilty I do, because I just can’t do as much as I expect of myself - and I’m letting people down who count on me. I’m sure it’s as difficult for others to hear, as it is for me to say, “I can’t (fill in the blank) because I’ve got the raging trots and my gut’s killing me,” for the 20th time in a month! So unless I’m hurting so bad I just can’t fulfill an obligation, I suffer through it as best I can. Admittedly, it’s getting more and more difficult these days… so I want to hurry up and get the damned treatments started and feel better!!!
Time for the shits I’ve gotta TAKE to stop interfering with the shit I’ve gotta DO, goddammit! 
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