Caterwauling

I hate Valentine’s Day.

Always have, hopefully won’t always.

Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t go out and buy V-Day jammies and scandalous underwear, as I am happy to select a lucky winner who gets to see it.

But the problem is, the day has been cursed for me for years. And I need to somehow build up some good karma to erase the past and make it, well, a not-sucktacular day, going forward.

IN THE BEGINNING, IT WAS GOOD

A few years back, I was in what turned out to be my longest-term relationship to date (six months — woo). And it wasn’t working.

Well, that’s not entirely true. It wasn’t working for me. He was nice, good-looking and all of that, but one day I awakened and realized that I rather enjoyed complaining about him more than I actually liked spending time with him. And it also dawned on me that the more time I spent with him, the more material I garnered to, well, hate him with.

For the record (and because I know for a fact that he checks in on this page intermittently), I didn’t hate him. I was young and absolutely not interested in the regular commitment thing. Or maybe it was just that we weren’t compatible. Or that he was nuts or that he drove me nuts. Whichever.

In any event, I couldn’t escape him. We went to college together, we lived in the same neighborhood, my friends were his friends. If he called home and I didn’t happen to be there, he’d talk to whomever was available. If I wanted to spend an evening alone, he’d push his way in and plant himself on the couch. Or again, if I wasn’t there, he’d want to stay and wait.

It. Drove. Me. INSANE.

Don’t get me wrong, he had to have some spectacular qualities or else I wouldn’t have let him within 25 yards of me. But at the time I decided it was over, it was O-V-E-R. Once I lose interest, stick a fork in it because it’s done. It doesn’t mean I hate ya; just means I don’t feel like going down the same roads that exhausted me in the first place. The outcome never changes — why repeat the same mistakes when there are SO many more to be made? (HAHAHA)

ROLL ME BACK IN TIME

The short version of the story is that I broke up with him in either late January or early February of that year. I don’t know how he didn’t see it coming, or apparently I just THAT much of a prize but he didn’t take it well. He begged me to reconsider, but I didn’t want to.

So then, it happened. …

Read the rest of this entry »

With somewhat of a ruckus erupting over the Steelers choosing to wear white uniforms at the Super Bowl, Coach Bill Cowher (Bil Cahr, to Iron City locals and expats) expressed his surprise at the grand attention to the team’s fashion choices:

Cowher became perplexed at the constant questioning about the issue at his weekly news conference, finally saying, “You want to know what shoes I’m wearing, too?”

OMG, did you watch “American Idol” tonight? Holy shit, dude in the orange shirt/belt/socks who thought he was Ginuwine meets Usher (who was more realistically like either of those stars meets ballectomy) needed to go.

He did a terrible rendition of Michael “speaking of ballectomy” Jackson’s “She’s Out of My Life.” I mean, Kadi started howling when he was on TV!

But the funniest part of the two-hour show? When he said that he learned to sing using Randy and Paula’s DVD, “Ultimate Voice Coach.” I never saw Simon laugh so hard — he’s usually pretty damned smug, but tonight, it was so totally justified.

It was great — the kid even brought the DVD to the audition. After he was rejected, he took the DVD outside and pulverized the case with a hammer. Sweet!

Seriously, what is UP with all these tone-deaf fools going to these auditions? I know I can’t sing — shit, I am happiest when I’m driving with my earbuds in and singing on top of my the music blasting in my ears, because I? Can’t hear how bad I sound! Believe me, I KNOW I would make for an audition tape that America would laugh at for years to come, so I stay the hell home when I hear auditions are coming to the East Coast. I’m just glad, though, that others come out full-force, so I can say “at least I’m better than that.”

Excuse me while I go into convulsions without my daily fix of Tiff, as our webhost has unceremoniously asked her to leave after some moron complained about how she (was ultimately forced to) protect her intellectual property. Tom gives the details here, so I won’t rehash it.

But what I will say is that I’m displeased at the handling of the situation and that I have had four enjoyable years with that company, but if that’s the way they’re going to react to someone who’s not been a loyal, paying customer, well, see ya. Holding data hostage (even temporarily)? I thought they were above that. Really.

Insofar as the hotlinking issue, the Internet is not a creative place, sadly. Everyone’s always ripping off each others’ ideas and thoughts and now intellectual property. So, when said owner has tap-danced and asked nicely (repeatedly) to little avail, she had to take drastic measures (I say “drastic” tongue-in-cheek). So the image the hotlinkers saw wasn’t puppies and rainbows. That was the POINT, to scare off the thieves.

What Tom points out about bandwidth costs is an issue I struggle with because I like to provide large files on occasion. I don’t ask you to right-click-save-as for my health; it’s just my subtle way of saying that I’m willing to pay the bandwidth costs to host the larger files, but not willing to pay extra so you can stream them as well.

The point of weblogs, to me, is so that we can get a sort of kalidescope glimpse into other people’s lives. Sure, we will never get to see 100% of their personalities, but it’s through image files and audio and video and good old-fashioned storytelling that the otherwise-unknowns among us have not only a creative outlet, but also a way of putting our mark on the world — of not getting lost among the crowd — of being as special as our moms always told us we were.

If someone tries to rob you in “real life” and you fight back, it’s self-defense. Likewise, if you go to lengths to protect your webspace and the contents of it, bravo. And if your hosting company is going to cave all pussy-like to some dumb bitch who was trying to STEAL an image in the first place, well, let me just say this. For all the business Tiff has given them and referred to them, well, we’re all happy to skip out the door behind her.

UPDATE

I turned off the comments but I brought them back. This entry is likely long forgotten, and that’s wonderful, but I think the discussion is worth reading/continuing.

As seen at Irk’s:

Your Stripper Song Is

Closer by Nine Inch Nails “You let me violate you, you let me desecrate you You let me penetrate you, you let me complicate you Help me I broke apart my insides, help me I’ve got no Soul to tell” When you dance, it’s a little scary – and a lot sexy.

What Song Should You Strip To?