My Random Blog

I have been so all-consumed with BlackBerry software, applications, graphic design and themes these days that I seem to have forgotten I even have a blog. I’ve joined a couple of online forums, and have been busy helping other forum users. Mostly with links to new operating systems, since posting them is a big no-no. I’ve always been a modder of Motorola and Nokia phones, so I’m quite new to this BlackBerry world. So far, me likey.

In addition the technical stuff, I have discovered ColorWare. While cruising around BB theme sites, I ran across NancyDrew BlackBerry Themes. (If you’re looking for themes for your BlackBerry, she’s a fucking genius.) She has a photo of her “PinkBerry” there, done by ColorWare, and I almost peed myself. She was even kind enough to answer some of my questions about it. I just don’t know how I’m going to live without my phone for the amount of time it will take them to paint it. I have discovered the crack of cell phones and I am addicted.

Moving on…

Saturday night at work was Saturday night at work. I was SO tired from having been there once already, early in the a.m., but I was actually let off about an hour early. Something that never happens on a weekend night. So, naturally, I had to take advantage.

I don’t know where I got the strength, but I met up with BFF and a few other girlfriends after work. I was still very tired, so I decided to mix my Tuaca with Red Bull. THAT handled my tired problem pretty efficiently. I remained awake and able to drink beer the rest of the night. A good idea at the time, but a bad idea on Sunday. Needless to say, I didn’t go anywhere yesterday. (I had the day off, thank God.)

I spent today (my usual day off) not doing all the shit I meant to do. Like laundry. Between my BlackBerry and my laptop, I’m shocked I managed to even feed myself.

I’m off to do more nerdy shit, then I’ll try to turn my brain down enough to sleep.

Peace, addiction and fun.

Two posts in one day! I figured I should stock up before I get drunk again.

Anyway, Suki settled into her bed for a nap and got into a position I thought looked pretty odd. I snapped a shitty photo, with the shitty camera attached to my BlackBerry Pearl, and thought I’d share.

Peace and shitty, shitty, shitty.

Well, thanks to the suggestions offered by my reviewer at Ask And Ye Shall Receive, I have made some changes to my blog. Mostly it just involves cleaning up my side bar.

I have removed all the unnecessary crap and replaced it all with text links. (All but the Blog Catalog and Blog Rush stuff, obviously.) There’s now an About Me page and a little Award page, as well. I must admit, I prefer things the way they are now. I thought I liked all the images and widgets but, without the clutter, I feel better. Now, my blog looks neat and clean. Not to mention, it loads faster.

I also upgraded WordPress, thanks to the FABULOUS automatic upgrade plugin that (the also fabulous) Gina pointed me to. WAY easier than doing it manually. If you are using WordPress, with your own host, download it here and never have to mess with it, yourself, again. The only thing I had to do was re-activate my other plugins. Yeah- not hard. 

Peace and tidy blogs.

Holy shit. Since that was my immediate response to what follows, there it is.

There is this Web site in the world titled: Ask And Ye Shall Receive. The purpose of this brutally honest, no-holds-barred site is to review blogs that have been submitted by their owners. While the title of the site may not seem very scary- the URL of it gets more to the point: iwillfuckingtearyouapart.blogspot.com.

Back in January, Trouble suggested that I submit my blog to Ask And Ye Shall Receive. I’d never heard of it, so I went over and checked it out. I was immediately terrified and decided that I would NOT, in fact, submit my little blog to being torn apart. However, I loved the reviews, as painful as they were to read. I can’t help but be attracted to people who are honest, smart, and write with a dagger. While I felt bad for the blogs that were “fucking torn apart”, it was hard to not like the manner in which it was done. However, I still wasn’t about to send my blog into that shredder.

Fast forward a couple of months. After a night out with the girls, and many beers, I came home and hopped online. Feeling no pain, and no fear, I submitted my blog to the shredder. Waking up sober the next day, I realized what I had done and have been waiting in anxious trepidation (is that redundant?) ever since.

Today I woke to an email from my reviewer. “You’re so brave,” it read, “I hope you enjoy it!” Deeeeeeeep breath. I, honestly, was dreading reading it. I closed the email. I opened it again. I did that several times before I realized that I was gonna HAVE to read it eventually. So I put my Big Girl panties on and went to my review.

The title of my blog sucks (I already knew that, though), I have too much shit in my side bar (I knew that too) and I could use an About Me page so people who wander in here know who they’re dealing with (I intend to create one). I’m just glad I took my Twitter box out before she got here, or I’m sure she would have tried to stab me in the face. It wasn’t all bad, though. In fact, I was beyond happy with what followed. So happy, in fact, that I didn’t even care that my name was spelled wrong.

You can read my review here: You Can’t See Everyone Naked. And yes, I left a comment.

Peace and fierce women who kick ass.

I’m lame. Let me just preface all the ridiculousness that will follow, with that. I know it, you’ll soon know it. I’m ok with it.

MySpace. When I first created an account there- I was addicted to it. I had tons of “friends”, put my shit out there for the world to see and was pretty shameless about it’s use. Thankfully, the novelty of that wore off and I stopped the abuse. Now my profile exists as a way to stay connected to friends that have moved away. Phone calls, texts and emails are all fine and dandy, but they don’t compare to being able to hop over to someone’s life in the form of photos, blog posts, bulletins, etc. Thanks to MySpace, I knew Ally was coming to town this weekend and- although she actually calls me when she’s here- I was able to plan accordingly. Not a big deal, but handy.

My profile is private, and only people I actually know outside of the Internet, have access to it. I log in every so often to look at photos (and steal them if I’m in them- ha!) and read random bulletins and blog posts. I’m over MySpace. I get in, I snoop, I get out. (I still fill out surveys though- but that’s a whole other Oprah show.)

Now, I have discovered Facebook. I think it’s been around longer than the other, but I don’t really know because it’s new to ME. And here’s where my lameness is about to be even more obvious: I am addicted to it. I have actively pressured my friends to join it, be my friend on it and learn to Super Poke.

Super Poke! Soooo stupid, yet soooo fun. Ya see… There is regular ol’ poking (getting a member’s attention) and then there is SUPER Pokin’. That let’s you do all kinds of hilarious virtual things to your friends. Stupid things, yes. But funny nonetheless. My gay boyfriend and I spent WAY too much time online yesterday Super Pokin’ each other:

I spanked him, he threw a chocolate cake at me. I trout slapped him and he sucker punched me. Then I bit him. I’ve also thrown sheep, sent flowers, hugged, drunk-dialed, body-slammed and used The Force on various friends. I’m honestly not sure what I’m actually addicted to- Facebook itself, or Super Pokin’. Lame. I know. I told you.

If you’re feeling silly (or lame)… go there and be free.

And there’s my randomness for the day.

Peace and social ridiculousness.

Ok, I’ve never been one to pimp products (except for things that my future husband, Steve Jobs, produces) via my blog, but this time I just have to.

I was so thrilled yesterday, that I was able to fix my computer and that it was alive and running well. After my post, I shut it down and went to work. When I got back home, I booted up only to discover that the same problems awaited me again. It booted up to the desktop wallpaper- then froze. No icons, no task bar- just frozen. I turned it off, rebooted in Safe Mode and re-ran CHKDSK. This time, instead of 8 1/2 hours, the process took “only” 3 1/2.

Once my system was working again (obviously temporarily), I went to work researching software that could really fix my problems. I don’t have hours to wait for my system to “repair” itself and then boot up. So in my quest, I found something called ErrorExpert. This is their blurb:

ErrorExpert helps identify and fix errors in the Windows Registry and optimizes the performance of your Computer.

Invalid file and system references can cause serious problems with your computer including system failure and frequent crashing. ErrorExpert will scan your computer for these invalid system references and file references.

Now almost all computer problems can be resolved easily and automatically!

This award winning software also includes advanced utilities that will remove any unnecessary toolbars, popups and unneeded startup items which slow down your computer.

They are not kidding. I downloaded and did the scan of my system. I was shocked to find over 1600 errors all over my system (90% of them in my registry). I bought a license and clicked the “fix errors” button. And I’ll be damned if it didn’t do just that. And FAST. Like 10 minutes or less fast. After the fix, I- reluctantly- shut down again for the night.

Today I was dreading starting up my computer. With a heavy heart, I waited while it went through the motions. I tensed up at the splash screen just knowing that it would be freezing up immediately after that. It didn’t!! It booted right up and everything loaded flawlessly. I was thrilled! SO thrilled, in fact, that I wrote the company to tell them how fabulous they are.

And I’m doing it again here because if you’re reading this, you have a computer, and therefore might at some point have it crash on you. If it does, and you know you don’t have a virus, you should definitely download ErrorExpert and run a system scan. It’s 100% free to do that. And if the program finds anything that needs fixing, it’s only $29.99 to buy a license and fix that shit. It works! They are not paying me to write this- no one is. I just thought my whole experience with that software needed to be shared. I am THAT happy about it.

Anyway- it’s also Wednesday- so I will be posting the usual right after this. I just couldn’t help myself.

Peace and kick-ass software.

Well, after MANY hours of trouble shooting, I discovered that I had a bazillion disk errors and corrupted files on my machine. How that happened, I have no idea. As far as I can tell, I wasn’t the victim of any viruses or the like. But there it was in my log file… A big fat mess.

Luckily, I was able to boot up in Safe Mode (as we know) and I ran a CHKDSK command, along with the “fix this shit” box checked. I restarted. Mind you, it took me several hours to even diagnose the issues, let alone figure out how to fix them.

EIGHT AND A HALF HOURS later- I let it run while I slept- my computer is back in action. And I am one happy ass camper.

I would like to thank my future husband, Steve Jobs, for creating the iPhone and therefore keeping me connected to every nerd forum online during this crisis. I’d also like to give a special shout-out to BleepingComputer.com for their invaluable information on the pieces of crap that are PCs. My next computer will be a Mac. I can promise you that. And while I’m doling out my gratitude… Thank you Marvin the Martian for sending my laptop happy, healthy Martian energy. It worked better than The Force.

Now I must shut down for a while and let my poor computer rest a while. It’s been through quite a battle. I’m, honestly, shocked that it works.

Peace and Martian energy.