onward

I was so brain-fogged the other day when I wrote the previous post that I didn't know what day it was. Not that it matters substantially in the greater scheme of things, but when I wrote "tomorrow," I should have written "today"--but I didn't know what day it was. The good news is that the change in dosage levels that day (Wednesday) has led to me feeling substantially better. All my symptoms have lessened and I've felt well enough today and yesterday to play the piano a little and also--here's the scary part--upload all kinds of crapola to Facebook.

This is more complicated than it sounds because it involved audio and video. Now, I have been a techno-nerd since 1982, and I build my own computers, but I have resisted joining the media blitz on the internet for years. I'm pretty much a luddite when it comes to multimedia, and don't even own an iPod. I hate noisy and blinky things in my web experience and so I use a browser that makes it really easy to turn all that multimedia garbage off by default. What this means however is that I am increasingly having to adjust the content blocker and the plugin stopper for individual websites like Facebook, and for some things I even have to switch to a more popular browser so that things will work, especially if multimedia is involved.

So yesterday I started with what I thought was a relatively simple task: figure out a way to get a certain recording off of a CD and onto my Facebook profile as an MP3. But, as always, things are never simple when Windoze is involved, and it gets worse when you throw in the nonsense called DRM [rant omitted]. I eventually accomplished the goal but it set me onto other ones: figure out a way to capture streaming video for later playback (for free); figure out a way to post other multimedia stuff to my Facebook profile. I spent most of the day today at cnet researching freeware (with a detour to the WayBack Machine at archive.org), discovering the fun at Hulu.com, and revisiting a karaoke site where I recorded a bunch of songs last summer for fun. I still haven't found the right software to capture that stream, but I did find an interface that enabled me to post my karaoke recordings to my Facebook profile.

Just in case you're wondering, I already know how to post my karaoke recordings to my blog. But don't worry, I'm not going to.

Guenivere

Last week when I posted about finding old New Orleans BBS buddies online, I learned a few things about my old "handle," Guenivere. At the time I "called the boards," as the term was, I was often accused of "misspelling" the name (usually spelled "Guinevere" after Tennyson) and had to defend my choice. For the record, the reasons for my chosen spelling were: (1) the diminuitives "Guen" (i.e., Gwen) and "Guennie" ("Gwennie") didn't really work--to my ear at least--as Guin and Guinnie. I prefer the softer "e" sound in the first syllable. (Of course, some pundits insisted on pronouncing it "Goonie.") (2) There is no "right" or "wrong" spelling anyway. The "real" name is actually "Gwynhwfar" with a modern English rendering of Jennifer. Anyway, I thought the spelling I chose was distinctive.

So today, when I do a Google search for "Guenivere" just to see what's out there, although the search engine dutifully asks me if I really meant "Guinevere" (and provides hits with that spelling unless I put "Guenivere" in quotation marks), it turns out that there are plenty (over 28K--so much for distinctive!) of hits for my "wrong" spelling of Arthur's queen's name. Perhaps some of them are also "misspellings" but it appears to be deliberately chose by many. There are a surprising number of women who use it either as a real name or as an alias, and at least two pop songs with "my" spelling in the lyrics all over the net. One song contains a line, "I loved you, Guenivere," repeated over and over again like a mantra. Another song says, "I'm no lady, I am Guenivere." (Well, humph.) It is also apparently a very popular name for cats.

So much for mystery, history, legend, and a commanding alias to hide behind while posting online!

Reconnecting

Lately I've been making more and more connections to people I knew when I was growing up. My 20th high school reunion was last summer, and although I didn't go, it prompted several email exchanges with people I hadn't seen since then. Then a few months ago I got on Facebook, and made several connections there, some with people I've known since first or second grade. A few more showed up in LinkedIn. On my personal website I also have a bunch of class pictures up from elementary school-- more trickle in.

I especially love reconnecting from people from elementary school. I was lucky enough to live in the same place K-12 and so go to school with a group of kids that knew each other all that time. A lot of kids don't have that kind of stability. People you knew from age 6-10 know the real you, before you started trying to live up to the expectations of others.

Just a few days ago, I was thinking about all the people I met online during my last year of college, when "BBSing" was the geeky thing to do. This was before the internet existed. People would use a modem and call a computer which ran the BBS software. You could leave messages for other people and play some online games (all text-based). Most BBSes had only one phone line in so only one person could be logged in at a time. Some were networked, and so you could send messages across the country or around the world. (Along with the academically-based Bitnet, the Fido network was one of the first ways to share genealogical research online.)

In New Orleans, where I went to college, there was a distinct BBS community. (Later, when I went to law school in Chicago, I joined Chinet, which was the world's first BBS; I still log in there occasionally and it just celebrated its 30th anniversary in February.) One of the fun things about it was that most people used an alias to log in; I was Guenivere. Some people created lots of aliases and personas to go with them, but I was always just Guennie. I had friends with monikers like Alcor, Shinzu, Pundit, Awesome Heap, Homeboy, Flavius, Jezebel, Mortie, Socrates, Piano Man, Princess Toadstool, Wizard, Shinobi, Mr. Fender Jaguar, Thinker, Attila the Hun, Count Strahd, Limulus. . . the list goes on and on. These people, of course, are the opposite of those elementary school classmates of mine, in terms of being able to know the "real" person behind the exterior persona we all present to the world.

Anyway, this past week I was thinking about all this and I did an online search and came up with a nostalgic blog post by my old BBS buddy Jezebel about much the same thing. She told me about BBSmates, which is a site much akin to Classmates.com, but without the hype. So I found a bunch more folks I used to know. I sure would like to connect with a few more, though. (Not naming any names, Bruce!)

Yesterday I got email from someone who was my next-door neighbor when I was three years old. (Though when we moved it was only a couple of blocks away and stayed there until after I graduated from college--and his mom was my babysitter after school.) I think that one must be a record!

Banana guards

I swiped this link from Susan:

http://www.bananaguard.com/

edema

Sometimes, I feel like this:


Doesn't everybody?

billionaires

Money magazine has a delightful article this month: How to Marry a Billionaire. Several charming anecdotes about rich men marrying waitresses (and a few about rich women too). There was practical advice about the types of activities that are worth investing in (such as becoming a member of a museum, attending gallery openings, etc.), and they make it sound so simple. All you have to do is:

1. hang out where billionaires hang out
2. dress well
3. educate yourself about their interests
4. try to get a job working for one

I needed a magazine to tell me this?

nerd test redux

I had to re-take the Nerd Test because I remembered that I did in fact build my current computer.

How nerdy are you?

doublespeak

I went to a CLE this morning, on the subject of Family Law.  
Why do we call it  "family law" when it destroys families?
Shouldn't we call it "anti-family law"— or, here's a novel
idea: "Divorce Law."

(I don't practice divorce law, but I have to get in a certain number of CLE hours, and this is what they were offering this month.)

Recognized quite a few people there, made some new friends, and noticed a preponderence of western boots with suits.  I pulled my boots out of the closet when I got home and dusted them off.

marbles

My friend Rob has too much time on his hands.

crummy old shoes

I have a pair of crummy old slip-on shoes that I keep by the back door, so that I don't get splinters in my feet from the deck or step on a pinecone or something less fun.

Earlier this week, I went far out back with the dogs, wearing my comfy crummy old open-back shoes. I was admiring a blooming oleander by the back fence when I noticed ants. On my feet. Ouch.

This is not all that unusual an occurrence, and what I normally do is leave the shoes outside for a few hours until the ants have lost interest and vacated the shoes. So that's what I did. A few hours later, I checked them, but there were still ants on them, so I left them. Late that night, I went out to get them, and noticed a puddle on and around one shoe. That's right. One of the dogs had peed on it. I guess I left it too close to a plant or something. At any rate, it was 11pm and so I left them there, planning to deal with it on the morrow.

Next morning, I went out to get them, intending to throw them into the washer, and the OTHER shoe had a pile of dog poo on, around, and IN it.

Who knew a dog could aim so well with his poop?

There they sit still.