I apparently have no clue regarding lentils. I bought some the other day and decided to cook them up for lunch. Either I did something wrong or they are supposed to look like mashed orange sweet potatoes and taste gross. I added some spices thinking it may help but now my house just smells like garlic and curry. What was I thinking?

Work has been pretty all encompassing. There is so much going on and I would so love to unload but I am going to hold back. My anonymity here ain’t what it used to be, you know. Regardless of the stuff that’s going on, and in the immortal words of Gloria Gaynor, I will survive. I keep telling myself that even in Russia’s deep dark ugly days of communism, people still survived and made a living. In fact there were people who did damn well. And I realize that I will be fine.

And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.

Matthew 24:6-8

I am stumped. I have no idea how all those spammy links got into my footer. Nothing seems amiss on the server side. All I did to fix it was go into the footer and delete the spam links. But there has to be some other file or script that executes the spam, right? I don’t know. I can’t find it.

On Friday I watched a GREAT movie. It was called The Little Cigars Mob and it originally came out in 1973. The movie is about a troupe of circus midgets who meet up with a tall blond woman and together they go on a violent crime spree. I just loved it. Especially the romance between Cleo, the tall blond, and Slick, the criminal mastermind midget. It’s important to note that the little people in the movie called themselves midgets– I am not choosing that term. In fact, they even talked about the difference between dwarves and midgets in the movie. Dwarves are those affected with dwarfism while midgets are just really tiny yet totally proportional. I think my favorite part of the movie was at the end when Cleo decides she can’t run out on Slick and so she goes back to the hotel with her purse full of their stolen loot and when Slick asks, “Why’s you back?” She responds, “‘Cause I’m your old lady and I love your little ass!” I am only guessing that she said ass because the last word was bleeped out and I am terrible at reading lips.

I love leather jumpsuits.

I want spammers– especially ones that hack Web sites– to go to jail and then burn in hell for all eternity. Bitter? Moi? I do not have time for this crap. My site is a mess with spam links and I don’t have the time to clean it up. To top it off, my sister’s laptop’s hard drive crashed and the only thing she didn’t back up was the novel she’s been writing. How does that happen? How can a person back up everything but their most prized and cherished Word document? I bought the Black Widow External USB Hard Drive Dock thinking I might be able to access her hard drive with it — no dice. It’s down for the count. Anyone know of a good hard drive rescue place?

I think my laptop is alive and has feelings. Every time I start considering reverting to factory settings– the laptop starts to act normal. It’s like he KNOWS! Well, I don’t care. I’ve been through this before and I am not going to fall for it again.

I gotta drive to North Jersey this morning. Gotta get myself going. At least I have Latin Impact to look forward to this evening. I’m gonna Punta tonight!

I once again have junk in my footer!

What the heck is going on!?!? HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN???

Is anyone getting any virus warnings when you visit this Web site?

The swine flu doesn’t bother me in the least. I am too busy trying to beat the viruses out of my little laptop. This is the major reason why I haven’t been blogging much of late– my laptop is so slow and hiccup-y that I keep it turned off. I can check my email with my work computer but I really don’t want to be blogging on it. After much consideration I have come up with an idea:

1. Back up data to my external hard drive
2. Back up data online (Gotta be safe)
3. Revert laptop to factory settings
4. Install latest Service Pack
5. Install BitDefender
6. Stop surfing pr0n. (Just teasing)

My dad says I shouldn’t have to reformat. He says I could clean it all up by running CrapCleaner and PCPitstop– but so far I have had no luck with either program. My one fear is that all my data is somehow infected and once I transfer all my pix/videos/docs/mp3s back, my computer will once again be buggy. Of course there is a possibility that my computer is totally clean and what I think is evidence of a virus is actually VISTA being VISTA. Why didn’t they just call it PISSTA? I swear, this laptop runs worse than my old 386 with the monochrome screen.

Okay, I do have some questions for you guys…

1. Do you keep your computer on all the time or do you turn it off when you are not using it?
2. If you keep it on, do you also keep it connected to the Internet?
3. If you turn the computer off, when does your anti-virus run?

I used to leave it on and it would go into a low energy state and in the middle of the night the anti-virus would run. But at some point the computer stopped going into sleep mode and I could hear the dang CPU cranking at all hours. I started turning it off but then whenever I would turn it on the anti-virus would start and it would suck all the system resources. And I never can seem to remember to just turn it on to let the anti-virus run, especially because I have such a huge hard drive that the thing takes hours! How about some cheese with all this whine?

Why is this so difficult?

I was sad to hear about Beatrice Arthur passing on. I loved the Golden Girls. Maude didn’t do it for me but I am sure you know why. Years ago I was with Audra and Lisa and the two of them decided they were going to match the three of us up with our most similar Golden Girl character. Audra said that Lisa was both Rose AND Sofia. Lisa said that Audra was Blanche. They both looked at me with amusement on their faces. I was horrified and angry! “THAT MAKES ME DOROTHY!!!! ME! BEA ARTHUR!!!!! I’m OUTTA HERE!”

Looking back, I realized I was upset because Bea Arthur was always being compared to a man. I didn’t want to be compared to that! I remember some silly sketch on Conan had him sharing his “celebrity autograph collection” and one of the autographs was from Bea Arthur. It read, “Dear Conan, The men’s room at your studio is filthy! Love Bea!” Sure Bea was tall and had a voice like a dying cow but is that honestly good reason to rip on her gender? NO! I’ve decided to embrace my Dorothy– if for no other reason because you know she would win any fight against Blanche, Sofia, Rose, or Hulk Hogan…separate or altogether.

In my dream I was traveling to Egypt by train. Passing through a very long tunnel, I was told that very few trains make it through and we very well may be killed. What a horrible thing to say and it really got me upset. All I could do was sit and worry. I didn’t want to be killed! I wanted to see Egypt! Fortunately, despite the warning we got to Egypt in one piece. I only caught a quick glimpse of a pyramid before I was escorted into a mall. Walking around, I found tears coming to my eyes. Egypt is practically the same as Philly! They have malls with TJMaxx and other familiar stores — the main difference is Egypt decorates them with tons of Christmas Twinkle lights. I couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

It took me a little while but I finally realized that there was nothing wrong with Google’s logo today. It’s not loading funny; it’s morse code. Those kids over at Google are just too clever for words.

I’ve been feeling oddly nostalgic for the 90’s. Or maybe I am just plagued by anxiety. You see, over the last couple weeks, almost every dream that I remember has me back in High School or College. And I can’t remember where my classroom is located or, as occurred last night, I am running late and am in huge risk of missing my school bus. As I board the bus I notice I am missing my socks and I can’t remember if I have my gym suit or sneakers. What’s my locker combination? Did you say pop quiz? You mean I forgot my homework too? My heart races and I want to cry. Nostalgia or Anxiety?

The Dream Doctor says:

Curiously, back to school dreams do not reflect a desire to return to school, nor do they reflect emotional trauma from our school years. Instead, the dreams reflect challenges in our current life—usually in a career or social context—about whether or not we will “graduate to the next level.” What’s the connection? The pressure we feel today reminds us of how we used to feel back in high school or college before we took an exam: nervous, and wondering if we will “make the grade.”

Back to school dreams occur when we are stressed about completing a project at work, for example, or if we are switching careers, experiencing money problems, or are trying to “graduate” to a new position in our romantic lives.