all things me

I got a genuine looking comment to my post on games suggesting a game site. It wasn’t exactly relevant but close enough. I checked the commenter’s referrer and even though it wasn’t from one of those disgusting gambling/medicine/loan sites it was a weird looking Google search. The spammer had searched for fitting keywords (puzzle and games) AND the string “leave a comment” which rang my alarm bells. I checked a few of the first links and found a similar comment (under a more suspicious name) on another site. You ain’t getting through here, buddy.

Shame on you!

It’s 11:15 pm and I’m ready to go to sleep.

So, my article on cascading stylesheets came out on 31st. It was nice seeing my own handiwork in an actual magazine — along with pretty pictures by my namesake. Not that I’ve been dreaming of journalism since I was a kid (my friend and I made a magazine for our class, though, in early grades) but what can I say, it was a lot of fun to write for fun for a change. Oh, what am I talking about, I write here all the time! Anyway, you know what I mean.

I had told my father before (response: “uh-huh…”) and when the magazine came out, I showed Mum (response: “what am I supposed to be looking at” and then “oh, that’s what you’ve been up to! Getting all those mysterious envelopes”). Luckily the people at work were a bit more enthusiastic, otherwise I would’ve jumped on some table and shouted I got published in a magazine, dammit! Oh, Grandma asked me questions about it when I told her beforehand, so at least I got to tell the whole story to someone

Today I got my extra copies of the magazine. I sent one to my grandparents, Dad took one (on the excuse of paying most of the tool that was used to write the article… it’s his fault, he never took the money from me), and I’m keeping one wrapped — I also have the one that came in the mail on the day it was published.

So, the story: the editor had read my blog which he’d found via a blog list. Mum always asks why I bother with my homepage. Now I can tell her, and other heretics, that you can get a job (or at least freelance assignments) by bothering with homepages.

While we were having lunch, a gentleman in the next table asked which department we were in. He was conducting a little lunchtime experiment. We told we were from the general linguistics department, and apparently he then told us what he first thought we were, but none of us heard it. I just heard him say “oh, that’s what linguists look like” and tell where he’s from etc etc. I thought to myself that maybe we’re not very good stereotypes for linguists. I for one would probably pass for a philosopher with my black attire (bear in mind that the choices were teachers (and “related”), linguists, and philosophers).

Grandma has told me once that I look like a humanist (student in the Faculty of Arts, or Faculty of Humanities as it is for us), so that’s good. But do I look like a linguist? Think not, at least I’m not a linguist at heart, unless liking languages means ‘being a linguist’. I could be a computer person, but what do they look like? I already have glasses so I think that’s going for me… but everybody has glasses nowadays — or so it seems.

Hopefully I’m not stereotypical anything.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people, after me telling that I have loads to do (papers, assignments etc.), say “hope you get them done in time”. I don’t do “not on time”. I once had to turn in a paper one day after the deadline (and it was a loose dl) because I hadn’t finished it at 3 am on a day when I was just starting full-time work and waking up at 7 am.

In high school (senior high), I wrote a big geography assignment till 6 am and my alarm was set to go off at 6:15. I wrote the paper. On time. Just this week, I stayed up till 3 am (a magic hour, it seems) writing that stupid essay, but I got it done, it ended up being alright, and woke up at 7:45 to go to lectures.

It’s not about “hopefully getting things done”, it’s about how much (or little, to be precise) I get to sleep on the day before — or actually the day of — the deadline.
I’m a close-call adrenaline addict: I don’t get things done until the deadline looms close ahead. I know it’s bad for me, but it’s how I work.

Why can’t the spammers even write correctly!?! I’m invited to check out some very “interesdting” stuff.

None of the spam gets through, so there’s really no point, now is there? What annoys me the most is that the comment IDs get so big! Last legitimate comment was number 2888 — now the number is definitely over 2900 — when in fact there are only 80 comments (wow, eighty) showing on the posts! Do the math.

I miss captcha soooo much. People, not Tom, did you have trouble having to write that short code before posting? Would you mind if I brought it back? I’m honestly ripping my hair here… Even that blacklisting thing won’t delete the posts anymore! They’re stored…! I don’t want them cluttering up my database because Spam Karma can already handle them without any need to compare to past comments. Sheesh.

I hate this essay!

Mum (or any other relative), STOP READING! I’ll tell you in time
Here’s the secret I’ve been keeping for quite a while now. I can’t take it anymore!
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A lot of the time when people post their site links for others to see at “Strut your own stuff” (I’m talking about WP forums), pretty soon someone will write “that’s cool/beautiful/nice/awesome/the best layout I’ve ever seen!! Do you have it for download?/Please make it available ASAP!!!1”

What if the person has worked their butt off to get a beautiful, ORIGINAL, DISTINCTIVE layout? What if they don’t want to stumble across a clone everywhere they turn? Some people have miles and miles of themes in their theme switcher (right next to the miles and miles of blogs they apparently read), and they add to the list practically every theme they can get their hands on.

I know I’m being too hard on people who don’t have the knowledge/patience/interest to do their own themes but that is my opinion and this is my blog!

Disclaimer: This writing is by no means affected by the fact that I’ve been doing my portfolio layout for hours and hours (loving it though, but the theme pleads — in a wrong place — are a pet peeve). I might modify the layout to fit here, too It could be an invigorating change.

Hi, my name is Minna and I’m an alone-in-front-of-tv-laugher. My sister can’t understand it. When she’s at the computer and hears me laughing, alone in my room, she thinks — or is convinced — I’ve gone bonkers.

I, however, don’t see any difference between social and solitary tv laughing. The programme is no less funny (or more so) when watched alone. Thus, I shouldn’t feel the need to stifle my bursts of laughter just because I happen to be alone.

My preferred SIFOTL programmes are Coupling and Scrubs. They’re hilarious.

I thought of writing about this and then decided against it, but what the heck. I haven’t written about anything for a while anyway.

Just to let you know, this story has a happy ending. Sort of.
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