Thoughts from the Radio

Random bits of Radio-burping...with of course my commentary because I am completely incapable of just reporting without putting my comments in.

An Anderson police officer was relieved of duty when the contents of his MySpace account were forwarded to the police chief. Apparently they contained racist, sexist, and generally offensive commentary. He said he doesn't even like that kind of humor and it was supposed to be a place for his friends to joke around.

You know, I'd like to think they canned him for being stupid, and not necessarily for the actual comments on his MySpace page. I mean, really, does anyone that has an IQ greater than room temperature think that the stuff you post on the 'net - especially stuff on a site that is advertised as a "social networking site" - is going to stay private? Hello, stupid, don't post anything you wouldn't put up on the bulletin board at work!

In a similar vein, a mayor was removed from office when the city she serves discovered "titillating photos" (evidently shots of her in her underwear) on the 'net. She'd had them done a few years before she even ran for mayor for some publicity stunt, or a fundraiser calendar, or an awareness event...something. It doesn't matter - anyway, apparently a relative put the photos on HER MySpace account to "improve {the mayor's} social life."

Okay, there aren't enough DUH in the world for this one. And a heapin' helpin' of "MYOB", too. For crying out loud, people! Mind Your Own Bidness - if she wanted to "improve her social life", I'm pretty sure she's over 18 and can therefore figure out how to do it herself! Betcha that relative is feeling pretty stupid right about now. Again - if you wouldn't say it in person, and you wouldn't want it attributed to you by the people you know and work with, don't put it on the 'net. You lose all control over the contents of your 'net-postings as soon as you hit "submit". I have no idea who's reading this at any given time, given that the accessibility of it is set to "public", and even if it was set "private" there'd be nothing preventing any of my friends-with-access from copying something I wrote, pasting it into an email and sending it off to the world.

If you don't want everyone in the world to know what you said...don't say it at all. The 'net is a public place, regardless of the fact that it's accessible from your bedroom. Treat it like you would any other public place. Don't assume that nobody's going to see your posts except you "and your friends", don't assume that your posts, your pictures, your pages are ONLY going to be seen by the people YOU want to see them. Assume that they'll be seen by every single person in the world, and then decide if you want to actually reveal that part of yourself.

Think before posting before thinking.

I suppose I should post something

Whatever. It's been 5 days since I posted something, so I suppose I should post. But I don't think it's a good idea to say much today, because I'm incredibly depressed and grumpy today. All I'd do is post a bunch of whiney things about how stuff isn't working the way I want it to today.

So...yeah, whine whine whine whine.
And no I don't want any cheese to go with it, because I've already eaten my points-limit on cheese today and I have to save points for dinner.

Whine.

I want a TARDIS

Well, actually, I want a TARDIS purse. A Backpack Of Holding. Bag of Many Things. Whatever you call it, I want a purse that'll fit in my pocket (or, hey, around my waist. I'll take a belt-bag.) and hold all my stuff, with room to spare. AND I want to be able to retrieve my Stuff out of it anytime I want - and get what I want. I've been moving from bag to bag, purse to purse - I had a nice backpack one, but it doesn't fit over my coat, so I've moved back into my "Battle Bag", as Kev calls it. It's a monster-sized purse that I made myself after measuring all my "stuff" and designing a purse with "a pocket for each thing". It has something like 14 pockets - but it's a foot wide. Yeah, it's kinda on the large side. But, I will say this much, I can actually find everything I want, when I want it, without too much rustling around. AND I don't have to remove half the contents to find that one small item on the bottom of the bag.

But, y'know, it's kinda bulky. I'd like to be able to stuff it in my pocket and still have it hold all my PortaJunk. Oh, and I seriously don't believe that those "space saving purses" advertised on TV "for only $19.95 (plus forty dollars shipping and handling)" are really all that big, either. No way can you cram an entire makeup kit, a full-size "checkbook wallet", five pens, a pad of paper, a small hair-care kit, 2 kinds of medicine bottles, car keys and a pair of driving gloves in that little dinky purse the size of a (small) kleenex box AND still have room for an umbrella and a water bottle. NOT happening.

So yeah, I want a Purse Of Holding; a Battle-Bag Of Many Things. The advantage to one of those is, as any RPG-er will tell you, they don't actually impart the weight of their contents to the user. Or at least, that's what they'll tell their GM. :D

The "Knack"

Some time ago, the Dilbert animated program featured a very young Dilbert being taken to the doctor by his mother. He was diagnosed with "The Knack" - a condition involving an intuition about electronics and how they worked.

I don't have The Knack, but fortunately I do have some Knack-ish tendencies. Over the weekend, Kev's C-PAP machine quit working. Actually, it was just the switch. This of course meant that it wouldn't turn on. Fortunately, the switch on it is a "toggle" arrangement, so even if it's unplugged while it's ON, it'll go right back on again when you plug it in.

We wound up disassembling the thing at 11:00 Saturday night. Took the 3 screws out of the bottom of the unit to take it apart, only to discover that
1) the circuit board was held to the top of the unit with 4 more screws, and
2) the switch was between the circuit board and the top of the unit.

Of course.

4 more screws were removed, and we fiddled with the switch. No dice.
Well...hey, it looks like the switch is just these two little metal dots that finish a connection between these two power points. Wonder what happens if you have the unit plugged in (while disassembled...yeah, that's a great idea...) and then put a piece of foil over those two contacts?

It turns on, is what happens. Yay!
So, Kev's C-PAP is once again working, he will hopefully remember to put in a service call to the C-PAP place, and all is well.

Hey dad, guess what, I learned something other than "how to bug your father in 2 easy steps" by hanging out with you and asking you a bazillion questions every time you tried to fix something.

Thanks for your patience. I love my dad. :)

So far...

I encountered a term I hadn't heard of before: Caloric Shifting. Someone or another was touting the "Fat Loss 4 Idiots" plan, and I thought "Huh. Interesting..."
The basic idea is that your body gets used to the same caloric intake every day, and "adjusts" itself accordingly to burn approximately that number of calories. So, if you try to stick to a 1500-Calorie-per-day diet, your body will fairly rapidly adjust to burning only 1500 Calories per day. Metabolisms are like that. Snotty little things.
So, the premise is, since your metabolism adjusts, fake it out. YOU adjust too, so it can't get "in a rut". Eat high Calorie one day, and really low Calorie the next.
So I asked WildStrawberry about it, and she said, "huh. Sounds like the Wendie Plan for Weight Watchers." I checked it out, and yes, yes it does indeed sound like the Wendie Plan! I read the description of the Wendie Plan, and thought, "Huh, that makes a LOT of sense. I'm gonna try it!"

Fortunately, the "WWCalc" program for Palm PDAs is easy enough to adapt for it, as long as I remember a couple things, like "I'm doing this week by week, NOT just day by day".

And I've discovered it makes it easier for me to think, "eh, even though my very most favoritest food (pizza) is available - FOR FREE (even better), I'm saving my Points for my "High Day" this Friday," and not go scarf some free pizza. Did I mention it was free?

So...so far, I'm happy with it. Yay!
We'll see if it's still this easy and useful in a month or two, when I'm getting VERY tired of journaling, VERY tired of tracking points, VERY tired of "oh, mustn't have, saving for..."

Although I think as long as the scale keeps going in a direction indicating loss of mass on my part (or an alarming gravitational problem on the Earth's part), then it'll continue to motivate me to keep going.

Thoughts On Public Performances

I have done some public performances, both singing and playing. From the perspective of someone who Has Been There, I would like to offer the following bits of advice to people who do public performances:

If you know you're going to be singing in front of thousands of people, and you know that thousands more will be hearing you on the radio, please keep the following bits of advice in mind for your Big Gig:

1) Please, please, please - practice your initial opening! Practice getting your note from a pitchpipe, one person in the group, whatever. However you do it, make sure it's rock solid before your performance day. Taking the first 2-4 lines of the National Anthem to all "blend" and get in tune sounds horrible.


2) I'm glad you know the harmony to the song. Really, I am. But either sing it all, or sing in unison. You just sound stupid and like you didn't practice when you sing unison...harmony for a few bars...unison...whoops, here's a bit I know, I'll do the harmony again...Seriously. Stick to unison.

3) Don't arrange yourselves so the microphone is right in front of your strongest singer. Believe you me, she's pretty much all we heard. (Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. See # 1 and 2).

4) If you're going to put little "ruffles and flourishes" in the music, PRACTICE THEM AHEAD OF TIME. Everyone in the group needs to agree on where the ruffles and flourishes go, and everyone needs to sing the same ones.

If you follow the above tips, you'll sound a lot less like 3 friends who met up on the way into the game and decided to shanghai the mic for the National Anthem.
Thanks everso.

OK, so how does MY Fast do anything?

My previous blogpost sounds rather hypocritical, doesn't it? "People shouldn't make a big deal out of their Lenten Fast...but here's what I'm doing!" I have reasons for that, which I'll get to in a second.
The other "issue" that might be taken with it is "what the heck does dieting have to do with focusing on GOD?" So I'm going to answer both of those questions.

1) Why did I "announce" what I was going to do for a Lenten Fast?
Easy. For me, goals must be announced, or they Just Don't Happen. Private vows between you and God are great if they work for you. Unfortunately, for me, they just don't seem "real" unless I make some sort of public declaration about them. It's not that I think God's less important than people, or incapable of holding me accountable! It's just something weird about the way I'm wired - to "announce" it takes it out of the realm of "personal" to the realm of "real and accountable". I have no idea why. That "public declaration" doesn't mean I go to the streetcorners; I just have to tell at least one other person - whether that's my husband, a friend, or my blog. :D
Besides, this makes me far more "accountable" - and I don't plan on announcing "Oh, man my fast was so hard today! Look at how I'm suffering!" No...I just wanted it to be On Record. Kind of puts me "on notice" to stick with it.

2) Fine, whatever, but what does dieting have to do with Lent?
Nothing. Everything. It helps me to focus on God, because I'm doing something I really don't want to do. I need God's help to do that. And because I'm doing it as a Lenten "Fast", then it keeps Christ's sacrifice in the forefront of my mind while I'm selecting my meal, while I'm recording my food intake, while I'm eating a pile-o-steamed-veggies instead of a piece of Texas Toast. I've integrated both into one. I'm keeping my focus on God because I'm doing this as a Lenten "Fast", not being distracted from God by the Onerous Task of keeping a Lenten Fast.

So that's why I did what I did, and how it's keeping me focused on God and Christ's sacrifice for me.

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.

2 Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.

3 Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

4 to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever."

Psalm 136: 1-4

Why "give up" for Lent?

I read this post in the blog by Rebellious Pastor's Wife (go check it out. You'll be happy you did.) and of course it got me to thinking (yes, Virginia, occasionally I do think). Why sacrifice for Lent? What's the big deal?

I know some of the history behind it, but really, why do we still do it? I think that's an important question, and one which I'm going to wax verbose about for a few minutes. (So I'll have a shiny freshly-waxed verbose. They always look so much better when they're waxed, don't you think?)

Anyway.
When I was growing up, we didn't do the Lent Fast thing. Frankly, I'd never heard of it until I went to college, when I was asked, "so...what are YOU giving up for Lent?" And, to be honest, the way it was explained to me, "well...we're supposed to SUFFER, you see..." made it sound like The Stupidest Thing Ever. Why were we supposed to suffer? Christ did the work for our salvation! Me giving up caffeine or chocolate or pop or whatever certainly wasn't going to earn me any "Salvation points". God wasn't keeping score on some gigantic spreadsheet in Heaven. "Oooh, she didn't do Lent Fasting this year....guess she has to live in Heaven in The Bog Of Eternal Stench." Please. And, quite frankly, that was a bad time to be introduced to it: all I saw was people Fasting For Lent, making a big deal out of Fasting For Lent, and how much they were suffering, and ultimately either giving up their Lent Fast as "too hard; I couldn't stick with it" or majorly indulging themselves with a massive dose of whatever they gave up RIGHT after Easter. I decided after seeing that for a couple years running that no, I really didn't want to do a Lenten Fast, because from what I saw it turned you into a Big Ole Lenten Martyr. Suffering for The Cause (what cause?) and all that.

However. Since then, I've looked into it more, and quite frankly that article by Chrysostom really did express how I feel about it as well. Lenten Fasting isn't about the Fast, in and of itself. It's about getting us to focus more on God, being more Christ-like in our daily life, and striving to avoid sin. We shouldn't Fast as a means unto itself. Fasting for the sake of Fasting; suffering for the sake of Suffering, partaking in the Lenten Fast because you're "supposed to" or you "should" is really counterproductive. At that point we're focusing on the FAST, and not on the One who blessed us with so much bounty that we can fast.

"15 The eyes of all look to you,
and you give them their food at the proper time.

16 You open your hand
and satisfy the desires of every living thing."

Psalm 145: 15 - 16

"My mouth will speak in praise of the LORD.
Let every creature praise his holy name
for ever and ever."

Psalm 145:21

"Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever."

Psalm 136:26

Taking Up, or Giving Up?

Yesterday was Transfiguration Sunday. That means that in 2 days, we celebrate Ash Wednesday. Consequently, I've been contemplating "giving up for Lent". In the past, I've generally not chosen to give up something for Lent, just because I really couldn't come up with something meaningful for me, that didn't feel like "giving up for Lent because everyone else is and it's the Thing To Do." So I didn't.
In the past, I've heard mention also of TAKING Up For Lent - the taking up of a GOOD habit or something beneficial, just for 6 weeks, to help IMPROVE oneself. I thought that was an interesting idea - but, again, nothing really came of it.
However, this year, I'm giving up AND taking up.
I'll be taking up "Weight Watchers Points Program" again - to the extent of logging, tracking and keeping within my "points range". I don't do the meetings, or the online stuff, or whatever. I have a "WW buddy" already, and once she reads this I'm sure she'll keep me on track. :D
So at first you'd think my answer to "fine, that's your taking up, what's your GIVING up?" would be "duh, poundage." Which, really, it is, but in addition I'm giving up Self Indulgent Eating. I've been indulging myself with food for the last while, and not only is it showing up in my waistline, it's also contributing to my lousy attitude, depression and generally making me feel like crap.
So.
I'm giving up Self Indulgent Eating.
It's only for six weeks.
And, really, even though it is for 6 weeks, and it won't be easy, I'm gonna go through that 6 weeks whether I watch what I eat or not. It's MY choice if I want to arrive at Easter even fatter, more bloated, and generally feeling crummy, or if I arrive at Easter at least knowing that I can, in fact, limit my eating. And I'll probably feel a lot better, and weigh less.
And who knows, I might figure out how to divide by zero by then.