But oh, horrible me for finding it funny!

Well, apparently today, seven months after the fact, some woman from one of the boards found this post, apparently deciding I was bitter about their acronyms. (She also said it was kinda funny, and to that woman, if she ever visits here, please know that you are totally entitled to your opinion, but how in God’s name can one be bitter about an acronym which has nothing to do with one personally? ) I wouldn’t normally have known that anyone had posted anything about this particular blog entry, of course, because my vanity searches on the Internet are just not all that vain, but then the abuse started.

From “None Ya”, from address “ip68-103-179-95.ks.ok.cox.net” and an ISP somewhere in the vicinity of Wichita, Kansas:

You are pathetic. And have way to much time on your hands to be making fun of people. I think someone needs to write a blog about you!

Oh boy. Name-calling! That always helps! I always feel pathetic when someone I don’t know and don’t care about names me as such. I think I may cry! Ah, nah, wait. I’ll just respond:

Dearest None Ya:

Oooo, wow. Very middle-school playground of you. I’m impressed, and I’m afraid you’re only proving my point.

I would say you have way too (proper spelling for the modifier indicating excess, as opposed to “to”, which has several functions in the English language, including a preposition indicating direction or a marker indicating the infinitive form of a verb) much time on your hands if you spend Thanksgiving morning visiting other people’s blog posts of seven months ago to call them pathetic. And anyone other than me who’d write a blog about me certainly has too much time on their hands – I’m just not that interesting.

But thank you for amusing me. I’d suggest you also get a sense of humor about yourself – it can be quite refreshing.

Ok, so that’s done.

But ah, but wait, there’s more! Oh goody!

From “urfuturewife”, a visitor from address “c-75-67-110-231.hsd1.ma.comcast.net” and an ISP somewhere near Hyde Park, Massachusetts:

You must be MALE

Hrm… breasts? Check. Huge pregnant belly? Check. Penis? BZZZT. Sorry, it appears I do not have the requisite equipment. This may indicate some of where your difficulties lie. See, men have penises. If you want to get pregnant, you either need someone with one of those (there are a lot of them around) or you need to consider artificial insemination. This thing I have? Not a penis. Not going to help another woman get pregnant. I hope that helps.

And so to this fine young woman, I say:

Dear urfuturewife,

I’m afraid you have me confused with some other person – first of all, I’m strictly heterosexual, although I support your sexual preference as indicated by your name and the fact that you are claiming to be some pregnant woman’s future wife. Secondly, I’m already married, and I don’t foresee obtaining additional spouses in the future. Finally, I’m afraid I could never marry anyone who can’t type out the whole word “your” – if you’d read my post, you’d know I have a strong aversion to AOL-style text abbreviations like “ur” (unless you are referring to “Ur“, the ancient city in the cradle of civilization, in which case I can only say I think you’re probably a little late to be any of the denizens’ future wife. My condolences!).

As for me being male, that is going to be a huge surprise to my husband, who somehow managed to get me pregnant anyway. I suspect there is some flaw in your analysis, as the only male parts I have currently are attached to the sleeping baby in my belly, but I can see how you might make the mistake.

I suggest you and “None Ya” get together and work on better insults – the fact that I was tempted to answer you with “I know you are but what am I” and stick my tongue out blowing raspberries at you indicates the level at which your taunts fall.

I mean, you’re funny, but, um, not for the reasons you mean to be…

Happy Thanksgiving!

Seriously folks… come on.

Get a sense of humor. Especially about getting pregnant. Trust me, if you make it all about the stress, you’re not going to enjoy it at all. And if some random person on the Internet on their own blog says something you disagree with, let it go. Seriously.

As for me, while it was funny to begin with, I don’t really care to be abused in my own sandbox by random strangers, so I blocked anyone visiting directly from that board. There’s nothing here for them anyway.

(Note to regular readers: you may find you are permanently blocked if you visit directly from where their original post is located, which is why I did not post a link; normally I wouldn’t post the details of exactly how I’ve blocked someone, but I’m not really worried about circumvention measures this time around, if you catch my drift.)

In spite of the jerk who decided to post that I was a lard-ass in response to my last set of belly shots, I’m going to do something I haven’t done before – post real ones. To said jerk: you can bite my lard-filled hindquarters. This is my sandbox, not yours.

Anyway, dorkasses aside…

I actually used our new camcorder to make a little comparison video (and to test the thing out) of Christian’s big pumpkin which is now a Jack-O’-Lantern and of our little pumpkin (also now a Jack-O’-Lantern), but I don’t have time to figure out how to post that right now, so instead, I give you some still shots. I know I look dorky and I’m hanging out all over the place, but so what?

(Yes, I know I’m really fat. I’ve known that for a long time. I’ve gotten over it. I suggest you do the same. And I’m 8 months pregnant, so don’t mess with me.)

So, without further ado… (click any picture to see full-size)

Christian’s massive pumpkin!

A close-up of said pumpkin:

Both pumpkins together:

Our Small Pumpkin all by himself:

And the shot that displays my lard ass in the clearest view (but also displays the size of my Small Monster belly most clearly):

And those, ladies and gentlemen, are probably the only real belly shots I’m going to show, precisely because of people like Mr. Lard Ass.

But I posted them – precisely because of people like Mr. Lard Ass.

Thank you for visiting and leaving your informative comments on my pregnant belly shot. I never would have guessed I was overweight without helpful good samaritans like yourself letting me know. I’m especially pleased to know that I’m a lard ass. That made my day, truly it did.

I see you were looking to see if “moods are OK in pregnancy” when you hit my site. Clearly you’ve used your undersized penis in some irresponsible way and gotten someone pregnant – the poor girl! I’m surprised you’re able to get any at all – was she drunk and asleep when it happened?

As for her moods, I suspect that her moods have nothing to do with her pregnancy and everything to do with being with a kind, mature, and very special (short-bus special) boy like yourself.

And if I’m wrong and you’re a woman, wow… your poor children.

Good luck in life, my tiny friend. Folks like you rarely amount to much.

Now, I wouldn’t normally post about this – I tend not to post configuration details for obvious reasons – but given that the plugin is already catching a bunch of traffic, I want to make sure it’s not catching anyone it shouldn’t. If you were mistakenly caught in the Bad Behavior filter, not only will you get a 403 page, but you will get one with a message as to why you were caught there as well as a means to resolve the situation yourself. Feel free to leave a comment here if you’re being repeatedly blocked for no apparent reason and you aren’t some sort of sucky, evil spammer. I will fix what can and should be fixed. (Obviously, to even read this message, you would have had to use the fix proposed on the error page or e-mail me, so if no one contacts me or uses that fix, I’ll never know… c’est la vie)

On the other hand, if you get a 403 error without information about why you were blocked as well as the means to fix it yourself, it is likely, you know, on purpose. As in you’re either trying to access something you’re not allowed to, or you’re not welcome here. Consider this latter version of the 403 error as a not-at-all subtle hint to stay the Hell out of my sandbox and get on with your life Don’t worry – if I haven’t already dropped this hint to you personally, you don’t fall into this latter group. I loves my readers. Just, well, not in that way. Except for that one German guy who reads it, but he’s married to me.

Anyhow, do let me know if you’re a legitimate user and there are problems.

What the Hell? The police obviously don’t understand how Tor works or what it is for, in spite of now having some experience with Tor operators, and yet even after being proven wrong again and again they still harass the same guy for various content that supposedly “came from” him.

I don’t blame the guy for shutting down the node – it’s one thing to hang on to an important ideal, but there are only so many lawyers fees and investigations – and so many groundless arrests – one can take before deciding that personal interest is more important than “the greater good”. Of course, I suspect this is what the police intend – if you can’t beat anonymous p2p networks by actual analysis or even shutting them down across the board, you can just scare the crap out of the operators until they cry uncle out of concern for their lives and family.

I might expect this kind of ignorance from our guys over here, but I expected rather more from the Germans…

But can someone please explain to me why, on August 31^st, Walgreens is advertising Halloween candy at 2/$5 and has their costume displays out already???

I mean, geez, school hasn’t even started in a lot of places yet…

Ok, so it’s morbidly hilarious too.

May I present to you… the case against invading Iraq and bringing down Saddam Hussein – by Dick Cheney in 1994.

And may I just say that it’s hilarious that he uses the word “quagmire”.

I just love hypocrisy:

Click here to view the embedded video.

My husband’s question from last night really does make me wonder… why wasn’t this played repeatedly before the ill-fated invasion??

*turns on megaphone*

People of the American Empire: Bush’s pardon commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence has nothing to do with Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton isn’t even the issue here. Bill Clinton has nothing to do with the current situation! Bill Clinton does not sit in the White House (much as he’d probably like to). Bill Clinton does not have the power of the pardon right now. And Bill Clinton’s administration did not out covert CIA agents.

Love Bill Clinton or hate him, I don’t care. He’s not the president. He did a lot of stupid things, but he didn’t do this one.

Whatever Bill Clinton did, and I absolutely agree that his last-minute pardons soured his credibility considerably, that does not change this fact:

George W. Bush, who promised that whoever leaked Ms. Plame’s identity would go to jail, has not only failed to cooperate in prosecuting those who leaked the information, but has made sure that a man who lied to block the investigation of the leak is not punished. George Bush is effectively pardoning a guy who kept the Special Prosecutor from being able to investigate a breach of national security. Don’t tell me there wasn’t a quid pro quo. Don’t tell me there was “no crime”, and thus Libby shouldn’t be prosecuted for obstructing the investigation – if the White House ensures that no one can investigate the crime, it does not mean that no crime occurred just because the White House is assisting in the obstruction of justice. Even if no crime occurred (and you’re a fool if you believe one didn’t, but let’s hold that aside), obstructing an investigation and lying to a grand jury is still a crime!!!

What part of that do you right-wing wingnuts not get?

And if Bill Clinton had done the same in a matter of national security, I’m sure you fine folks would have made sure he was held accountable. As well he should have been, were that the case.

It doesn’t matter how many crooks and clowns he pardoned, because none of that changes what George W. Bush has done.

Do yourselves a favor, guys… try thinking beyond your stupid talking points. Use your brains. Stop smoking crack. It’ll do you good.

And just because Clinton chose to comment doesn’t give you guys a right to continue to misdirect the argument, either. Clinton isn’t even a player here.

Heckuva job, Bushie.

Let’s not even pretend not to be hypocritical and corrupt.

So today I had an interesting experience.

Someone posted a comment which was a little fishy to one of my older posts. Ok, really fishy. I’m not stupid, after all.

I won’t explain what was wrong with it or why, but let’s just say that in spite of the story intended to obfuscate the identity of the poster, it was pretty obvious who it came from, just from the ill-crafted anecdote. As I’ve said before, most people give themselves away with what they say, even if they are technically savvy enough to cover their tracks.

But let me just say this – if you’re not technically savvy enough to cover your tracks, don’t bother. And no, giving a fake e-mail address is not enough. Given the way ISPs work, and how infrequently your IP address will generally change, not only is it often possible to tell where generally your comment came from (state, city, whatever), it is often possible to tell where exactly it came from (as in, in this case, which house that IP was assigned to when it was sent). And if the receiver just happens to have also, say, received e-mail from you recently, and knows where to look in the headers, the receiver can compare IP addresses and know definitively where it came from.

In general, unless the comment is abusive, I don’t pay any attention to where my posters come from – I figure that’s private information.

But as I’ve said before, you’re never really anonymous on the internet. Technically savvier people have ways of hiding their trails, but this poster does not have those skills.

To the poster in question: Gotcha. Quit while you’re behind. I didn’t spend all of those years doing this for nothing.

You should be very, very embarrassed, especially given what you were trying to do.