• Sept 14, 2001
• Oct 28, 2000
• Oct 25, 2000
• August 6, 2000
• February 8, 2000
• February 7, 2000
• February 3, 2000
• February 2, 2000
• January 27, 2000
• January 24, 2000
• December 13, 1999
• December 10, 1999
• December 3, 1999
• November 30, 1999

• new rant here.

• "Race for the Big Cats" is a link i've added to the "familiars" page in "links". if you don't have time to check it out now, just click here to join Care2.com's "Race for the Big Cats". it takes two seconds, but you'll help support 2.6 acres of vital Big Cat habitat per click! (close the new window to return here)

• HNB Internet Resources is a new link i've put in "Siddartha's Bowl". Look in the bowl for more info, or just click here to subscribe right away, lol!

okay, already -- music's back. i have discovered that the download is pretty much compulsory -- the only difference is if you want to hear it or not. i have, however, killed the infinite loop on it, so it'll loop once then bow out gracefully (sheesh, You-Know-Who-You-Are, i didn't think you read THAT slowly, lol!)

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• ever wondered what an "indigo" child or a "neopet" is? links have been added for "the indigo children website" and "neopets", so start your research there!
• i've started a support list for parents of "hard-to-handle" children. subscribe through the Links page, and we'll see if we can maybe get you and your child back on track!

i've temporarily shut off the music -- i'll put it back -- as an option, not as a forced download -- within the next 48 hours (loads quicker, don't it?). i'm also going to have to figure out frames for this site, because i'm sick and tired of fiddling with the images to keep everything aligned properly!

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i've added two exceptional (in my opinion) sites to my Familiars links page (click "links" and it's at the top): one site features the most legendary horse breed of all time, while you'll find the purrrrrrrfect gift at the other (muffled snicker)
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new rant: apparently it's not illegal to give your baby a shot of whiskey or gin!
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• got my valentine's day graphic up -- of necessity, it contains birthday greetings to caitlin (feb 15) and my god-daughter, alicia (feb 14).
• a new mage has joined the Council of Technomages. Click "Links", then the dragon (hang over it for a moment or two: the effect is rather interesting), and you'll see an invitation to sign up for the Langalist. this ezine is devoted to all matters cyberspacial, whether it be the MS/DOJ square-off, or whether you want to fine-tune your OS or browser. don't know what i'm talking about? that's why you need to check in with Fred! don't worry about your name and address being given out: Fred's aversion to spam is of almost Biblical proportions!
• the Council of Technomages has been renamed "the Collective" -- as you can tell, there's a whole lot going on in the help room! (click "links", then "The Collective" to see what i mean). fab-u art is from the Borg Collective, a site well worth being assimilated for!

• new rant and new music added to the "Not Pleased!" page! the music is "Mars" from "The Planets" -- a MIDI version, alas, but WAVs are just too damned big.
• okay, i caved: i added a "vote for me!" pleader on the front page. i know, i know, shameless, but... VOTE FOR ME!

• the pictures from nik's trip to The Maury Show have been finished and completed -- not all the photos are there, but there are enough to get the point across. as soon as i can find it (nikki!) i will be adding the shot of "nikkita rising": she's sitting in the most MASSIVE oyster shell (or some such mollusc) i've ever seen!

• haven't been online in a while, thanks to Ontario Hydra: they sent me a christmas present that blew up my UPS. thanks to the good folks at Tripplite, i received a new one in relatively short order and i'm back in the saddle again.

  for those of you going "hunh?", a UPS is an Uninterruptible Power Supply. it's basically a surge protector/battery backup; what it does is, it provides your computer with a "clean" current -- no upswings (called "surges" or -- really bad! -- "spikes") and no downswings ("brownouts": what you see when the lights dim if you turn on the vacuum cleaner -- VERY bad for the computer, produces virus-like symptoms that can drive you mad in short order). a good one (tripplite or APC, for example) should cost NO LESS than $150 including taxes. no, a surge bar won't "do": they're little better than useless. reason is, surge bars do not protect against brownouts and if the power cuts out, so does your PC which can lead to a potential hard disk crash (say "bye-bye" to all that work!).

  "WHAT!!!??" i've heard it said, "I JUST SPENT A GRAND ON THIS LOUSY MACHINE AND YOU WANT ME TO SPEND *MORE* MONEY!!!!???" put it this way: a $150 UPS is a lot cheaper to replace than a $1000+ computer, right? think about it, then GO GET ONE!

• have finally added CHINESE FOOD RECIPES to the ginger jar that's right in front of caiti in her bakery. there are only two as yet, but she's bookmarked about 15 billion more for your delectation. thanks to generous contributions, she also has about 83 quadrillion recipes for everything from appetizers to zwieback and back again! those, of course, will require some time but they're coming!
• i got a domain! yup: it's finally registered and hosted! it's not actually "up" yet, but what i've finally decided to do is to finish off the work here and just keep this page updated every week, add rants, etc. i've been at this address for so long now, that i'd be lost without it -- it's seen my progression from "HTML sez "whut??" " to something approaching proficiency that i'm very proud of. the new site will continue the theme, but will be edgier and have a more "adult" concept -- no, no porno, but erotica may be featured in something i'm figuring out based on the house in Spider Robinson's book "Lady Slings the Booze". go read it, then tell me what you think.

• added the Lectorium to the "Links" page: it's a page dedicated to educational sites for all levels and subjects. try "the canada quiz": if you're canadian, i'll bet you'll find the results rather startling....!

hi! yes, i've been slacking off for the past little while, mainly because i'm still trying to sort out this domain name business. i have a domain name, it's registered, but apparently it's not that easy to host it wherever one wants. either that, or the company i registered through is being deliberately obtuse about it.... anyway, i've been rather chary about putting too too much up here if i just have to take it all down and transfer it over again, if you catch my drift?

• added "Vienna Online" to "Lute and Lyre" in the "Links" page -- can't you just smell the Vienna Roast and hear the distant strains of Strauss (sigh!)

well! where to start??? the past two weeks or so has been a very horrible time, here at the Lair. the first inkling that something was wrong was when my programs began to fail, one by one, in a rather fascinating cascade effect, rather like Lal's "cascading neural net failure" (ST:TNG -- and if you don't know what that means, don't worry about it!). i upgraded to IE501 and -- hoo, boy! -- didn't that just put the final kibosh on everything!

the upshot of it all was that i ended up completely ripping out my IE, my OE, AND my win98, then reinstalling from my dusty old system disks, THEN upgrading (hour after hour, day after day!) to something i could live with. the next step was to reinstall my programs, but lo! (and behold, even!) each program i reinstalled would mess up something else (usually my OE) and i'd have reinstall that all over again! eventually, it was sorted out and i had a great, speedy little computer, EXCEPT i kept getting kicked off the net. terrific. thanks to some help from the wonderful people at efni CONNECT (my ISP), i found out my modem was completely configured wrong and i'm sure that having my CMOS "Modem IRQ" set to 'NA' was not helping, either.

i'll post the "new and improved" list up tomorrow, but for now, i would like to take this particular point in the space-time continuum to offer some heartfelt thanks:

• first off, to GunnerA4 and Bytemaster51, two of the staunchest allies against the throes of depression any Norn could wish for
• next, to cpu_speed_bump for taking an inordinate amount of time to download every utility he could think of that might help
• then to the awesome techies at NoWonder.com for their able assistance during not only this crisis, but to many another around the globe
• and last -- but d"efni"tely not least! -- the tech support crew at efni who is becoming rather familiar with my unique ways of screwing up a computer --

it's like i told my mom: she's a technofeeb and has no clue how to properly screw up a computer. it takes skill, time, and dedication to get a real balls-up going and i've got all three in spades, lol!

a demain, mes chèr(e)s!