Friday Fives

1. What is your lineage? Where are your ancestors from? Not too sure about this one, as everyone seems to have a different version. Something about Irish and English I think. Though, the only definitive information I have is my family on my mothers side was tracked back several generations to Canadian farmers, which is cool. I didn't even know Canada had farms. I know that sounds stupid, but I am just being honest. I imagine Canada is just national forest and polite people. 2. Of those countries, which would you most like to visit? Well, I have been to Canada plenty... being from Buffalo and all. I was just in England this Spring... so to complete the 'cracker trifecta' the next logical destination would be Ireland now woudln't it? 3. Which would you least like to visit? Why? I would avoid none of them. I love to travel, it rules! 4. Do you do anything during the year to celebrate or recognize your heritage? Yes, I often listen to Barenaked Ladies. Also, I have a couple of Alannis Morrissette CDs that I don't much listen to. Oh, and I strive to be funny! All funny people seem to come from Canada, seriously (Jim Carrey, Leslie Neilson, Michael J Fox, Mike Myers, Dan Akroyd, Loverboy...etc). It's a topic for a whole other post... but it is real 5. Who were the first ancestors to move to your present country (parents, grandparents, etc)? From what little I know, that would be a couple of generations back... the McDermid's moving from Canada to Buffalo (which is, like, six feet away). Our family is currently based out of Arizona now. via Roy

The end of internet explorer?

I have had it with Microsoft Explorer! I have been a faithful clicker for at least seven years, and have always defended Bill Gates. I am tired of the security flaws in Explorer. I have been hearing more and more and more about it in the last few months, because it is way worse. Apparently a four year old could harvest the credit card numbers stored in my machine through Explorer. While I was away on my fabled two week road trip (oooh, I have pictures... just like I promised - Click here) I came back to my computer urging me to immediately download 4 critical updates for Explorer. This is ridiculous and totally unacceptable, especially if you consider the amount of porn and fraudulent social security numbers I keep on this system. So I finally took Roy's advice and made the leap to Mozilla. Apparently they are some kind of opensource linux thing. Guess what, I don't understand a single word of that last sentence either... but I sounded credible didn't I? Most importantly, it was free. So going forward this will be my new system unless you hear otherwise from me. I understand it is an awesome system that is very user friendly. The best part for me is that it imported all of my (porn) cookies and (porn) bookmarks to the new browser. Visually, it looks pretty similar... it is just that this one works. oooh, oooh, oooh... I just thought up a rad analogy. Explorer is like an American car. You want to buy American, you want to support American, but you know American cars are for shit. So, feeling guilty, you do what every smart person does and buy a jap car. It is barebones, and will probably run forever.

my offer to the all bugs

 

 

Dear bugs, you are not welcome in my house. This is probably born more out of fear and intolerance than proper understanding of bugdom. For that, I apologize. You should know though if you are in my house, for any reason, I will kill you. You will die, because I am freaked out... especially by spiders. In return, when I am in the wild (meaning, anywhere outside my house) no harm will come to you. None!

We are here to talk about bugs. While I was in the bathroom reading, another spider crossed my path. He was quickly dispatched with, but not before I re-iterated our agreement (I am not a monster, after all). It then occurred to me that the animals and bugs of the world might not know about the agreement, or did not trust my word. Not sure which is worse, really. Fair enough, so here I will commit it to the internet... which makes it way binding and official and stuff.


I will rescue bumble bees from swimming pools, and even set a bunny free that my cat had brought in. I will also lobby my human peers to be respectful of you in nature, in return... stay out of my house. Let the record reflect I am mostly tolerant of your kind, and in fact plan to see Spider Man 2 as soon as it is no longer a special engagement. Deal? Deal!

* btw, I would like to claim an upfront exemption regarding my love of fishing, and the wasp trap in the backyard. Other than that, though, no killing. Ok, ok... pretty much any wasp anywhere is getting it from me. Sorry wasps, you are out of the deal. Oh yeah, one last thing; the house is a mobile concept. If I am in a hotel room or tent, same rules apply... and you are dead! In fact, if I am wearing a really big hat... that too could be construed as a domicile for tax purposes... You get the idea, bugs, watch your ass!

* update - I learned something interesting about wasps.  They don't serve the ecosystem.  Like, snakes and spiders and bees are horrible, but all have a very specific role to play in nature.  Not wasps.  They are just assholes, and that is a scientific fact, y'all!