Peter's Place

Some of my friends have begun asking me, "Is there any way I can be notified (by email) when you post something to your blog?" The short answer to this is, well -- it depends. You see, most blogs, and some web sites , have something called a feed . Six Apart, the maker of some of the best independent blogging software out there, has a nifty little page that tells us all about what feeds are , and why we need them Many websites have links labeled "XML" or "RSS" or "Atom". All of these are ways of saying that you can find out about updates to that site without having to browse to it yourself to check. The Site Wizard has a more in-depth article about feeds and how to use them: RSS feeds and ATOM feeds are simply special types of web pages. Websites typically use such feeds to notify its visitors when something new has been posted on their website. thesitewizard.com's RSS feed, for example, usually contains news about new articles appearing ...

OK, so I FINALLY get my car back. Let me tell you something, eSurance is also the Suxx0r. It took them an entire week just to send someone out to look at my car. Then, they pay me only $600 out of the $2,000 it cost to get it fixed (and I didn't even get the replacement parts painted, because they weren't going to pay for that since the paint on my car is chipping away as it is). I mean, WTF is up with these people? (Not to mention, I rented a car, for a weekend -- which I could have afforded, except I kept it for a little over a month-- ooops! ) Anyway, so I get my car back last Friday. I'm driving back from the grocery store, and there are mad crazy thunderstorms all about. (One of my best friends, Stacey , lost her power due to the storm. She has some crazy pictures of damage that it did to her yard (mind you, this was just a thunderstorm!) But I digress....) So I'm driving back to the apartment that I'm not allowed to be in because it's my friend's and...

Time Warner Cable is definitely the Suxx0r . OK. I'm back online with RoadRunner hi-speed. At first, I ordered AOL Broadband which provided the RoadRunner Intro internet connection at $25.95/month and that operates at 768/128 kbps up/downstream, which, after having been accustomed to Cablevision's Optimum Online , which operates at 10 mbps downstream and 2 mbps upstream . So I basically had to upgrade to RoadRunner Hispeed , which offers a 5mbps downstream and 384kbps upstream. Not quite what Optimum Online offers but it's better than the Intro package. And, while I was upgrading the Internet connection, I decided to order Time Warner Digital Cable Television service as well. I knew that I wanted digital television, and decided on the DTV Value pack, which offers all digital television channels available. I also ordered Showtime , because I really like their home-grown programming , and there was a deal that if I got HBO with it it came out to a good price so I got...

I just posted this comment on The Malcontent web site, about a little spiff that they're having with a certain very famous person's ("VFP") legal team, because this certain VFP's legal counsel doesn't think it's a good idea for people to be writing about this certain VFP, especially when such writings aren't in the most favourable light. What were some of those sayings about bad publicity ? There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary. Brendan Behan , Irish author & dramatist (1923 - 1964) The only bad publicity is NO publicity. P.T. Barnum. Here's my post: Given this kind of behavior, I think you should remove all references to the person in question, and whenever you write about her, just refer to her as "the person in question." Don't display her name on your site, and definitely don't link to any of her web sites. Why give her the free publicity? This sort of 19th century thinking is exactly why the ...

OK, I'm with Kathy Griffin on this one. I mean, what with Oprah Winfrey's BFF relationship with Gayle King, and all of their reported travelling and expeditions together ... mmmm-kay. The blogosphere , of course, isn't buying it, either: No real woman who has a man totes her "best girlfriend" to every darn thing, to EVERY very special event, etc. - TMZ.com Headline of the Week: "Oprah: Gayle And I Are Friends, Not Lesbian Lovers" - Perezhilton.com (considering why Perez Hilton chose this as the headline of the week, I think it's pretty obvious what he really thinks of her statement....) What do you mean there isn't a definition? Hello, it's called BFFs with benefits . - Jossip More to come .... Oprah Says She's Not Gay

I received this from a friend via e-mail: Donald Rumsfeld was giving the president his daily briefing. He concluded by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed." "OH NO!" the President exclaimed. "That's terrible!" His staff sat stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sat, head in hands. Finally, the President looked up and asked, "How many is a brazillion?" (This is what happens when we elect a President who was able to garner only a 'C' average at Yale....)

This is a letter that I sent to my Congressional Representative, U.S. Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey , regarding my position on the proposed constitutional amendment seeking to ban same-sex marriage, which is up for a vote tomorrow: [17 July, 2006] Dear Congresswoman Lowey: I understand that a vote is upcoming tomorrow on an amendment to the United States Constitution that would define marriage as existing only between one man and one woman. As one of your constituents, I strongly urge you to vote against this hateful amendment, as love, and families, are found in many different forms other than the quote-unquote traditional one-man-one-woman relationship. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of, inter alia, sex and religion. Prohibiting marriage (which is a fundamental right, ( Loving v. Virginia , 388 U.S. 1 , 1967)) because both couples seeking marriage are of the same sex violates this provision, and a Constitutional Amendment prohibitin...

"Decide? Some things in life you don't get to decide. Some things ... just happen ." --Ida Perkins , 1988 (character played by actress Herta Ware on the 80s hit sit-com The Golden Girls in the " Brother Can You Spare That Jacket? " episode) Other things that Ida said during the episode (paraphrased -- I can't remember them exactly, if anyone else can, please leave a comment!): I didn't know that growing old would be such a curse. Nobody told me that it takes money to grow old. Given my life over the past year, and over the past five years or so, it's no wonder I identify so strongly with Ida Perkins. I didn't get to decide to become homeless. I was kicked out of my home by my Uncle. Of course, nevermind the fact that my home is owned by my grandfather, not my Uncle (who lives in Wilmington, MA). But my Uncle supposed is a certified psychiatric nurse in the state of Massachusetts and has convinced my grandfather that it is for the best. Never m...

My grandmother died four years ago, today. I miss her. I doubt very much that I would be in the predicament that I'm current in were she still alive, today. She died while I was in the hospital, so I never got to see her or say goodbye. She had fallen down in the house and broken some bones. She went to Greenwich Hospital , even though I had begged her to come to Westchester Medical Center , where I was (I was in for my depression/suicide, but at least I would have been able to see her). So Greenwich sent her to a nursing home for rehab, and they sent her to King Street Nursing Home . She had an aneurysm early in the morning, after a nurse came in and gave her her medications. I really miss her, and wish I could be with her right now.

RIP: Diceros bicornis longipes Humankind is pretty fucked up. Let's hunt species after species to extinction . In this case, it's the Diceros bicornis longipes (West African black rhino), and the reason they've been hunted to extinction? Because their horns can be ground into a powder that's used, among other things, as a fucking aphrodisiac . Real fucking brainiacs (tm) are we humans. West African black rhino 'is extinct' - World - Times Online

One of the features that I like about using Blogger as a blogging service is the profile feature. And one of the really cool hacks within the profile feature is that it turns the words you put into your profile into keywords of a sort, and you can click on any of the words in one's profile and retrieve a bunch of different profiles that contain the same keyword. I happened to do this with one of my favourite books: Beloved by Toni Morrison . I happened to come across the profile of noe Ron Buckmire. I liked his picture, so I clicked on a link to his profiel, which then had a link to his home page (yes, he's old school -- he still maintains a " home page " on the 'net). On his home page , I found out that he is the creator of one of the first web sites that I went to on a regular basis, the Queer Resource Directory (QRD). I'm feeling very nostalgic right now, as well as elated, as I never really knew who put up the QRD, or why. And now, I know. Not to ment...

I found this quote, by a friend/user on a BBS , to be particularly relevant today, because I was just noticing that today is July 4 -- Independence Day in the good ol' USA -- which means that about half of the year has gone by already, and I truly have no idea where it went or how it went by so quickly. "Age is like toilet paper. The closer you get to the end the faster it seems to go." --the wizard of aahz , a user on Uncensored BBS . They were having a whole discussion on the aging process, and the time/aging relationship. Here's a selection of what other users from Uncensored had to say about the topic: Yup. It's what I call an inverse ratio. The speed at which time seems to go by is inversely proportional to the amount of life, in years, that you've already lived. Or somehing like that. ( harry ) For each day hat you experience, you compare the rest of your past against it. As the days add up, the proportion of days in your life cause you to feel as if ea...