Peter's Place

I'm going inpatient at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown NY (maybe called Sleepy Hollow). I'll update when I get out.

I just met with my new therapist. She seems pretty cool. She wants me to go to the psych ER at Phelps, so i'll probably end up there. With everything that's been going on lately, it's probably a good idea for me to in back in. From my mobile ph

The Mozilla Foundation has released an alpha version of its popular open-source web browser, Firefox . Firefox 2.0 alpha is now available from Mozilla's ftp server . Lots of people are now using the Firefox web browser, but not as many are using , Firefox's companion Email client. I recently convinced one of my friends to switch to Thunderbird, and he's been quite happy with it since the switch. Although Thunderbird doesn't have a built-in calendaring application and some of the other group/collaborative features that Microsoft's Outlook has, I find that it has what I need for even the most advanced e-mail tasks. However, a calendar application is currently being developed by the Mozilla Foundation. As with all alpha versions of software, unless you really need the latest and greatest and you're very good at troubleshooting, it's probably best to wait at least until a beta version of Firefox 2.0 is available. Mozilla is releasing the alpha version to s...

I just got home about a 1/2 hour ago. My Uncle Keith, from Williamstown, MA , is a real piece of work . He left a voicemail for me last night. Here's a transcription (I've previously worked both as a word processing operator and transcriptionist): How's my favorite nephew? Your father said you that he was bringing you right back after you uh got finished visiting with grandpa in the hospital. I said OK. Uh, I'd like to find out what you did about trying to get grandpa's car fixed, what arrangements you made, if any. Um, you're welcomed here. It's just not going to be for the long-term, that's all. So come on home. I'll talk to you when you get here. Or call me if you don't want to do it in person. Alright? Bye. My phone battery was pretty much shot by this afternoon, so I was only turning my phone on to check for voicemail. At 9:55 this evening, I received the following message from him: Hello there, Peter []. This is your Uncle Keith. Um, I ne...

My uncle is a fucking asshole. Yesterday, he had my sister, her boyfriend, and the baby drive him up to Massachussetts to get more of his medicine so he could stay down here. Never mind the fact that he could have borrowed my grandfather's car and driven himself, as opposed to making my sister make the drive with her disabled baby. As a favor to him, I got my friend Mike, who's a mechanic, to agree to come up and take a look at his car and fix it, if possible, for a reduced price. Since Uncle Keith went to MA with my sister in her car, and since my car is waiting on a backordered part and his car wasn't working, the only other car available for my use was my grandfather's car. So as a favor to him, I went down to the Bronx to pick Mike up and bring him up here to look at the car. I then had to take Mike to an auto parts store to get some parts for the car. We went to Medallion Auto Parts in Port Chester. When we came out of the store, I found that the driver's side ...

Today is St. Patrick's Day . The Patron Saint of the New York Archdiocese , of which -- because I have yet to be excommunicated from the church due to my being gay -- I'm apparently still a member. In New York City (Manhattan, to be exact), they held the 245th annual St. Patrick's Day Parade . Essentially, this parade converts the city from organized chaos into unorganized anarchy. Why am I writing about this, you ask? Because of the chaos and drunken disorder that ensues after the parade, I now must leave home about an hour early in order to get into work tonight. Just check out the traffic re-routing and restrictions . Plus, the voyage into work is more perilous than it normally would be, because of all the drunk people. (You'd think that with all the drunk people I'm going to run into, one might be able to find an article about it on the 'net, but I'm coming up empty in my searches -- can anyone else out there point me to a source? UPDATE > I can alwa...

So my grandfather went in to surgery on Tuesday. His surgery was delayed for whatever reasons. He came out of it ok. I haven't been to see him yet. I haven't really been out of the house. My car is in the shot -- the crankshaft pulley needs to be replaced (I hit a bump in the road that I didn't see). More money (that I don't really have) to spend fixing the car. I knew that there were going to be a few things wrong with the car when I bought it, but now it's getting to the point where the repairs are beginning to exceed my planning. Of course, this time it's probably due to something that I did. So, my mother called me on Monday night. She told me that she needs my help because she's getting a divorce. This is her third husband. It turns out that she thinks that he's still married -- in Thailand (where he's from). She also thinks that he married her just to get citizenship (which he still has yet to get, although he did get his green card). So she w...

So this past week I've been pretty absent from blog -- at least, compared to my activity in the past. This is probably due to the fact that my double-depression has kicked in. You see, this past week, I found out that my grandfather's melanoma has spread to his lymph nodes . He's scheduled to go in for surgery this coming Tuesday, March 14, 2006. That's the eve of the Ides of March , which typically is not considered to be a good day where luck is concerned (reference the assassination of Julius Caesar ). Apparently, this means that he now has Stage III malignant melanoma . The prognosis for Stage III malignant melanoma is mixed ... he has a 30-70% survival rate, based on 5-year survival rate studies for this stage. If the melanoma progresses to Stage IV, then the prognosis becomes very bleak. Since his melanoma has gone from Stage I to Stage III, all the negative energy in me converts this into thinking that he's going to reach Stage IV. When my grandfather wa...

In going through my blog, trying to get everything in order, I found another post that I saved in draft status but forgot to go back and publish.... This is a note to myself to add this blog to my "Blogs I'm Reading" list. I came across it from a site I was visiting, and I clicked on a link to another site, where I clicked on a link to another site, where I clicked on a link to another site, and I basically repeated that about 97 more times to arrive at this one. I'm starting to love this gal. At first, before I read her bio, I thought it was a drag queen's site. I mean, she has the personality of a drag queen . Plus, just look at the name: Paper Napkin. That's a Drag Queen name if I ever heard one. But she's pretty cool. She started this "delurking week" thing where she advocates for people to stop "just" reading other people's blogs and participate in them -- leave comments ! She has a cool list of " 100 things ." She...

I'm utterly amazed. I came across this post because someone e-mailed me about something, and I decided to check out their web site. I came across this little ditty, and I'm utterly amazed that I was able to read it at just about the same speed that I read other text. Maybe this is because I've gotten so used to people mis-typing words. Or maybe it's just that it's true. Try reading it as you would any other news article. That is, not to analyze the contents, but to get a general idea of what the article is about. I think you'll be surprised at just how readable the text actually is. What's perhaps even more amazing is that this, apparntly, has been around for a while. Just take a look at the search results I came up with on Google . This " word recognition " that we perform is perhaps the reason behind our ability to perform " speed reading ." Maybe the reason that I was able to read this passage without batting an eye, so to speak, is ...

I originally wrote this post some time in February, and I've finally been able to finish it. Some of you (any of you?) may have noticed that I've been tinkering with my blog a bit. It's been a long time since I've done any HTML coding , and I'm a bit rusty. Plus, now I have to make sure that the code works with Google's Blogger service, which hosts my blog. Blogger uses " blog tags " that are similar to HTML tags , but are a bit more involved and evolved. In any event, most of the tinkering that I've done has to do with repositioning certain elements in my sidebar, and adding a footer to the blog (scroll down all the way to the end). Back in February, I had to do a bit of debugging, because adding the Creative Commons license totally messed things up for a while, completely oblierating some sections of my blog, and also made my Google Adsense ads stop appearing. That was fun. Of course, the ads have stopped appearing again, and now I have absol...

If you're a tech geek or a gadget freak (or an ubergeek ( define ) like Chris Pirillo ), you'll probably find this amusing, funny, or interesting. If you're not, you might not get it. But I think it goes a long way at describing the culture and climate of Microsoft. Would any of my ex-M$ employee friends like to comment about this? :) (Clicking on the link will open a Flash movie with sound -- WS, unless you work for the evil conglomerate ) YouTube - microsoft ipod packaging parody