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ARCHIVES: July 15-21, 2003

Mysterious Clicking (The Saga Continues)

Some time ago, I reported an annoying clicking sound while connected to the Internet. My husband's computer picked up the problem, too. At first, I thought it was Slim Browser, but it turned out to be something else since we tried turning off this as well as McAfee and a host of other stuff. The clicking continued.

Even though we have a router, my husband spent yesterday trying to track it down. He installed Zone Alarm (best free firewall out there) and checked the reports.

The first report showed ports being used when connecting to AOL. Perhaps this is an AOL-thing. When he blocked them with Zone Alarm, AOL continued as normal. Next, he thinks he found the clicking sound -- something about the  "services and control app." He checked the Windows Annoyances site and found that this was a necessary program on Windows 2000. I don't understand the necessity of having my mouse click every 60 seconds and do a "working in background" arrow even if I stay on one page, though it says we can not browse the Internet without the program running.

I read more at the Annoyances.org site and now I am wondering if I am being sent spam messages through the Windows Messenger. This is an option that I turned off when the spammers first struck with it. (Almost no home user needs the Windows Messenger to run. It is just yet another way spammers attack).

The problem is that I think the spammers are still sending messages to my system. They just don't show because the ability is turned off. This might explain why my system sometimes says it is "downloading" and the download will be lost if I close my browser. Downloading what? More spam messages for Windows Messenger that I don't use?

To keep things clear, we have McAfee running up to date, and up to date versions of Ad-aware and Spybot. Nothing else seems to be wrong on the system. Nothing else happens. <sigh> Maybe it really is just a Windows 2000 thing and the clicking is really a necessity when online.

Nutritional Labeling

I bought a small box of Rice Krispies for a recipe last week and decided to eat the rest for breakfast today. It was a good thing I added a banana because I was shocked to see NO FIBER AT ALL in the Rice Krispies -- NONE -- just baked white rice flour. Oh well, maybe its not so good for breakfast, but it tastes great as a dessert (as in Rice Krispie Treats).

I wish restaurants had nutritional labeling. Besides wanting to see exactly how fattening something might be, it would be useful for those with strange food allergies. My sister is allergic to Brazil nuts -- violently so. Eating one would probably kill her.

"Let Me Show You My Scar"

Sometimes we see groups of folks who look like members of a running group or a cycling group. They are all young and in perfect health, it seems. Then there's the majority of us who took to walking after a nice lecture from the doctor, heart surgery (preceeded by a doctor's lecture) or whatever health reason (followed by a doctor's lecture) that, for many of us, could have been prevented if we had exercised before it got as bad as it did.

This morning I met a nice old guy for the first time. He was all bandaged up with a brace around his waist and his arm and shoulder in a sling that kept them close to his body. He was very friendly and wanted to talk so I stopped to listen and chat with him. He had just gotten a pacemaker. I was wondering how soon after surgery it might be safe to walk, but I figured it wasn't my place to say anything to him and he didn't seem to be in pain. The conversation went well until he started to pull down his shirt, wanting to show me how the surgery scars looked and how they had put a pacemaker in.

I don't consider myself squeamish, but my interest stops short of looking at someone's recent chest surgery. I told him that my daughter was a nurse, not me, and bid him a friendly farewell and left a bit quickly after that. I think he was a little disappointed but he understood, I hope.

Food with Fancy Names

I just read an article in the July 2003 Reader's Digest about how food with fancy names is eaten more often. For example, instead of "Apple Pie" for a name, a company might use "Grandma's Homemade Apple Pie" for the product name. More people buy it. More people break their diets for a piece because it sounds so special. Well, yeah, any excuse to break a diet is going to be popular in this country. I am careful with my own food -- I always order a sugar-free coke while chowing down at the buffet, by golly!

Speaking of Tomatoes

Speaking of tomatoes, my neighbor asked if I could use some tomatoes. When I got done choking, I told him that we had more than we could handle ourselves and that maybe we should go up the street together checking car locks to find unlocked vehicles where we could stash sacks of them. Fortunately, a lot of folks around here drive pick-up trucks -- easy to stow tomatoes in and no harm done if they rot and run juice all over the back before they get noticed.

It's worse than zucchini because you have to get rid of tomatoes FAST. They overipen and become fodder for the compost heap all too soon.

100 Percent Humidity -- and No Rain in Sight

Today is one of those typically southern summer days. I glanced at the TV weather forecast before stepping outside to walk. The humidity level was 100% early this morning with no rain at all. No drizzle. No wind. No nothing except the promise of a hot summer sun. The air was hazy, like looking into a steam bath, almost. One good thing about humidity I heard: an acquaintance from out west had moved to the Montevallo College area and sounded like she was trying to convince herself that humidity was a good thing. She said, "The humidity is good for the skin and makes you look 10 years younger." I hang on to that thought when I am sweating it out on the greenway.

Not only that, but get into the car early in the morning, flip on the air conditioning (a necessity of life around here) and it will be necessary to keep running the wipers almost at full speed because water is condensing very fast on the windshield. Where else is it humid enough to run windshield wipers without precipitation?

Simple Little On & Off Switch - Forget it!

Gee, you'd think it would be easy to find a simple little computer on and off switch. It looks like a 2-dollar piece of equipment. We went to Computer Renaissance with the switch to get a replacement. The switch is one of those odd-looking things that you can't order sight unseen. It needs to be shown to the store because they might be able to scrounge up another one.

No luck there, they told us to try Radio Shack. Unfortunately, Radio Shack did not have one. They recommended CompuWorks, a few miles away. We drove there. No luck again. The nice folks at CompuWorks recommended Mock Electronics. Off we went.

Mock had lots of interesting stuff, but no switches. They recommended W&W Electronics, again several miles up the road (no luck there, either). I was just sitting in the car, waiting in air-conditioned comfort watching my husband going into the store. The neighborhood was interesting. It's in a run-down area on Clinton, just west of the Parkway. I saw an old cemetery, a really old tiny bar with one barred window that looked like it was still running, a whole lot of old cars and a car garage that would probably have been condemned in other neighborhoods ... fascinating place.

As for the switch, my husband dug out an old computer case and rigged one up to work -- beats having to buy a whole new case.

Fish Food

This is the fish food found in China Castle, a local newly-opened Chinese place. I was surprised to see the entire head of the fish, even the eyes staring back at me. I wanted to take a photo of the one with the eyes, but someone actually took that piece to EAT before I got back with my camera.

Okay, just about as bad were the whole fried shrimp, head, eyes and whiskers. My husband did not mind peeling them. He said they were plump and good eating, but I was too turned off by their little black eyes staring back at me and they had whiskers, even. Ugh! A friend told me that the "finer" restaurants serve shrimp this way. If that is the case, give me McDonalds.

Exceeded Bandwidth

TechTV's The Screen Savers featured TextAmerica.com on their show at 6:45 CDT last night. Eight minutes later, this site was shut down for exceeding bandwidth. TextAmerica is where my Webcam pages are located. TextAmerica does not have a LOT of entries yet, so when folks went to that site, they found my photo blog site and followed its links to this page. My normally much less-popular site could not take the load.

On the other hand, I was thrilled to get that many people stopping by to take a look. I had as many visitors in 10 minutes as usually visit in 20 days. Ironically, there were few people to boast to. None of my walking companions this morning even knew what bandwidth was, although two friends admitted to having heard the word before.

The show repeats today, so at 11:45 a.m., the same thing might happen again. The problems I am working out with my host is about their overeactive system. Once it shuts down a site, it has a tendency to keep shutting down the site even after the bandwidth is not being exceeded. This happened to me in March and it took a talk with their support people to get back to normal. I have 5 GB of bandwidth and usually only use .5 a day on weekdays. I am currently trying to get their support people to realize that I know what I am talking about.  Please excuse this site if it disappears off and on for a few days. I'd hate to buy more bandwidth just to not need it in a few days. ::sigh::

Long Lines at the Grocery Store

This is summer. It is hot. I packed ice cream into my cart at Wal-Mart. The lines were all LONG when I arrived. The woman two people ahead of me took FOREVER! She was holding price comparision ads in front of the clerk who had to check the competing price dozens of times. I read the cover of every magazine on the rack. Finally, I stood apart and glared at the woman. I knew my ice cream was beginning to melt.

I don't blame the checkout person who apologized several times to the rest of us in line, but I wish they had a separate line for people who are going to nitpick over every little price. Fortunately, the person in front of me paid cash, had a few quick coupons and made up for some of the lost time. My ice cream was still too soft when I got home, though.

Mysterious Melon or Squash or Gourd

We have something growing in our backyard and we don't know what it is. We planted pumpkin seeds and got a couple of those mingled with this plant whose leaves look just like a pumpkin plant's leaves. Our neighbor says it is a "Kershaw Melon." I googled the word and found very little referring to it - and nothing at all with the term in quotes. A friend suggested it might be a Crenshaw melon, but these don't look exactly like pictures of those. This is a photo I took when they sprang up before: Gourds? If you know what these are, please let us know. Maybe they are good eatin'.

A Kazillion Tomatoes

Due to my accidentally buying too many tomato plants last spring and more due to my husband's green thumb, we have a kazillion tomatoes this year. I don't want to take up canning and my husband is not a fan of freezing so we are giving them away to anyone who crosses our path. We had this same problem with corn -- I took two bags of it to church and gave them to the first two willing people I could find. We have both cherry and regular types of tomatoes. I love them -- been eating them everyday and not sick of them at all (yet).

Virus & Parasite Attack

What an afternoon! I was looking for a little program to download and Googled one. I went to a website to download and it asked if I wanted to receive content from such-and-such. It was not one of the usual parasitic sites so I clicked yes without reading much about it. First mistake. I got a BIG annoying parasite that flooded my system with popups even when not browsing.

Next, I downloaded the file I wanted. My second mistake was downloading from an unheard of site. <sigh> McAfee instantly caught the virus, but could not delete or otherwise do anything to it. I tried to delete it manually and it said that I "did not have permission to delete it." What a sneaky thing! After trying a few more things, I had to boot up in safe mode to abolish it.

The parasite was another matter. During all this time, it was throwing dozens of popup window ads at me. Ad-Aware got rid of some problem files. Spybot got rid of others, but the ads kept coming. I tried looking for the offending origin file -- hard to do since they disguise themselves so well.

Finally, my husband asked if I had updated Ad-Aware lately. I hadn't! I downloaded the new files and they FINALLY got rid of the parasite. During all this time, I was wishing I could punch one of the people who programmed these pests - a total waste of an afternoon. If Seadoc does not mind, his head-banging icon fits perfectly right here.

Are There Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?

I had gone to this site for a good laugh, now a newspaper wrote an article about it and why it is ranked first on Google. Type "weapons of mass destruction" into Google and hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button. (This does not work on AOL's Google option.) You get a funny error page. A newspaper article talks about the popularity of this link.

My Brother's New Camblog

My Feet

Cicada Sounds

Finally! I had done a search on the Internet to get cicada sounds. Nothing I found sounded like the cicadas around here so I recorded one myself. This fellow was so loud that it came through pretty well even from a neighbor's tree. I like how he sounds as he winds down -- reminiscent of an engine winding down. These guys are deafening. That's Alabama for you! (Photograph courtesy of the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology )   Cicada Sound (mp3)

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