Mamarati

I swear, some days I cannot even believe that Charter is my Internet service provider. What the hell are they thinking?

We got one of those letters a while back about them sucking up and selling all our private information. I seriously thought it was some kind of joke. Boyfriend just sent me this from the Washington Post that says that they are going to stop it… but I don’t believe it. Sounds to me like they are just going to look for a way around it that doesn’t “possibly violate federal law.”

Charter also pisses me off because in Firefox, you can use the address bar to type in one word — like Nabisco or Dayrunner or any other damn word — and it will automagically take you to Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” result. I like this feature because I’m lazy and now, after God knows how long that I’ve been using it, it’s a habit ingrained in me harder than brushing my teeth or flushing the toilet. Now, however, Charter has HIJACKED MY BROWSER and instead of getting lucky, I get a gigantic page of worthless crap:

I mean look at that. How many damn sponsored results need to appear before something actually relevant that I might actually WANT. If what I WANTED and EXPECTED happened instead, I’d get the Wikipedia results for just putting in the word chocolate, and that suits me just fine.

Oh, but noooooooooooooooo.

So, I know there has to be a way to disable this EVIL, HOSTILE TAKEOVER of THE BROWSER THAT I PREFER AND INSTALLED ON MY COMPUTER instead of my request being REROUTED TO ADVERTISEMENTS on a SERVICE THAT I PAY $130 A MONTH FOR… But I haven’t found it yet and so I’m using the BlockSite add-on to manage this so I don’t have to see the AD RESULTS PAGE AND START THROWING THINGS AT MY COMPUTER MONITOR. Now all I see is this:

I know, I know. I could get another ISP. The only other real choice where I live, however, is the NSA AT&T.

And you know, if Charter were providing a free service, I might say, OK, fine. Serve me up your little search results page. I’ll play along for a freebie. BUT I PAY FOR THIS BULLCRAP AND IT AIN’T CHEAP!

It’s not even that great otherwise, either. Dismal upload speeds, constant downtime (including 2 hours yesterday), the digital phone service sounds like crap if anyone is doing so much as checking email or looking sideways at the router and the DVR is doing this absolutely annoying pixelization thing on everything that we record unless it’s in HD. Even if we’re just watching a show and we rewind it, it will be pixelated from then forward unless we fast forward to live TV.

Anyway, I just installed Firefox 3. The beta kept crashing on me, but so far this seems stable… so hopefully with all the new features, I will be able to find a work-around that helps me function like I used to rather than just using BlockSite. (A good add-on, though, and has password protection if you’re trying to keep your kids away from any sites or whatnot… And of course, if you have Charter, just put in http://*.charter.*)

Grr.

My horoscope today:

“You are content today as you explore your feelings in the privacy of your own space. Emotional security is important to you now and you may be most satisfied wherever you are safe and sound. Once properly sheltered, you can travel anywhere you desire within the active thoughts of your imagination.”

Maybe that’s what I was doing last night when I was completely flipping out to my boyfriend about how much I hate the way everything is going right now. I mean, really, I think it all comes down to being tired and my time never being my own. It comes down to having a To Do list a mile long and none of the items on it are things I want to do. Some days I just want to lay down and sleep for like a week, I’m so f&*%$ tired. I just want some down time. And it kinda makes me a ball of rage now and again when it all builds up.

Of course, my handy dandy menstrual cycle widget says I’m going to start my period tomorrow… so that could have something to do with it as well. I just feel like I want to curl up with a big box of chocolates or a pint of ice cream and cry.

Instead, I am going to go take a bath and get all the oatmeal residue off me. Last night was an itchy allergy night and a mosquito got me on my foot and it was no bueno — swollen and red and itchy — so I took a Benadryl and an oatmeal bath. Then I am going to get caught up on my assignments for school.

And then… maybe brownies.

I think I’m just not going to hold it in this semester. I’m going to just go ahead and make all my complaints known here and then when I graduate, I’m going to bundle them all up and send it to the Blackboard folks and let them do what they will.

Design is not an easy thing. I understand this. But since I’m on the outside looking in, I get to vent. Ha.

I really wish that you could override your professor’s preferences for the look and feel of a course. I would rather set my own colors, fonts, spacing and other preferences.

I would also like it if the message boards had different views available. I think that the view I’d like, where it’s kind of like a big FARK thread — all on one page — kind of works but if you read it like that I believe it doesn’t count you as “attending” the class or whatever. Like it can’t count your page views in the same way. Which, of course, would be ridiculously stupid, since I am indeed reading all the posts.

Also, in the message boards if you click into a thread you have the option to go to the “next thread.” Unless the thread you’re in has a reply. If you click “next post,” then the “next thread” option goes away and you can only see the replies and then when you’re at the last reply in that thread, you have to hit “OK” to go allllll the way back to the discussion list to see ALLLLLLLLL the discussions. Click. Click… Clickity Click. I’m going to have carpal tunnel syndrome when this is all over. If you click on the link of the replies, however, it will leave the “next thread” link. I don’t understand why. I mean, I would assume using the navigation links would be preferable. But no.

Oh, and speaking of the discussion list… the messages are jammed so close together and the “unread posts” number is so far from the titles of the threads… so I can’t easily see which threads I need to click click click click into. It would help if there were alternating highlights / colors on the titles so you can see what lines go where.

Also, the message composition window takes about a hundred years to load every time. And I’m on a very fast connection with a very fast computer. I feel sorry for anyone out in the sticks on dial-up or on an old machine.

I think that’s all the complaining I have to do today.

I really really dislike the click click clickiness of Blackboard.

It’s unorganized.

It’s not intuitive.

It’s inconsistent.

It’s framey.

It wastes my very valuable time. And isn’t the point of taking online classes often to save time? Isn’t it usually the method of choice for the person who already has irons in the fire???

I really really really dislike it.

Frames.

UGH!!!!!

Blackboard and Windows Vista should get married. They have so much in common.

Wanting what is in someone’s best interests and doing what is in someone’s best interests are two different things, I have learned.

And of course, there’s that whole thing about the path to hell being paved with good intentions, no?

So…

I’m exhausted today.

And…

I hate to say it, but I can’t wait for school to start.

School for me, you might ask? No.

School for my kid. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s been a while since I’ve written. Things here have been… hectic.

I don’t know what to say except to say that I am not the same person I was before I fell off that damn ladder.

I’m really really not.

I’m an exaggeration of my former self. With other annoying neurotic bullshit thrown in.

Anyway, Jacob had his surgery and had his second post-op appointment and while it’s not all healed yet, the doctor said he’s looking good. We went to the allergist yesterday and the allergy tests will begin soon so that hopefully they can get him desensitized to this crazy fungus and this won’t happen again. Read the rest of this entry »