Julie Barrett's Blog

Create a LOLcat (or a LOLdog, or a LOLpig, a LOLhorse or whatever). Don't forget the humorous caption!

I seem to be carrying on with the laundry theme:



Of course, there's a story behind (if you'll pardon the pun) this particular one. We were out in the living room the other night, on the couch, and Midnight was up on the back of the couch. We became aware of a terrible smell so putrid, so unholy, it could only have come from the depths of the underworld - or the nether regions of a cat.

Well, no o

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Taking a break from deadline this morning (you never see a bumper sticker that says, Ask Me About My Paramaterized SQL Queries. Be glad) to rant just a bit.

One of the lines I keep seeing trotted out in debates over health care, welfare reform, and darn near anything else is, "get a job!" If getting a job was the answer, we'd all have comfortable incomes with health insurance, the unemployment rate would be nearly zero, and the only people on public assistance would the those who truly need it. B

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Okay, this is something I just have to get off of my chest.

There's a story on the Dallas Morning News web site about a Baptist group criticizing Texas governor Rick Perry over vetoing bills it thinks would have helped children in poverty.

Holy cow, did that ever bring the wingnuts out of the woodwork!

Would someone please explain to me why it's fine to thump the Bible over your right to bear arms or punishment of criminals, but be such a jerk when it comes to helping people in poverty? Children,

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This is the first day of school, meaning I can settle back into a regular schedule this week.

Chris started at UTD on Friday, and at Collin today. The local public schools all started today. Lots to do over the weekend. We spent Friday afternoon doing the tax-free shopping thing. No, we didn't spend a whole lot of money. Chris needed a few items, but I also took the opportunity to stock up on a few office supplies. Clothing? Yeah, we each spent five bucks. Oooh.

More meetings and work over the wee

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The upside of technology: Anyone can reach you easily.

The downside of technology: Yeah, you guessed it.

Spent a couple of days recovering from a spam attack at one site I administer. I'm pretty good at keeping up with the stuff, but some bot dropped in and posted 21 messages. They all got caught in the mod queue, but that was along with about a dozen other active accounts that may or may not have been created by the same spammer.

Then came the Twitter spam. I can almost always tell the spam accoun

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After this afternoon's allergy treatment, with the Collar Of Doom. Clearly, she is Not Amused.

Tags: Cats

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Small presses start up and go under every day, it seems. While the vast majority of these ventures aren't out scam authors, they're generally one or two-person operations. Stuff happens. The publisher or a family member becomes very ill, the workload gets overwhelming, or events out of their control take over. Larger firms can deal with web outages, a bookkeeper going on vacation, illness, and so on much better than small operations. (I'm a one-person outfit, so I understand these things.)

A con

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I did sleep better las night, I'll say that. This morning I woke up, took in the quality of the sunlight peeping through the windowshade, and decided that was more sun than we should have at 6 something in the morning. I looked over at the clock and saw it was 7:45. The alarm had gone off, but the sound on the clock radio was down to zero for some reason. Oh, well. that means I slept through the annoying 6 something awakening. Can't argue with that.

Much to do today, but I took the time to run Ch

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Dang. I had a huge entry written, then manged to close the browser window. I don't feel like writing everything again, other than to point to the recent court order awarding Victoria Strauss and Ann Crispin of Writer Beware damages in the wake of a frivolous suit filed against them. ("Frivolous" is the court's word, not mine.)

I hope they'll be able to collect, and I hope it sends a message. Please read the order. It's only five pages, and in plain English.

Swamped as usual, though I accomplished

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Yes, I was going to step away from the computer, but I felt I really owed Karen this one.

Have you ever been actively involved in a campaign or a cause, to the point of doing more than just donating or voting? Tell us about the phone calls, the food drive, the charity walk or other civic-minded work you've done, if any. And if you've never done this sort of thing, why not? (It's okay if you haven't - I'm just interested in the reasons.)

I'm a parent. I did five years on the PTO (Parent Teacher Or

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