Hmmmm....I wonder

You know, I've been thinking, I wonder if I can use Thingamablog to create/maintain my whole website. I've been screwing around with Dreamweaver, and then I have to access my Linux box's Samba shares so that I can get the new/updated files to the server, and well, it's a pain in the ass. I wonder if I include a link, all the files, etc in a "post" for a page, if I can just update my site however I want? I'm going to use this post to test a few things. First off, can I post a picture so I can use it as a link? Let's see:

Goddamned Allergies

I don't know if any of you poor souls out there are also sufferers of so-called "seasonal allergies", but I regret to say that I am. When I was a kid, they used to call it "hay fever" (whatever that means) and to my recollection, I'd have a runny nose a fair amount of the time. It was annoying, but I managed. As I get older, however, these allergies get worse and worse. On top of that, I have asthma, which is aggravated by the allergies, so in general, it sucks to be me sometimes.

I was on Alegra for a while, and that was ok, but it was expensive. I eventually ended up taking Singulair for my asthma which also has an anti-allergy component. I have to say that I definitely recommend Singulair to any of you asthma sufferers out there, it's actually quite good. I rarely have to use an inhaler (except when allergies are bad). I used to use Advair for my asthma, but believe it or not, it gave me a yeast infection in my throat (my wife wouldn't let me tell anyone at the time that I had a yeast infection in my throat because of what she feared people might extrapolate). I will say that I have a new respect for women, though, as I don't know any men who have had a yeast infection before, and lemme tell ya, they're not fun. I had it in my throat and I thought I was gonna die. I can't imaging having one "south of the border". After the yeast infection, I was switched to Singulair, and overall it's been good.

After a few years, the Singulair seemed to stop fighting the allergy symptoms, so lately I've been regulating with Alavert . It works generally well, is a little cheaper than Allegra, and it's over the counter, so when I run out, I don't have to go see a doctor to get my prescription renewed which is nice. Alas, it seems that none of these is enough to keep me totally protected against allergies at all times. All day today (and a good part of last night), I have felt like I jumped off the high dive, got a ton of water up my nose, and when I got out of the pool, somebody punched me in the nose. If I had to make a realistic guess, I'd say that in the last 24 hours, I probably sneezed 250-300 times. This doesn't sound like a lot, I know. I could've said "I sneezed constantly", but instead, I figured I'd take a shot at actually approximating the number of sneezes. 250-300 might not sound like much until you think about it. Compare that with any other activity that affects you in some way and see what you think. It's gotten so bad that each time I sneeze, my whole head throbs, my ribs hurt, my eyes heave forward in my skull, and if I could manage to figure a way to do it I'd probably consider life without a nose.

I know there are worse things in life, and that I'll likely move to a more "allergy friendly" geographic location (I'm currently in the southeast US, one of the worst spots for allergies) and that this will soon be a memory. But right now, it definitely sucks to be me. My sneezing woke me up this morning (Sunday that is) at 7:45am. This is about the only day I get the chance to sleep in at all. Tomorrow, I have to be up at 5:30am, and am hoping that I'll even be able to fall asleep. I've already taken a Bendryl which usually sets me into a coma, but my sinuses are bothering me so badly, that I am FULLY aware of my surroundings, and despite feeling oh so tired, I don't feel close to sleepy (not because I'm not tired, but because my whole face hurts). Here's to hoping that some of you can at least enjoy your day at this otherwise wonderful time of year, but me, I'm going to hang my head over a pot of boiling water and hope that I can scald my mucus membranes into a temporary state of inactivity so that I might be able to sleep. Happy sniffling all.

OK, that's better

This will probably not be a long one, as I don't have a lot of time (gee, I say that a lot don't I). Anyway, if you're reading this, then you've no doubt noticed that I changed the styleshet for my blog page AGAIN! In fact, I changed the stylesheet for my whole site. I was working on a friend's website and helping him to get his pages in order. As I found myself making recommendations to him regarding navigation panes, color schemes, etc, I realized that I desparately needed to revisit my own site. I had meant to do so quite some time ago, I admit, as my site was basically a "hodge-podge" of pages I'd thrown together while experimenting with The Gimp and overall website design. Each page was decent looking, but the whole site just had no flow at all. There are still a couple of pages that are under construction, and Lily's Page still looks pretty different, but I'm deciding as to whether or not I'll host her page totally separately, perhaps as a whole different site, I haven't decided.

Anyway, I'll try to leave the design of the site alone now that it it truly a little more consistent.  Thanks for dropping by.

A spur of the moment rant

I'd like to take this opportunity to whine, bitch, complain, and warn all of you. There is a seller on Ebay that you should avoid. I know, there is risk associated with buying stuff on Ebay, but by this blog entry, I'm out to prove that there is also risk associated with ripping off trustworthy buyers thinking that volume of sales can make up for crappy treatment of customers.

I unfortunately don't have the time to go into the ins and outs of Ebay  for those "uninitiated", but for any of you who do plan to buy from them any time soon (or any time later for that matter), please avoid a seller named Colordrives. I "won" an auction for a sound card from them back in early August. After a few weeks, they sent me a sound card that didn't work. In fact it blue screened my Windows XP Pro Box during the install (3 times actually). After several attempts to contact Colordrives they finally responded that I needed to ship it back to them. This sucked because I had already paid over $10 to have it shipped to me (knowing full well they were marking up the shipping charge, a common Ebay seller tactic). I relented and shipped it back to them at my expense. For those of you keeping track, I had now paid for the item, paid for it to be shipped to me (plus a 250% markup on shipping costs) and paid to ship it back to them despite it being THEIR fault that they sent me a bum Sound Card.

After about 3 weeks, I started to get a little annoyed that there had been no communication or a new sound card so I started emailing Colordrives to check on the status of my replacement Sound Card. No response. Radio Silence. I persisted, and they eventually responded asking for the tracking number for the item I had sent back to them. I provided the tracking number. Nothing. No response. I kept hounding them. I gave up sending them emails and opened an Ebay dispute claim. In response to the Ebay claim (in which I said I had never received my sound card for which I had paid), these jerks had the nerve to respond citing the ORIGINAL shipment date/information. What smart-asses!! True enough, you DID send me a sound card, you just forgot that it was a NON-FUNCTIONING sound card, and that I had PAID to ship it back to you. I'm sure they're probably shipping this same card back to some other poor soul right now, and he'll probably pay to send it back to them, so they can sell it to someone else, and the cylce can continue.

Anyway, that's enough bitching. It's been a VERY long weekend (which I may elaborate on further down the road, I haven't decided). I'll end with, AVOID SELLER COLORDRIVES WHEN SHOPPING ON EBAY!!!