Month: August 2005

Top 100 Meme

Posted on by Dana

It has been an incredibly long time since I participated in a meme, but Dana had a good one that brought back some memories. The idea is to post the Top 100 songs from the year you graduated from high school and highlight the ones you liked. The songs I liked will be bold. I found a site with the ARC Top Songs here.

  1. “Nothing Compares 2 U” — Sinéad O’Connor
  2. “Vogue” — Madonna
  3. “Vision of Love” — Mariah Carey
  4. “Poison” — Bell Biv Devoe
  5. “From a Distance” — Bette Midler
  6. “Love Takes Time” — Mariah Carey
  7. “Hold On” — Wilson Phillips
  8. “Because I Love You (The Postman Song)” — Stevie B
  9. “It Must Have Been Love” — Roxette
  10. “Pump Up the Jam” — Technotronic (*Dana blushes and hides her face*)
  11. “Rub You the Right Way” — Johnny Gill
  12. “Do Me!” — Bell Biv Devoe
  13. “The Power” — Snap
  14. “Cradle of Love” — Billy Idol
  15. “How Am I Supposed to Live Without You?” — Michael Bolton
  16. “Close to You” — Maxi Priest
  17. “Escapade” — Janet Jackson
  18. “Hold On” — En Vogue
  19. “Ice Ice Baby” — Vanilla Ice
  20. “Release Me” — Wilson Phillips
  21. “I’m Your Baby Tonight” — Whitney Houston
  22. “Blaze of Glory” — Bon Jovi
  23. “She Ain’t Worth It” — Glenn Medeiros featuring Bobby Brown
  24. “Love Will Lead You Back” — Taylor Dayne
  25. “All Around the World” — Lisa Stansfield
  26. “If Wishes Came True” — Sweet Sensation
  27. “Opposites Attract” — Paula Abdul featuring the Wild Pair (*Dana has no excuses and apologizes most sincerely*)
  28. “Unchained Melody” — The Righteous Brothers
  29. “I Don’t Have the Heart” — James Ingram
  30. “(Can’t Live Without Your) Love and Affection” — Nelson (*Gah. No excuse.*)
  31. “Impulsive” — Wilson Phillips
  32. “Two to Make It Right” — Seduction
  33. “Black Velvet” — Alannah Myles
  34. “Everything” — Jody Watley
  35. “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You” — Heart
  36. “I Wanna Be Rich” — Calloway
  37. “Roam” — The B-52’s
  38. “Sending All My Love” — Linear
  39. “Don’t Wanna Fall In Love” — Jane Child
  40. “Rhythm Nation” — Janet Jackson
  41. “Here And Now” — Luther Vandross
  42. “The Way You Do The Things You Do” — UB40
  43. “Downtown Train” — Rod Stewart
  44. “Feels Good” — Tony! Toni! Tone!
  45. “Something To Believe In” — Poison
  46. “Can’t Stop” — After 7
  47. “Dangerous” — Roxette
  48. “Unskinny Bop” — Poison
  49. “Step By Step” — New Kids On The Block
  50. “Groove Is In The Heart” — Deee-Lite
  51. “Black Cat” — Janet Jackson
  52. “Alright” — Janet Jackson
  53. “Come Back To Me” — Janet Jackson
  54. “Giving You The Benefit” — Pebbles
  55. “I’ll Be Your Everything” — Tommy Page
  56. “More Than Words Can Say” — Alias
  57. “Just Between You And Me” — Lou Gramm
  58. “U Can’t Touch This” — MC Hammer
  59. “Have You Seen Her” — MC Hammer
  60. “No More Lies” — Michel’le
  61. “Enjoy The Silence” — Depeche Mode
  62. “Janie’s Got A Gun” — Aerosmith
  63. “Love Song” — Tesla
  64. “Do You Remember?” — Phil Collins
  65. “Pray” — MC Hammer
  66. “Free Fallin'” — Tom Petty
  67. “I’ll Be Your Shelter” — Taylor Dayne
  68. “Praying For Time” — George Michael
  69. “Ready Or Not” — After 7
  70. “How Can We Be Lovers” — Michael Bolton
  71. “Girls Nite Out” — Tyler Collins
  72. “King Of Wishful Thinking” — Go West
  73. “Freedom” — George Michael
  74. “Something Happened On The Way To Heaven” — Phil Collins
  75. “What Kind Of Man Would I Be?” — Chicago
  76. “I Wish It Would Rain Down” — Phil Collins
  77. “Get Up! (Before The Night Is Over)” — Technotronic
  78. “Just Like Jesse James” — Cher
  79. “I Remember You” Skid Row
  80. “Everybody Everybody” — Black Box
  81. “Epic” — Faith No More
  82. “Oh Girl” — Paul Young
  83. “I Go To Extremes” — Billy Joel
  84. “Price Of Love” — Bad English
  85. “Romeo” — Dino
  86. “When I’m Back On My Feet Again” — Michael Bolton
  87. “Here We Are” — Gloria Estefan
  88. “Make You Sweat” — Keith Sweat
  89. “Whip Appeal” — Babyface
  90. “Forever” — Kiss
  91. “What It Takes” — Aerosmith
  92. “C’mon And Get My Love” — D-Mob with Cathy Dennis
  93. “Stranded” — Heart
  94. “The Humpty Dance” — Digital Underground
  95. “This One’s For The Children” — New Kids On The Block
  96. “When The Night Comes” — Joe Cocker
  97. “Miracle — Bon Jovi
  98. “Whole Wide World” — A’me Lorain
  99. “Jerk Out” — The Time
  100. “Knockin’ Boots” — Candyman

Wow. I don’t even remember a lot of those. I should upload the ones I liked to my radio blog, but not tonight. I need to go to bed! I really hope Steve does this — 1986 was such a good year.

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Currently Reading

Posted on by Dana

You may or may not have noticed that I disabled the section in the sidebar to the right labeled “Currently Reading” when I upgraded to MT 3.17, because the plugin didn’t appear to work correctly anymore. Now that I have upgraded to 3.2, I was able to also upgrade to Media Manager, which replaces the older Book Queue Too.

Media Manager is really cool! It automatically detected all the books I had in my previous book queue. It is much easier to use than its predecessor, as well. So, for those of you who care to know, you can once again see what I’m reading. I even moved the “Currently Reading” section up so it’s more visible — just below the calendar.

A list of things I like about MT 3.2:

  • The cool, easy to navigate interface
  • The plugins bundled with the release
  • The ease of assigning entries to multiple categories
  • Ease of navigation
  • Easier and better comment and trackback management
  • Unlimited blogs no matter which license — not that they stopped one from creating more than the allotted number of blogs before, but now one can do so… um… legally
  • System Overview for Evil Site Overladies (isn’t that the feminine form of Overlord?)

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MT 3.2

Posted on by Dana

Powered by Movable Type 3.2

I have successfully upgraded to MT 3.2! I like the interface. The icons are cute. Not that cute icons are necessarily a real selling point for most people. I like the fact that SpamLookup is a bundled plugin. SpamLookup is a majorly cool plugin — it has caught tons of trackback and comment spam since we installed it.

After I upgraded to 3.17, Book Queue Too stopped working (actually, it might have been MT Amazon, a plugin that Book Queue Too relies on to work. I really missed it, because I used it to keep track of what I was reading, and it was so handy for posting reviews. Now that I’ve upgraded to 3.2, I can use Media Manager, which looks like it will be very cool indeed.

I love new blog toys. I’m thinking I’ll check out the new blog styles. This place might look different soon.

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BugMeNot

Posted on by Dana

BugMeNot is amazing. I love it. If you use Firefox, there’s even an extension you can use that will allow you to right-click and automatically get a username and password for the site you’re trying to access (usually a news site — I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work on paid access sites, or at least not the academic journal I was trying). Complete laziness triumphs. I have one quibble, however. Why must you helpful souls who submit registrations for BugMeNot always, always come up with pithy usernames like “Uliqa Mabalz” and “Suk Meballz.” It’s getting old. Grow up.

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Am I My Husband’s Messenger?

Posted on by Dana

This may seem petty, but I’m getting pretty tired of fielding e-mails about my husband’s true crime blog mistakenly sent to me. Is it too much to ask that if you feel strongly enough about something to e-mail someone that you bother to send it to the right person? Any future misdirected mail will be your problem. You can contact Steve using his contact form (see sidebar on his site) or through this e-mail address (remove (AT) and replace with @).

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My Blog is Suffering

Posted on by Dana

I have become compartmentalized. Realizing that probably only teachers are interested in my thoughts on education (which is probably sad, but nevertheless true), I have moved those thoughts to an education blog I keep on my other domain, which also houses a blog for my students.

My Harry Potterica goes on the Pensieve, yet another blog, but on the same domain as this one. If I have any Potterish thoughts to share, they go over there.

This domain also houses my genealogy blog.

So I have all my thoughts scattered over five different blogs (!) I am posting less frequently here, and often struggle with what to write, which is a problem I do not have on my other more specialized blogs. I suppose I can see now why people tend to specialize — write only about politics, or in Steve’s case, true crime. On the other hand, being much more general on one blog is good, too.

I don’t want to change my current set-up. I like the fact that people who don’t visit here read my education blog. I like it that Harry Potter fans don’t have to wade through my other crap to get at what they want to read. I’m glad people doing family tree research don’t have to try and figure out where in the hell they just landed when they Google genealogy terms.

What I’m wondering, however, is that if you take away teaching, Harry Potter, and family history — do I have nothing much to say?

Something to think on as I rub my chin thoughtfully.

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Cindy Sheehan

Posted on by Dana

Lately, I have developed this habit of blocking out the news. My mom will generally make sure I’m informed of the most grisly things that happen, particularly to infants and children — not sure why, but she does that. The news is constantly on in my house, because Steve is constantly researching for his writing. But I manage to put it out of my head, not to hear it, or not to let it sink into that part of my brain that forces me to think about it. So I have not been following the story of Cindy Sheehan very closely.

I got my People Magazine yesterday, and they did a story on Sheehan. I had heard of her, and I knew what she was doing. I felt bad for her, because I cannot imagine losing one of my children. What I didn’t know, what I learned from the article is that Sheehan has other children. In what basically amounts to her war protest, it would seem she has basically neglected her surviving family. Her husband divorced her. Other family members are speaking out. Her sister-in-law Cherie Quarterolo said Sheehan was “promoting her own personal agenda at the expense of Casey’s good name.” Her ex-husband, Patrick, said, “My kids and I feel like we’ve had two losses: Casey, and now our wife and mother. The kids are angry and lonely for her.” Her son Andy said, “I think she should come home.” Patrick adds, “I don’t think she’s done the best for the family.”

Yet in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Sheehan maintains her children are “supportive. They understand what I’m trying to do.” Frankly, no matter how you feel about the war or George W. or any of it, I think it is inexusable to abandon your family and your life. I hope Cindy Sheehan has carefully weighed the risk of losing what remains of her family in order to take a stand against the war. While I can’t imagine how I would feel if my own son died, I also can’t imagine I’d abandon my husband and other children in order to prove a point.

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Old Yeller

Posted on by Dana

I was strolling through Kroger tonight looking for diapers and saw a huge stack of enormous bags of dog food with the brand name “Old Yeller.” I’m sure it’s been 25 years or more since I saw that movie, but my recollection is that the dog got rabies and had to be shot. I am not sure that’s the best name for a dog food, but what do I know about marketing?

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Eventful Weekend

Posted on by Dana

I guess you could say I’ve had an eventful weekend. Dylan stuck a popcorn kernel up his nose yesterday. He’s lucky I have skinny fingers. Yuck.

In approximately one-half hour, my husband will make his second appearance on Fox News Channel, this time on Big Story Weekend — he appeared on Geraldo At Large (view clip) last weekend. The popularity of his true crime blog has been sort of surreal. Lots of calls from the media. I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it. It’s not like I’m the one in the spotlight, which is good, but I worry about how it could affect our family sometimes. Especially when I come across this sort of scary crap. And you can’t really even say he’s famous yet per se, but I’m really hoping finding more of that sort of freaky thing is not in my future. It’s unsettling — not because I worry about Steve, but because I read the papers.

Frankly, anyone who’d write this about someone else’s husband is insensitive, at best (yes, it’s about him — she says so in her comments). Ick. I truly feel physically ill.

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