randomness 1 Comment

Spam

I’m really sick of some of these spam e-mails that Gmail doesn’t catch. I’ve been getting spam like this for years, but for some reason, it just struck me as funny today (spam addresses changed to protect… somebody):


From: Irving <nbpuwwmqv@spammer.it>
To: diana@schnuth.com
Date: Feb 28, 2006 7:46 PM
Subject: probably you

Hire,
i am here sitting in the internet caffe. Found your email and
decided to write. I might be coming to your place in 14 days,
so I decided to email you. May be we can meet? I am 25 y.o.
girl. I have a picture if you want. No need to reply here as
this is not my email. Write me at id@morespam.info

Dear Italian spammer,

I am so glad that you might be vacationing in sunny Toledo, Ohio! Considering that you can’t seem to afford your own computer, and instead use someone else’s email address in the internet cafe, perhaps Toledo is the only American vacation destination you can afford.

Could you please send your picture along, too? I need to decide if you’re a hot enough chick for me to “switch sides” for. If not, maybe I can at least help you with your English enough to find other American lesbians your age.

Hope you enjoy your holiday in Toledo! Be sure to let me know how you enjoy your stay.

Yours truly,
Diana (the spammee)

weight loss 3 Comments

Diet & Fitness Update, Week #6

I officially need to rethink my weekends. They are slowing me up considerably. I regularly gain at least one pound over the weekend, usually more, and I need to take steps to avoid this in the future.

This morning, I weighed in at 211. I had been at 210.5 before last weekend hit. Gained one over the weekend, lost one-half during the week. This is unacceptable.

I also need to bump up my exercise. I did Dance Dance Revolution two days this week, for 20 minutes each day. This was a good start, but I need to make myself lift weights after the 20 minutes of DDR cardio.

There’s a very narrow time period in the evening in which I feel “motivated” to exercise. I come home from work, talk to Aaron before he leaves, say goodbye to him, change out of my work clothes and into comfy clothes, feed the cat, and contemplate my dinner. If dinner will require 40 minutes in the oven, like chicken, I’ll get that started and then start my exercise routine. If it won’t take very long to make, like fish, I’ll get right into my exercise and cook it afterward. If, however, I mistime my meals and end up being hungry when I get home, and find something quick to eat instead (like last night’s yummy tortilla pizza with a wheat tortilla and low-carb pizza sauce and mushrooms and just a little cheese), then it’s equal odds whether I’ll manage to do any exercise afterward.

As for food, I’ve rediscovered lowfat cottage cheese. Mmm. I’ve also been laying off the low-carb pasta, for the most part, although I have my occasional moments of weakness when I get home from work. Apart from that, things are pretty much the same. Oatmeal or Cranapple Crunch for breakfast, an apple or cottage cheese with fruit for a morning snackie, salad with tuna or chicken for lunch, some kind of random low-carb snack for afternoon snackie (when I eat one), and meat and salad for dinner — if I’m being good, that is. If I’m not being good, I might have low-carb spaghetti with low-carb cheese sauce and a spoonful of salsa. Or tortilla pizza.

The good news, though, is that my skin fits a little differently these days. Sounds weird, but it’s true. My boobs in particular have that pinchable flap of empty skin. It isn’t obvious at first, even in the nude — but if I pinch at the skin of my boob, or of my gut, there’s a good three-quarters of an inch of totally empty skin that I can pinch and roll around between my fingers. I have to believe that’s a good sign.

My fat also feels different to me. Less dense, and more… watery? Jiggly? I’m not sure how to describe it. It feels less substantial, at any rate. That could be my imagination, or the contrast of being able to feel muscle resolidifying under the layer of fat. In any case, it’s also a weird change.

I’m not giving up. I can stick to this thing. Eventually, my mind and body will get in a mutual groove, and the weight will come pouring off. Until then, I can’t go all wonky with a giant splurge-ariffic cheat weekend again. Salads and carryout containers for me. No Happy Rose Buffet. (Duh.) I can do this.

Go me. Rrrah.

randomness 1 Comment

Got Tagged By Ellie

So, Ellie tagged me for this meme some time ago, and I’m just now getting around to doing it. Sounds like a good meme for a Friday evening… so here I go.

Four Jobs I’ve Had In My Life:

  • Restaurant Hostess
  • Cafeteria Line Server
  • Computer Lab Consultant
  • Payment Processing Associate

Four movies I can watch over and over:

  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
  • Robin Hood: Men In Tights
  • Victor Victoria
  • Spaceballs

Four places I have lived:

  • Medina OH
  • Riverview FL
  • Parma OH
  • Bowling Green OH

Four TV shows I love to watch:
(I don’t watch much TV at all, but here goes…)

  • ABC Evening News
  • PBS specials (especially the Monty Python ones)
  • Dirty Jobs
  • Taste of America

Four places I have been on vacation:

  • Amish Country, Ohio
  • Massachusetts
  • Tampa FL
  • West Virginia (although I was just a baby)

Four of my favorite dishes:

  • Fettuccine Alfredo
  • 10-minute Szechuan Chicken
  • Prime Rib
  • Chicken Paprikash

Four websites I visit daily:

Four places I would rather be right now:

  • Grounds For Thought in Bowling Green with Amy
  • Florida
  • At an anime convention
  • Making whoopee

Four bloggers I am tagging:

photography 7 Comments

I Think I’m Dumb

After several years of use, our trusty Fuji FinePix 2400Zoom is finally starting to call it quits. The clamshell-style lens cover no longer latches closed, and it’s difficult to open it far enough so that the camera knows it’s open. Besides that, it still takes decent pictures… but it’s really kind of a pain to deal with.

So, I took it upon myself to research and purchase a new digital P/S (point-and-shoot). After the general annoyances from the Fuji over the years, I had an idea of features I wanted. The new camera had to be an ultra-compact. Fits in any pocket. Unobtrusive. It also had to have a *fast* start-up time and minimal shutter lag. Too many photo ops were lost while waiting for the Fuji to power up. The new camera only needed to be more than two or three megapixels, so discontinued models were fine. Keeping it on the cheap, preferably around $200. It needed to take SD Memory Cards, which my new Nikon D50 uses (as no cameras seem to use the SmartMedia cards the Fuji used). And finally, it had to have positive reviews from “real” photographers who use the camera as their own P/S.

I finally narrowed the playing field down to two contenders: the Canon PowerShot SD300 Digital Elph, and the Minolta DiMage X50. After checking eBay, I decided to go with the DiMage X50, since it is regularly at least $50 cheaper than the Elph.

Next step: do some bargain hunting. I figured out early on that my best bet would actually be to go with eBay, since both of the cameras I was looking at were discontinued models. I found some for parts, and some with cracked screens, but I finally found a DiMage that I thought looked good. I bid $115 plus shipping, and won.

I told Aaron about it that weekend, and showed him the completed auction.

And saw the fine print.

My camera had a cracked LCD. D’oh! I couldn’t believe I’d missed it! I could only wait until the camera arrived and hope that it wasn’t as bad as it could be.

Today, my wait was over.

I opened the carefully-packed box as Aaron watched, lifted out the retail camera box from within, and opened that box to see what awaited me. The camera looked great from the front: amazingly small, stylish. From the back? A small black mark spidering from the lower left corner of the LCD.

I thought I’d gotten all worked up over nothing. Surely the LCD would still work!

Not quite.

If I tilt the camera just so, I can see enough of the menu to know that I’m changing, say, the resolution or the white balance. There are several features that are impossible to find, due to the nearly inoperable screen.

There are two particularly good things about this, though. First: the camera does work. I can test it out, quality-wise, and I have every intention of posting it back on eBay and trying to get some of my money back. Which brings me to the second high point: there was a 256MB memory card in the camera when I received it. This card was *not* listed in the auction.

So, as long as I resell the camera (sans 256MB card) for around $90, I’ll actually come out even. In truth, though, I’m assuming I’m going to take a loss for this one. Karma is going to bite me in the ass for being stupid and not reading the auction thoroughly before bidding. And I’m OK with that.

Next time, though, I’m bidding on a refurbished camera with a 90 day warranty…

Update: Both the cameras I was considering have video capture capability. Fun! I took a test video to see if it would work… and, lo and behold, it does. Fun stuff.

ruminations 2 Comments

Remember Who You Are

I should really be getting my lunch ready for tomorrow, and getting to bed. Instead, I’m going to crank out this quick post. I may come back to this idea later on.

When I was younger, and would go away from home for a while — say, on a Girl Scout camping trip, or a slumber party, or whatnot — Mom would always say to me, “Just remember who you are and where you come from.”

I always assumed she meant to conduct myself as an upstanding Mormon girl, and that’s how I took it at the time. However, I found out later in life that Memaw used to say the same thing to Mom when she was younger, and that made the meaning even deeper for me. Especially when I got to be older and grew away from the church.

So, who am I? And where did I come from?

(Besides the obvious answer that I’m Diana and I came from my Mommy’s belly.)

I think that might be why I’m so into genealogy lately. To find out where I come from. I come from a long line of poor farmers, from what I can tell. Even Memaw farmed as a youngster, migrating with her family to follow the crops. Memaw’s mother, Granny, farmed until the end; she had the most fantastic leathery skin from being out in the Florida sun all her life.

The “who I am” part is something that seems to change regularly. Wife, daughter, friend, Sky Bank employee, amateur genealogist, web designer, drum corps enthusiast, photography hobbyist. I’m not sure how I identify myself anymore. It’s like I read in one of my Star Trek books (yes, I get my philosophy from lofty sources): The purpose of the game of life is to figure out what piece you are.

Maybe I’m too tired to be contemplating such things. But it’s interesting food for thought.

Remember who you are, and where you come from.