Tuck Fexas

Once again, Lee Corso can kiss my big crimson and cream ass! For the second straight year, OU wins the title "Texas State Champs" after going undefeated (5-0) over Texas teams - North Texas, texas, Baylor, A&M, and Tech - and handing Tech a 30-13 loss in Lubbock today. And to make the victory even sweeter, six texas players (including Major Applewhite and Sloan Thomas) watched their hopes of an invite to the Big XII title game slip even further away live and in person. It was so good, it was almost like beating them twice! They quietly left the game with "no comment" under strict orders from texas coach Mack Brown -- and the Daily Oklahoman headline reads "‘Horns waste gas money, Sooners waste Tech". Boomer...you know the rest!
posted at 09:27 PM | link-

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Icon me baby!
Erika wrote this afternoon about the little heart-icon that shows up in your address section if you bookmark this site in most versions of IE (Todd has a Hobbes icon for his blog now). It's actually really easy to do if you're interested! First go read this article at CNET.com, and then go get this sharewear program to draw your icon and save it as an .ico file. The CNET.com article will tell you what to do from there! If you get stuck, give me a yell. (Forgot to add -- go check out Erika's new bitchin' design that just went up today!)
posted at 01:39 PM | link-

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Tackle Tech
I am officially about to go into mourning. This is the last regular-season "away" game on OU's schedule. We're taking on the Red Raiders at Texas Tech. Next weekend is our last regular-season "home" game, where we get to take our favorite whipping boy OS-Who (74-14-7) out behind the wood shed. Where did the time go? It seems just like yesterday when I was taking my lucky t-shirt of out mothballs... We may not be watching a "perfect" season right now, but what I wouldn't have given to be sitting at 9-1 even three years ago. I can't complain. I won't complain. And I certainly won't be like the idiotic boo-birds at last week's game -- where we held A&M to just THREE offensive points and less yards than even Tulsa put up on us. We've had injuries, we've lost our quarterback, and still my boys keep hanging in there and finding out ways to pull out a "W" at the end. So BOOMER SOONER baby -- prove Corso wrong and pummel Tech today!
posted at 12:27 PM | link-

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Here comes Leonid!
In case you've missed it on the news, we're about to have a huge meteor shower this weekend! At the rate of 1-2 every second at times... "For meteor watchers in North or Central America, the best viewing opportunities arrive in the early morning hours of Sunday, November 18...those looking eastward from dark locales with clear skies could expect to spot several thousand meteors per hour around 5 A.M. EST. Meteor watchers in Australia and East Asia will be treated to a display in the early morning hours of Monday, November 19. Observers in prime locations may see ten thousand meteors per hour." Here are a few viewing tips!
posted at 05:22 PM | link-

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Friday boredom
Just playing around with the digital camera a bit more this afternoon.
posted at 03:08 PM | link-

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Tee hee
A few friends and I are doing a second-annual Christmas ornament exchange this year, so this HGTV project site is for them, in case they might be stuck on ideas. Purely an inside joke...please indulge us...
posted at 02:32 PM | link-

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Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3
Just a few shots playing around with the new digital camera: one, two, three
posted at 09:40 PM | link-

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Writer's block?
Cool link snagged from "a pie in the sky" -- The Topics Blog -- great ideas for those days you have writer's block and just can't think of anything to blog about!
posted at 08:44 PM | link-

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It's beginning to look a lot like...
Well in between server errors (totally my host's fault, and not MT's), I've been able to update the look around here a bit -- the main page and archive pages vary ever so slightly. Maybe one of these days I'll actually sit down and tackle skinning the site???
posted at 07:54 PM | link-

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Wahoo!
Yippee! My birthday present from Todd just showed up -- our very first digital camera! (I'm not cheating and opening it early -- I knew it was coming. So there! Nyah nyah!) Can you believe we've made due with just a webcam all this time? I can't wait 'til he gets home so we can play with it... To read more about it, you can also go here and here. We can shoot mini-movies with this thing, too!
posted at 05:27 PM | link-

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Sephora
Heads up! I just got a notice from Sephora.com that they're doing free shipping on orders over $25. They sent me a code, so if anyone wants it, e-mail me. I'm not sure if it will work more than once -- so I'll update when/if it's asked for first -- and then you'll just have to try your luck after that. Enjoy...
posted at 01:26 PM | link-

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Vehhry tasty!
How to tell you've watched UHF one too many times back in high school.....they review a fancy Asian cuisine restaurant on the news, and when they show the red snapper, all you can hear in your mind is, "Ahhhhhh...red snappah...vehhry tasty!"
posted at 12:20 PM | link-

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15 Minutes of Fame
It's the 15th of November now (yikes!), so you know what that means -- a new Fifteen Minutes of Fame wedding feature! This month is Holly and Scott's wedding.
posted at 12:09 AM | link-

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Birthdays, birthdays, everywhere!
Hey guess what?!? It's another birthday -- go wish Susannah a very happy one! It looks like we may get to meet her next week, too. We're so 'cited!
posted at 12:00 AM | link-

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Yo, Ding Dong man! Ding Dong man, yo!
So Mr. Pollman and I were just sitting here and talking about wayfaring adult Americans, living in parts of this great nation that they were not raised in as children. Every once in awhile, even after almost five years in Florida, we'll just get this *CRAVING* for something available only in Oklahoma (or parts similar). More often than not it's a Braum's chocolate malt, or a Sonic cheese coney and cherry limeaid. But sometimes it's as simple as seeing a box of Little Debbie honey buns on the shelf, and not finding a box of Hostess ones in sight. (We're still looking for them.) To this day, my mom is our favorite bar-b-que sauce pusher (Head Country BBQ Sauce from Ponca City, OK). Like clockwork, about every six months we can expect a big ol' bottle. And that first week we have bar-b-que everything...chicken, steak, ribs...you name it...

I remember when I moved to Philly, a friend in Mobile had me send him boxes of Tasty Kakes the entire time I was there. (He made up for it by sending Krispy Kremes overnight, before they'd made it that far up the eastern seaboard.) I guess there were certain types of Tasty Kakes that you just couldn't get anywhere else. There are days now where I'd gladly empty the checkbook for a real Philly pretzel or an authentic cheesesteak from Pat's. And I can't believe we've yet to fork over the twenty-bucks or so plus shipping that Progress Grocery in New Orleans wants for muffulettas.

Obviously a lot of favorites are too perishable to ship -- but bloggers are spread out across the fifty states in regions we all didn't grow up in -- and I know I'd gladly send a bag of plantain chips to someone in exchange for a real Hostess brand honey bun. (No dirty comments needed from you Ryan!) As the season made for eating fastly approaches, is there anything you've been craving, and just can't get at your local supermarket -- because there just might be someone in the blogging community that would gladly pay you on Tuesday with what you crave in exchange for a Hostess honey bun today.

Be specific on what you're hungry for! Maybe we could all work out some sort of exchange?
posted at 09:43 PM | link-

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Stuffing
With turkey day fast-approaching, I thought I'd share my award winning (well at least with my husband and family) stuffing recipe... I can't wait! Bring on da' gravy!
posted at 01:13 PM | link-

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You say it's your birthday?
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DELARA! Hope you have a *wonderful* day!
posted at 11:55 AM | link-

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'Tis the season!
Just finished adding over three pages of holiday movie recommendations to Clueless Books, Music, and Video. Make a note of it -- I promise it will come in handy when you head out to Blockbuster for rentals in a couple of weeks!
posted at 11:16 PM | link-

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Random acts of kindness
::doing the happy, happy, joy, joy dance:: In a much appreciated random act of kindness today, Jennifer sent me a supah-cool script she wrote -- and customized -- for my site out of the blue and "just because". Instead of entering my blog archive section over there <--- by hand in MT now, her handy dandy code will do it for me! She also made a comment script for MT which will differentiate between 0, 1, and multiple replies -- so make sure to visit her blog and tell her she rocks! Thanks again Jennifer!
posted at 09:51 PM | link-

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Isn't she lovely?
So I've been kinda quiet today...this is why... Another brag photo of our "baby" Claire. I groomed her today!
posted at 08:38 PM | link-

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Get a clue!
You know how if you look at something long enough, you just get sick of it? Well that's how I got with Clueless Books, Music, and Video. It got to the point I didn't even want to update the page anymore -- but I had to update the page with all the traffic it receives. So I scrapped the whole site (which hadn't really been touched since 1999) and started over again with the main page. I'll be adding a lot more content in the next few days, so make sure to check back soon!
posted at 12:36 AM | link-

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Maybe some birds shouldn't fly
Seeing Michele at "a fire inside" write about being frightened of living under a flight path really brings it all home. Our new home is under not one -- but three -- Tampa International, Tampa Executive, and MacDill AFB (home of Central Command). As if that wasn't enough, you can throw in the private airstrip at the ritzy neighborhood across the street, where the residents park their Cessna's in the yard.

I've always had a love-fear relationship with airplanes -- both flying in them and having them fly above me. As a child, I loved to fly. I lived for the shopping trips to Dallas with my Gma. Then one day I was home sick with strep in 1983. My mom came in with a chocolate malt from Braums, and she says she's never seen me look so pale. (Which for someone like me with translucent skin is quite a statement.) My mouth was open, I was shaking like a leaf, and I couldn't even speak. Why? Right outside the window I had just watched a T-38 from Vance AFB crash into my neighborhood. There was a huge fireball that seemed to stretch into the heavens. Not good for a Cold War era child in the year of "The Day After". So what does my mother do to comfort me? She screamed, "OH MY GOD!" and took off out the door at lightning-speed. I was too sick to follow. I thought I'd been left there to die alone. She actually grabbed a couple of her friends and took off to the back of the neighborhood where the crash had occurred, but I can't even type out the thoughts that went through my mind right then. To this day, I still have plane crash nightmares. (For those wondering, the pilot ejected from that plane and landed safely in a field behind Kmart with just a broken leg, but it killed two on the ground.)

Fast-forward to right after Todd and I got engaged... I was on an American Eagle prop-jet into DFW (on my way back up to Philly). We hit the worst turbulence I've ever experienced. They didn't serve drinks, and the flight attendants were ordered to strap themselves in. I was on the first row, facing one of them. She started crying, and telling me about her little girl and how hard it had been to leave her that morning. It sounded like the plane was splitting into pieces. I haven't flown in anything with propellers since -- and never will again. Every plane ride from that flight on has resulted in white knuckles and non-stop prayers from start to finish.

My best friend is a pilot -- just promoted to Cap'n Robbie the week after 9-11. He's always tried to talk me through my fear of flying -- and fear of things flying above me. He took me up in a Cessna my senior year at OU because I was terrified of small planes, and I ended up singing "Amazing Grace" all the way to Enid and back to Norman. Experiment failed. I've heard all the stats over and over. But whether today was just a horribly-timed accident, or something else beyond comprehension -- how do I ever look up (much less think of getting in a plane myself, or letting my husband do so) the same way again? I love to travel, but I don't have to fly to do so.

Think of those poor people in a quiet Queens suburb that had just buried over 100 of their family and friends in the worst series of air disasters in U.S. history. It's all just too much. Maybe some birds just weren't meant to fly...
posted at 02:26 PM | link-

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Speechless again
What do you say? I got up just before 7 this morning, and turned on the "Today Show". I just had this gut-feeling I couldn't explain and I wanted to see that things were "ok" and my mind was just on overdrive. Todd got out of the shower and couldn't figure out why I'd turned the TV on so early either. I stayed awake until he left for work, and then went back to sleep for a little bit as I'm still not feeling all that well. So of course when I woke back up just before 11 and turned on the TV in the living room when I got in with Claire, I just knew instinctively. They weren't saying or doing anything other than going over a diagram of the type of aircraft that crashed -- but they didn't have to -- they'll never have to again. Something that really gives me the willies is that after my bath last night, I went into my closet to grab a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. The next shirt in the stack of "sleep tees" was the one I was wearing on 9-11. I looked at it, and just couldn't put it back on. So I grabbed the one under it. But that moment of looking at it just sticks with me. I pray this isn't terrorism again. I pray that as many lives as possible can be saved today. And I pray that God will soon realize New Yorkers have had enough. If it has to happen again, please spare them the next time. Please.
posted at 12:17 PM | link-

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Wookin' pa' nub
I just wasn't happy with the search system I added the other night. Atomz is great if you want to pay -- but I don't. I'd rather have a few text-ads slapped up on the search results page, and have the query take my visitors straight to what they were looking for, rather than dump them on a huge archive page with multiple entries and say "weed it out yourself from here". So I kept looking... And tonight I added in a FreeFind search box over there in the left menu-bar under the calendar. So far, so good! It seems to have all I was looking for -- heads up to new MT users looking for something similar.

Atomz is great if you have a relatively small blog, but for people like me that have a tendancy to never shut up, you're left in the dark with their free version. They stop indexing your site at 500 pages -- and won't add any others from that point on. My blog and archives aren't 500 pages total...but...the individual entry archives added up to about 540 pages to index after the Blogger and Greymatter entries were imported. So of course Atomz stopped at 500 -- and the remaining 40 entries (and anything from that point on) would never be indexed unless I wanted to upgrade my Atomz account and pay for it. I keep hoping the MT upgrade with a search feature will come out soon and make that need to pay obsolete.

Unlike Atomz, Freefind doesn't have a limit on the number of pages it will index. You can customize your search-results page by submitting your own HTML template (although they will put small ads just before the results list). With Freefind you can get reports on when your site was searched, and what terms were searched for -- including the top 50 keywords. You can customize your search box (the one I'm using over there is exactly how I had it appear with Greymatter). It will make a sitemap of your site if you want one (I didn't). You can schedule indexing, break your site into independently searchable sections, add additional URLs, and prevent certain sections of your site from being spidered. Definitely something to check out if you miss your Greymatter search functions, and Atomz is too limited for the size of your site!
posted at 09:42 PM | link-

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A little analogy
While watching the Bucs vs. Lions game, Todd told me that I had to post my analogy of what it feels like to watch the Bucs play this year. It's like watching your best friend -- someone you really love and admire -- date someone terrible. They're seeing someone you can't stand, someone deep down you know they shouldn't be with, but all you can do is sit there powerless. Mostly you just look away from the downward spiral -- until they're ready to leave the situation and help themselves. At first, during their moments of clarity (take the recent Vikings game for example), you get all excited. You think maybe they've realized what they're doing to themselves and that things are going to change. But soon, everything goes back to the way it was, leaving you nauseous with a need to just look away again. It hurts too much to watch most days, because deep down you know they're better than this. But you won't leave their side because you love them so much. That's what it means to me being a Bucs fan this season (and take your pick between the special teams coach and Brad Johnson as the boyfriend I'd like to shove off the nearest cliff)...
posted at 03:01 PM | link-

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Stop, remember, and say thanks
Natalie Merchant sang, "How would life have ever been the same if this wall had carved in it one less name?" On Veteran's Day I'd like to take a few to reflect, because you can never feel sick enough to not be eternally grateful... Happy Veteran's Day!

It is the soldier and the sailor, not the reporter,
Who has given us freedom of the press.

It is the soldier and the sailor, not the poet,
Who has given us freedom of speech.

It is the soldier and the sailor, not the campus organizer,
Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier and the sailor,
Who salutes the flag,
Who serves beneath the flag,
Whose coffin is draped by the flag,
Who allows the protester to burn the flag.

-- Father Denis Edward O'Brien, USMC
posted at 01:18 PM | link-

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Bleh
I hate that moment where your mind switches over from "I'm not getting sick" to "ok, I'm sick...and I want to die and/or I want my mommy". You feel so defeated. We made the trek out to Wal Mart around 1 a.m. to stock up on cold meds, Cold Eeze, zinc-echinacea-vitamin C lozenges, OJ (the beverage, not the psycho killer), and Puffs -- only to get home and discover the Cold Eeze didn't make it home with us. So back out we went...and we're just getting in... If you don't hear much out of either of us tomorrow, we're curled up under the covers feeling sorry for ourselves. Hope you all manage to avoid the death flu -- enjoy what's left of the weekend!
posted at 03:02 AM | link-

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