2006 February « femtique

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femtique 8:21 pm on February 27, 2006 | 8 | # |

What is a .torrent file?

This is a small metadata file. Metadata here means that the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself.

If you all are not on the torrent bandwagon yet, you should be. Of course, there are those who do not believe in sharing other people’s work, but I on the other hand do, especially since it’s an economically way to share media.

This entire adventure with torrents began last Thursday, as I was surfing the net, and as I was trying to figure out a way to download my favorite t.v. shows instead of recording them on my dvd recorder, because when I record on my dvd recorder, I end up swapping dvds all of the time because I want one t.v. show all on one dvd. Take the hit series “Battlestar Galactica” (BSG) for instance. I want all episodes of BSG on one dvd, not episodes of BSG and episodes of “The Boondocks” on the same dvd, do you get my drift?

After some heavy surfing on the net, I came across a site called “tvRSS: Syndication for your television”, and I went to the search engine there. I typed in “Battlestar Galactica” into the search engine, and what I saw was a list of links to different episodes of BSG. I clicked on a link and came across a page from a website called “Mininova”, and this is what they said about their site:

Mininova is one of the biggest torrent listing sites. We started in January 2005 as an alternative to the (at that time very popular) SuprNova, which went offline at the end of 2004 due to legal issues. Our goal is to provide an easy-to-use directory and search engine for all kind of torrent files. Visitors of mininova can anonymously upload torrents to this site, tracked by any BitTorrent tracker. Scrape data (amount of seeds/peers) is collected every hour. Note that we try to keep mininova family-safe, so adult submissions are not allowed.

Another website to go to download torrents is http://www.torrentz.com. Either way, there are tons and tons of sites that offer torrent downloads, and so, I am taking full advantage of the opportunity as opposed to buying an entire season of Battlestar Galactica for almost $100 in retail stores. Other popular shows such as “Smallville”, “Grey’s Anatomy”, and “Lost” are all available via torrent sites.

There is a whole lot of torrent software used to download torrents, but I prefer utorrent (the “u” signifies micro, so it’s actually micro-torrent), and I dig utorrent because it only takes up 6Mb of RAM when used and the file itself is only 150Kb in size. I can definately dig the fact that I can download files and surf the web with ease, as if I’m not even downloading. Plus, the program comes in array of skins which you can download to suite your taste. And to top it off, utorrent is extremely user-friendly, and everyone who isn’t a coder can appreciate that (I know I’m not one, lol).

Anyhow, remember to . . .

1. go pick up yourself a copy of utorrent
2. visit torretz
3. Download to your heart’s content.

Enjoy, and happy downloading!
femtique 1:33 am on February 25, 2006 | 6 | # |

My view on the issue can be found here.
femtique 11:25 pm on February 22, 2006 | 4 | # |

Kestrel, one of my online friends is having a really hard time. Find out how you can help.
femtique 10:02 pm on February 22, 2006 | 6 | # |

I have been following up on this for about a week, and I was stunned when I heard that the legislature in South Dakota, voted to crimimalize abortions http://www.npr.org, with the exception of the mother being in life threatening danger. I am almost at a total loss for words, but here it comes anyway.

I can see both sides of the abortion argument. I was raised as a Christian to believe that abortion is killing a child. If I ever got pregnant with Kris, I would not have an abortion, even if we knew that we would have serious financial difficulties, because moraly, for myself, I do not believe in doing something so extreme, because it is against my religion to do so. Now if it came down to whether or not I believe that I should impose my religious faith into law upon other fellow women in this country is another issue all together.

This whole abortion issue makes me think back to the dividing issue between those who were for and against the institution of slavery. This issue completely split the country apart, and I believe that abortion is going to split the country apart too. South Dakota is deviating from the right of choice that was fought and won in Roe v. Wade. This is so similar to the south when they suceeded from the union, because they believed they had a fundamental right to impose their ideologies of slavery upon African Americans. Mind you that slavery was much more gruesome and epic in scale, but you see my point, right?

I have mixed feelings about abortions. On one hand, I believe it is wrong, because I believe that life begins at conception. On the other hand, I do not believe that I should impose my belief onto another woman who does not believe this. If I argue with that reasoning, then I am suggesting that it would be okay for me to allow a child to be killed by the choice of a woman and that I have no say in this, because it is a personal matter and none of my business. Although what would have happened in our country if there were no sympathetic whites in our country that cared enough to abolish slavery? If there was no sympathy, then I would still be a slave because other whites figured that slavery in the south was none of their conern, and that if the south wants slaves, let them have ‘em, even though it is morally and ethically an injustice that breeds hate and legitimizes the killing of thousands of innocent lives every single day. See the dilemma we are faced with in our country on the issue of abortion?

Where does governmental influence begin and end? I mean, if women were to be criminalized would men be as well? This is a question I would pose for people in South Dakota. The way I see it, life is precious but we live in a society where the burden is heavily placed upon a woman instead of shared with a man. Historically speaking, because our country has not supported foster children, I would tend to question whether or not those children, although killed in abortion, could be spared the life of moving from one foster home to another and potentially living a life without a sense of security. What we see on t.v. is an obscurity, and abstraction of what the reality is for children who have been given up at birth by their mothers and fathers. Most children who grow up in the foster care environment have a very low estimate of being quote on quote “successful” and have very high statistics of being impoverished to the point of homelessness.

Perhaps if we had a country that supported women financially and considered the burden of an unwanted pregnancy a man’s issue as well, then perhaps we would have the legitimacy to make abortions illegal. If we had an awesome support system, then there would be no fear of not making ends meet or providing for the child, but usually what ends up happening is that our so-called Christian country ends up making value judgements against a pregnant woman and claims that she was irresponsible and that if she would have been more responsible using a condom or what not (or being abstinent) then there would be little if any problem with the topic of abortions in our country.

What about rich women? It is not just the rights of poor women who lose that right to end a pregnancy, it is also rich people who would be criminalized. Something tells me though that somehow if this bill passes in South Dakota, the richer women will be able to get away with having abortions because of the fact that they have money and they can do it privately. Hell, rich people can buy illegal drugs and not get caught, why not rich women too?

But here’s another angle I’d like to point out as well. I’ve been reading http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswire.asp the progress on making the morning after pill or “Plan B” over-the-counter for women. Hillary Clinton is very much for the bill in New York, and soon it could be a reality. Imagine all of the controversy that would arise there. The whole abortion debate could be (and is) being wagged over Plan B, because of the fact that after conception, a woman would have the right to terminate a potential pregnancy immediately, and safely.

Okay, so here’s the bottom line. There is a contradiction right now about the issue of abortion. On one hand many Americans are against it and would all together avoid it. On the other hand, women have legally been able to abort since Roe v. Wade; now here is where things get hairy: how can many pro-life proponents in our country claim to support a ban against abortions yet at the the same time, not financially support a child by cutting welfare down to size? No public policy will stop the act of sex and pregnancy, and so, what is our country to do?
femtique 12:56 am on February 21, 2006 | 4 | # |
femtique 12:33 am on February 21, 2006 | 2 | # |

Part of my New Year’s resolution was to get to know my blogger friends more personally. You know, I feel like I’m in that situation where I am the girlfriend in a relationship that wants to take it to the “next level”, heh. If you want to get to talk to me without costing you a cent, you can download Skype for free. Skype is an excellent service, and the clarity is absolutely outstanding. My screen name is, as you’ve guessed: krisandapril.

I realize that there are those who are my blogger friends who are scared to make the leap from informal to formal friendship, but I feel that it is really an exciting and rewarding adventure. I just finished voice chatting with my friend Kugan, whom I’ve been online friends with for a little bit over a year. We had an excellent time voice chatting! Kugan is from Malaysia, and it was so much fun to discuss comparative politics between the U.S. and Malaysia. He said to me “Do you hear that sound?” and I said “Yeah, what is it? A song?” and he said “Yes, it is music from a mosque right across the street from where I live” and I was just astounded.

We also discussed about life and relationships, and it was quite enlightening. We were able to share about each other’s lives from thousands of miles away. Truly, the internet is awesome.
femtique 12:38 pm on February 20, 2006 | 6 | # |
femtique 6:09 pm on February 18, 2006 | 6 | # |

Welcome to WordPress Anonymous, please state your name and why you are here . . .

“Hi, my name is April, and I have been addicted to WordPress since March 2005. Someone, please help me!”

Hhahahaa, heavens sakes, I haven’t studied all day! The reason why, is because I have had entirely too much fun playing with my blog and adding features to it that I have not had the time to incorporate. For one, last week Kristin blogged about CoComment, and I finally managed to use rssLinklist (one of my all-time favorite wordpress plugins) to randomly display conversations I have had online.

I wasn’t going to use CoComment at first though, not because I couldn’t incorporate it into my blog, but because manually clicking a button every time I comment in order to track comments just isn’t my cup of tea. A week and a half ago, I discovered Greasemonkey for Firefox, and it’s basically the ~~equivalent I think, to Wigets on the Mac~~ (I stand corrected). With Greasemonkey, I am able to download javascripts that help me make my life easier online; in other words, it makes little tedious tasks simple and automatic. Think of it as having a keyboard remote control, but without pushing the buttons!

There are literally thousands of Greasemonkey enabled programs out there, but where it really is coming handy right now is with CoComment, because now I don’t have to click on the CoComment button in order to track my online discussions for every single blog site where I want to comment thanks to Johan Sundstrom. Sundstrom created an updated version of the automatic CoComment script and it’s called “CoComment automatic invocation“.

So in essence, from now on, you will be able to track my comments via CoComment. I hope that other bloggers (especially my blogger friends) jump on the bandwagon with CoComment, because it makes bloghopping a whole lot more fun. It definately makes my experience online more complete, because as I have stated previously on my blog and in my about section:

The most interesting part of the whole scheme, to me, is the comment system. Getting comments from people all around the world creates a unique learning environment for both the writer and the reader.

I also intend on adding other little fun-filled wordpress plugins in the future to this site, but I need to be careful not to overload the site with too much mess, because too many words means difficult navigation for my readers, and I just couldn’t go for that, could I?

In other news, I have finally added an archives section and a links section. I know the interface is not perfect, but hey, it will have to do. The wordpress version of Hemmingway did not come with an archives or links page; okay I lie, it did but they are not very pretty.

I’ll be pretty busy for the next couple of days watching one of my two classes on video, and reading for my courses as well, so TTFN, i.e. “Ta-ta-for-now” as Tigger would say in “The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh”.
femtique 9:43 am on February 17, 2006 | 7 | # |

Despite that Valetine’s Day was wonderful, I was just too tired to make whoopie. I really wanted to make love to my husband on Valentine’s Day, but aside from being tired, there were just too many ideas in my head. What is a girl to do? Victoria’s Secret and lingerie to the rescue!

Now, the reason why I say Victoria’s Secret and lingerie in two seperate categories, is because we didn’t buy any lingerie at Victoria’s secret, because honestly, I didn’t think that any of the lingerie at Victoria’s secret was hot. I mean, don’t get me wrong, some of their stuff is very elegant, but I wanted some lingerie that was extremely sexy and kinky. All of their lingerie are for models, and just not my style. I do love their lingerie for work or school, just not for getting ready to have some great sex with my husband. And to top it off, their lingerie is WAY too pricey, considering the fact that you could get something better at a sex shoppe, which is exactly what Kris and I did. But what I did get from Victoria’s Secret, of which I have always been a fan of, is the Strawberries n’ Champagne scented shampoo, hair conditioner, lotion, body wash, and body spray. (I haven’t bought Victoria’s Secret scented body products since 1998).

Once I knew I would smell sexy, I would then move on to getting a sexy little item over at this place called Carmen’s Secreto for my lingerie. Compared to Victoria’s Secret, I was able to get lingerie for a fraction of the price. Kris and I looked around for about 30 or 40 minutes, and we finally found something we could both agree on, and was within our price range. Oh yeah, of course I’m going to show my readers what it looks like, otherwise, what kind of blogger would I be? A boring one, that’s for sure . . .

Now, here’s an important fact for you to remember, which I bet you’ll be surprised of. The entire almost five years that Kris and I have been married, we have not bought lingerie because of money issues. Here’s another little tibit: Kris has never had a woman wear lingerie for him . . . ever. You can only imagine how excited Kris was last night. He absolutely went crazy I tell you! Before I put on the lingerie though, I took a shower, shaved my legs and armpits (heh-heh), and cleaned my hair and body with the Strawberries n’ Champagne stuff from Victoria’s Secret. I smelled so good, shit, I turned myself on! Bwahaha!! After that, I dried myself off, fixed my hair all sexy and put on some badass makeup on my eyes. I rarely wear black eyeliner, but last night I did, and for my ladies who know the look . . . I went for the smokey hollywood look, you know, the look that Paris Hilton has on her eyes all of the time. I then proceeded to put on some foundation (oh wait, I put on the foundation first, silly me) to cover my acne scars (even though Kris thinks I’m hot with or without makeup) and put on some NARS lipstick and blush (the color is called “orgasm”).

I definately recommend to all my married ladies out there who haven’t worn a little lingerie and hot makeup lately for their men to do so, because it meant all the world to Kris, and I bet it would mean all the world to yours as well. More importantly, the love makin’ last night was the best love makin’ I’ve ever had! Damn, I SO need to build up a collection of lingerie!
femtique 10:11 am on February 15, 2006 | 11 | # |

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femtique

Latest Updates RSS

femtique 8:21 pm on February 27, 2006 | 8 | # |

femtique 1:33 am on February 25, 2006 | 6 | # |

femtique 11:25 pm on February 22, 2006 | 4 | # |

femtique 10:02 pm on February 22, 2006 | 6 | # |

femtique 12:56 am on February 21, 2006 | 4 | # |

femtique 12:33 am on February 21, 2006 | 2 | # |

femtique 12:38 pm on February 20, 2006 | 6 | # |

femtique 6:09 pm on February 18, 2006 | 6 | # |

femtique 9:43 am on February 17, 2006 | 7 | # |

femtique 10:11 am on February 15, 2006 | 11 | # |

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