Partly Cloudy

I was trying to find an article on 22 Words, but got this instead:

These types of 404 pages annoy me even more than the broken link.  I wanted to read what I was linked to (from the 22 Words Facebook page) and instead of telling me to join with you (the "Let's find something!") in looking for another article, how about fixing your damn link to begin with?

Despacito- Luis Fonsi ft. Daddy Yankee

The most streamed song ever, with (at the time of this post) nearly 2.7 billion views.

Suck It, Photobucket

I was doing as I normally do when I check email, replying to a few in my inbox, checking the recipe newsletters, reading some sales circulars from Amazon and a local grocery store, then went into the Spam folder to clear it out.

I always scan the subject titles and the addresses just in case something important has been accidentally flagged as junk when I saw one from Photobucket.  At first I thought it was Spam, but it seemed to be from the website, so I opened it to find this:

WE NOTICED THAT YOU HAVE BEEN USING
PHOTOBUCKET FOR 3RD PARTY HOSTING*

*What is 3rd Party Hosting?

Photobucket defines 3rd party hosting as the action of embedding an image or photo onto another website. For example, using the tag to embed or display a JPEG image from your Photobucket account on another website such as a forum, Etsy, eBay auction listings, a blog, etc. is definitively 3rd party hosting.

And some other crap, mainly that they wanted to charge me some insane amount to provide hosting for my graphics.  Now, I use the Blogger albums they provide for any jpegs, but they don't support animations and I use some in posts in here, as well as the day-date calendar and border.  I also use the service for forums that don't supply image hosting for non-paying users like me (read: cheap bastards like me)

I didn't get a notice until this one that they were changing their TOU (terms of use).  Since they had always supplied the code, the HTML to embed images, I always thought it was OK, but apparently it's not now.  My "library" with Photobucket is only 1% full and they used to show a bandwidth meter and it was always set at around 10% or less, so I never worried.  I did keep an eye on it after having a few websites directly link to images and got a warning from Photobucket that I was over the limit, so I made it private and that was the end of the thieving. 

There are lots of people complaining about it online and I don't blame 'em.  Some people relied upon it for their image hosting, esp. people uploading them to Amazon for reviews and people trying to sell things on eBay. Now their entire websites and/or posts are affected and have this placeholder where their photos used to be:

So, if you see that in any older post or on the animations I use for things, then that's the reason. I've already signed up for a new free image hosting service and hope they'll not go the same route as Photobucket...which I predict is going to go out of business soon, because I think - as do many others - that they're in financial trouble and this is one last grab for some quick cash.

Anyway, I'll be doing the changeover soon, hope it works.  If not, I suppose I can live w/out any flashing signs or animated GIFs.  I'm sure the readership of this pathetic excuse for a blog won't suffer any...how could it?  We're only something like the 12,784,987th ranked blog in the world, after all.

Don't Get Yourself in a Pickle!

A "bump" from Nov. '08.  No one commented, so perhaps no one or not many saw it. Unlike many of my stories, this is a true one.

Besides, I needed a post for today and just couldn't get enthused enough to work one up.

---

“There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
- Will Rogers

---

It was a Senior Work Day, and we boys were working on a Saturday, making some money for our class trip after graduation. We castrated pigs that morning, then after lunch we were instructed to move some irrigation pipe. Someone noticed an electric fence on a nearby pasture and the question was raised:

"Say, you ever pee on an electric fence?" Out of the six of us, four admitted they had and another boy and I were the only ones to admit to have not having had the experience.

"Do it!" the four urged me and the other guy. I shook my head, having been around electric fences before and not liking how the shock went through me where I had made contact with the fence after not seeing it and then accidentally walking into it. The shock was bad enough on my thighs, the thought of having "it" shocked wasn't appealing to me, not at all.

The taunts went on, but I didn't care because those words didn't hurt nearly as much as electricity. Maybe I was the only one who had been awake in eighth grade science when we learned about electricity and in particular how salt water can be a circuit and conduct current. For one experiment, we used a pickle to complete a circuit; it glowed inside and crackled like an old pool hall beer sign.



Nope, no need for me to electrify MY little dill.

The other guy was challenged by the sneers from the rest and with a show of bravado, marched over to the fence, unzipped and after a few moments of potty blush, began to urinate on the charged wire.

While others claimed to have seen a spark, I must have been in the wrong position, but I did see the guy's knees buckle, then straighten up to launch him into the air and land backwards into a muddy ditch.

It took him a while to recover, then he became angry at our laughter and turned his rage upon me.

"Your turn!" he commanded.

With tears in my eyes from laughing so hard, I declined again. "MY momma didn't raise no fool." I told him, which made him even angrier.

"You're the only one who hasn't done it!" he said. "We'll make you!" he went on, looking around at the other boys for allies.

One by one, the others shook their heads, saying they really HADN'T ever peed on a fence, just wanted to see if someone would do it.

This set the guy off and in a profanity-laden tirade, accused them of being liars.

"Better that than a dumbass." was the reply.

Air Force Quiz

Only 1 in 50 Americans Can Ace This Air Force Test.

Can You?

Yep.

Aim High... Fly-Fight-Win!

The Air Force Song