I was skimming over my site stats for the first time in a few months because… well, because I was at 127% productivity for the week and I think that means I’m allowed to stop working. It also means I’m insta-bored and watching the clock slowly inch closer and closer to 2:30.

ANYWAY! My bandwidth which normally hoveres around 500-600MB a month suddenly jumped to 1.09GB last month and is pushing 970MB this month. ALL of this has been from hotlinkers. (Well, almost all of it. There are a few people out there who check out the site A LOT while thinking I don’t know but I do know and… *waves middle finger at them*)

I mean, there are about 40,000,000 free image hosters out there according to a simple google search. They host images FOR FREE. F.R.E.E. I do not. I pay for it. And it’s not like I pay any huge amount for it because I’m with the best hosting company in the world run by the best webmistress/web designer in the world and even though I’ve more than DOUBLED the amount of bandwidth I’m supposed to use in a month and she hasn’t said a word, it still bugs me.

To me it’s like tapping into your neighbors water supply. They don’t really feel the effect at first. You conserve. You take 5 minute showers and turn the water off when you brush your teeth and only flush if it’s solid… but after a few months of getting away with it you get greedy. The guilt starts to fade, assuming there was any in the first place, and suddenly you’re letting the kids play in the sprinklers for a few hours while filling up the swimming pool.

I don’t so much mind if somebody takes a silly blinking Santa image and uses it on one blog post to wish all her readers Merry Christmas. To me that’s reasonable. But when you take that image and post it in the comment form of ever single “friend” you have on MySpace, well… YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT! Or on every forum you post on. Or on every other community blog site you post on. Because every one of those 1,600 “friends” has another 1,600 “friends” and pretty soon 14,367 (actual number of hits recieved so far this month for that one file) people are looking at my picture that’s being hosted on my site that I’m paying for. That’s 10% of my total traffic for the entire month. 115MB! From a .GIF!! And that’s only ONE of the images!

Seriously. I don’t want to have to disable hotlinking because I’d have to spend a stupid amount of time organizing the images I have spread out all over the web into one folder that’s allowable. But PLEASE PEOPLE! Fill your own damn pool with your own damn water. IT’s FREE! Because otherwise I’m about to start hopping from place to place and pissing in them.

kthxbye,
Antigone

Yesterday was great. Cassidy love ALL her presents. Score one for Santa. We had a REALLY relaxed day. Opened presents, ate cinnamon rolls, Nana came over so we opened more, went to eat at the only place open (Chevy’s. I still like them. Ben still doesn’t.), came home and curled up on the couch and watched Ben play Zelda, got way more into it than I wanted to, Cassidy watched and played, and played, and played, watched a movie, fell asleep in Ben’s arms.

It really was an pretty slow weekend. Which I REALLY needed.

Home early on Friday with a sore throat. Slept till almost 4PM on Saturday with dry hacking cough. Hardly moved on Sunday except to run out and finally get my hands on one of the last copies of Zelda in the WHOLE WORLD. See above for yesterday when the throat stopped hurting but my nose decided to violently protest in what I now have dubbed The Snot Revolution.

Can currently breath out of only the left nostril. At work anyway because two co-workers had today off for PTO. It’s 32 minutes after start time and the other co-worker is MIA. That means everybody with a question/problem today is going to come to ME. Hopefully the cough and the battle cry of the Snot Amry scares them away…

EDIT! - Good news! I can hear out of my right ear now!

Happy Holidays, everybody! Enjoy the time however you choose to spend it. And don’t forget the cookies!!! We’ve been making cookies for DAYS now. These ones were special though because they are for SANTA!

Wednesday, since we were over by the old ‘hood, Ben and I decided to go to our favorite Indian place for dinner. I fell in love with Pasand when I ate there on the very first trip I made up here to San Jose to visit Ben. It might even be the reason that I ended up moving. I mean, Ben is sexy and all… but he’s no Ginger Chicken Tikka Masala. Since then we’ve taken his dad and Kandy, my dad and Cherie, my mom and Cameron, pretty much anybody visiting meant a trip to Pasand which is why I always encouraged visiting.

So as we got out of the car tired, hungry and frustrated after sitting in Urgent Care for well over and hour to be helped by a quack doctor physicians assistant so old we actually got to watch the last few whisps of hair fall from his head in our 10 minutes with him, it took us both a few seconds to realize that the simple Pasand sign had been replaced with a rather large, rather LOOK AT ME red sign that read: Bombay Garden.

Ben: What’s that Bombay Garden… Wait.. WHERE’s PASAND!?
Me: Lets just go in and eat I’m starving.
Ben: Well, lets go in and see what they have.
Me: I’m STARVING, lets just EAT here.
Ben: We’ll ask first.
Me: And then try it.
Ben: Anna!

We were “greeted” (if you can call it that) by a guy in his mid 20’s who must have just pulled himself from the nearest mirror when he saw us coming in. He looked bothered to have been pulled from basking in all his magnificent greatness and to be dealing with us plain commoners. Seriously, I slipped a little in the trail of EgoSlimeâ„¢ he left behind him.

Ben: So, is this place under new ownership or is it another restaurant all together?
EgoBoy: New ownership.
Ben: So the food is all the same?
EgoBoy: Same. Added more to the menu.

The guy couldn’t even be bothered to throw together a complete sentence with, like, verbs and adjectives or ANY RELEVANT INFORMATION. When we walked in it was instantly clear that this was NOT the same place. AT ALL. From the fancy new chairs that must have been crafted by the same people who make electric chairs, to the plasma screen TV’s playing Bollywood soap operas. The entire atmosphere felt wrong. Tight.

The food was twice as expensive for half as much that tasted half as good. They didn’t even HAVE the Ginger Chicken Tikka Masala. The menu is NOT the same, Pretty Boy. Not at all. The lamb samosas I’ve grown to love were LESS than half the size and we had to ask our waiter (who was a leftover from Pasand) for the sauce we’d ALWAYS gotten before. Not the same, Pretty Boy! Then!! When we ordered our food, we had to CHOOSE between rice or Nan. WHAT?! EVERY other Indian place I’ve EVER been to has ALWAYS included BOTH. BOTH! Now you want me to CHOOSE?! NOT THE SAME, PRETTY BOY!!

Our food was $10 more for Ben and myself than what it usually is when we have Cassidy with us and order extra rice and two more samosa’s. We finished everything in the table. When it was Pasand we’d have enough left over to feed Cassidy and myself lunch the next day.

Worst of all though I’m just SAD! I mean, if it were any other place we’d have probably walked in and enjoyed the meal. But we compared it all to what we LOVED. Maybe that wasn’t fair, but I REALLY loved Pasand. Everything about it. The man who always greeted us seemed HAPPY to see us. EXCITED that he got to share is good food with us. The food was DAMN GOOD and there was LOTS of it.

Pasand was one of the first places that really made San Jose feel like home to me. It was my favorite, a nice treat we got because we were broke back then and couldn’t afford to go out to eat every night. I have lots and lots and lots of places like that now. Lots and lots. San Jose IS home now and when I go to the town I grew up in I always feel a visitor and I can’t wait to get HOME to my familiar neighborhood and streets and restaurants and stores and friends and FAMILY. But a little part of me is mourning the loss of that first security blanket I had here.

The phones arrived. Ben pulled a fast one on me and told me they’d be backordered AGAIN. But when I got home they were sitting on my chair. WOOHOO! We spent most of the night playing with them, getting games uploaded and chat clients to work but the phone is H.O.T. After a few days of playing I’ll write more about my opinion of it.

GOODER BIGGER BETTER BEST NEWS!!!!

Ben booked us flights and hotel reservations for Lahaina, Maui for January 6th-14th!!! HAWAII!!! WOOHOO x 209572472347923!!!

I now have three weeks to get skinny and tan. heh And yes, he REALLY IS the best boyfriend of ALL TIME.