My precious! My new blog isn't posting images, especially on lame-o quizzes. Hm. Wonder if it's a Movable Type issue. Don't make me come over to the Munuvian blog and beg for answers . . .

Posted by: Attila at 07:05 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Actually, I'm not a happy bunny at all. I'm a depressed, hostile bunny with her period who's waiting for the estrogen fairy to come along and pull her out of a bad funk. Then I can make my own fucking eggs, and be the carefree modern-day Attila the Hun I so love to be.

Hey. You asked.

Oh . . . you didn't?

congratulations. you are the kiss my ass happy
bunny. You don't care about anyone or anything.
You must be so proud


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Via Annika, who's the same kind of bunny--though minus the attitude, thank goodness.

Posted by: Attila at 06:59 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I got an e-mail today from a friend, who wrote:

Read your piece on AA. I once had a friend (a very closeted gay) who
took me to an AA meeting, he said it was a good place to "pick up easy
wimmin." Not really interested, but I went along for the ride. Lots of
seriously fucked up people at AA. And I can't get excited about chain smoking
and I really can't get interested in seeking casual sex, so I never went
back.

The alcoholism is just a manifestation of a deep unhappiness. I have
been unhappy and depressed in my life, but getting drunk never helped so I
never became an alcoholic.

There's something to that last point: it seems that there are a lot of chronically depressed people who would self-medicate if any medicine they tried ever worked. In this, the addict or alcoholic is particularly lucky in the short-term--but, of course, quite unlucky in the long-term.

Hm. There wasn't too much smoking at the meetings I attended, back in the day. And there have always been plenty of nonsmoking meetings in Southern California. And I don't remember any casual sex at all. I'd hope I would, too.

Posted by: Attila at 10:54 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Condi Rice appeared publicly before the 9/11 Commission today, presumably because Bob Kerrey (to some degree) and Richard Ben-Veniste (to an outrageous extent) hadn't humiliated themselves enough when she testified in private.

This afternoon I desperately flipped back and forth on the radio between Larry Elder and Hugh Hewitt, trying to hear more clips and get each man's perspective on the testimony. Both Hugh and Larry used the same phrasing to summarize the morning's events: "they didn't lay a glove on her." Partisan, sure. But it's also pretty accurate, since Ben-Veniste went at her with everything he had, and she never lost her composure.

Nor did she lower herself to the level of her would-be tormentors by blaming the Clinton Administration for their anemic responses to the various al Qaeda-spawned attacks on their watch. She acted like a grownup when no one around her would.

I understand this even more today. We could do a hell of a lot worse. (And have.)

Posted by: Attila at 10:44 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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1 'Warrior Princess' 2008! Absolutely! And it would drive the Democrats completely nuts.

Posted by: Desert Cat at April 10, 2004 06:26 AM (c8BHE)

2 I like the suggestions I've heard that it might be a two-woman race. It'd be fun to watch: Hillary could say whatever she liked, and Condi would kick her butt with a withering look.

Posted by: Attila Girl at April 10, 2004 06:48 AM (SYwua)

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Dean joins Evan Coyne Maloney in recommending that John Kerry in particular and the Democratic Party in general come up with a coherent vision for the future (e.g., Iraq, terrorism, the economy) other than "Bush bad. Us hatem Bush."

It's a thought.

Posted by: Attila at 08:49 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Rocket Jones has a comprehensive list of all the Munuvian blogs translated into Robin (of Batman fame) phrases. I can't do it justice, but here's a taste:

I'm "Holy Levitation" (which for a moment I read as "Holy Leviathon"--I figured he'd been reading the numbers on my bathroom scale again)
Triticale is "Holy Terminology"
Pixy is "Holy Alter Ego"

For more see the original list.

Posted by: Attila at 08:33 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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1 Thanks for the link. There are so many Munuvians now that I don't always get around to everyone every day. Missed that one the first time around.

Posted by: Ted at April 12, 2004 02:28 PM (blNMI)

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James at OTB discusses the DOJ's new policies on enforcing anti-pornography laws. He wonders whether this is a good use of Federal dollars. Me too.

Posted by: Attila at 02:08 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I went to my first meeting of CLA last night. (Yes. Clutterers Anonymous. Sigh. It is not yet true that there is a 12-Step program for every unattractive human habit, but we may get there some day.)

It was a tiny group of people in a little room in a church, and the meeting began 15 minutes late. Keep in mind that I'm used to DA meetings, which start strictly on time and use timers to keep the speaker and everyone who shares precisely on track. (Speakers get 15 minutes: no more and no less. Sharing is confined to three minutes per person. In DA we're strict and clear about time, just as we strive to be strict and clear about money.)

There is this odd thing about clutterers getting together, whether in CLA or in DA meetings that focus on clutter: the rooms are always small. The surroundings never feel abundant. This partly reflects the fact that CLA is one of the smallest 12-step groups out there, and partly reflects our willingness to confine ourselves to small spaces. My den, for example, tends to consist of a little path from the door to my computer, with the rest of the floor covered in books, papers, and magazines. (Do you remember those films they used to show pre-teens at school to explain menstruation?--the visual of the uterus, and how its lining would grow and grow until there was nearly no room left? That's what happens to my personal spaces: the walls start to close in as the piles of paper creep inward toward the middle of each room. This is in fact a good way for a uterus to behave--but not so much for a house.)

Everyone at this meeting was homely and at least a little overweight. I didn't fit in, or at least I sort of hoped (on some level) that I didn't.

I will probably go back. Because 1) "no contempt prior to investigation," and 2) for all I know, this isn't about my getting. It might well be about me giving. There could someone I might be able to help by going there. It's possible, and I need to check it out thoroughly.
more...

Posted by: Attila at 10:40 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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About two-thirds of my friends are Jews. I have a handful of friends who aren't Jews. Once I even went out with about seven other people, and figured out about halfway into the meal that we were all of Anglo-Saxon stock. Not one Jew in the bunch.

Naturally, it was a dull meal. Anglo-Saxons can be real grinds, all on their own like that. Not the same without the Jews.

(WTF am I doing? Google-baiting. In honor of Passover, we're trying to change the Number One entry in Google under Jew to something less offensive than the current anti-Semitic claptrap. Join the fun. [I'm not going to link the offensive site; it's offensive.]

Via Pixy Misa. I mean [UPDATE] via Simon, who has one fine-lookin' blog there. [Talk about your MuNuby mistakes: I just tend to assume Pixy is the source for all that is good and light.]) more...

Posted by: Attila at 09:08 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Dean Esmay continues to discuss his journey along the road of abstinence from alchohol. His entry contains a mini-roundup of groups like Rational Recovery, Moderation Management, Women for Sobriety, and other alternatives to Alcoholics Anonymous. I wish him luck.

My journey is a little strange: I was in AA for 11 years, and decided to quit the program in January of 2002, when I worked at the food magazine (I wanted to drink red wine with pasta, and have the occasional martini or Manhattan). Since that time I've entered another 12-Step program--this one dealing with compulsive financial mismanagement and confusion about money (Debtors Anonymous).

You might say I found a way to keep the steps and the booze. You might.

I don't mind the "spiritual" aspect of AA, since it is so free-form (really the opposite of a cult, if you ask me). I know there are a lot of meetings dominated by cranky oldtimers who are full of rules that appear nowhere in the Big Book of Alchoholics Anonymous. I always avoided those types of meetings. For what it's worth, there are a lot of meetings of all different flavors out there. It spans the breadth of humanity. Remember what they say: "all you really need to start your own group is a resentment and a coffee pot." My way of saying, don't write AA off too quickly. Keep looking for that Right Meeting that feels comfortable to you.

I like the idea of Women for Sobriety, since there are definitely a lot of men in AA who either 1) are on the make, and/or 2) have a deep, undying hatred of females. I've never gone to their meetings, though, so I can't vouch for it.

I also think it's worth noting that my DA groups include plenty of AA members. (Perhaps half of us are in other 12-Step programs of one kind or another.) A lot of my friends remark that they go to AA meetings, but experience more recovery in DA. I think that may be because AA comprises more "biological addicts," and there's simply less to discuss about a problem like that versus something like dealing with money or food, which clearly touches all aspects of one's life (and cannot be sworn off of, either, as with alcohol). Or maybe it's chemistry--you find the right group or program, and it "clicks." (Am I using biased information from biased individuals to make sweeping generalizations? Yup.)

I'm definitely in the pragmatist camp. Whatever works for any given individual is the right thing for him/her to do.

This may not even be my last 12-Step group, as I'm contemplating joining Clutterer's Anonymous. (Does anyone know how they define sobriety/abstinence? I sometimes wonder if it means living in a home that doesn't contain horizontal surfaces upon which to pile paper, magazines, files, and Clothing That Needs Mending. I fantasize that they'll advise me to sleep in a hammock under the tree in my backyard, and I'm not positive I want to do that, because it gets cold up here on this ridge.)

Just wait for the group to join that addresses addiction to the web in general, or blogging in particular. I won't go, though. Because I can quit anytime I want.

Posted by: Attila at 08:32 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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When in doubt, power cyle. I rebooted, came back, and now have a little of this terra cotta-color action going on my very own site ("colour," for Pixy and all the others outside the unorthodox USA). Much nicer, at least for now.

Posted by: Attila at 11:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Well, I've got my Site Meter installed. My existing blogroll has also been switched over, along with a few of my sidebar plug-ins. The blog is still displaying with very little color on my browser, so I'll have to work on that. Susie complimented me on the accent colors, but unless the display she's getting is quite different from the one I'm getting she's only seeing a little green on the sidebar--and I didn't put it there. It was, I think, part of the default template.

So far I've tried about a billion times (that means 3-4, both last night and today) to change the style sheet to something with a bit more color in it, but it never quite works. (I've been working on the one called "Rusty," which isn't quite the heart's desire but might liven things up a little bit until I can muster up the courage to get another template from somewhere else, and--gasp!--install it.)

Thanks to everyone for their patience (and, in the case of the Munuvians, lavish encouragement). Thanks especially to Madfish Willie for the tutorials he's publishing on Munuviana.

UPDATE: Madfish says he's seeing a new template, so at least other people are seeing color. But I'm not. Wonder if it's my old, creaky browser that's to blame? Curiouser and curiouser.

Posted by: Attila at 11:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I guess it's time to start learning Movable Type, which I'm not sure I could even spell correctly a week ago.

I tried to install my old SiteMeter--the one I just removed from the old Blogspot version of Little Miss Attila. I succeded only in deleting everything on the blog. Yes--for about a minute I had so screwed things up that if you came here you'd see the SiteMeter box, all right--but nothing else. Fortunately, I undid that successfully. (I think Madfish Willie wanted us to back up our style sheets. Why do I always heed these warnings too late?)

Naturally, I'd wanted to track just how much of a Beltway-lanche I was going to get from James's recent mention of my new location, but I'll just assume it's a lot of traffic. Always is.

And I need to remember what one of the other Munuvians mentioned recently: SiteMeter doesn't work. We only pretend it works. It's the emperor's new clothes. There is no Meter there.

So I guess I'll at least grab the code for the double-secret Munuvian meter and . . . oh, see. That was the whole problem. Where do I put the html for plug-ins in my sidebar? (There's a straight line if ever I heard one.)

It feels daunting to have to learn a new system, but when I started blogging I didn't know any tags at all--I couldn't do bold or italics, and still *emphasized* words with asterisks as if I were writing e-mail. So things have changed (though I'm still using the double-hyphen ["--"] for em-dashes, which is sloppy).

I think I posted my first picture a month or two ago. Very low-tech, huh?

Hey. I have a strictly utilitarian view of technology, which means I learn this stuff more slowly than most. But learn it I will.

Yay. (I loved it when Triticale pointed out the frequent Munuvian use of that word as a cultural phenomenon. I think it's rather charming, myself.)

If this blog continues to look a little spare--ascetic, even--for a little while longer, you'll know why.

Posted by: Attila at 08:24 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 When I started blogging I didn't even known what html was...I still hesitate to descend into my template or style sheet without my spelunking gear and a heavy duty flashlight (for whacking the raccoons) but it has gotten easier over time. The trick is never to do more than you can undo comfortably... Oh, and I like the splash of color you've got going! Baby steps! Baby steps into the elevator...

Posted by: Susie at April 03, 2004 01:54 PM (dD4I4)

2 Don't fear the templates! Templates are our friends. When I first stated and didn't know, well... anything, I would make my changes really exagerated so I could see what was affected by what code. It was really slow going and made for some really interesting pages to view. Reference MuNuby Help II and MuNuby Help III if you need some help whith which goes where. I'll put together a list of HTML and CSS primer sites and post on the group site. That way whenever you have a question or need a reference it's always handy.

Posted by: Madfish Willie at April 03, 2004 03:43 PM (JxHpA)

3 BRAVO!! Nice. sitemeter... new template... Do you have a banner graphic? just wondering... Jen does some really nice stuff and I work with a girl in Florida who does some really great stuff and she does a lot of animated gifs that are really cool. I like the way Educated Beyond My Intelligence did her banner with the stripes and then I layered the text on top of it... cool stuff.

Posted by: Madfish Willie at April 03, 2004 10:11 PM (JxHpA)

4 Should we suggest to Pixy that he move Little Mr. Mahatma over here?

Posted by: triticale at April 04, 2004 01:26 AM (OZJOx)

5 No harm in experimenting -- as long as you save a copy first! Then, if it blows up, no harm done.

Posted by: Ith at April 05, 2004 07:06 PM (yriZm)

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