Part of my goals for a while was to redesign this site to my own liking without the use of someone else's style. Maybe it was a lack of motivation or focus, but it took me a while to actually commit to the project. I'm still toying with a few things, but the main overhaul is done. I'm really enjoying the color scheme I've got. It's not that I don't like blue, I'm just rather sick of it. I worked off a scheme that contained about 9 different colors, and I think it all turned out rather nicely.
Now if I can figure out where the hell the "previous" button is...

I decided to stop being lazy and do a much-needed redesign of the site. And by redesign, I mean "find a new template", cause, really, I'm not all THAT motivated. While I liked the dark background, unfortunately my eyes are getting older with the rest of me and I was seeing weird funky things after staring at it too long. So now it's bright and happy. Uh..unlike my soul, which is DARK! AND GLOOMY!
Heh.

New banner as well. For this, I used this awesome set of feather brushes for GIMP, by vrhmq7 on Deviant Art.

So..yeah...accomplishments!

Every once in a while I like to go digging up my blog stats just to see where people are coming from and what brings them to me. Every time I make this effort, I am usually partially speechless over the search terms that directed people my way. I've selected some of my favorite terms and decided to see just where in Google search results my site fell. After seeing the results, I've decided to put down some appropriate content for these search terms. After all, it is only fair that the individuals searching for the mentioned items get some sort of satisfaction from me.

Without further adieu, and in no particular order whatsoever, Monkey Thoughts WTF Search Terms 2008:

1) Life span of vampire monkey - 4th in Google search
Well this is quite simple actually : 22 years in the wild, 38 in captivity. That is, of course, assuming they actually existed and weren't a hoax.

2) The hitcher beastiality - 38th in Google search
In neither of "The Hitcher" versions did bestiality occur. Sure, you could theorize and say "some jackasses got effed hard in the a", but that is merely a metaphor. Perhaps it is a story one was searching for, about a hitchhiker on a lonely road and an unfortunate goat? If that is the case, I would recommend altering the search terms to be a bit more specific.

3) Monkey with lipstick from scary movie -7th in Google search
...
The monkey's name was Jackson Reeves, which, you have to admit, is quite a fancy name for a primate. He wants everyone to know that he does not wear lipstick on a regular basis. The night before the shoot, he got completely wasted on cheap bourbon and ditch weed and put on Revlon Super Lustrous in Cha Cha Cherry on a dare. Unfortunately, he woke up late and had to rush to set to film his scenes. Seeing how he passed out the night before, Cha Cha Cherry was still smothered all over his face. The director loved the look, and thus it stayed, creating lingering proof of Reeves' after-hour activities.

4) How to remove poop stain - 46th in Google search
I once had the unfortunate task of removing poop from my own carpet and made a remark on my blog, thereby sealing in history the most commonly awkward search term I see, month after month. It is a cringing favorite of mine. Let's face it people...there's a lot of people's rugs getting pooped on, so for the love of all that is good in the world, do not play by the five second rule!
I now have hardwood floors, which makes the removal SO much easier. Additionally, I received a comment from Angie in Texas with steps on how to deal with said poop. That can be found in the comment section here.

5) Nipples in hustle & flow - 9th in Google search
I can only wonder if the searcher wants to know if there are nipples in "Hustle & Flow" (yes) or if I have pics of them (no). If it's the latter, I have a course of action I recommend to appease the mind for want of nipples. First, proceed to a mirror. I recommend one in private, unless you are a kinky sonuvabitch and want the world to see your business. Next, remove your shirt and any upper body undergarments you have on. Look, nipples! Now stare intently at the reflection of your nipples and begin to softly serenade yourself: "You know it's hard out here for a pimp/When he tryin to get this money for the rent/For the Cadillacs and gas money spent/Because a whole lot of bitches talkin shit" See? Sexy, isn't it?

6) One dick at a time - unknown
The fact that I couldn't find where my page landed in Google's search (got to the 118th and got bored) says a lot for the dedication of this searcher. So I pose this question to him or her: why one dick at a time? Clearly, you have the stamina and the will needed to take on more than one dick. By all means, do it!
For the rest of you, take that search phrase as a new motto for life: One dick at a time. No more, no less.

7) Punishments for dirty sluts- 49th in Google search
Nipple clamps and whips, no doubt. And maybe a bath. And some hand sanitizer.

8) Gout of the dick- 12th in Google search
A quote from "True Blood", but is it a real medical condition? You tell me.

9) My cat is trying to eat me - 12th in Google search
You have my sympathy. I say, try to eat it back. See how the bastard likes it now! (Don't really try to eat your cat. Just subtle threats will do.)

10) My sim aquarium dead fish - 9th in Google search
I actually see a few hits from various Sim Aquarium searches. I would like to state that I was a horrible sim fish keeper and you should not come my way for any such advice, for it will only lead to certain death and destruction. If you want that sort of sorrow in your life, by all means, ignore the fish for awhile. Otherwise move along to a more successful fake fish owner and they shall lead you to prosperity.

Okay, so it's been awhile. Had a lot of 'life changes' to adjust to. Well, okay...not really a lot. Frankly, just the one, but boy, was it a big one. Beginning of Aug, I ended my 'almost 5 yr run' at a company to switch gears and try something new. I'd be lying if I said I made that decision on my own with no substantial influence, but honestly, I knew the place I was at was headed for some significant changes and went with my gut feeling that those changes would not necessarily be favorable for me. (In an odd way, they were, but that's a whole other story.) So I decided to seek employment and found a position in damn near record breaking time for me. There were quite a few bonuses. For starters, I get to actually use the degree I spent all that time and energy to get. Second, I'm not sure I was really getting much out of my last job. Sure, the people were fun and the environment was one of a kind, but when I sat down and thought about what I did and I mean REALLY thought about it, it didn't make me feel like I was doing anything worthwhile for society or accomplishing much in the grand scheme of things. I did learn plenty of stuff there, it just wasn't exactly satisfying as it really should be if one plans on doing something the rest of their life. Call me an idealist, but I really believe people should be happy with their jobs. For crying out loud, we typically spend more time there than anywhere else. If you're not happy, why waste your life away? So anyway, yes, a new job for me. Funny enough, I actually am required to do work there, something I wasn't used to due to a hell of a lot of downtime recently. As a result, I am freaking exhausted and just now getting into the swing of things. I signed up for online classes that started a month ago and here I am now just looking at lesson 2. Thinking makes me tired, it would seem. HA!
But I do have a lot of things on my list. One of these days, I will post up my adventures at HorrorHound Weekend this past Aug and some really awesome vendors I met along the way.
On the movie front, I'm afraid I haven't had much time to see many, but I got a few to review, assuming I can remember them. TV front (ha!), I did happen to catch True Blood on HBO and plan to review each episode.
Big plans...just need to find the time.

My internet has been down at home, so my posting is scattered at best. Have some movie reviews to catch up on still, but will need to do that when I can better focus. So yeah, just some snippets till I'm up and running, and of course, I have my micro-blogging going on at my Twitter.

Design a new banner the other day.
Used Elegants Brush PS by =Coby17 on deviantART and The Shoreways acrylic PS brushes in the design.
Very good stuff!

Made some updates to the site the other night. Added some Netflix widgets with the sidebar so everyone can see how ridiculous I am about returning movies. And it displays some of my queue. I'm seriously going to reconsider organizing my queue so it doesn't look like I have a ton of crap movies waiting to be sent to me. (I tend to move things up to the top of the queue based on my mood.)
I've also decided to look into adding an about page...since I've been a nameless entity for the past four or so years. It just felt like the time was right (ie, I stopped procrastinating).
I want to make some more aesthetic-type changes in the future, but I'll have to get motivated for that as well.

I don't know what it is with me. I actually have more time on my hands, and yet I never seem to get around to updating this site. Well, on the plus side, I've been using that time to do productive stuff like exercising, getting my yoga on, keeping the place clean. (Except now...it needs some straightening up.) I've been a little better about getting more creative outlets, but still not where I want to be. My problem is I can think of all sorts of amazing things, but getting them to come to fruition is an obstacle for me. Got to work on that.

So it would appear a good portion of my issues stem from the fact that I tend to forget to pay certain bills. Like, for example, the phone bill last month. I spent a good week or so trying to figure out why exactly my phone wasn't working. It's not that I intended to not pay, I just simply forgot about it.
This time, I failed to renew my domain in a timely fashion. In fact, I had gotten the email saying I needed to renew, but my hosting company had charged me with domain renewal in Oct, so I assumed it was all good. Funny thing about that, their charging of a domain renewal that I was not expecting cause me to bounce a rent check for the first time in my life. I just found out this weekend that they don't own my domain name, so they shouldn't be pretending to renew it. Bleh, anyway...I didn't think to pay that bill until the site was down, and of course I didn't notice until it was after hours on Sat. So yeah. Live and kicking again.

Well, between work and Warcraft, it would seem I didn't get much blogging done at all last year. I've quit warcraft to allow myself to sleep and devote hours to other stuff, such as exercising or cleaning my apartment (you could seriously eat off the floor now). Sleeping especially. I tried to make a note of all the movies I wanted to review, but the list was ridiculous. I don't know, maybe I'll get to it. That is, of course, assuming I still remember what I thought about the movies. Sometimes I even forget I saw a movie. Anyway, I'm ready to kick some ass. Or...write some words. Yeah.

I hate not updating anything, but I just don't seem to have the time lately. Getting used to working 10 hour days...well, 10 hour days in one location, then more when I get home.
My movie watching has declined. I've been sitting with the same pile of Netflix movies for at least a month or so now. If I could have more hours in the day and still get sleep, that would be good.
Maybe I just need time management. Or..hell, I dunno.
Mainly, I just need a nap.

1. June's top search phrase for this site: "pirate master nipple".
Yeah, what?

2. People, I seriously do not know how to remove poop stains from the carpet. And for the record, ew. I mean, I've had my share of poop to clean with a toddler and all, but nothing that prompted me to do an internet search on "remove poop stains from carpet". This is one phrase I see consistently every month. Here's a bit of advise: deal with the creature pooping on the carpet in the first place. Then you may eliminate the poop-on-carpet problem entirely.

I used to laugh at folks that got all out of shape about spamming. "Oooh, deleting is SO hard" is what I would say in a mocking tone.
Then I started getting spam comments.
Dear god, they make me grouchy. Since all comments have to be approved anyway, at least I have some control over them. But for fuck's sake, I don't want cheap medications from Canada and I'm 88.9% sure I wasn't browsing at YOUR porn site. So stop trying to trick me!

GET OFF MY LAWN!

I could get the hang of that.

I absolutely suck at updating lately.
I have no excuse.
I've either been too busy or doing other shit and it slips my mind.
And I think a big part is this used to be a sort of way for me to vent a lot of my frustrations rather than exploding. Fortunately, I've become a little more mellow.
Except for today when I announced that I was gonna bitch slap someone.
But emotions were running high. Really high. Hehehehe.

Here is the list of some search terms that brought people to my site for the month of January (any misspelling on the searcher's behalf):

-wimp monkey (Hey!)
-dirty sluts (That one was my fault.)
-girls poop there panties in public places (Jeez...gross.)
-12 yr old actress rape scene (Did I even mention any aspect of this phrase anywhere??)
-sleeper cell strip club (I get it...and yet I'm envisioning a strip club with a bunch of terrorists swinging on the poles in pasties.)
-monkey fucking (Actually reminds me of a story...I'll tell it some other time.)

And while "monkey" is the top search word for the site, "sluts" comes in third. I feel like I should apologize to the person with the public defecation fetish, but eh...I'm too freaked out about it.

A month ago, maybe longer, I stumbled onto Trainwrecks. It wasn't so much a blog in the traditional sense, just a series of "Hey, check out this site" and a boatload of comments about the site. There was an air of meanness, but when you grow up with a dad who says things like "If you think you had problems, look at that guy" and vacation footage involving following around a guy cause he looks like Mr.Clean, you tend not to really notice those things. (I had a very anti-social childhood, I'll admit it.) Anyway, another site came onto the scene and started a whole out war against the site. But it went beyond spamming the site and making fun on their respective blogs. Soon the personal information of the folks at Trainwrecks was out and the mob formed. People were telling each other to harass these folks off line by calling their bosses, etc. Are people really that freaking crazy? I can't imagine in what alternative universe I would actually give a shit to do that to someone I didn't even know.
Sadly, and I think I mentioned this before, it's not the first time I've seen shit like that. Anytime someone seems to become a very public figure on the internet or ends up saying something others disagree with, there is always that anonymous person showing up with instructions to get to the person's house.
Who has that much time to devote to causes such as this? Are there really not enough real-world problems within your grasp that being a certifiable nutcase seems like a completely viable option?
Better yet, what makes a person decide that posting the information is a good idea? Is it done out of malice, or the need to stir up shit, or do they really feel they are helping out the greater good?
It's one of those things that will baffle me for a long time. Things like this really break up any understanding of people I may have thought I had.

My brother told me I was neglecting my blog. And I was like "Yeah. Been sick." Which is true. But I thought it was only about 3 days, not a freaking week since I been here. Jesus.

I've had this mixture of oncoming sickness with lack of sleeping well. It leaves me incapable of even playing video games. And watching my Netflix movies that I've had for a month. Yet not incapable of watching the LOTR trilogy. As I posed to several other people, why was everyone all about Orlando Bloom in that series? He's much better as a dirty pirate. But in LOTR, he was waaaaaay too "pretty boy". There were so many other good looking men in that film. Did I mention I have an Aragorn collectible figure? A friend of mine picked it up on sale while birthday shopping for William (which makes it approximately 4 years now) and I've kept it in the box, sitting quietly on my bookcase. Aside from the WoW, and taking off to see Star Wars, it is up there in my nerdiest moments. I am very proud.

I was on such a roll with the update and blaaaah.
I'm too damn tired for words. (Not as in I can't describe my tiredness, I just can't deal with actual WORDS at the moment.) Kids have been sick, keeping me up. Sleeper Cell has been on every night, and I just realized today that the whole season is on demand at the moment. The DVR fucked up and I lost my backlog o' movies, which may not be a bad thing actually. And I just feel bored lately.

The Bad Girls Club on Oh! is making me giggle though. Bitches is crazy.
Yeah. Well. Words.

Well, I managed to get most of my old movie reviews up, in their respective dates. That was a tedious task. I'm ashamed to admit it, but I did it for the most part so that I could remember whether or not I liked a movie. I have a horrible memory. I blame the propranolol that I used to take for headaches. It's quite obvious that it can't discern which memories to block. Yeah. That's a good excuse.
One thing I did notice about these old posts...I can't spell for shit. Thank god Firefox 2.0 has the built in spell checker, cause my internal one doesn't work.
I also noticed that I like the 3 banana rating a lot.

The other day, I stumbled across a site the other day that highlights the various dramas going on in the "blogosphere". Apparently, there's some major drama going on between some major "mommybloggers" and another site who has a very apparent disdain for such stuff. I have no opinion on the matter really, but sheesh...there is far more drama in the last few days than this season of Laguna Beach (that's not really saying much though...this season is pretty dull).
I don't get the whole mommyblogging thing anyway. Maybe I've just known far too many crazies to be comfortable with my kids' pictures plastered everywhere.

This new format is making me feel mature. I'm hoping I don't end up writing about more mature things. You know, other than the two posts mentioning poop.
I'm still tweaking and getting used to this whole format. Despite being in Italian, formatting the old code was pretty easy. But I felt no control over it. Shit would go wrong and I couldn't debug. And I sure the hell couldn't get technical support. This is a good change. Now if I could figure out how to get the quotes back up, I would be happy. I considered getting my old posts up, but I'd have to figure out the whole Access/mySQL thing, and I really don't want to do that. Maybe just the movie reviews. We'll see.

The past few days, I've been in the process of moving hosts for my site. It would have gone smoother if I was able to update my own DNS, but alas...had to make some calls on that one. What this means now is I've made the move to Movable Type. No more code in Italian. No more weird errors I can't fix. (If you've gone to my site in recent times, you would have noticed several tech errors involving database connections, etc. I hadn't changed the code, so I don't know what caused it.) No more messed up calendars. No more backwards dates.
Unfortunately, I am VERY new to this whole MT thing, so I have to get accustomed to it before I figure out how to beat this into some semblance of how I want my site to work.
So please, excuse the mess!