Read My Lips - the blog

Oops, I found something interesting

I was surfing, and found this post on Right Wing News about the rankings of all the top blogs. Well of course, I was not among them,* but I was unaware of sites like Alexa so I check to see what that site was all about. It actually appeared to be a directory like Yahoo!, but there was a link on the side that said Top 500 on the Web, so I figure I will go look at what are the top 500 sites on the web. Not any real surprises in the English language sites with Yahoo! topping the list, followed by MSN.com, followed by Google and so on. What was interesting was that there was also a list for the top Reference oriented sites. MapQuest led, but the second one was something called Internet Archive Wayback Machine. I had never heard of this site. It seems that they keep archives of websites, and even have several dates to choose from, having kept up when such sites were updated. I immediately checked out the functions and keyed in the URL for my old abandoned domain. Sure enough, it showed what used to exist there. OK, this is too cool. My first website was on geocities and it was a massive undertaking. I somehow had neglected to do any updating on the site** for such a sufficient time that Yahoo!/geocities assumed I had abandoned the site and all the files stored there appeared to be deleted. I wonder if they archived that site. Thankfully I did remember that long URL from HELL and keyed it in, and viola!, I was staring at a site that I thought I would never see again. I might be spending time over the next few days retrieving some of my prior writing. I have already gotten a short humor piece I had penned during my time on that site and you can check it out in the extended entry.

*I do expect to be someday

**The last copyright date was 1998. I think the last time I was able to access the site successfully was in 2000, but do not remember making any changes after 1998.

UPDATE: Regrettably, with over 100 pages on that site and on xoom.com (extinct, I believe) most of the really long, controversial topic commentaries cannot be found. That was what I wanted. About the only thing worth salvaging was my Rules of Life:

The Rules of Life

I live life by certain rules:

• the 10 Commandments should be strictly obeyed


• Jesus was a great role model and should be emulated


• the "golden rule" makes sense and should be followed


• do not be selfish, if at all possible


• take only what you deserve, not what you can get


• hate*** no one for that over which they had no control (who their parents were)


• live life as if it were an adventure (roll with the flow!)


• treat all people with the respect they deserve, and


• determine a person's intentions before feeling hurt by their acts or words

***I have actually strengthened this rule to do not hate anyone. This is particularly hard to do, but hatred is such a vile emotion.

The Saga of the Infamous Dweezle

"A dweezle? " you may ask. "What the heck is a dweezle?" Well, my friend, dweezles exist in this world by the millions. They are rarely seen however, and seldom without some embarrassment to those who see them, except to those who possess one. They get used to seeing them, well the one they possess, but for some reason even those people are embarrassed if they see someone else's. A dweezle is a brainless creature, truly so. It possesses no senses other than the sense of touch, being sightless, deaf, and having no sense of smell or taste. They feed directly from their environment, and their mouth is the only orafice they possess. They intake nothing through their mouths, however, but use this to spit or vomit or spew fluids from within themselves.

Although I suspect that the dweezle I possess had been around for several years, I only became very familiar with it after the age of 12 or so. I found that if I petted him (and I only suspect it is a "he" not knowing if these things possess a "sex" or not) that he became very excited and would stand up, swell up with pride at the attention. Of course, too much attention would agitate him, I suppose, for sometimes he would just puke all himself and me. And, really, I should have suspected such action, for I noticed he started to drool as soon as I started to caress him.

I have yet to determine what makes a dweezle tick. Since I only have intimate contact with the one in my possession, so I can only assume that they are all similar to mine. Most of the time, the dweezle sits comfortably out of sight, but goes everywhere I do, never gets far from me. He even goes so far as to take a shower with me, and that leaves me with the job of drying him off, and luckily, this seldom excites him anymore.

What seems to bring him the greatest pleasure is seeking shelter in warm, moist places, usually caverns. Whenever he has an opportunity, and gosh, seemed like he never missed one if available when I was younger and had not yet learned to control him, he will scurry in and out of any warm, moist (and he seems disinclined to enter caverns that are not warm and moist?) as fast as he can until he just throws up his guts. Then he seems to lose interest in the game and is ready to rest again. Hmmm, funny creatures, these dweezles, or at least the one I have.

Oh well, I hope that you have enjoyed this tale, though I suppose you may already know about dweezles. I find that most often they are owned by males, though a few males who own them believe they are not male. I also understand that it is difficult to sever a dweezle from his owner, but I have heard that it has been done. The dweezle, however dies from the removal from his environment, unless reattached very soon after the separation. Oh, lastly, I chose not to put a picture of a dweezle on this page, for some might think it is offensive. Like I told you, many are embarrassed at the sight of one!

Posted by Tiger at June 10, 2003 07:57 PM