Read My Lips - the blog

The Great American Freecell challenge

OK, here is the deal. Somehow, it is suspected that all free cell games are winnable, however, no one seems to know for sure. I am currently playing each game and am up to game 1300* out of 35000, having won all of them. What I am currently seeking is any game anyone has encountered that is thought to be unwinnable. I will then take on the challenge to actually win such game. I will, after winning such, capture the window** and post it here to show it is winnable. Post the game number of any game you feel is not winnable in the comments.

* Susan is additionally working her way up starting with game 3000, nearly successfully completing the first one hundred.

**see example in extended entry

Added 11/7/07

In later implementations of FreeCell in Microsoft Windows, there are 1,000,000 games. Of these, 8 have been found to be unsolvable. They are games No. 11,982, No. 146,692, No. 186,216, No. 455,889, No. 495,505, No. 512,118, No. 517,776, and No. 781,948. This conclusion was arrived at by the consensus of several authors of FreeCell solvers. The solvers of both Danny A. Jones and Gary D. Campbell have been run through the first million FreeCell games and have found solutions to all but these eight. Several other solvers have also failed to produce solutions to these games. Wikipedia

And after 50 attempts at game No. 11,982, I am completely convinced it is unsolvable. As such, I cede the challenge. Boo-Hoo .. guess I'll have to find something else to do to occupy my free time, which comes in 3 to 4 minutes at a time.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia

Be careful! In case you didn't notice, today is Friday the 13th. We all know that many are superstitious concerning this day. There is actually a term for such fear - Did you know that? If you are paraskevidekatraphobic, perhaps you should stay in today and read blogs.

However, turning on your computer might not be a good idea either. My assistant was out of the office today, and when I turned on her computer to obtain some needed information, it appears that the monitor is fried. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

At any rate, good luck.

It's nearing the end of the trail

The latest word from my editor is that the suggested changes should be coming my way somewhat later this evening, so I will likely be looking over such, and making such changes, modifying the text so as to fix whatever the problem is, or whatever, etc. As usual, if any of you want to look it over, leave me a comment. I am always looking for more input.

With a little help from my friends*, hopefully

I think my commenting function is broken. Would one or two of you try to leave a snarky comment to assist me in finding the problem?

*Although, if they are willing to assist, enemies will suffice, as well.

Blogging Addiction

All right, I confess. It was really projection when I implied that the kan'tgaroo and the toucan't needed therapy. It was really a call for help for my own blogging addiction.

Yes, though I have blogged for only a little over a month, I already know that I'm in serious trouble. I find myself constantly toggling over to the blog site while I work, sneaking in an entry here and there. In fact, if I go a day without blogging, I begin to feel very shaky. I fear it could get even more serious; it seems that the disease even has a name: Post-Bloggies Depression (PBD).

I'm lobbying the American Psychiatric Association this week to consider a new mental disease: Post-Bloggies Depression (PBD). Here's my preliminary write-up for the next edition of the DSM:

Post-Bloggies Depression, or PBD, is an overwhelming sense of one's smallness in the face of an ever-expanding blogosphere. Clinical practice recognizes two varieties of this illness:

Mild PBD. The patient feels no animosity toward actual finalists, and doesn't tie his self-esteem to the honor. The patient does, however, suffer chronic sadness at the thought of how much talent surrounds his tiny province of blogdom. The suffering is especially acute if the patient previously perceived himself to be a "big fish" in the blog world, and suddenly realized, thanks to the Bloggies, that he is the equivalent of a relief pitcher for a AAA baseball team.

Psychotic PBD. A mix of Mild PBD, megalomania and paranoid schizophrenia. The Psychotic PBD patient spends most of his time holed up in a room printing out blog postings from finalists and tacking them to the wall, using push pins and colored strings to simulate hyperlinks; the patient stares at these for hours, memorizing the "map" of the blogosphere so well that he can tell you how to start from any arbitrary blog and reach any of the finalists in less than six clicks. He uses everything from whois lookups on domain names to phone calls to relatives to ferret out the physical identities of finalists, and spends inordinate time and money following them around their native towns and blogging their comings and goings via wireless access points. Psychotic PBD sufferers are considered extremely dangerous people who may eventually kidnap one or more finalists and force them to guest-blog and cross-promote from the patient's basement until the incoming Technorati count for the patient's blog exceeds 500.

But I can't quit!!!!!!

That ever-widenin' generation gap continues to baffle me

TESTYPEA relates a peculiar recent conversation 'tween she and a guy friend of hers 'bout the meanin' of why a guy walks a gal to the door after a date, but I ain't quite sure if I understand ever' implication that was 'sposed to be taken from the conversation. Any translators?

Trouble tryin' to create* those tiny tags

Ya know all them teenie tiny tags ya see on people's blogs and such, well, despite my best efforts usin' both a bitmap editor and a vector graphic editor, I cannot create one where the text is actually readable. Anyone know of a tutorial for makin' these things? I need to make one for USURP, as well as would like to create one for Read My Lips to make available for use by others.

[UPDATE: Well, usin' FLASH, I was able to come up with these two:

So, what do ya think? Do they look purty good?]

*I jes' could not come up with a synonym beginnin' with the letter "T," and to think of all those years I wasted watchin' Sesame Street.

OK, please, can anyone tell me...

if the site looks mostly brown to you? Also, does the Blog 'Splosion thingie at the top look OK? I mean, I can't ever get a good look at it myself.

I mighta discovered one of those lost souls of the Blogosphere

I jes' saw this on one of the blogs I surfed across on Blog Explosion:

3,184 visitors since August 3rd, 2003

I kinda read through the entries, and though it ain't my daily cup of tea, it was much better than many other blogs out there with much higher visitation numbers. I dunno, but if anyone deserves a 'lanche from a big dog blogger, seems to me that Fountain of Angst would be a worthy candidate. Anyone game?

I have always hated cross-platform browser problems

OK, I downloaded and installed Firefox, but it is surely messin' up my bulleted lists:

Any of ya'll more 'sperienced Firefox users got any inklin' what is at fault here?

I know MT and this ain't no MT blog

I went visitin' a strange* blog,** from a link, I think, from Buzz ... and anyway, can anyone tell me what bloggin' tool [or whatever] that Shelli uses? The look and features are unfamiliar to me and I, through my brief cursory glance upon the site itself, was unable to find an answer to this inquiry, myself. My search was not entirely fruitless, however, as I did uncover a bit of extremely shockin' news: the definition of CORN is appallin'ly lackin' in its descriptive abilities. A severely alarmin' situation, what? Seems a head or two at Mirriam-Webster should definitely roll for a transgression of this magnitude. What say ye? French guillotine or should we jes' throw 'em to a bunch of idle militant Islamic jihadists?***

*Not strange in the sense that there was anythin' particularly peculiar 'bout this certain blog, but strange in the sense that I had no previous connection with such blog.

**I was unsure if it is titled Painfully Cool or Not Me.

***Where other bloggers might be 'spectin' hate mail from such statement, I only 'spect a continued surge of inane Google searchers.

Important Announcement -- Please read!!!!!!!

Attention to all those sending packages to soldiers

The military's capacity to transport mail and packages to overseas areas, principally combat theaters, is so strained that the Defense Dept. has announced it will not accept any mail or packages addressed to "any soldier" serving overseas.

Greyhawk has much more information regardin' this change in policy.

Skydivin' through the web-filled ethos with a selected target in mind

Strange, the things we think 'pon. Here I was jes' wonderin' why it was that I had not yet attained my rightful status as King of the Universe. I have taken all of the proper steps:

• I had two actual parents, neither of which had a reasonable objection to my birth
• I smartly stayed back in the pack durin' my peak developmental period, thereby avoidin' a goodly amount of the excessive physical trauma bein' applied by forces beyond my control, which served to assist greatly in my maturity process
• I have, on a consistent basis, considered the consequences of gettin' caught and ever' mitigation applicable to each known consequence prior to proceedin' with any risky activity
• I surreptitiously evaded the bounds of decency so as to get a good taste of what life had to offer on those very few opportunities I found
• I have toured and surveyed a substantial portion of my prospective domain in person and within my deepest thoughts
• I have amassed five lifetimes worth of painful feelin's of despair after havin' been forced to witness the demise of my ancestral tree
• I have pored through tomes of masterworks by Shakespeare, Dickens, Poe, London, Twain, Tolkien, Asimov, Heinlein, Bradbury, King, and stared at masterpieces by Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Warhol, and Breathed
• I have amassed an excessively large quantity of useless material possessions with which I cannot bear to part
• I have witnessed a sufficient quantity of my prospective subjects' activities so as to develop a proper understandin' of their developmental problems and limited mental capacities whenever some attractive person of the opposite gender gets near

and
• I have reviewed, subject to this point in the time-line, ever' Star Wars movie, most of the episodes of ever' Star Trek show, both the Indiana Jones and Back to the Future trilogies, E.T., Close Encounters and Bubba Ho-tep.

Yet, despite my imminent qualifications, I flounder endlessly, bein' swallowed up by the massive population of the planet until, it seems, my voice cannot be heard any longer. I wallow into the deep murkiness within my head in a feeble attempt to finally find the key to indicate the necessary step for me to ascend to my proper level in life. I slave endlessly to create somethin' so humorous and bizarre that the popular furor surroundin' the novel phenomenon will cause a humongous virtual entourage to encircle me, carry me upon their shoulders, and to applaud my ever' future effort in briefin' the world 'bout the current conditions existin' on the inside of my head. I willingly sacrifice my mundane existence in the real world so as to psychically immerse myself deeply within my consciousness and subconscious soul in the creativity process I find continually necessary to produce high quality content with the intention of pleasin' ever'one in the world. I strive only to fulfill my vision of makin' sweet sensual love to Renee Zellweger, Ashley Judd, Cameron Diaz and Ashley Scott, all together, or one at a time. Oh, wait . . . that is my big death scene, and it doesn't come 'round at this point in the story. I 'spect when it does, the names of the other participants will likely have changed.

Now, havin' wearily worked your way through the foregoin' preposterous prose, would it be fair of me to ask ya a favor? Could ya possibly leave word in some way whether ya enjoyed it or not? It'd be 'preciated. I got a whole book of jes' this sort of crap, though not done continuously in dialect (which I know will be appreciated by some of ya'll), which should be comin' out purty soon now, and gettin' some idea whether people even like my creative prose presentation would assist me at this point in time.

P.S. If some of ya'll want to send a few of your own visitors over this way, such would definitely be very assistful, as well.

Accordin' to this little thingie I found readin' that tittie tweaker, Cheese Mistress, well you can see for yourself:

How long do I last in bed? by DesideroAmor
Real Name
Birthdate (MM/DD/YY)
Favorite Color
Gender
Hours	4
Minutes	34
Quiz created with MemeGen!

It is quite possibly a purty accurate estimate of my stamina level. I'll likely only stay awake for the first fifteen minutes, however.

Change in host of next week's COTV

It seems there has been an abdication of duty concernin' next week's hostin' of the Carnival of the Vanities, but, thankfully, Bob Hayes, rumors of his death notwithstandin', has graciously agreed to take over hostin' duties.

Gmail woes

Is it me, or is there anyone else havin' trouble gettin' the gmail login page, etc. to come up this mornin'?

As close to open mike as it comes 'round here

OTB trackback

Callin' 'pon all the bloggers from The Great State of Texas

[Bumpin' this up to the top, as it seems to have been wholly overlooked]

Ya know, they seem to have good groupin's of bloggers, like the Rocky Top Brigade and the Bear Flag League, but I have yet to see any groupin' for Texas bloggers, although I know there are lots of us out there. I am proposin' that we start an association of such. If necessary, I am willin' to start a blogroll listin' of all Texas bloggers, and allowin' all Texas bloggers to just copy such onto their blog so that we can all have a listin' of all members of the groupin. Of course, we will need a name. I propose:

Now I am absolutely sure there are some better graphic artists out there, so it won't hurt my feelin's if someone comes up with a better logo than that. What is important is that we begin to recognize each other and let the world know that it ain't all that smart to Mess with Texans. So whatta ya say? Can I hear a couple of yeehaws and one yippee-yi-ooooo?

Is there more to the story than I am seein' here?

Ya'll know me. There ain't much of anythin' that can get by me without a snarky comment of some kind or a'nother.* However, I just read this, and I just don't know what to say! There is surely somethin' I am missin' 'cause some of what this lady had to say, I wouldn't be publicly admittin'.

Should I thank C.G.Hill for havin' shown me the way?

*That asterisk was intentionally placed.

Please note the change of name and act accordin'ly

As I am doin' the best to break any ties with my former blog name and havin' an intention to blog much more stealthily, I am askin' that any of ya'll that have links to this blog that are usin' the T:RR* name, to please change such to Read My Lips. Those who have maintained the Abject Apathetic Procrastination name are free to keep such if you want, although this blog is no longer called that either. It appears that members of the Puritan Gestapo had previously used T:RR in search engines to find the former location. If they find you link named as such in a future search, they might actually click it to locate me and harass me the same way they harassed my predecessor. If you are doin' like Susie and just usin' my name as the name of the link, I see no actual problem as that is a very common word.

*The expanded name is not used herein for the same reasons I am askin' for you to change your links.