2 O’clock in the a.m. and I’m chatting with Josh on twitter. It seems that since he has no photo and a weird username some girl has mistaken him for a real celebrity, and we can’t stop giggling about it.

I see my friends and co-workers tweets go by, the occasional from Simon Pegg, Nathan Fillion, Stephen Fry (and other random celebrities I don’t know but who have great tweets), and then all of the sudden I see it – trending: Christian Slater.

Of course my first reaction was to think, “Great! Christian is trending because of his newest project, it’s about time he trended!” but then something else caught my eye. The name trending right below Slaters was John Barry, the inspired composer behind the 007 themes as well as Born Free who passed on yesterday (I believe). That’s when I started to think, “Well, maybe it’s not such good news?”

I clicked my handy dandy Google shortcut and started to type Christian’s name into the box, but the automatic suggestion was, “Christian Slater Dead” — how do you not freak out when you see something like that?

Let me say that much like all other celebrities, I don’t know Christian Slater. I don’t know his family, his friends, I’ve met him once and gotten an autograph… in the 90s. No, this isn’t a post about how I’m an old lady, lol. But I don’t know him, so when I hit submit and saw that the top news story was that of his demise, I shouldn’t have freaked out but I did.

I’ve been a fan of his since I can remember, the first film I could quote with a sarcastic twinge to my voice was Heathers, so Christian (much like Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp) was an iconic part of my child and teen-hood. The news of his death was tragic, it was horrible, it was… obviously not true.

Being the Faith that I am I did a little digging after my momentary heart failure, and I found such little clues like only a date of death on Wikipedia (no clean up snippet saying that this is an article on someone who’s recently died) along with several misspellings, and that the only ‘official’ news was hearsay on a blog. None of the major news outlets were publishing such a potentially massive story. (Eventually his publicist killed the rumour, too.)

And there was a good reason for that — it was a hoax. Why the hell the internet thinks it’s hilarious to tell people that celebrities die in fatal snow boarding accidents 10 at a time is beyond me, but now they aren’t even trying. If someone like me can figure it out in 5 seconds, with my 2 month old chimp I.Q.? Anyone can. If you’re going to take the time to make something this horrible up, at least do some leg work first. And you might want to get a spellchecker.

Tagged with: Christian Slater Death Hoax • Christian Slater is Alive • Christian Slater is Dead • Hoaxes • Twitter

Posted by Faith on at 1:35 pm

We all want a domain. If you have your own website, you’re itching to get rid of the long url and a domain is like having a tattoo – it sets you apart while it’s yours. You can express your artsy side with your name, let people know what or who you’re a fan of, promote your business or just bliss out over something cute – all for ten bucks!

But wait, does it really have to cost any money? Granted, if you run a business you’re going to want a top-level, com/net/org to look professional. But if you’re just a blogger in high school or college with a WordPress site, or a foodie recommending local eateries, you may be wasting precious money registering and renewing a domain name if you don’t really need one.

Now, I’m an old lady. In my day, domains were free to register. I don’t think anyone had any idea that this would turn into a global business. So, domains quickly bounced around the price scale, I’ve seen everything from 50 cents in my day to 99 dollars for a new, regular registered domain. Mostly, though, ever since Godaddy began it’s hovered around about 10 bucks and that’s seemed to set the standard price for the rest of the web.

So what if you don’t have the 10 bucks? Or you don’t want to spend it? That’s where the freebies come in, and I know you love freebies because you’re greedy, like me, lol!

Remember, these are not in order of greatness, the order is entirely random:

#1. The first is a domain everyone is probably familiar with, and that’s top level .TK. I’m sure in the past you’ve used one to redirect to your myspace or webs.com page, but did you know they now offer free DNS support? That’s right, .tk domains now work just like real domain names, and yes they are still free! Sidenote, they’re one of the few who really do crack down on their TOS, so if you don’t get 20 hits per 90 days they WILL cancel your domain (you are free to reregister), and if you run a site that uses celebrity images or other copyrighted materials and they find out, once again, they WILL cancel your domain. If you just have a regular blog or a family website, you shouldn’t have any problems with them. Obviously, if you run a PSD, blend, fanart or celebrity fansite this is not the domain for you.

#2. Number two is CO.CC, which has in the last year or so become a great resource for anyone wanting a free web url that looks and works just like a real domain. I use them for several small websites, and I haven’t had any problems with them. You get two free ‘domains’, with the ability to edit and use DNS as well as url forwarding. If you want more you can donate less than $5 to get several extra domains. They renew for free.

#3. Another seemingly stable registrar is CZ.CC, which allows you 5 free domains, free DNS support (or forwarding, if you prefer, along with a host of other abilities). They, like all of the domains on this list, are currently free from ads or pop ups and look enough like a real domain to make a blog owner happy. I’ve used them for a few months and have no complaints.

#4. CE.MS is one I’ve only found out about it in the last two weeks, but it’s much like cz.cc (down to using the same script to setup domains), and it seems to be pretty easy to use. Also free and ad-free, uses DNS and url forwarding. I can’t speak on it’s reliability just yet but so far so good. They allow you to register 3 domains and renewal is free.

#5. Lydia gave me this url, she registered her domain at GV.VG, which is very much like the other registrars and offers your standard no ads, 5 free domains, full DNS support as well as forwarding and whatnot. I registered one of their domains about two weeks ago and haven’t had any problems, but they seem to be fairly new yet!

#6. I found out about this one from Jon, who has one of their domains for his blog. He registered it at FR.AM, which seems to be a small-time operation run by an individual. You can choose your short url from their subdomains: fr.am, mm.am, and nl.am – all can be registered from their site for free, but are actually part of our next registrar:

#7. I have been using these guys for ages! You can register your free subdomain at FREEDNS.AFRAID.ORG, it uses your nameservers and there aren’t any ads, plus you get fast propagation and domain-looking urls like yourname.us.to — the downside is that they only use 1 nameserver, not great if you want to use webmail or pop3 with your domain name.

#8. One of the older subdomain-domains on the net is BIZ.LY, which is free and does use your nameservers, but these guys not only force a link back (which is not that big a deal), but the kicker is that you have to already have a website with at least 100 unique daily hits to even apply and they still may reject you. Too many hoops to jump through for yourname.biz.ly, don’t you think?

#9. Number 9 is one of the newer slew like cz.cc who use a standardized script to let you register their CO.TV domains. So far so good with these guys, I’ve used them for several months without incident. You’re limited to 3 domain names, but they use your nameservers or url forwarding if you prefer and you can renew them for free I believe.

#10. Another standardized script subdomain is VV.CC, which limits you to 5 domains each registerable for 2 years at a time. This also uses url forwarding or your own nameservers, and the 2 domains I have registered with them have been doing insanely well for free domains. Unlike older domains like tk and cjb.net, these guys are somewhat new and so don’t have the stigma of spam attatched to them where Google is concerned, or that’s how it seems. My first vv.cc got a pagerank of 1 within a month of being up!

#11. For anyone who’s been on the net for a few years, CJB.NET will probably bring back a lot of (mostly bad) memories. They were one of the first widly used short urls, and easily one of the most popular. They carried ads and malware, and probably still do, but now they boast use of your own nameservers – that is, if you can figure out how to set them once you’ve signed up. I couldn’t, and I’m usually pretty good at that. :/

#12. Last, but certainly not least, is another oldie but a goodie which offers you your own subdomain of UNIC.CC. They used to have a limit of one per customer I think, but Madeline uses them and said she’s got 2 with them on the same account and room for more. I believe they request that you link back but I don’t think it’s manditory, and they are ad-free as well as giving you the option of DNS management or url forwarding. They’ve been around forever, and have proved to be very stable over the years.

Well, that’s my list. I’m sure there are a few I’ve missed, but here’s what I’ve used in the past. Domains are great, but a real, pay domain isn’t always necessary. I hope this list helps you out a bit!

Tagged with: Free 3rd Level Domains • Free Domain Names • Free Top Level Domains

Posted by Faith on at 5:17 pm

A bit belated, I know, but in my defense I’m very slow these days, lol.

We’ve had non stop company thanks to Ben, who thinks he never has to be a grown up or in any way responsible if his company never leaves. He can focus on relaxing, having treats, gabbing with his friends and playing games. Making big messes, which he never even offers to help clean up. So Laota and I are more or less stuck between long work hours, taking care of Ben’s dog (Lily) and cleaning up after him and unfortunately it takes up all of our time and then some.

I’m hoping that once he has no excuse for parties this will calm down a little bit, because Thor knows I have no idea what I’m going to do if he keeps trucking on this way. It’s been one long party since Halloween, constant messes, constantly surrounded by people I don’t know or don’t like. And if one day goes by where the LDS Missionaries don’t spend the entire day here, I swear I’ll die of pure shock.

It hasn’t been all bad, in the sense that other than freezing sometimes the winter to this point has been very mild and snow has been scarce, thank the gods. Lily’s a painful but joyful dog, there’s nothing she likes more than snow (her favorite is for you to kick or throw some snow at her and she tries to catch it in her mouth).

She’s been having a pretty good time since the weather turned to lower temperatures, and with all but the feral dogs in their houses she more or less has the run of things without worry of her being attacked by one of our hillbilly neighbors awful yapping psycho pets. Which is good, because it gets her used to being out and off of her leash. Unfortunately Ben doesn’t spend enough time with her, so we’ve implored him to keep her on her leash when he takes her for a walk, but does he? No, he does not and it annoys me because he lost her for a second time at 5 am. And his excuse when yelled at was, “Well Faith and Laota never put her on her leash!”, as if it’s our fault? We don’t when we don’t have to, for her sake and ours, and to be frank we have never lost track of that dog.

The problem is he doesn’t want to really do anything, ever, so he doesn’t walk her just lets her out the back door without going himself and Lily is a runaway dog, so she’s prone to running off. He’s a grown man, she’s just a puppy, who’s fault do you think this is? If it’s between him and Lily, I vote it’s his fault, she’s just a baby and she needs us. That being said, if he was going to be like this (and we knew he would) he should have probably not lobbied for a dog for so long when we knew and he knew damn well we’d have to take care of it on top of everything else. Argh, je gripe!

On a lighter note, I’m saving up for an H2O Wireless card and $10 plan (saving up means sometime next month or the month after, lol), but that’s $20 for the first month then $10 thereafter for a small amount of talk and texting every month. I don’t use the phone a ton but I’d like to be able to call someone if there’s an emergency or I’ll be late somewhere, you know? I’m also thinking of saving up for a SciPhone if they use iPhone apps, only because I want to use a cheap app they won’t let me play on my damn computer, lol.

Oh and my sister Tine may be coming over for a visit, it would be the first time I’ve seen her since my stepdad’s funeral which is going on 5 years now. Yay, I can’t wait for her visit! I will try to post pics.

Now, just for fun, I’ll leave you with one of my favorite songs: Christine O’Donnell singing “I’m Not A Witch” from Songify This on Youtube:

Tagged with: Ben • Lily • New Year • Tine

Posted by Faith on at 8:11 pm