The heat, the heat…

Hey two blogs in two days!

I’M TOO HOT. Its only 11am and I’ve been up for 3 hours and been TOO HOT for 3 hours. aarrrgghhh.

This country is not equipped for dealing with heatwaves, and as it is 102F/ 39C(?) today, then I think that qualifies as a heatwave. My cats are flaked out, I am sitting with a fan beating on my face, and everything is hot and sticky and yuk!

It is ironic that people complain that the weather is so cold and wet for most of the year, and then 1. complain that its too hot, and 2. rush out half naked and burn themselves to a crisp. My sister has been on holiday and is now at home but still on holiday, and I can guarantee that when I see her she will be completely burnt and freckley. Its almost like, ‘we never see the sun, so we have to get as much of it as possible while its here’. I lived in Australia until recently and I have seen the effects of too much sun; I have seen so many people with very advanced skin cancer; I have seen people who’ve had their noses cut off due to skin cancer; and Ive seen people whose skin cancer has spread through their skin and into their bones, their organs, and has killed them.

I am a fair skinned, slightly freckled if I sit in the sun, redhead. I always wanted to be a tanned blonde beach chick. In my early teens, I once sat under a sunbed in an attempt to be ‘tanned’. I hated my pale freckly skin. The sunbed had three settings – 1min for sensitive/fair skin, 2mins for normal skin, 3 mins for dark skin.

Guess which one I used?

Then when I saw no difference, I did it for another 3 mins.

My torso (front and back) my legs (front) and (oh god), my face, were seriously burnt by the end of the day. It took a little time to develop, but by nighttime, my face was blistered – with water blisters – the rest was RED RED RED – and I was in agony. I looked like a burns victim.
As it was also winter it looked even worse, lol, and my mum had to call the school and tell them I couldnt attend due to sunburn. I dont think they believed her.

I recovered, I didnt scar, there is no visible damage. But it only takes a few exposures like that,especially at an early age, to kick the skin cancer into gear. I *do* go out in the sun – if you live in a hot country there’s no choice – but I dont sunbathe. I do go to the beach because I love the sea, but I cover myself in sunblock. I still tan – lightly – but Im never in it enough to get a darker tan, and I hate freckles so I like to keep them to a minimum. I also NEVER have my face in the sun EVER. Hats, sunglasses, sunblock. I dont care if my face is pale, sometimes I use bronzer if it looks too strange, but I keep my face out of the sun.

I have friends in their early 20s and their skin has aged so much and they have so many lines – especially around the eyes as they dont wear sunglasses, preferring to squint in the sun – by the time they are 30-40 they will look about 50-60. And they are responsible for that.

Anyway, see what the heat does for me lol, I have gone way off topic and started ranting about the sun!

While I’m here I just thought I would give you all a way of converting the temperatures:

If you know the Celsius temperature -

eg 33C degrees

33 +32 x 9/5 = 90.6F (9/5 = 9 divided by 5) = 90.6F

If you know the farenheit temperature –

eg 91F degrees

91 – 32 = 59 x 5/9 (5/9 = 5 divided by 9) 32.7C

Hope that helps!

I said last time, that I was a bit sad. Well those who know me, know why, but I’m still a little sad today too… and TOO HOT

Happy Birthday Day!

Today is the birthday of my website in its current incarnation. It’s been a funny day, and I’ve been very up and down

It doesnt help that I am in a strange place, and its also VERY HOT, unusual for this country, its quite a shock.

People complain all year about how bad the weather is, how wet the weather is, how cold the weather is, and then when we finally get some nice WARM weather, all you hear are people complaining about it being TOO HOT lol

Anyway, I’m rambling, what else happened today?

Well I had to help my mum in the garden, we were kinda melting.

I got chosen to be a beta tester for some software! Yay! That’s not bad for a moron like me and who this time last year, didnt have a clue about any of it. I guess I’ve made some kind of progress.

My cats have been unconscious for most of the day due to the heat

I am also a bit sad today and really disappointed in some people

I hope tomorrow is a better day.

*advance posting*

Happy Birthday Empire of the Cat!

The Empire of the Cat site is celebrating its Birthday this month. We welcome all fellow book addicts to come join our book lover’s haven and help us celebrate!  Wow I cannot believe a year has flown by so fast! It’s been a great, fun time, and I really enjoyed meeting a lot of new friends and chatting away with you all – old and new.

We have a number of contests on the board, including a banner contest, and we have a range of book and cat related banners on offer to celebrate the Empire of the Cat Book Addict’s Forum!

We are more than just a message board, we are a fully integrated portal site with lots of things to see and do in and around the forum. We discuss all kinds of books in all kinds of genres and we have just been chosen as book group of the month by another site. Our site has many features including – reviews, articles, blogs, gallery, writing program, shoutbox, karma – and much more.

Next month we have Bob Freeman, hosting his own book discussion of Shadows over Somerset, and also Kelley Armstrong will be dropping in when we discuss Broken, also in August.

So if you want to join in the fun, just follow the links

*Although the original Empire of the Cat forum started life as the original Banner Shop in April 2005, the actual Empire of the Cat domain name and new site was developed in July 2005 and replaced the Banner shop site*

Celebrate Our First Birthday!

We are celebrating our 1st Birthday this month so we thought we would have a couple of banner contests to celebrate!

The theme for this contest is A TRIP DOWN BANNER MEMORY LANE!

The Empire of the Cat started life as a banner shop in April 2005, before moving to this new site. So to celebrate our original Banner shop concept and our love of banners, we are having a ‘trip down banner memory lane’ contest.

How to enter:

Open your banner closet and look at the back of the closet and dig out your old – but still loved – clothes. This could be the first banner you ever had, the first banner you got from one of the banner shops here or one that you’ve held onto for sentimental reasons – whether it fits you or not lol

As it is a special occasion, we are offering mega karma to the winners!
*don’t forget to tell us who made your banner so we can reward them too*

No need to request a banner for this contest as you are browsing through your existing collection!

A limit of 5 per member since a year is a long time and we all have so many beautiful banners. Please list the banner maker who made it for you and why you chose the banners you entered

Don’t forget to wear your banners around the site and Celebrate with us!

Empire of the Cat Birthday Celebrations – We are one year old this month!

Wednesday, 12 July 2006

The Empire of the Cat domain and site is now one year old this month, and we are celebrating!

It was on the 16th of July 2005, that I opened this site. It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed already.

There have been a lot of changes over the past year, people have come and gone and during that time we have had 346 people join the forum in total!

I used to have another forum which operated as a Banner Shop, and I also had a separate website, which was 75mb in size and was a collection of things that I was interested in. It wasnt bad as a first attempt but it was just waaay too big and it wasnt integrated.

A portal was what I had in mind, so this site was started and has been in development ever since. People who know me, know well that I like to change things but it is only because I am trying to make the site better,and I am always thinking up ideas and ways to make it better. (I am not addicted to changing the site despite what you might have heard lol.) The forum was changed and expanded and upgraded into what you see today, and is built around a library theme with a check-in desk, a reference desk, a reading room, special collections and a lounge. The site is fully integrated, everything is linked together, and we are building content slowly but surely.

Our Original Online Book Group has read over 30 books in the last year and another 15 are still to come in the remainder of this year! We have had six authors join the board and post with us, and we hope to have many more. We have even obtained special Book Group discounts with one publisher for Shadows over Somerset which will be one of the books featured in August. The author, Bob Freeman, will be leading the discussion, assisted by Nabs, one of our Library Moderators.

More exciting news about the Book Group is that we will be featured as the Book Group of the Month next month on a book group directory site, and will be the first online book group to have that honour! We are also approved and listed with a number of other book related and publisher sites as a Book Group.

If you are finding our site for the first time, and share our love of books and reading and general chatting on the net, then come on in and help us Celebrate!

Elliel

Site Administrator

Emptying your Cache – and other technical things

• Internet Explorer: View / Refresh or F5
• Mozilla/Firefox: View / Reload or CTRL+R
• Opera: Doesn’t seem to have a menu option. Use the Refresh button on the toolbar or CTRL+R

2. Refresh the frames. We don’t use frames on this site but this is good to know anyway.  To refresh an individual frame right-click somewhere in an empty part of the frame (ie NOT on an image) and select the appropriate option from the menu that pops up:

• Internet Explorer: Refresh
• Mozilla/Firefox: This Frame / Reload Frame
• Opera: Frame / Reload or ALT+F5

3. Empty your web cache. The web cache is where your browser saves pages that you have viewed. This can save time when you visit the same site frequently, but it can also mean that your browser just shows you the page & images that it has saved on your hard drive, rather than check to see whether the page online has changed. As well as emptying your cache, it’s also worthwhile changing how often your browser checks to see whether pages have changed (see step 4).

• Internet Explorer: Tools / Internet Options. Then on the “General” tab (which is normally showing by default) in the “Temporary Internet Files” section, click on “Delete Files”. This can sometimes take quite a while if your cache has built up to mammoth size!
• Firefox: Tools / Options and then click on the “Privacy” icon on the left side of the window that appears. Then click on the “empty” button in the “cache” section.
• Mozilla: Edit / Preferences and then click on the + sign next to “Advanced” in the menu on the left. In the drop down menu that appears, click on “cache” and then click on the “clear cache” button in the main part of that window.
• Opera: Tools / Preferences and then select the “advanced” tab. Then click on “History” on the left side of the window, and then on the “Empty now” button in the Disk Cache section in the main part.

4. Alter Other Settings. This is optional, but changing how often your browser checks for updated pages, changing the size of your web cache, or automatically deleting the cache when you exit your browser can all make a difference to your browsing pleasure. If you have dial-up, then emptying your web cache automatically may not be a good idea, expecially if you regularly visit image-intensive sites.

• Internet Explorer
  • To change how often IE checks for newer versions of pages: Tools / Internet Options, then on the “General” tab (which is normally showing by default) in the “Temporary Internet Files” section, click on “Settings”. Then alter the settings at the top of the new window. I have mine set to “every visit to the page”, but choose the option you want.
  • To change the size of the cache: Tools / Internet Options, then on the “General” tab (which is normally showing by default) in the “Temporary Internet Files” section, click on “Settings”. Then alter the settings under “Temporary Internet Files folder”.
  • To empty the cache when you exit Internet Explorer: Tools / Internet Options, then on the “Advanced” tab scroll right down to the bottom of the list of settings. In the section called “security”, check the box next to “Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed”.
• Mozilla:
  • To change how often Mozilla checks for newer versions of pages: Edit / Preferences and then click on the + sign next to “Advanced” in the menu on the left. In the drop-down menu that appears, click on “cache”. Choose the option you want under “Compare the page in the cache to the page on the network”. Mine is set to “Every time I view the page”, but choose the option that suits you.(sir)
  • To change the size of the cache: Edit / Preferences and then click on the + sign next to “Advanced” in the menu on the left. In the drop-down menu that appears, click on “cache”. Change the cache size in “Set cache options”.
  • To empty the cache when you exit Mozilla: This option doesn’t seem to be available in Mozilla.
• Firefox:
  • To change how often Firefox checks for newer versions of pages: This option doesn’t seem to be available in Firefox
  • To change the size of the cache: Tools / Options and then click on the “Privacy” icon on the left side of the window that appears. Then change the size of the cache in the “cache” section. Note that the cache size is in kilobytes, not Mb.
  • To empty the cache when you exit Firefox: This option doesn’t seem to be available in Firefox.
• Opera:
  • To change how often Opera checks for newer versions of pages: Tools / Preferences and then select the “advanced” tab. Then click on “History” on the left side of the window. Change the settings for “check documents”, “check images” and “check other”.
  • To change the size of the cache: Tools / Preferences and then select the “advanced” tab. Then click on “History” on the left side of the window. Change the setting of “Disk Cache”.
  • To empty the cache when you exit Opera: Tools / Preferences and then select the “advanced” tab. Then click on “History” on the left side of the window. Check the “empty on exit” box.

  
  

I am moving out in a few days time, and have been packing for what seems like an eternity.  That is what happens when you have 1000s of books, they all require careful packing in secure, correctly-sized book boxes.

I don’t know how I feel about moving – it wasnt my idea.  Suddenly my landlord announced that his son was married and they needed the house back – it was all kinda hush hush and last minute – and so now it’s goodbye.  This house is a big old farmhouse with so much space that I didnt even realise just how much I had filled it up and just how much stuff I actually have (since it was all squirrelled away in many rooms lol)

I think maybe I should have moved before now as there are things I don’t want to talk about here but there are some good reasons for me living somewhere else, but I guess I might have just stayed there a while longer had it not been for the big push I was given.  So let’s look at it as a good thing, a fresh start, a change of scenery and my first home that I will actually own! *gasp*

Anyway, I do have somewhere to go to, but I can’t go there until September when the contracts are finalised.  Meanwhile me and the kitties will be moving in with my mum for a couple of months.  I don’t know how that will go as its a small house and we can’t let the cats out haha!

Everything will have to be packed away – including the computer – for a week or so, while we get everything packed and ready for the removal people.  I am also taking a huge traumatic step and actually throwing stuff out and giving some of the good stuff away!!!  You have no idea how hard that is or even how hard it is to write!  We have arranged with a charity to come and collect everything the day before the removal people arrive.  The downside (apart from parting with it all) is that it slows everything down.  Instead of just packing everything, I now have to consider what is going with me, what is going to charity and what (cringe) is going in the bin!  But I’m sure I will feel good about it afterwards

Since the computer will be packed up and I will have to arrange for internet access at mum’s I will also be offline and away from the site for probably a week or so.  That will be really weird as I am never away from the site, but I have left it in the capable hands of our moderators, so I’m sure I won’t be missed.

So back to the grind.  I only took a short break to check email etc.  The house is now full of boxes and getting around is getting difficult.  I have already ripped a really good pair of trousers on something and I’m really annoyed about it as they were my fav (very expensie) yoga pants- grrr