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Thanks so much for the advice everyone! I think I"m going to refrain from taking pictures of them with a flash. I haven't fiddled with night mode on this camera yet (which is a Kodak 5 mpx btw), but will plan to in the future - those pictures must look great (can't get into the site actually)! One neat thing about PS is that I can fiddle with the light levels, and did so on the before and after pics you'll see attached, and I can live with that. They're not as crisp as I'd like them to be, but its just for my scrapbook, so they'll do Btw, Siamese and Burmese are two different breeds of cat. Burmese cats have gold eyes. I've been owned by siamese cats my entire life... they've got great personalities! Thanks for the advice - I'll be trying lots of new things! Jennifer Arianna Frances

Although my DZ is open (on weekends) during the winter - they don't do AFF until the spring. I started classes, but got booted on a technicality and had to find another DZ. Happy I was able to find one, but bummer that ithappened so late in the season here. When spring comes - watch out! Don't always take what you read on someones profile as truth about experience or jump numbers - I doubt everyone updates or wants to provide the info. Jennifer Arianna Frances

I just recently got my first digital camera. My cats are my life, and as such I take lots of pictures of them. They are siamese, and have blue eyes, which don't photograph well. I know that I need to keep steady light at camera level when taking their picture so that their eyes don't look like those in the attached picture... but thats not always ideal. I want to edit the pictures so they look more 'normal'. I have photoshop 7 but am not very skilled in using it for photo editing - can anyone give me tips? Thanks all! Jennifer Arianna Frances

hmmm - don't know what you'll be playing, but my current fav song is: Try Honesty - Billy Talent Good anger song Jennifer PS My husband has a second job as a producer of a weekend radio shift - he loves it. *edit for piss poor spelling Arianna Frances

ooh I'm with you on that! I love AIC - they rocked! Arianna Frances

ahh... dreams At the moment working as a 'computer-analyst-who-does-everything-no-one-else-wants-to-do' for what could be called an architectural/engineering firm. Going to school for computer programming. My dream job is as a manager of a team of game programmers. I can't see myself actually doing alot of the programming, but can see myself managing a team. Some day... Jennifer Arianna Frances

Hehe Got in an accident yeterday, so my car was out of commission, and we forgot to put dry gas in my husbands car, so the gas line froze... what did we do? We went for a walk THen to Mohegan Sun to get some free beer Jennifer Arianna Frances

Thanks everybody! Its currently -12 F here, and neither of our cars will start, but when they do I'll go to the police station and file a report (I have 3 days to do so). Thankfully - no pain this morning! woo hoo! Thanks again! Jennifer Arianna Frances

This morning I was in an accident. After coming to a complete stop at a stop sign, a woman in a buick slid into me at approx. 10-15 mph. It was a loud sound, and propelled me into the intersection (which was thankfully empty). The front of her car will need some serious work - new grill, fender and one headlight/turn signal. My car - NO visible damage. I was surprised my KIA bumpers held up so well. We did not call the police, instead handled it ourselves - exchanged insurance info and phone numbers. As it turns out this woman works at one of the campus' at the school I attend, and she called this evening to help me re-register for some classes that have been dropped while I await reimbursement for last semester. Anyway, I knew, as I finsihed driving to work (this occured around the corner form my office) the car was sluggish. Upon driving home tonight the muffler and rear brakes were making horrendous noises, and I don't feel confident to drive the car tomorrow. Nothing was resolved with her insurance company when I called them this afternoon, but promises to shortly. I called my dad, becuase he's supposed to know all , and his answer was to fake whiplash... *note to self, don't ask for dads opinion again* I have higher morals than that, and don't want to abuse an already 'beaten-like-a-dead-horse' legal system. I spoke with the woman tonight and she said to take the car to a mechanic and get a quote on the work, becuase she may offer to pay for it without going through the insurance as it will probably be minor. Its been suggested that I push for a rental car (even though my husband is perfectly capable and does drive me to work), and file a police report etc. but I don't want to go through the hassle if its unnecessary. I'm not lying when I tell you I've never been in an accident before, so I don't know how to do this stuff... I'm worried becuase there is no visual damage to the car that her insurance company won't cover it. I just go the car back from a huge tune up, and it ran like a dream until this morning. From those of you who have been through this before - is there something I'm missing, something I should do? Jennifer Arianna Frances

Yes I can. Thank you for the discussion - its refreshing, as I don't feel I can have conversations like this with folks at my work (they don't look at it with an open mind), or my husband (as he usually agrees with me, so what fun is that?) Jennifer Arianna Frances

This is true - but due to that fact that skydiving is an 'adult' sport you will very infrequently find someone 13 years old here. Very true. Then again, at 13 years old I remember testing my parents on everything they taught me. I took up smoking pot and hanging with the 'wrong crowd' because I wanted to see if what they were telling me for years was what really had to be. Thank goodness they were able to reinforce (in ways that are no considered illegal of course ) their teachings and I was able to leave the 'wrong crowd' alone. Then again, I think alot of those experience have shaped me as a person - as with all people, that time period is one of tremendous personal growth. Jennifer edited for spelling Arianna Frances

Yes and No. the SIMS gives a person control over a certain aspect of the 'game', where as no one really gets control over any part here (other than the moderators) I think people obviously can be addicted to both. What shocked me the most about the article was the presumption that there are young teenagers involved in sexually mature things with adults, and there is mostly no way to know. Granted, I wasn't online as a young teenager, but I find it disturbing that parents would give their children the freedom to become involved in activities where their their innocence may be compromised. Jennifer Arianna Frances

I thought this was an interesting article. I'm addicted to the SIMS, but only the computer version, not the online version. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/technology/15SIMS.html?ex=1075209336&ei=1&en=f3228fb51caee472 January 15, 2004 By AMY HARMON Peter Ludlow said he was only trying to expose the truth that Alphaville's authorities were all too happy to ignore. In his online newspaper, The Alphaville Herald, he reported on thieves and their scams. He documented what he said was a teenage prostitution ring. He criticized the city's leaders for not intervening to make it a better place. In response to his investigative reporting, Mr. Ludlow says, he was banished from Alphaville. He was kicked out of his home; his other property was confiscated. Even his two cats were taken away. Alphaville is not a real town but a virtual city in an Internet game called The Sims Online, where thousands of paying subscribers log on each day to assume fictional identities and mingle in cyberspace. Indeed, none of Mr. Ludlow's possessions existed outside the game. But the recent decision by the game's owner, Electronic Arts, to terminate Mr. Ludlow's account - forever erasing his simulated Sims persona - has set off a debate over free expression and ethical behavior in online worlds that is reverberating in the real one. "To me, it was clearly censorship," said Mr. Ludlow, whom the Internet magazine Salon.com described as "an unabashed muckraker." A Yale Law School student, writing on the school's Web log, condemned Electronic Arts as "a classic despot" that is "using its powers to single out individual critics for the dungeons and the firing squads." The issues are actually not that clear-cut. But the episode has called attention to the little-known netherworlds of a popular computer game genre known as "massively multiplayer online role-playing games," which now regularly attract a million or more Americans. In Sims Online, Everquest and others where the border between fantasy and reality is increasingly blurry, the games have become more than simply a source of entertainment. They are also a gateway to a complex social network that takes on a life of its own. But in a setting where the point is to play out fantasies, there is little agreement among players about the real-world consequences of their online actions. At the same time, the games' corporate owners are finding themselves at odds with some subscribers, who want more control over how the communities they play, fight and live in are governed. That repeatedly wielding highly realistic, albeit fictional, weapons will contribute to real-life violence has long been a concern about traditional video games. But players and social critics say the ethical questions multiply when thousands of other real people are behind the characters on the screen. Is it all right for teenagers to slaughter other characters in Everquest, but not for them to engage in sex chat in Sims Online? Is it fine for adults in Sims to engage in private sex chat, but not acceptable to advertise virtual bondage and discipline services, as dozens of Alphaville's virtual residents now do? Within the game world, the 80,000 Sims Online subscribers are a relatively small group. Electronic Arts has said it has failed so far to attract the expected audience in part because it released the game last year before the software was quite ready. But Sims is seen as the forerunner of a new game genre whose goal is to let people play in social environments that more closely approximate real life. In those worlds, experts say, the overlapping of fact and fiction becomes both more significant and harder to sort out. "Part of the original reason people went to these games was for a sense of time out," said Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied Internet role-playing. "But as these spaces get more integrated with real life the kind of boundaries people want are still being negotiated." In a Sims city like Alphaville, players see the same stretch of green pixels on their computer screens, dotted with cartoon houses and stores. Love shacks, too. They visit each other. Some hold poetry readings; others pagan sacrifices. Some vie to be on the "most popular Sims" list, or to get rich, but there is no way to "win" the game. The players themselves are represented by animated figures and become entirely responsible for their own online identities, which can reflect who they are in real life or deviate from it drastically. The median age of Sims subscribers is 28 to 30, and about 60 percent of them are women. The game is officially off limits to children under 13. Because they believe that such graphical environments are turning into important vehicles for communication, economists, lawyers and social critics have lately begun to study the world of multiplayer games as virtual laboratories that can provide insight into familiar realities even as they breed a new hybrid. "As more of us spend more time in these environments, everyone is going to have a stake in making sure their rules are fair," said Jack Balkin, director of the Information Society Project at Yale. The details of Mr. Ludlow's case are murky. Electronic Arts says he was kicked out because he broke one of the game's main rules by including a link on his profile to his Alphaville Herald Web site, which in turn linked to sites that tell people how to cheat. Mr. Ludlow, a philosophy professor, said he was nabbed on a technicality. Many players agree that the company enforces the rule selectively. "They were out of line," said Mr. Ludlow, who said he joined the game in part to do research. "There has to be some responsibility that comes with running a kind of social common space like that." Yet some of the game's most avid players also question the integrity of Mr. Ludlow's reporting, such as it was. Were 13-year-old subscribers really playing prostitutes in the game, exchanging the online equivalent of phone sex for simoleans, the game's currency? His source, a boastful 17-year-old player famous for cheating new players out of their money, has been assailed as unreliable. Even some of Mr. Ludlow's biggest detractors, however, worry about some of the same issues he sought to highlight, particularly whether the range of role-playing Electronic Arts allows is appropriate in a game open to teenagers. And they chafe at what they say are unnecessary restrictions about what they can talk about on the game's message boards. "For us to be gagged so we can't criticize other Sims is an enormous frustration," said Catherine Fitzpatrick, 47, a freelance translator in Manhattan. "You can't improve this society without being able to talk about what's wrong with it." As competition heats up among game companies, they may be forced to listen to such concerns. Online games cost a lot to develop and several have recently failed, but their economics are luring more entrants: customers, after buying the software, typically pay about $12 a month to subscribe. Everquest, the most popular of the games among Americans, has 430,000 subscribers who spend an average of 20 hours a week in a vast medieval kingdom. (Its addictive quality has earned it the nickname Evercrack.) More than two million South Koreans play Lineage, where princes and elves fight for control of feudal villages. And the line between "reality" and fantasy is blurring. The currency of several online games can now be regularly purchased for real dollars on Internet auction sites, allowing people to buy their way into a higher level much as they might pay to get a child into a better nursery school. A Sims cheetah, the kind of rare-breed cat that Mr. Ludlow owned, is selling for $25 on eBay. The high-end rate for Sims "prostitutes," about 500,000 simoleans, fetches about $15. Mr. Ludlow said the fact that fantasy money had lately taken on a real market value made the notion of selling sex online more worrisome. And he accused Electronic Arts of turning a blind eye to sexual elements of the game that might not be appropriate for teenagers. But defining a community standard for the game's teenage players is not any easier than it is in the real world. In the bondage neighborhood that has sprung up in Alphaville, for instance (the Black Rose Castle describes itself as offering "collaring services but not weddings"), most residences state that players must be over 18 to enter. But carding the animated avatars that enter poses obvious difficulties. Many players argue that it is the responsibility of parents, not the game company, to monitor their children's "sexual" activities online. Jeff Brown, vice president for communications at Electronic Arts, said the company would investigate if a player reported that a teenage player had adopted the persona of a prostitute, but added that it would need to respond case by case. "If someone says that is going on in cyberspace, is it lost on anybody that it's not actually happening?" Mr. Brown said. "No law was violated. It's a game." Sims sex is, indeed, simulated. It consists mostly of players at a keyboard typing into a dialogue bubble displayed above the heads of their pixelated characters, perhaps while using the "slow dance" command or lying on a simulated bed. Harassment, cheating and use of obscene language are prohibited under the game's "terms of service" that players agree to when they subscribe. If one player is breaking the rules, another can click a button to alert an Electronic Arts employee, who may then intervene, suspending or banning the violator. That may have been what happened to Mr. Ludlow, who appears to have had as many critics in Alphaville as he had loyal readers. But even if Mr. Ludlow could prove Electronic Arts bounced him because it did not like his reporting, legal scholars say he does not have a First Amendment case, at least for now. Game companies are not like phone companies, which have a legal obligation to carry all speech over their lines. They are more like a private club, which can reserve the right to expel members at will. And the Constitution does not protect speech once it has been signed away by contract, which is what players do when they subscribe. But that could change as virtual worlds increasingly intersect with the real one, some legal experts contend. It is considerably more painful to switch game worlds, abandoning pets, property and friends, than it is to switch phone companies, they note. Games may come to be regarded in the same gray area as shopping malls, which several state courts have ruled can be forced to uphold free speech rights despite being private property. For now, Mr. Ludlow has been reduced to sneaking back into the game under other players' accounts and publishing his findings on his Web site, www.alphavilleherald.com. He still keeps track of Alphaville doings on a blackboard in his office, he said, in an obsession he likens to law enforcement officers trying to figure out the structure of a mafia crime family. "You almost get this sense that, well, I can't just leave, that it would be irresponsible," Mr. Ludlow said. "People come to me and I can help them. It gives me some - possibly illusory - feeling of playing a role in the community." http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/15/technology/15SIMS.html?ex=1075209336&ei=1&en=f3228fb51caee472 Arianna Frances

Sympathize with you - the windchill puts it about -10 F here. Not a good day - got rear ended up a coworker and it didn't total my piece of crap car... as a matter of fact her Buick needs a new front end and my car doesn't have a scratch... Jennifer Arianna Frances

I like B. Good luck!

Sadly, no, thats farenheit... brrrrr! umm... something to be thankful for?? Ya ya ya - rub it in.... like I'm not already hearing it from the in-laws in CA and AZ Even my father-in-law in rural WA is ribbing us about moving! Believe it or not... it was about that today - and I thought it was warm! Been mighty cold the last few days Jennifer Arianna Frances

hardy...har...har...har [hope you can hear the sarcasm, its pretty thick ] Glad to hear the move went as planned! Best of luck getting situated, and finding a new DZ. We'll be seeing more of you two this summer right? Jennifer Arianna Frances

From the National Weather Advisory folks: ... ARCTIC AIR WILL RETURN TO SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND TONIGHT... THE COLDEST AIR IN NEARLY TWO DECADES IS LIKELY TO AFFECT SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND... BEGINNING TONIGHT AND LASTING INTO FRIDAY. THE NEXT SURGE OF FRIGID AIR WILL ARRIVE IN THE FORM OF AN ARCTIC COLD FRONT LATE THIS AFTERNOON. SCATTERED SNOW SHOWERS WILL ACCOMPANY THE FRONTAL PASSAGE... ALONG WITH GALE FORCE WIND GUSTS. TEMPERATURES WEDNESDAY WILL HOVER BETWEEN ZERO AND 10 ABOVE... WITH BITTERLY COLD WIND CHILLS... ESPECIALLY DURING THE MORNING HOURS. CONDITIONS ARE LIKELY TO WORSEN THURSDAY NIGHT AND FRIDAY AS A REINFORCING SURGE OF FRIGID AIR OVERSPREADS NEW ENGLAND. THIS AIRMASS WILL LIKELY BE THE COLDEST AIR WE HAVE SEEN IN NEARLY TWO DECADES. IN ADDITION... THE FRIGID AIR WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY DANGEROUSLY COLD WIND CHILLS OF 25 TO 35 BELOW ZERO... AND RECORD COLD TEMPERATURES OF 5 TO 15 BELOW FOR MUCH OF THE AREA. EVEN CAPE COD AND THE ISLANDS SHOULD SEE TEMPERATURES DROP TO AROUND ZERO. IN ADDITION... A STORM HEADING OFF THE MID ATLANTIC COAST WEDNESDAY NIGHT INTO THURSDAY MORNING WILL LIKELY BRING ACCUMULATING SNOW TO THE SOUTH COAST OF RHODE ISLAND AND MASSACHUSETTS... AND POSSIBLY AS FAR NORTH AS THE CITIES OF HARTFORD... PROVIDENCE... TAUNTON AND PLYMOUTH. AS THE STORM INTENSIFIES AND PASSES TO OUR EAST... WE WILL FEEL ITS BLUSTERY EFFECTS THURSDAY NIGHT INTO FRIDAY. TEMPERATURES WILL BEGIN TO REBOUND THIS WEEKEND AS THE CORE OF THIS FRIGID AIRMASS SHIFTS EAST OF NEW ENGLAND.... Its news like this that makes me wish I was in Arizona again... Jennifer Arianna Frances

heh - and here I was ready to tell you all about my expeirence when my car was broken into. Jennifer Arianna Frances

Ya, I think they're phasing out Florida though - I could be wrong. THey do very well in New England (I used to work in finance). Jennifer Arianna Frances

Hi Jess, Hopes its not a cumby's/gulf stations. I used to work at Cumberland Farms corporate office - their policy for following up on robberies is pathetic. Plus, they pay their employees sh!t wages... I hope she manages ok today. Jennifer Arianna Frances

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/news/090903_ns_sept11.html September 10, 2003 — Millions of dollars have been spent to improve airport security. But how much has been accomplished? And what remains to be done? Are we safer today? The answer from most experts is yes. But, there are holes in the system, probably always will be, and no amount of money will plug them. Today there are nearly 50,000 government screeners working at the nation's airports. They are better trained and better paid than their predecessors. They are also instructed to be nice. Terminals are now populated with explosive detection machines. They cost about a million apiece. Critics say they give false readings as much as 25-percent of the time. Each of the posts used to support an explosive trace detection machine. At 40-grand a pop, they were rushed into place to meet a year-end deadline mandated by Congress. Many are now being phased out. They were lowered from their perches here because people kept bumping their heads on them. Despite the problems, most experts believe that aviation security is much improved even if passengers tire of taking their shoes off. "I think they try. I don't think they succeed as well as they ought to given the massive amounts of money spent since 9-11," said Aaron Gellman, Northwestern University Aviation Expert. The government has spent over nine-billion dollars on aviation security since 9-11. The spending is now slowing. And consultants like Gellman say it should all be measured by cost-benefit and going for better technology. The TSA says it is working on new technology, but much of it remains enormously expensive. Apart from more people and equipment, another new security method is being launched, and its techniques have already raised red flags. At several unidentified test airports around the country, the TSA is testing what it calls CAPS II. Computer assisted passenger pre-screening. When you buy your ticket, you're asked for your name, your address, your date of birth and your telephone number. That information is run through commercial databases and is meant to establish that you are who you say you are. Then it is fed to other government databases, law enforcement, possibly intelligence. A color code response that you won't see comes back. Green means no problem. Yellow means questions. Red means you're not going anywhere. "I use my credit card all the time here. they read the data off that, so I'm not worried about it," said Jerry Brown, airline passenger. "I'm very much in favor of anything that makes us feel secure while we're flying," said Maeve Koleno, airline passenger. "Even people who don't have anything to hide shouldn't be treated as suspects by their government simply because they want to get on an airplane," said Ed Yohnka, ACLU of Illinois. Groups as varied as the ACLU to the Christian right don't like CAPS II. The prevalence of identity theft, and the probability of even a small error rate, they say could put hundreds, if not thousands of passengers on a blacklist that would take time to challenge. Because of complaints, the TSA has canceled plans to use medical records and credit histories in CAPS II. "But the problem is they could change their mind, and they wouldn't have to tell the public," said Yohnka. Others like Gellman say what was reasonable before 9-11 may not be reasonable today, and that yielding personal information is a small price to pay for security. The TSA says it is sensitive to privacy issues, but is determined to move forward with CAPS II. Arianna Frances

Well... still in school for my computer programming degree(part time)... So at the moment I'm a 'computer analyst' - which basicly means that I do alot of the stuff no one else wants to do. Jennifer Arianna Frances

not a cloud in the sky here. Beautiful day! Too bad its about 5 degrees outside Jennifer Arianna Frances

woah - do I know you?? PM sent! Jennifer Arianna Frances