Carol Burnett's Family Is Causing Me More Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome In Texas

Last February when I finally got around to getting myself a smart phone I had no idea how smart smart phones are.

I thought it was sending text messages, photos and accessing the Internet which made them smart.

Clearly, I was really dumb about how smart smart phones actually are.

I really had no clue about how dumb I was about how smart the smart phones are til I got fed up with AT & T's U-Verse cable scam and decided to cut the cord.

Cutting the cable cord is liberating. Opening doors I did not know existed. As in I did not know til I killed AT & T that I could watch TV on my smart phone.

Soon I found myself watching entire movies, such as Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator.

YouTube is like having a video library access to the history of television. As in full episodes of TV series going all the way back to the era of I Love Lucy.

Which leads me to my current nightmare. One day I clicked on YouTube and found YouTube recommending for my viewing pleasure the Carol Burnett Show's sketch known as The Family. Later known as Mama's Family.

Above you are looking at Eunice Higgins. Decades ago when I first watched the Mama's Family sketches I was hit with twinges of extreme discomfort, due to the fact that that which was being hyperbolized hit way too close to home. Eunice Higgins is at the heart of that which hit too close to home.

Watching these sketches on YouTube has been causing me some bad post traumatic stress nightmares.

I have a relative, or two, who remind me of that which Eunice Higgins parodies. There were a couple decades where I avoided family holiday get togethers by going to Reno and California, so as not to subject myself to my personal Eunice's.

Eunice Higgins is an overbearing, insecure, neurotic bully, rough riding over anyone in her path. The Eunice behavior which mirrors the behavior of the relatives whose behavior I abhor is the interrupting, dismissing, syndrome. This is demonstrated below in the full YouTube Larry Comes Home For Christmas Mama's Family sketch where you will see Larry be subjected to this type behavior.

When Larry finally has had enough of the insanity he erupts with a spewing informing his relatives that he lived a life where the people he related to actually let him complete a sentence, sometimes even an entire paragraph.

I remember the last time I was in the presence of one of my personal Eunice's I couldn't take it anymore, just like Larry, I left, went on a long walk, ended up at some nearby friend's house where the first words out of my mouth were "I need someone to talk normal to me for awhile."

And now for your viewing pleasure, "The Family Merry Christmas"......

The Color Has Been Drained From The Morning Of The 2nd Day Of December In Texas

The view from my window is a bit monochromatic this morning, except for a some blue from the pool. Which I guess means the 2nd day of December is starting off a bit on the drab side.

Which sort of fits my mood. I am feeling very monochromatic this morning. As in I'm feeling colorless, rather than my usual colorful norm.

Good news on the Texas Sharon front. Google and You Tube have restored her YouTube account, after suspected dirty dealings by entities trying to stifle this particular outspoken feisty Texan.

Those trying to stifle Texas Sharon are obviously not based in Texas. Likely the stifling is coming from Oklahoma. Anyone in Texas knows you mess with a Texas woman at your own extreme risk. Texas women are a mighty persnickety breed.

I am going to go for some ice treatment shock in the pool this morning to see if I can break out of monochromatic mode and turn colorful once more. I'll let you know how that works out.

The Dawn Of December In Texas With Gas-Powered Internet Repression & A Big Chill

It is the dawn of the last month of 2010, on a chilly, one degree above freezing, 1st day of December in Texas.

I had myself a restful night last night, no repeat of the night before's bizarre nightmares. Instead, last night's dream theme seemed to mostly involve Kim Zolciak of Atlanta, and me going all sorts of interesting places, without ever leaving Kim's condo. I imagine there might be some who might consider spending the night with Kim Zolciak to be a nightmare, but, for me, it really was not. I awoke well-rested from the experience.

Speaking of nightmares. In the early evening, on Sunday, I was appalled to learn of the fresh hell Texas Sharon is experiencing, thanks to, all evidence suggests, Barnett Shale Gas Drillers. Sharon got messages from Google, warning her that accesses had been made to her account by multiple IP addresses. Soon thereafter, Sharon finds out that when one of her YouTube videos, on her blog, gets clicked on, the clicker does not get to view the video, instead the viewer sees this...

This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.

Apparently, without letting anyone know, Sharon moved to China, where censoring Google and YouTube is allowed. Sharon really should not have made such a rash move and should have stayed in America where free speech is a constitutional guarantee and repression of someone's free speech is criminal activity. As is hacking.

The last month of the year is starting off a bit foreboding. And interesting.

I'm Loving Flock

I've never ever before jumped on the abandon Internet Explorer bandwagon for some upcoming browser. I'd try Firefox or Chrome or others and find a lot of things I do not like.

And then, for whatever reason, YouTube stopped working reliably in Internet Explorer. I wasted a lot of time looking for a solution.

And then I found Flock. Initially I was pleased that in Flock, YouTube worked. But Flock seemed alien, with way too much going on. And when I answered yes to the question if I wanted to add Flock's Blogger enhancements, I did not think I liked the enhancements.

At first.

And then, this morning, the light bulb in my dim brain turned on. I have now made Flock my default browser.

Long ago Internet Explorer quit remembering my logins and passwords. Flock remembers them all, automatically.

Flock integrates with all sorts of things, like Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, MySpace, DIGG.

Flock checks my spelling as I type. I don't run the spell checker after I'm done writing. Flock has already taken care of it.

The only thing I've found that I don't like is Flock is unable to use some of the Internet Explorer type enhancements to a webpage. Many of those a website maker uses, knowing they may be only viewable in IE. The only one I've noticed not working is I sometimes use a stationary watermark background. In Flock, the background scrolls, rather than stay put. No big deal, but it does sort of make my Eyes on Texas website look not like what I intended.

I'm wondering if Flock is going to be absorbed into the Google Empire, what with that nice integration with Google's Blogger seeming like an indication that the two are in cahoots.

Flock Fixed YouTube

My one longtime reader may remember a few days ago I started to be vexed by a problem with YouTube. I'd uploaded a video, which, when it finished processing and I tried to play the video I was told "We're sorry, this video is no longer available."

I Googled "We're sorry, this video is no longer available" and learned that this particular problem is epidemic, starting some time around June of 2008.

I found some people have quite a conspiratorial explanation as to what is causing the problem, speculating that some YouTube tech people were disgruntled when YouTube was absorbed into the Google empire. So, they began sabotaging YouTube.

Maybe that type explanation would explain why Feedburner has problems. Google also absorbed Feedburner. Feedburner has not been able to get the Google ads working, either within the Feedburner account via using the "monetize" tab, or after Feedburner passed off the monetizing thing to Google, with a message saying you can now control your AdSense Feedburner ads within your Adsense account. The ads do appear in Google's Newsreader, but Feedburner just displays a blank space. But you can see the ad code if you look at the HTML.

Very annoying.

Anyway, various people found various solutions to the YouTube problem. Delete your temporary Internet files, flush your DNS, use Firefox or Google Chrome, disable Google Web Accelerator. None of these fixed my YouTube problem.

Then I read several people saying something called Flock, that being a Web 2.0 browser, fixed the problem. I thought, I'd been down the try a different browser route twice already.

But, I downloaded and installed Flock anyway. And it fixed the problem. I have not seen the sorry "We're sorry" message since.

We're Sorry, This Video Is No Longer Available

Help!

YouTube is worthless in the help department. Yesterday I uploaded a video to YouTube. It took way longer than usual to process. When it was done and I clicked on it I got the message you see on the left, telling me the video I just uploaded is no longer available.

I deleted what was no longer available and uploaded again. Same result. So, I uploaded the video via this Blogger program's video upload. That also did not work.

This morning after wasting an hour trying to figure out what was wrong I asked someone else to try and view the video on their computer. It worked.

So, it's some problem on my computer? I deleted the temporary internet files. Ran the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware program that fixed a YouTube problem when I was up in Washington last summer. This time this was not the fix.

I tried the video in Firefox and Google Chrome. Same "unavailable" message.

I looked in YouTube's useless Help Center. Under "error messages" I found the "We're Sorry" message. YouTube said this message occurs if the uploader (me) has deleted the video. Or if YouTube has removed it due to it being in violation of terms of use.

I did not delete the video and it was not in violation of terms of use.

Then I found that about half of my videos bring up the "We're Sorry" message. About half work fine. So, if it's something on my computer causing the problem, why do some work?

It's vexing and has wasted way too much time this morning.

I've got to get out of here, away from this computer. I think a walk by water would be salubrious. I'm guessing Rockledge on Lake Grapevine would be the best for that purpose. It'll be in the 60s. I won't go swimming. Oh, great, the YouTube video I made of Rockledge at Lake Grapevine, that one still works for me.

Is there a good alternative to YouTube? If so, please let me know.

Seattle Pike Place Market YouTube Video Debacle

I'd wondered why the number of viewings of a short YouTube video I'd made of my August 7 walk through of Pike Place Market last summer seemed perpetually stuck on 24 views. Today I found out why.

YouTube had made several of my videos "No Longer Available For Viewing" for apparently no good reason. Including the Pike Place Market one.

I had not intended to spend more than the time it took to eat breakfast making and uploading a video of this morning's swim. And now this YouTube debacle has wasted most of the day. And made me cranky. Lord knows it is hard to make me cranky.

I did manage to escape YouTube and go hiking at Tandy Hills today. It was hot. Some like it hot. I didn't use to. But I do these days. If you don't like it hot you shouldn't live in Texas.