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There are these incredibly annoying blue jays that show up around this time every year and begin squawking at the cats in the morning. EVERY FREAKIN' MORNING they wake me up between 5:00 am and 6:00, and I am about to keel over dead from not getting enough sleep!

I want to kill the birds - which is unusual for me, since I don't like to kill ANYTHING - but when driven mad by inadequate sleep and relentless daily interruptions by these magnificantly horrible creatures, it is easy to fantasize about their demise. And in a most heinous fashion, I might add.

The f-ing birds woke me up a little after 5:00 this morning...after my f-ing cat kept walking over me in the night. I swear I must have been woken up 15 times through the night. The cat must be on drugs or something. I am feeling some serious need for retaliation at this point. Between the cat and the birds, I've about had it with animals. I think tonight the cat will sleep out in what we affectionately refer to as the "cold" room (and don't think I'm going to let it sleep today!). As for the birds...well...I am working on a solution for their removal.

Anyway, it was actually a good thing I was up early this morning, because my DSL modem froze up. Twice. When it does that, nobody can get to my web sites (and the pictures in this blog become unavailable). Several months ago, I found a DSL modem at a thrift store that is the same make and model as the one I was using, so I bought it. I think it was $5. I bought it as a backup in case the one I was using went bad.

Well, my DSL modem has a bad habit of locking up occasionally, as it did this morning. So, today I decided to dig out the backup modem and check it out. It turns out it is a later revision. So, I decided to swap the modems to see how things perform. Time will tell, but it is presently working just fine. Maybe this will actually circumvent the lock-up problems that the original modem suffered.

Time will tell.