“Hotlinking” (also called “hot linking”, “leeching”, and “bandwidth theft”) is a term referring to when a web page of one website owner is direct linking to the images or other multimedia files on the web host of another website owner (usually without permission, thus stealing bandwidth). This not only causes the other person to pay for the bandwidth of the hotlinked file, but often is intellectual property theft.
On my GFY page, on the rules and instructions page, it says very clearly the following:
DO NOT link directly to the images on my server; that uses up my bandwidth and really pisses me off. Save the image to your own server or use a text link. If you don’t know how to do either of those, do a Google search and figure it out. I’m not your Momma.
Imagine, then, my surprise when I looked at the “latest visitors” stats page provided by my control panel and found that hundreds of people were hotlinking images stored on my server. Imagine how surprised and pissed I was.
Now, if you’re one of the people who was hotlinking images on my server, imagine your shock and surprise when you look at your site and instead of seeing, say, this image:
you see the image my very creative, awesome, and funny husband made (you know – the husband who’s a geek, so he knows what the hell he’s doing):
Anyone hotlinking to any images on my site will be seeing the cat’s ass instead of what they meant to link from now on. Don’t hotlink my images, asshole.
As a special bonus, if you’re surfing around using Anonymizer or something similar, all you’re seeing where pictures should be are cat’s assholes. Sorry about that – but if we can’t see that the referring url is a page in bitchypoo.com, we have to assume that it’s someone hotlinking. I don’t know if you can log out of Anonymizer (or whatever) and come back in, but that might be the way for you to go.
(Hopefully you can still see the pictures I put up in my entries, though, since they’re hosted elsewhere.)
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After posting my entry and taking my shower yesterday, I got dressed and headed out to the grocery store to pick up the groceries we’d run out of since Fred got groceries Saturday morning. When I got home, I put away what I bought, and went back out to my Jeep to bring in the bird seed and Kitten Chow I’d bought at Target earlier.
(The Kitten Chow is what we give Meester Boogers, Miz Poo, and Spanky as a snack each night. They go crazy for it. And a bag of Kitten Chow is way cheaper than the tiny little pouches of cat treats you can buy.)
I looked out the back window to see if the bird feeders needed to be filled – of course they did, they ALWAYS need to be filled – and went into the garage to get my shoes. I was walking across the kitchen toward the back door when I heard a distant squealing sound. I stopped and listened, wondering if one of the cats was barfing up a hairball. Spanky stared toward the computer room/ library side of the house, and I heard the tell-tale sign of the cat door opening and slapping shut. The squealing sound got louder.
“Oh fuck!” I yelled, kicking off my shoes and running toward the cat door. As I reached the hallway that leads from the kitchen to the front door, Meester Boogers came into view, and in his jaws he held a young cardinal, who was squealing just like a little piggy.
SqueeSqueeSQUEESQUEE! the bird squealed.
“YOU FUCKER, PUT HIM DOWN! PUT HIM DOWN!” I bellowed at Meester Boogers, who took one look at me and hauled ass up the stairs.
“GODDAMNIT, YOU LITTLE SHITHEAD, PUT HIM DOWN!” I raced up the stairs directly behind Meester Boogers and the squealing cardinal. Once at the top of the stairs, Meester Boogers ran into my bedroom and turned to look at me.
“YOU LET HIM GO! LET HIM GO, YOU STUMPY LITTLE FUCKER!” I yelled, running at him, waving my arms wildly in the air.
Meester Boogers let the squealing cardinal go, whereupon the bird flew up into the air, tried to land on the trey ceiling on one side of the room, bounced off the ceiling, and then flew to the other side of the room to attempt a landing on the trey ceiling there. Meester Boogers jumped up on the bed and tracked the bird, once jumping up a few inches and flailing his front paws in the air.
“You BETTER NOT!” I warned him. There was a bookcase near where the bird was, and I hoped like hell he’d land on top of it so I could grab Meester Boogers, toss him out of the room, and try to figure out how to catch the bird.
The bird found he couldn’t land on the trey ceiling on that side of the room either, looked down at Meester Boogers, let out a warning squawk, and then flew into the window. Stunned, he landed on the floor, and Meester Boogers jumped off the bed and ran over.
“GET YOUR ASS AWAY FROM HIM!” I yelled in my deep, scary Mean Momma voice. He looked up at me, decided I was serious, and jumped from the floor to the top of the chair so he could supervise.
“It’s okay,” I said to the bird in the comforting
I won’t hurt you voice I use with the cats at the pet store.
Squealie the Bird didn’t seem comforted. I reached down and picked him up gently, whereupon he began squealing again. From his position atop the chair, Meester Boogers reached out a paw to smack at the bird, but his arm wasn’t long enough.
“It’s okayyyyy,” I crooned to the bird, who repayed my kindness by sinking his beak into the tender area between my thumb and forefinger.
THOSE FUCKERS BITE MIGHTY FUCKING HARD, LET ME TELL YOU.
“OWWW!” I shrieked. “GODDAMN that hurts!” I pulled my hand away from the bird, and when his neck could stretch no further, he let go of my skin. I repositioned my hand so that it was right under his neck, so he couldn’t bite me again, and I headed for the door. Meester Bastard Boogers followed me as I went down the stairs with the squealing bird and opened the back door. As soon as the back door was open I held open my hand, and the bird flew off across the yard into the tree.
“Well, I hope he’s okay, you stumpy little bastard,” I said to Meester Boogers. “That was bad. I know it’s instinct and all that shit, but that was still bad.”
“Mrrr!” Meester Boogers grunted. He looked up at me with wide eyes. To his chin was stuck a small feather.
He’s a stumpy little bastard, but he sure is cute. Good thing for him, I guess.
* * *
It’s that time again. Yes, yes it is… I’m tired of my ‘do and want to do something different. I’m thinking of growing it out and styling it like
Renee‘s (that’s Renee of Renee and Patrick, the first couple on
Things I Hate About You!). I can’t decide, though. I’m about three weeks past due to have my hair colored and need to make an appointment, I guess.
I promise you, if I could find a clipper set with a 2-inch attachment, I’d just shave it all off. I would! (We actually have a clipper set with a 1-inch attachment, but I don’t want to go quite that short)
Hmm. That’s an idea for a fund-raiser – I could try to raise money for the cat shelter I volunteer for, and if I make my goal by a certain date, I’d shave my hair to 2 inches long. I wonder if anyone would go for that?
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“What?”]]>