I saw the last two or three minutes of The Apprentice last night, waiting for The Office to start. Holy COW! That woman? The brunette who snottily asked Trump if he HAD to listen to Carolyn and George? Dumbass. No wonder he fired her. But at least it gave Carolyn a chance to deliver the statement “After that line? You DEFINITELY made the right decision.” And that woman can pack a lot of disgust and hatred into just a few words, can’t she? I LOVE HER.

I was kinda disappointed in The Office. It was funny, don’t get me wrong, but I think it’s the kind of funny that could get REALLY old REALLY fast. I mean, I felt like I was already able to predict lines before the first episode was over, and that’s NOT a good sign.

Have I mentioned that about an hour after I take my Prometrium in the morning, I become an exhausted zombie with little or no capability to function in the normal realm? Well, it’s true. I just drooled on my keyboard. And I was AWAKE. (If by “awake” you mean “eyes open and not snoring”).

Let me repeat myself: I just drooled on my keyboard. I will be happy to quit taking this shit during the second trimester because it is turning me into the quintessential Scooby Do bad guy. A mumbling, stilted, drooling zombie. Which, of course, is this season’s new “sexy.”

For those of you who spend time prowling your referral stats, you may notice that there are sites or IPs listed that don’t actually link to your site. And if you’re like me, you’ve just blown them off because, does 20 unexplained hits a month really upset you? No.

But then, you look and see that in the last FIFTEEN DAYS…This IP 12.163.72.13 has hit your site an unexplain 509 times. Then? You notice hundreds of referrals from gambling and porn sites as well. Of COURSE these people don’t actually link to you, so why in the HELL are they showing up as a referrer? So, you research and discover that this is called “Referral Spam” and it is the new albatross to bloggers everywhere. I don’t understand WHY they do it? But I do see the products of it. And they PISS ME OFF.

Kerry ran into the same type of problem and documented a way that she coped with it on her site. Her way deals with a .php she created while many others I have found (and she mentions) mandate editing your .htaccess file. Lucky for me, my host provides me a way to cope that is a little more user-friendly for an idiot like me. My host offers an “Ip Deny” tool that edits the .htaccess file for you, which is nice because if I had to do it myself? I’m fairly certain I would screw it up. YOU DO NOT WANT TO SCREW UP YOUR .htaccess FILE.

This “IP Deny” (found on your cpanel) does more than just keep spammers from commenting, like MTBlacklist, or blocking an IP from your blog, would do. That is ONLY a solution for comment spammers, NOT for referral spammers. The “IP Deny” that your host may or may not offer is the way to keep the bastards from even coming to your site at ALL.

My point? These bastards SUCK. And no matter WHAT way you decide to fight them…I wanted to provide all of the IPs of the sites that are hitting me with referral spam. So far? As of denying them? None of them have come back, so it looks like everything is working well, so if you are NOT having a problem yet? I suggest you go ahead and see if you can “IP Deny” from your hosts cpanel, and if you can? Deny these IPs ASAP, BEFORE they bombard your stats.

Otherwise, you’ll be like me and think that more people are reading your site and be all happy and “Whee! The LIKE me! They REALLY LIKE ME!” when in reality? It’s just the jackass spammers finding more ways to piss you off.

Here are my Denied IPs:

12.163.72.13
161.58.59.8
219.150.118.16
212.227.109.250
67.184.17.116

Deny the hell out of these bastards.

We ordered a doppler yesterday (for those non-psycho pregnant, a doppler is the device you can hear the baby’s heartbeat with by rubbing it on the tummy). It’s a monthly rental deal, and we send it back when we’re done. Typically? We should be able to pick up the heartbeat with it at 10weeks. I am officially 9w2d today. The doppler will be here sometime early next week, I guess. This is the BIG question. It will actually be here BEFORE I’m at 10w. So, do I use it when I’m 10w0d and tempt fate and my sanity? Or do I push my patience (and sanity, it’s actually part of BOTH sides of this equation) and wait a few days until I’m more “guaranteed” to get a heartbeat? The range is actually 10w-12w when you can first hear it, so we could concievably NOT hear it until 12w, and everything could still be fine, but we ALL know that’s NOT how MY brain works. If I don’t hear it by week 11? I’m going to assume the fetus is dead and go back to my crack habit.

Kidding. Kinda.

So - what do you think? Try it at 10w and become an even BIGGER basket case if I don’t hear anything? Or wait several days, becoming an even BIGGER basket case as the days pass? Do you see how that works? How both options have the same downsides?

Welcome to my brain. You can stay as long as you want, but don’t touch anything, it’s all so very fragile.

LilZoot has been on Spring Break this week, which is why I’ve been working odd hours. However, I take him to his Nana’s tonight and I won’t see him until Sunday. She lives fairly close by and he’s going to spend a few days with her before his Dad comes into town for Easter. She works like a madman and has limited free time (especially on the weekends) so this is actually working out perfect for everyone.

Except for me, of course.

I just want to whine and cry and scream “I don’t WANNA!” and make LilZ stay with me. Unfortunately, I’m no where near as fun as Nana with the hot tub and the adventures and the piles of change hidden everywhere. I make him clean his room and take out the trash. I’m not fun at ALL! Hell, I kinda want to leave me and go hang out with her too, now that I think about it…

My point? That on top of the “Pregnancy Crazy” I’ve been experiencing for the past eight weeks, and on top of the “Buying a House Crazy” I’ve been experiencing for the last three weeks, I will now be “Missing My Son Crazy” until Sunday. Pray for MrZoot. I don’t know if he can survive all of that crazy for five days.

Oh - and I didn’t even mention the “Car Smells Like Rotten Milk Crazy”, the “None of My Clothes Fit Me Crazy”, or the “Why Does My Digestive System Hate Me Crazy” which are all just as severe but not quite as constant as daily conditions. They come and go, complicating my emotions and my self-image in ways that only MrZ knows the true pain of.

It’s great to be married to me.