Wow. This is an insult that reaches horrible proportions.

I love Something Positive. It’s one of my favorite webcomics. It’s bitter and twisted and evil and hysterical.

However, the April 2 strip takes insults and makes them... epic. Wow. I almost don’t know what to say.

( Read after the Cut, if you dare. )

Taking another test, up too late or too early

My sleep schedule is completely screwed at this point.

Here's another test. This time I'm testing xJournal instead of iJournal. I suppose next would be zJournal and would follow the old Zmodem protocol.

Heh. Think about that for a second. Livejournal updating via Kermit, say. That would rock, in a sucky kind of way.

A grey day

It's a gray day, and I am very tired, as I so often am when sleeping isn't that easy, which is to say 'almost always.' Still, other than fatigue, things seem mostly okay this morning. A series of oddly effective meetings have set the tone for a productive day.

Health wise, I'm at about a stage two on medicine nausea today, and that relates back to the fatigue. The question is, is the medicine reaction feeding how tired I am, or is how tired I am feeding the medical reaction. Clearly I need to divide into two and use one of me as a control in an experiment.

"But wait," you say. "What about the law of conservation of mass? If you split into two, where would the mass for that other you come from? You can't create matter, you know!"

Which is where my weight comes in handy. Two of me at half my current weight each would fit wonderfully into the Harvard guides of how much I should weigh at my height. Heck, it sounds like dividing into two people will work all ways around for me! Yay me!

Xjournal seems pretty solid, once you get it working right. It's nice that it does offsite archives too, and lets you write things offline. This will let me create journal entries while away from the Net, when the spirit moves me. We'll see if it happens.

Its 'Friends Page Updated' alert is a lot more obtrusive than iJournal, though. We'll have to see if that can be configured.

Okay, this is annoying

XJournal has three ways it can let you know your friends page has updated:

1. It throws up a Dialog Box that must be clicked through to keep doing what you were doing, giving you the option to immediately open your web page.
2. It starts frenetically bouncing its icon until you click on it.
3. It plays a sound you designate.

It will do any combination of these three things you want.

1 is tremendously annoying and I hate it like I hate tyranny.

2 is what drove me away from Journalert. If I'm not ready to read my friends page, I don't need my damn journalling program pretending it's so important it has to constantly draw attention from me.

3 is neither easily checked when I get back from leaving the computer (yes, I leave my computer sometimes) nor particularly welcome. I have differing sounds for alerts, for two different e-mail programs and for IMs. Another sound I have to interpret better be polyphonic and entertaining.

iJournal doesn't do some of the cool things Xjournal does, like autoblockquoting and offline creation and storage of posts. But, it's the current industry best Friends page alerter. It changes the icon on the taskbar, it puts an unobtrusive notice up on its composition window, and it places an icon in the menu bar. Any one of these instantly tells you you've got friends' LJ posts to read, and can stay there until you get around to them.

I like that. I like that a lot.

So, executive decision. When sitting online, I'll use iJournal. When offline, I'll use Xjournal to create and store posts for later posting. Everyone happy? Cool.

Teas I am currently drinking a lot of.

I know this is of tremendous value to you all.

My current tea list: (in no particular order)

• Lapsong Souchong (Taylors of Harrogate brand): This is one of my favorite teas, really. It’s a smoky black tea, which means that it’s entirely fermented (and the leaves are therefore black), but during the process it is infused with woodsmoke. It tastes like hickory smoke, almost, as a moderately light accent, though pine smoke is typically used. I use Lapsong Souchong when I’m trying to clear my head, or want to enjoy what I’m drinking.
  
• Tesco Irish Blend: My systems administrator at work is Irish, and when she goes home she likes to bring presents back with her. This is a common black supermarket tea in Ireland, notable for being stronger, more robust and generally better than most American Orange Pekoe teas. I typically keep my Tesco at the office and have a cup when I first get in.
  
• Red Rose: It’s a potent cup of tea, the advertisements say. Red Rose is the tea I have drunk most often in my life, having been raised on it. Traditionally, Red Rose is one of the best orange pekoe black teas in America, and a nicely decent basic tea. I think the quality has slipped a bit in recent years, or else my palate has improved as I drink more delicate teas. Still, if I’m drinking tea at home, I’m often drinking Red Rose.
  
• Earl Grey (Twinings Brand: I resisted being an Earl Grey drinker for years. It was so... cliché. Everyone who wanted a no-brainer way to drink tea they thought elevated them over the common base tea drinker drank Earl Grey. It was as pretentious as the guy who order the latte drink in Seattle and uses every possible drink permutation and superfluous word (”I’ll have a Caffe Latte, Vendi double nonfat decaf with two shots of vanilla, medium foam and cinnamon.” “One drip coffee coming up, jerkwater.”) but without the sophistication that requires. Still, I finally got old enough that I could enjoy Earl Grey for what it is rather than what other people think it is. In the privacy of my own home, at least.
  
• Instant Chrysanthemum Beverage: A guilty pleasure from the asian market. For under a buck you get ten plastic sacks of something that looks like instant coffee but produces a vague tealike drink with sugar and lemon. Now, people who know me know I despise sugar in tea. I still do. But despite being on this list, Instant Chrysanthemum Beverage (I swear that’s what it’s called) just isn’t close enough to tea to trigger my teasnobbery.
  

And so we pass the Meme along.

I will be crushed by a giant duck!



How will you die? Take the Exotic Cause of Death Test

Observations of a late snow

It was snowing today, on and off, culminating in a white, sticky snow that clung to a ground too briefly bare. It makes us grumble and mutter. We’re ready for Spring. We’re ready for the miracle of new growth and new life. We’re ready to see the hind end of snow.

And yet, walking during the day, I noticed a single flake hit my sweater. A full out, six sided snowflake. The kind you see students make by cutting holes in folded doilies. The ones we’re told are unique in all the world, now and forever.

It only lasted a moment, but it was fascinating. It was beautiful. And the snowfall tonight was great white flakes and masses drifting through streetlights.

Perhaps we are ready for Spring, but the snow was beautiful today, and I’m glad I saw it.