I never like saying “I told you so” even when I am completely justified in doing so, but sometimes I do have to say it. I told you so.

I told you that as soon as I heard Six Apart was buying Livejournal, no good would come of it, and I was right, wasn’t I?

Let’s see, there was the We Will Never Have Ads - Oh Look Ads fiasco. There was the Breastfeeding Is Offensive fiasco. Oh there have been other fiascos along the way, but these would be biggest ones I can recall at the moment. I wish I could remember some of the others, because I do remember they did a few other things that pissed me (and a lot of other people) off other than these two. I don’t have time to sort through my archives at the moment to remind myself though.

In short, Six Apart, who pride themselves on being one of the top dogs in blogging software, do only one thing really well: They piss off users and destroy established communities as soon as they get their hands on them. How do they do this? By doing utterly stupid shit and not being open and communicative about it.

Now there’s the Pedophile Witchhunt. No time to go into it in depth or dig up the links I was reading about it earlier, but here it is in a nutshell:

Apparently an outside group complained to Livejournal and to Six Apart’s advertisers about pedophilia, incest, and rape (and possibly a few other things) on LJ. This led to LJ suspending and deleting accounts and communities based solely on what key words they had listed in their interests. Now you may be thinking “Good, anyone who is interested in those things is a wanker!” You’d be correct, except it appears they aren’t bothering to check if these people area wankers or not. Many of the suspended journals are fanfic, slash, general fiction, and roleplaying games and RPG character journals. You know, people who write about things or play RPG games and choose to play evil characters. A few have even been support groups for the crimes they so want to protect “the children” from. So as with almost every witchhunt throughout history, many innocent people are getting caught in the cross-fire.

Not that Livejournal or Six Apart has communicated anything at all publicly or directly about what is happening, because they seem to be taking their normal and preferred route of pissing everyone off for a day or two before making an announcement and apologizing, so all I can tell you is that people who have had accounts suspended are essentially being told that just having the words rape, incest, and so on in their interest list is promoting an illegal activity, and thus will not be tolerated. Naturally, this is in direct opposition to my own experience concerning their levels of tolerance. I once reported a journal, because the guy was REALLY creepy, talked about having sex with kids all the time, and after a brief online interaction with him, I felt concerned he wasn’t making the stuff up (he said it was all true and never claimed to be writing fictional stories). The response I got was that they couldn’t prove he was actually doing anything and that just writing about an illegal activity wasn’t illegal or against the TOS. It seems they have changed their tune, haven’t they?

As I have come to expect, another PR blunder from Six Apart. Doesn’t effect me, so far as I know. I’m pretty sure I don’t have any illegal activities listed in my interests. But today it’s sex-related subjects, and next week? Drugs? Who knows. I wasn’t at all thrilled about Six Apart acquiring Livejournal, and I have agonized about keeping a paid account there every time it has come up due. No more agonizing. I won’t be paying them anything. And now I can stop wanting a permanent account too. Cool, more saved up money for home repairs.

Lin’s home, so the dinner celebration is about to begin. More on this later when maybe some of the dust has settled and hopefully Six Apart has made some kind of announcement about what the hell they are doing this time around. All I can really say is … I told you so, and I am not at all surprised.

Oh, in closing, one of the communities suspended was a group that was reading and discussing the book Lolita. Yeah. As well as some Japanese Gothic Lolita groups. Yeah. Broad brush they are painting with, isn’t it?

I didn’t do the usual massive shopping trip. I only bought the things I needed for tonight. I’ll go back tomorrow. The store was a MADHOUSE! The craziest I have seen it in a while. It’s usually not that packed on Wednesdays. Oh well. I didn’t have the energy to deal with a whole cart of groceries today anyway.

Tonight we shall be dining on a birthday feast of grand proportions! I splurged on some t-bone steaks and extra jumbo shrimp. With that there will be twice-baked potatoes, a garden salad, and Oreo cake. I also found the perfect birthday card.

Now I need to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen so I can make a righteous mess of it for dinner. Hopefully I will have enough time to take a shower and make myself all pretty too.

And no, I will not tell you how old Lin is today. If I did, he’d lock me in The Box Room and feed me slices of bologna under the door for the rest of my life. Let’s just say he’s older than I am and leave it at that, shall we?

Today is Lin’s birthday. I have to go grocery shopping. The cats will have to continue eating the Purina kibble and being flatulent, because I do not have the time or energy to put together a birthday celebration (and buy groceries) and go to the feed store all in the same day.

I don’t have a present for Lin. I simply don’t know what to get him, even though I have been asking what he’d like, sneakily, for months now. I was going to buy him a new Playstation game, which is why I was trying to get him to leave Best Buy without using the rewards certificates to buy one. My thought was I’d go back after seeing which one he wanted, and then he could use the certificates for something else. Yeah, well, he did what he always does right around gift giving occasions. He bought everything he wanted as gifts. I hate that! He’s just impossible to give a gift to, because unlike me, he buys something as soon as he wants it without ever once mentioning that he wants it. So I have no idea.

Actually, I do have an idea, but I don’t want to mention it here, and I don’t know if I can find what I want anyway. I guess I’ll do what I always do and get a cake, some beer, a few party decorations, a card, and make a totally fabulous meal for dinner. Yes, I am thinking of splurging in the meat department today.

And I am going to have to squeeze in a nap somewhere. I slept like crap last night. Why? There was something alive in the den, and it wasn’t cat or human. It wasn’t so much that I was worried about what it was, but the cats would not leave the den and come to bed, and since the living-thing-noise was coming from the top of the highest shelving unit, I was concerned the monsters would try to get to it and wreck holy havoc doing so. So I kept getting up every time the sound levels from the den indicated there was a bit too much cat activity for my comfort.

Have I since discovered what it was that was making a strange scratching, crawling, ocassionally loud noise on the top of the highest shelving unit in the den? Why yes, and I wish I would have investigated further last night. I might have gotten some sleep. But you see … it was dark, and I am a weenie, so I left the investigating until Lin was awake and in the room too.

It was a damn “click beetle” or whatever their real name is. You know the ones that pop their heads up and down when they get agitated making a loud snick sound? Yeah. The cats had been chasing one around the house last night (which was hilarious), and I saw Ronin catch it and carry it off. I guess it got away from him once he reached the den and ended up in the box my cell phone came in where it merrily kept trying to get out and kept getting agitated … thus the occasional loud noise. A bug, amplified by a thin cardboard and plastic box. Argh!

After using a mirror and standing on a chair to determine that whatever it was wasn’t large enough to kill me, I pulled the box down, and there was the scary living thing that tormented me (and the cats) all night. I set the box on the kitchen floor where the cats were having a grand time alternately trying to get it out of the box and freaking out when it popped and jumped. Lin granted the poor bug a pardon though and made me take it outside to dump in the garden. It was disturbing his birthday morning to watch me sitting on the kitchen stool watching the cats trying to kill a bug, I guess.

Funny thing is I put the now empty box back on the kitchen floor, and some thirty minutes later, the bratty cats are still trying to find the bug in it. Geniuses they are not.

Ugh. I better get started on my day or go back to bed first and then rush around this afternoon. What to do, what to do?! It’s still two or so hours before the traffic simmers down to reasonable, so I think I’ll go ahead and take my nap now … now that they big bad scary “click beetle” isn’t terrorizing me anymore.

Lin came home from work just as I was starting dinner. He looked in the pot and asked what we were having. “It looks like gruel,” he said. I replied … “No. It’s creative leftover usage.”

When I made the Chicken and Eggplant Parmesan recently, I froze half of it. Well, the cooked eggplant didn’t take to freezing too well and was way too mushy. What to do? Make a stew and serve it on a bed of spicy cheese noodles. He wasn’t calling it gruel after he tasted it!

The cats needed more flea goo, so I did some on line research about getting it on line rather than going to the vet’s office. Her prices on Revolution could cause a revolution! After spending some time the last few days looking for the best prices, places that don’t require me to get the vet to send the a prescription, and have good reputations, I finally ordered from VetShopOnline. It’s a sad, sad fact that I was able to get a six month supply of flea goo shipped (free) from Australia for a whopping $25 less than at the vet right here in town. I think I’ll have to tell my mom to get hers there too. Her vet has some whopping high prices on Revolution too, and he always wants her to bring the dog in for a checkup first, no matter if she’s scheduled for one a few months from when she runs out or not, and insists on running all manner of tests too … so the bill, just to get flea goo for a 5 pound dog ends up running into the hundreds of dollars. I have no idea if our cat vet would have wanted me to bring them in first or not, because I didn’t even bother calling. Why tempt fate? They’ll go in when it’s time for their next shots in a few months.

Lin thought maybe I should take them in for a checkup and to get the flea goo, and I can understand where he’s coming from. Fuzza didn’t get to the vet as often as we would have liked, because we just couldn’t afford it. It wouldn’t have mattered much in the end anyway, as he still would have gotten cancer and died. I know I have the feeling that I would like to take the kitties in just to “be sure” too, but it would really be a waste of money. I asked Lin if the kitties had given him any reason to believe there was something wrong with them, other than the fact they are totally insane, and he said they hadn’t. They really are quite fit and healthy (though totally mental). In the eight months they have been living with us, there’s been one incident of Oreo inspired diarrhea, which taught us to keep Oreos far, far away from Ronin, and a grand total of two vomiting episodes, both caused by eating their food too quickly and gulping a ton of water, which hasn’t been a problem since we switched foods. I’d say for your average cats, that’s a pretty good track record.

Tomorrow, I have got to go get the Wellness Core at the feed store! I had planned to go ahead and feed them the Purina this week, since we had it, but the level of gases emanating from both cats’ rear ends is almost unbearable, and they are constantly hungry, which means whining and over-feeding and the return of some pudge. They aren’t totally thrilled with the Purina anyway, which makes me happy. I’m glad they like the better stuff.

Since I made another mostly pointless post about cats, my punishment is, of course, to post another cat photo. It’s only fair to post one of Ronin, since I posted one of Myu earlier anyway.

That’s his new favorite thing. I have no idea where he found it, but he’s been carrying it around and sleeping with it for the past week. He doesn’t play with it. He just wants it near him all the time. I did tell you these cats are mental! And the towel? It’s the old bath towel I keep in the kitchen for when I need to quickly deal with a large spill (say, a large mug of water after Ronin attacks it). He keeps pulling it down, dragging it over by my stool, and curling up on it. I guess it’s now his towel.

We’ve been going down to our old neighborhood at least once a week for the last few weeks to check on a friend’s cats. Every time we drive down the streets we know like the back of our hands and see the places we shopped, ate, and hung out with friends, I feel this really pointed sadness in my heart and gut.

Three-plus years since we moved away … and I still miss the old ‘hood. I still miss the old ‘hood badly.

On Monday, as we were cruising down a stretch of highway past our old grocery store and favorite 7-11, I told Lin how sad it made me to see the old haunts and know we don’t live there anymore and aren’t a part of that place like we used to be. He summed it up thusly:

“Even if we moved back, it wouldn’t be the same. It already wasn’t the same when we decided to move.”

He’s right about that. It all looks the same, but it isn’t the same. Sure the same grocery store is there selling the same things, and the same gas stations are there, and the same bars are there, and the streets haven’t changed at all, but the people and the feeling of the place have all evaporated. Even if we moved back onto the same sleepy street we used to live on, I would still be homesick for the old neighborhood, because the “old neighborhood” is now just an illusion, a memory, a time that has passed … the glory days.

I think these trips across town are directly related to my low mood this month. But you can’t go back to something that isn’t there anymore, can you? It isn’t like our lives were really all that much better (or worse) down there, or that our lives across town are all that much worse (or better). Our lives are mostly the same except for a few small points, but they aren’t really that small at all. Not if it makes one sad.

We no longer have hundreds of friends we see on a weekly basis. In fact, we have almost no friends at all, at least not any we see regularly or in large groups. We don’t have a place we go every week to hang out, though the Buffet Palace was beginning to fill that role (and now it’s gone too). We don’t have any neighbors with which we “click” and about whom we care at all, which we did have at the apartment. All of the neighbors here could move out and be replaced by all new people, and I don’t know that we’d immediately notice. Even three years in, we are only now beginning to feel the slightest bit of “fitting in” but it’s come and go and very fleeting. We always felt like we “fit in” across town. It was home. This house and area still doesn’t feel like home. I still feel like a visitor when I am out and about among my fellow North Central Austinites. It feels sad and lonely.

But you can’t go back, can you? Because what you want to go back to isn’t really there anymore, even though the brick and mortar still stands, the people and mood of the places are gone. So there’s really no sense being upset or crying about it. We made a major life decision to buy a house and move, and from that have come some good things and some bad things, and that’s just life. Moving on mentally is a lot harder to do than moving on physically. That’s also life.

I’m sure when we aren’t seeing the old haunts on a weekly basis anymore, I will once again forget for a while how much I used to love where we lived and the life we were leading there. Right now though, I seem to be wallowing in a subtle form of despair, even though I know things weren’t ever going to be the same there had we stayed … except for us not owning a house and our landlord buying a new Cadillac every year while the apartment complex fell into disrepair.

Sigh…

By now I doubt there’s anyone on the planet that hasn’t been entertained by some form of LOLCATS such as this web site (my fave), but have you seen LOL President yet? It’s a new site, and I hope it keeps going. What’s there so far is pretty good.

Also …

What if lolcats had a TV channel? What kind of shows would be on it?

The answer is clear: they would show Star Trek.

Even more specifically, they would show We Has Tribbles And Also Troubles.

Booming commercial construction, an aging work force and tighter certification requirements are pushing demand for cranes and their operators nationwide.

“Every marketplace that we’re in right now is saturated,” said Sam Latona, preconstruction manager with Turner Construction, a Dallas-based company with offices across the country. “All the contractors are basically at 100 percent capacity and exceeding it.”
–source

After I read that story (which is boring if you aren’t interested in the world of construction), I was reminded I wanted to post a photo Lin emailed me the other day. Here’s just a sample of a very small area of downtown’s current construction projects.

It’s like that all over the downtown area … new stuff going up everywhere! Cranes, cranes, everywhere cranes!

Hope everyone had a good Memorial Day yesterday. We actually got up off the couch, got dressed and went out into the world to enjoy the nice weather, visit and, of course, shop. I think everyone in the US shops on Memorial Day.

We only went to one store: The Guitar Center. We didn’t buy anything. Lin wanted to look at guitars (of course) and amps. I wanted to fondle keyboards. Neither of us found anything to fall in love with, which is probably a good thing. They didn’t have the exact keyboard I decided I wanted, an M-Audio stage piano, but they did have a few M-Audios, so I had the chance to see the difference in the key actions, and presumably the key action for other models from the same company are going to be the same. I can now say that the semi-weighted M-Audio keys will do, but I think I would like to hold out for the more expensive stage piano with fully weighted keys. They felt so much like real piano keys, I almost wept with joy. Of course, there’s about a $400 price difference between the one I had picked out the the “pro” version. I may be waiting a long time if I really want that one. I could settled for the semi-weighted keys, they really are pretty good too, but the pro version comes with some other nice features too. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize I really, really want the pro version. Really.

Lin is still not understanding why I am demanding a full 88 keys. He doesn’t play piano, and so he just doesn’t know. I like classical music. Most classical music used the whole keyboard. Also, if you have an electronic piano that allows for split keyboard work (having strings on half and piano on half for example), wouldn’t it be nice to have two 44 keys to work with and not, say, 30 or less? I think he really wanted to get me a keyboard yesterday (the prices were great). He sat in the driver’s seat of the truck and kept asking me if I was sure there hadn’t been one I wanted. I assured him if there had been, I would have been whining while we were still in the store. I know what I want in a keyboard, and I won’t settle on the issues I see as important. I can be very patient about stuff like this. Look how long I had to wait to get a new computer! I could have gotten a new computer many times over the last ten years, but I knew what I wanted, and I was willing to wait. Now I am thrilled with what I got. It’s going to be the same with a keyboard, and I want to be as thrilled with it as I am with my computer. Though I won’t be waiting ten years this time.

The rest of the day was spent with Lin playing The Da Vinci code (damn some of those puzzles are hard) and me doing housework (holiday or not, it was still Monday). It was a nice day, and it was great that Lin got to spend three whole days goofing off. It did him a world of good. Me too.

Today I slept in. I always need a holiday after a holiday. At least I wasn’t getting sleep because we were having fun hanging out together and not because I was stressed out about something. Since I got up, I have been trying to track down the source of a smell in the house. Yes, there is a mystery smell in the house. It isn’t mold. I know that smell even when I can’t track it down. No, this doesn’t actually smell bad. It smells like spice … like some sort of spice I know I have used in cooking but can’t put my finger on. It sort of smells like curry or maybe even something like chili powder, but still not quite exactly those scents. I also can’t seem to find where it originates. It’s very odd. Who knows, maybe it’s in my head. I haven’t asked Lin if he smells it too, so who knows, it might all be in my head. That would be even odder. I mean, I know I am smelling something, not strongly, but definitely something that is actually creating scent in the house. I’m pretty sure I haven’t gone quite that insane yet.

I’m going to get back to tracking down that smell, and it’s Tuesday, so I have to make the grocery list (going to be a big trip this time) and clean the bathroom. The day is getting away from me, but it sure was nice sleeping in this morning.