Friends

Twenty minutes left to post an entry! Where did the time go?

Hmmm, actually I know where it went: in wrangling a stupidly overtired BatPup:

She would not, could not go to bed.
She would not, could not lay her head.
She will not lie down on a mat.
She will not lie down near a cat.
She will not doze off near the wall.
She will not doze off here at all.
She does not want to sleep tonight...
She may be dead before first light.

But let's take it backwards. The Beloved is presently soothing her and singing her to sleep, having now also done the same for the Boy Wonder on our airbed in mr_bassman and mrsbrown's back room. I took the EDoD out for a walk down to the local Coles to get some stuff, which had the benefit of soothing her too.

We had some assorted friends over for a BBQ and general natter, so I have now finally properly met catsidhe and mimdancer. In between wrangling small people I got to chat a bit with bar_barra and actrealdon and meet his and pezzae's very tiny Small Person, who is gorgeous. mr_bassman, who is a lovely man despite his cruelty to his own toes (don't ask), took me to Tullamarine to pick up the EDoD from her flight; it turns out she missed out on Pony Club due to a fractious horse, so she could have come with us after all... but I think we're glad she didn't because it would have been hellish with the weather we're having.

We got to the home of mr_bassman et al (I'm getting REALLY tired of writing out all those angle brackets by now) around 4pm, having left Albury in plenty of time to get there an hour earlier; the delay was mainly due to the BatPup and the Boy Wonder being grumpy and requiring an awful lot of stops. I managed to get enough sleep, despite being bloody angry at the news I received last night, which those who know me can read between the lines enough to calculate.

And on that topic, it was pointed out to me that blaming the Royalty for the actions of the Peers is not always appropriate. I can accept that. However, there are times when merely holding one's nose and deciding to treat it all a learning experiences is not the best option. This, I'm quite sure, is one of those times. Wherever the buck really stops, nobody has impressed me. A stupid decision was made and was allowed to be realised. That's not good. Take this as my "time-out" warning; beyond continuing in my mostly on-line obligations, I will have nothing further to do with the SCA for the foreseeable future, at least until a few more people will admit to what I already know regarding certain people and their fitness for office.

We've arrived at Aunty Debbie and Uncle Greg's place in Albury. The trip down was relatively painless, apart from the glare off the roads that made it bloody painful. Must get wrap-around sunglasses! The Boy Wonder slept for about half the trip, but the BatPup stayed awake and complained about being bored (silly monkey).

We've introduced the monkeys to their Graunts and Gruncles (Great Aunts and Great Uncles), plus some Grousins (ie first cousins once removed) and one Scousin (second cousin). Having a pleasant time, especially now that the monkeys are all asleep. It's bloody hot of course, because Albury is a very silly place. Looking forward to Tassie weather even more now.


Meanwhile, I've just heard the news from the SCA: the Kingdom of Lochac has officially jumped the shark. The peerage system, specifically the Order of the Pelican, no longer has any credibility, and anyone here who tries to stand up for them will be laughed at. Bitterly. And then I'll spit in their faces. The best I can hope is that they'll never offer me a peerage, because a punch in the face often offends...

Packing nearly done. I've printed off plenty of Car Bingo games to play with the BatPup, and the new bus/Carrier/TARDIS/Mildred/Myrtle/Millicent/Murgatroyd is groaning under the weight. I will probably get a chance to blog later, but just in case, there's this.

tangent_woman had a discussion about PMS and how some men use its mere possibility as an excuse to belittle women and ignore their legitimate concerns. I commented that, in many cases, men seem to react with surprise to a woman's emotionally-charged complaint because they're oblivious to the less emotional, more subtle complaints that preceded it. You can hint a dozen times that they should wash up before you go off the handle, but from their point of view the going-off came out of the blue with absolutely no warning.

tangent_woman made the point that one manifestation of male privilege may well be that men have the option to be ignorant of stuff that only affect women, whereas women don't have the matching option.

It's a bloody good point! It also extends to other forms of privilege.

For example, I don't know if most of the websites I design work really well in screen readers for the blind. Even when I was working for AGIMO, a quasi (or queasy) government organisation (run by clueless potplants, especially the useless incompetent coward who was my boss... but I digress) that had a strong emphasis on accessibility, it wasn't until I ran my designs past some actual experts that I found out just how many mistakes I'd made that would have made the sites all but unusable. I'm not blind or visually impaired, so I have the privilege of being ignorant about accessibility. In my defence, I did try to get it right, and over a few iterations I did better than every other worthless bastard in that place and most of the rest of the government, but I still had the advantage of sighted-person privilege to save me from needing to learn.

Similarly, I could go my entire life not understanding why some women get so hysterical (pun intended) every 28 days, more or less. Being male, I have the ability to remain ignorant. Now, as it happens, I've experienced hypoglycaemic moodswings myself, and discovered first-hand that getting all emotional is not, in fact, a sign of mental infirmity. (Gosh! Stone the crows!) It's not the same thing, but it's miles away from the default male assumption of female frailty. But without that more-or-less coincidental burst of enforced empathy, I could be ignorant forever, and not even know it.

There's more. I know very little of the truth about those brave refugees fleeing oppression and striving for a better life for their families queue-jumping people-smuggled terrorist so-called asylum seekers taking advantage of our nation's wealth... because I don't have to. I don't need to form an opinion about whether they're here for good reasons or ill. I can go ahead and vote for our boring and disappointing PM in the next election without stopping to consider the relative merits of his alleged policy vs the opposition's nearly-but-not-quite-identical policy. I don't need to know or care, and with so much else to do, I can generally avoid it. It might be that one or other party out there has a sane, compassionate and reasonable policy on "illegal" immigration, but I haven't really looked into it. I can afford to be ignorant, because I was born here and I'm white and I speak excellent English and I have a house to live in. White middle-class resident privilege = a license to remain ignorant.

It's a disturbing thought. How much privilege am I relying on without know it, simply because I don't know it? And along with that, how much should I know? Would a fuller appreciation of Tampa vs Oceanic Viking make me reconsider my vote? Should it? Is it as important as the other matters that strike closer to home? Should it be?

We all remain ignorantly privileged, I think, because the alternative is paralysis. Every action I perform, every thought I think, is informed by privilege: I walk because I'm not quadruplegic, I breathe easily because I'm not in a South American prison, I think clearly because I'm not clinically depressed. If I tried to stop and "consider those less fortunate", I'd never start again.

Which is not to say I can keep glorying in my ignorance. I'm not a member of terribly many minorities (odd that "female", at 50.1% of human population, still shows up as a minority in most ways that count, but then so does "poor", at 99.8%) but every time I try to understand someone, I improve my odds.

A couple thousand more steps, and I may get good enough.

The empire strikes back

In recent weeks, we've taken huge steps towards blocking spam accounts on LiveJournal. In fact, we've suspended as many as 30,000 accounts in a single day! We've implemented several pre-emptive measures to prevent the creation of spam accounts, and we've honed our detection of suspicious content. Spam bots are a crafty lot, so we'll continue to refine our tactics and keep up the good fight to keep you safe from spam attacks on LiveJournal.

RSS feeds again

If you're addicted to xkcd_rss, icanhaschzbrgr, or other syndicated feeds, we're pleased to report that we've resolved the update error that was mucking up your RSS feeds. While content was being pulled correctly, it wasn't being posted to the feeds themselves. Late last week, we finally nailed down what we hope was the root problem, so content should post properly. We thank you for your patience.

Wii have killer CSI Deadly Intent contests!

c_s_i

If you're a gamer who loves CSI, have Wii got news for you! c_s_i is sponsoring killer contests. Simply post a question to a member of the CSI crew. The winner will get a free copy of CSI: Deadly Intent for Nintendo Wii (with a retail value of $39.99) and get their question answered by a member of the CSI writing team! There's also a fantastic monthly contest. To enter, join c_s_i, play the online version of CSI: Deadly Intent, and respond to a two-part query for a chance to win a Wii! Entries will be judged on composition and originality. Sorry, but you must be a U.S. resident and over 18 years old to participate. Check out the rules here.

Enveloped in postcards

Last week, we asked you to send in postcards to help us decorate our drab concrete walls. Here's a photo of the results so far! Thank you so much and please keep them coming! You can mail them to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. Be sure to include your username, since we'll be giving ten random users paid account credits.

Photos of the week

If you haven't visited our new LiveJournal photo community, you're in for an amazing visual trip. LiveJournal users from around the world will take you on a scenic journey to everywhere. Post your own pictures or kick back and enjoy at lj_photophile. You can view some of this week's awesome photos after the jump. Please start tagging with geographic location, since we'd like to track all the places around the world represented in this community. Keep on commenting too!
( Read more... )

Six hours ago my computer crashed, due to faulty video software. Or something. fengwah just finished fixing it (bless him). My 3000 word essay is due tomorrow and oh god, there's so, so much to do. I usually don't write at night because I can't produce anything good, but I don't really have an option this time.

At least I have chocolate.

From General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord:


I prescribe the reading and memorising of this quote to anyone who may be called upon to appoint heralds, bardic guild coordinators, website administrators, OziBoD members, etc. Remember: just because someone is the only volunteer for a job doesn't make him qualified to do it!

We're driving down to Melbourne this weekend and staying overnight on Sunday with mrsbrown and mr_bassman (aka armourer) in Richmond. The Elder Daughter of DOOOOM, who has other obligations on that weekend, will be meeting us courtesy of her Nanny's Frequent Flyer points: she gets into Tullamarine at twenty past six on Sunday. We're planning to have a BBQ to catch up with (and in some cases meet) old friends. All of this means some juggling of time, but I think the following plan makes sense:

Come along to the barbie at 33 Smith Street, Richmond from about five-ish (time TBC with our hosts). BYO everything for a BBQ. I'll have to pop out at six-ish to get the EDoD, but I'm sure you can party on without me; gods willing and the creek don't rise I'll be back within the hour, but don't bet the farm on it.

Curse! I just sliced my right thumb while I was cleaning the kitchen. Tried to push the recycling bin's contents down so as to fit more in. That'll teach me to do housework! It's the couch for me from now on.

Hmmm... on second thoughts, maybe not. Divorce lawyers are $ersiou$ly co$tly. I shall grin and bear it. It's a clean cut, and doesn't hurt as bad as it looks.

Today was Canberra's "Piss Off The Catering Lobby By Making All The Public Servants Stay Home On Cup Day" holiday, invented by our by-now totally senile legislative assembly who really need to be sacked and voted into oblivion, if only there were some kind of opposition party available. Our plan was to spend the day preparing for our trip, but the heat and humidity have been feral so we didn't get much done. Still, I got the airbeds and tent packed, and bought some stuff from Bunnings, and this evening I did some serious decluttering of the kitchen/lunchroom area so we won't come home to a pit of chaos. Ah! And we booked places to stay for the time we're in Tassie. So really, not a bad day.

I finished Unseen Academicals last night. It was a mixed bag. On the one hand, we had tedious rehash characters like Andy (the psychopath, like Teatime or Carcer), Juliet (the ditz, like Christine) and Nutt (the naive newcomer with a dark secret who turns out to be amazingly clever, like Carrot or Otto). But on the other hand, we had Vetinari doing a couple of things one would not expect him to do, and although [SPOILER! SPOILER!] he remains superhumanly in-control as ever [WASN'T REALLY A SPOILER! WASN'T REALLY A SPOILER!] he still seemed to have a lot more character than in previous books, even ones that focused on him. My Beloved pointed out that Pratchett hasn't written many really excellent female characters; I countered that one Granny Weatherwax and one Nanny Ogg count for about a dozen of any other author's female characters; she counter-countered with a reminder of all the kick-arse male characters he's written, though I really think only Vimes, Death and perhaps now Vetinari count as true stand-outs. But yes, he's reading like he's tired and running low on ideas, which is a shame.

I really wish he'd written the book I imagined for him in the mid-1990s, when I posted a fake annotation thread on a Pratchett forum in the hopes that people would take the idea and run with it. It was called Strange Visitors, and was a mash-up of superhero stories (comics, movies, TV shows) in the manner of Soul Music or Moving Pictures. It could have fit his style back then, though he moved on from that sort of thing shortly after. A pity: the idea of the Librarian swinging through the night sky of Ankh-Morpork dressed as some kind of flying rodent would have been worth reading about... Ah well.

Um... I don't suppose anyone out there knows anything about 19th century silversmithing? I need to know something about methods used to make tableware for an assignment, and Google is failing me, so far. :(

On an unrelated note, it turns out that having a pretty quilt cover is a huge incentive to make my bed in the morning. Maybe it will even last. I love this room so much.

Dr Greg Ayers,
Director of Meteorology
Bureau of Meteorology
GPO Box 1289
Melbourne Vic 3001


Dear Dr Ayers,

As a long-time consumer of the Bureau's services, I would like to discuss with you an important matter that is at the top of everyone's agenda at this time.

I refer, of course, to the weather.

I realise you are a busy man, and your Bureau is doing its best to provide weather services to the entire nation, and indeed your record in this area is exemplary: I can scarcely remember a single day in recent years that has passed without some sort of weather. Your team are clearly on the ball and showing superb dedication.

However, I really must ask you to reconsider policy on the matter of the weather conditions in Canberra of late.

Canberra is, I am sure you're aware, a lovely little town. Perhaps it's not as well-endowed with restaurants as your home town of Melbourne, or as bustling and cosmopolitan (that is to say, crowded and chaotic) as Sydney. It also can't hope to match Darwin's yank-eating crocodile population or Adelaide's prodigious supply of burst water mains. But it does have one quality, which I have found most desirable and which I would not like to see eroded, which is this: it's quite possible to go outside for most of the year and not drop dead of heat exhaustion.

Lately, however, this has not been the case.

I realise, as I said, that your Bureau is engaged in important work, but surely you could take a moment to check the settings on your machinery? Dialing the humidity down to under the current 98.5% and dropping the temperature below 35° would not be difficult, and I'm sure the resulting savings in fuel would be of benefit to the entire nation.

Please consider this simple request. I remain,

Yours Faithfully,

E. T. F. Bat, Brigadier General (retired)

Hello all,

MIV2012 is fast approaching and the time is upon us when we need to get cracking on organising the thing. MIV 2005 had 18 months lead in, with the committee being officially elected in April 2003. Now, with a little over two years before the probable date of MIV2012, there needs to be a steering committee established and the ball needs to get rolling. Ideally Melbourne should be able to report to the AIVCC at CIV2010 that some form of planning has commenced for MIV2012.

After conferring with representatives from the choirs, I would like to propose that a meeting be called on Sunday, 13th of December. December 13 gives people time to mark it in their diaries and is also one of the few dates around that time that is free of commitments on the part of the choirs. I envisage that meeting would take place in the afternoon, commencing about 2pm, although this can also be subject to change. As yet, I have not sourced a venue, however I am hoping that a similar venue to last time can be found.

This meeting will be most useful if as many interested parties as possible are present. I am particularly aware that much of the 'old guard' of the Melbourne choral movement are currently not directly involved in AICSA affiliated choirs, but would nevertheless have an interest in helping organise IV.

If you, or anyone you know, are interested in getting involved in the operations of MIV 2012 either comment here with an email address and I will add you to the list, or send me an email directly at r.wilksch{AT}gmail{DOT}com

Thank you

First of all, here's something I don't understand. The Crowded House song, Four Seasons In One Day, was allegedly written about Melbourne. But it means "black clouds over The Domain", and I happen to know that The Domain is in Sydney. So is there another Domain in Melbourne, or is it just a (rather odd) general term for the area in general, or what?

... Oh hang on. Wikipedia cross-reference. Is this the "Domain" in question? I guess it must be. Seems odd; like referring to the Harbour Bridge and just kind of assuming people know you mean the one in Corpus Christi, Texas...

Anyhow.

We're going to be in Melbourne this time next week - not in the Domain, but kind of up and to the right and on the other side of the MCG if Google Maps is to be believed. We're looking for a place to have a get-together of LJ/DW friends, including some I haven't met yet (and remember the adage: "a stranger is just a complete twerp you haven't met yet") and we have an offer, which is a BYO BBQ at the home of the lovely people we're staying overnight with.

Now, there's one tiny thing to be trepidatious about, which is this: when I was involved in Uni choir, we had a standing rule that the first few post-rehearsal coffees were always held at a local chorister-friendly pub, not at someone's house, because newcomers ("freshers") always felt a little uncomfortable visiting some stranger's house without getting a chance to meet them on neutral ground. Or so the wisdom went. I personally thought it was a load of dingo's kidneys, but it was how things worked and it was no great hardship (at least until the pub got less chorister-friendly and started playing The Pogues very loudly as soon as we turned up) so I went with it.

So the question becomes: if you are not already a Melbourne SCAdian and familiar with mrsbrown and mr_bassman (who are, I assure you, lovely people), how do you feel about meeting up with us at their place? Because I suppose it's possible that some of you are timid little wallflowers who would hate to put yourselves forward, but then I remember the contents of my f-list and I fear my guffaws at the very concept may wake the Boy Wonder sleeping next to me, so I have to think about something else.

All of which is a very roundabout way¹ of saying: we shall be taking up the lovely Mr & Mrs B's offer of a BBQ at their place, and I would like all our friends to pop by. Many of you I haven't seen in years, and a fair few my Beloved has never met, despite many long conversations on the intartubes. It would be a shame for timidity to stop you remedying this -- if any of you had any knack for timidity, which: naaah.

So the address will be published -- in a friend-locked post, I think, after due discussion with our hosts. Plans will also be firmed up vis-á-vis the matter of times and menus. If we still have any vegetarian friends (good grief! how??? haven't I insulted you away yet???) then plans will be seamlessly adapted to suit. And we shall show off our munchkins, so at the very least you can get a sneak preview of what the world will be like when they're ruling it.

More details to come when details exist.



¹ How Melbournian! Canberran too, I guess, though our roundabouts don't generally have traffic lights on them. Or trams. Or Melbournians.

For those of you unfamiliar with Australian idiom, the phrase "went off like a frog in a sock" may seem obscure. Suffice to say that, in the context of Operation: Orange Balloons, it means that the evening has been a resounding success.

To recap: a couple of weeks ago, we went around every house on our street and its tributaries and delivered a letter (follow the above link to get the text of it) and an orange balloon. We gave people a choice: chuck out the letter and ignore it to be spared the appalling Americanism of Halloween, or blow up the balloon and stick it on your letterbox to indicate willingness to participate. But how would it be received? Resounding silence, enthusiastic unanimity, or somewhere in between?

Tonight we got to find out. I estimate there were about twenty houses out of the hundred-odd with orange balloons, all of them happily sharing out lollies and marvelling at the costumes. While I took the munchkins around, thelancrewitch handed out lollies to at least twenty kids in costume during the course of the evening. A twenty percent uptake is sufficiently close to unanimity that I'd have to call this a goer.

I'll stick photos up on the OOB website and then get to work on the next plan: a street Christmas party. Operation: Red Balloons, perhaps?

EDIT: If you're reading this, our maintenance is OVER! The problem was not found on our equipment, which means we'll have to work with our ISP to fix this small problem -- which also means another maintenance window in the future -- but at least we have eliminated our side.

Thank you everyone, and a special shout out to rekoil for giving me a great suggestion AND also the opportunity to feel like I've just called in to a local radio station.

Have a great day, night or afternoon wherever you may be.

---

Hi everyone, sorry for the late notice but I'm going to have to do some testing on 1 of our 4 internet circuits TONIGHT; Friday night or Saturday morning depending on which time zone you're in.

Most of us shouldn't notice any impact, though there may be some slowness or lag when I switch traffic on to our other ISP circuits and then another hit when I stop the tests. If a page won't load or times out, try hitting refresh 1 or 2 times and it should load then. If it doesn't work at all... trust me, I'll be typing really really really fast to try to undo whatever I just did. Hopefully you'll have some Halloween candy (if you're in the USA and celebrate that kind of thing) nearby to take away the bitterness of a small site outage. :(

Here's the handy-dandy Website That I Always Use to get a feel for when the maintenance will start in your area. Our site traffic historically dips on Friday afternoons until Saturday morning which is why we tend to pick this time for maintenance work.

( tech details )

status.livejournal.org will, of course be updated before and after the maintenance window. Or else marta will get mad at me. :D

bt

Hey, Melbumites! What's there to do in your fine, variably-climated town on a Sunday evening? We're driving down next weekend, ready to catch the ferry to the Apple Isle on Monday evening. mrsbrown and mr_bassman have kindly offered us crash space on the Sunday night (I hope they haven't forgotten!) but we'd like to get together with as many friends and fans as we can. For this reason we need your advice: what's a good place, centralish but centred on Richmond area I guess, that will welcome assorted human beings, some of them of small stature and few years, on a Sunday evening? Answers on a postcardthe comments, and once we've got a good suggestion I'll do a Facebook event invitation...

I have no daughters!

Having no Elder Daughter of DOOOOM is a familiar feeling. She heads off to the farm for at least a couple of days every week, and we survive happily enough without her while she rides her horse and no doubt watches that television thing that the lower-class houses have. But having no BatPup is a very new phenomenon: this is the first time she's been away from both of us over night since she was born! The Beloved sent the two of them off with Nanny this arvo, because the Boy had some kind of gastric nastiness going on and she couldn't pay them any attention while it was happening. Surprisingly, the BatPup decided she was going to have a sleep-over at the farm instead of getting picked up again once I got home. We were expecting to hear that she'd changed her mind once the magnitude of non-Daddyness and non-Mummyness sunk in, but Nanny called me a little while ago to say that she went happily off to bed in the EDoD's room at about 8.30, and seems fine.

My little girl is growing up... it'll be strange hair and a sudden interest in borrowing the car keys before you know it, just watch.

Meanwhile, the Boy went off to sleep at about the same time, with Daddy cuddles and a very small amount of ravioli without any sauce. He seems to have recovered from his early pukery with no lasting ill effects. Here's hoping he doesn't have a relapse...

In response to user comments from last week, we want to let you know that we'll remain LJ cut-free for the next month in order to get more eyeballs on our evolving newsletter. As for product coverage, that continues to be our top priority. For more granular detail, however, we recommend you join lj_releases.

Super-tweak for Yandex search

Some of our beta testers expressed privacy concerns using the Yandex search engine. Here's why: Last week, when you ran a search, you could see the usernames (and only the usernames) of everyone who commented on an entry, even if that entry was switched to Private or Friends Only after it was originally indexed. You could NOT see the actual comments from Friends Only or Private posts. In response to your input, we've implemented a fix to keep all user activity currently marked Friends Only or Private completely hidden. If you'd prefer your public content not to be indexed by Yandex, click here and use the settings labeled Search Inclusion (this covers your entire journal) and/or Comment Search Inclusion (which covers comments only). To test drive Yandex search now, click here.

Postcards from the edge

Several years ago, we asked LiveJournal users to send postcards to help us decorate our dull, white-washed offices. Since a good idea warrants repetition, we're at it again (same issue, new address). We hope you'll surround us with LiveJournal love by sending your postcards to Frank the Goat, Esq., c/o LiveJournal, Inc., 539 Bryant Street, Suite 210, San Francisco, CA 94107. We'll post snapshots right here. Be sure to include your username, since we'll randomly pick 10 lucky recipients to win free paid account time.

Conquer Writer's Block

Here are some excerpts from this week's most popular question of the day:

If a friend or relative makes a racist or homophobic remark, do you tend to confront them or let it slide? Are you more likely to confront them if it offends you directly or someone else who seems reluctant to speak up?

1. I find it easier to stand up for other people, and i wouldn't let it slide if they made a rude or hurtful comment.
2. Usually if a friend makes a racist or homophobic remark, I tend to let it slide. I think that while i would not say such things myself, I have no right to censor those around me.
3. This happens all of the time. I confront some relatives, but I refuse to if they are drunk or watch Fox News.
4. I'd let it slide if it was just a private remark... As much as I despise bigotry and intolerance, I know that you can't change people-they have to change themselves ...
5. Confront! confront! confront! Politely, but without equivocation.
6. SPEAK UP. Always, always, always speak up. Letting something slide lets ignorance win. No matter if it offends me directly, or someone else, I will confront the speaker and let them know that's not ok.
7. I don't get offended personally. As an immigrant, woman, gay and person of color if I took every single potentially offensive remark seriously I wouldn't get anything done.
8. I punch them in the balls. With my mind.
9. I do speak up, but often very timidly because I feel that I'm white and therefore I don't really have any authority to lecture someone on what's racist and what isn't...
10. Generally speaking, I do not let this shit fly, because it reduces me as a person, to this non-person and it replicates the destructive discourse that makes sure that sexual minorities, racial minorities, women, people with disabilities, trans people and every intersection thereof into something other than human... And sometimes... I'm just too tired to deal with it, so I roll my eyes, make a sarcastic remark and hope the conversation moves on quickly.

For more daily questions and user comments, join writersblock. FYI, we don't want to invade your privacy, so we haven't credited individual users for their responses. We'd appreciate your feedback on this!

Spotlight community of the week

We can't resist making one last midnight trip to the ol' pumpkin patch. If you adore crazy costumes, fiendish festivities, and bottomless candy consumption as much as we do, this community has just what it takes to light up your jack-o-lantern.


halloween_fan

Photos of the week

We received so many incredible photos, we had to close our eyes and point. We uploaded a selection of awesome images at our new lj_photophile community. Please join and start posting (try to keep the width at around 625 for the sake of consistency)! We'd love for you to tell us more about your photos! You can help us select spotlight photos by commenting on your favorites. Once again, we thank you for making our online world more beautiful!

shutter	pancetta	ilya_gorokhov

Curtains

Thanks, again, for tuning in. We look forward to seeing you next week.

Two of the people I sent Dreamwidth invitations to didn't use them. Neither were on my f-list, so sod 'em. First two people to reply here and beg prettily enough enclosing photographs of themselves dressed as any of the characters from Fraggle Rock (never mind; I'll let you off that condition due to the very real possibility of permanent eye strain) will get their very own DreamWidth invite. Comments are screened and will be deleted after reading to save embarrassment.

This is a short video that sums up 350 and what happened on the 24th. It's very cool - all the different languages and the various ways people chose to get the message out.