miss me? read my always-compelling livejournal!

Are you an adult?

If you are, and you've ever caught yourself thinking "darned teenagers" in any situation, you should stop by auralidayne and read some of her recent posts.

It will serve as a nice reminder. Of several things, actually. How little people change in essentials from adolescence to adulthood. That odd semi-defensiveness that characterizes your opinions at a certain age. And, most importantly, that most teenagers are simply slightly younger adults. Yes, they (and you, at one point) have done and will do things that seem silly in the process of defining themselves, but they're generally reasonable people who will likely become even more interesting as they learn more. Not the monsters adults tend to make them out to be.

Ahem. So, before I launch into a rousing rendition of "Teenagers, Kick Our Butts", go have a meaningful conversation with someone several years younger than yourself. One that does not involve patronizingly telling that person how smart s/he is.

I'm delighted to hear that "sunset" is now a verb.

Not merely a verb, no - a transitive verb. It is one of a string of gentle corporate euphemisms for "dispose of". I found myself in something of a quandary today when I not only discovered this unusual part of speech, but was forced to come up with a past participle.

What is it? I went with the obvious answer, "sunset", but I think a case could be made for "sunsetted", even. That's the glory of the corporate lexicon.

And it's not even the figurative half of it. No, I have also seen people who bear no resemblance to Shel Silverstein use "gold watch" in a similar construction.

It does seem very polite to "gold watch" an old application, rather than "retire" it. Very dignified.

I thoroughly and completely enjoyed Good in Bed.

Great, you're thinking, a book review.

I learned (via referrals) that someone had nominated me for bloggy of the month this month.

That's really sweet. But honestly, folks, there are much better writers than me floating around out there. Particularly if you consider this (the actual blog) as the primary represenative of my writing. I can do better (and occasionally do, via the journal). Other people regularly do.

So I suppose I'm saying I don't deserve an award. But go vote for me anyhow, because someone was so kind as to nominate me. And I think, if you were nice enough to nominate me, I should be courteous enough to say thanks and then shamelessly promote myself in effort to bring your nomination to fruition.

Or something.

Can anyone tell I'm distracted, diffident, and ambivalent today?

My computer at work is now using IE 6.

And I can see those damned colored scrollbars everywhere. Like, the Greymatter default template - colored scrollbar! Friday Five - colored scrollbar! Some Girls Design - colored scrollbar (actually, that one's not too bad)! Freaking Lex - colored scrollbar!

Seriously, I think these things are a usability issue. I do not approve. And even if, for some sad reason, I start designing on a PC, I promise not to put colored scrollbars on my pages. They distress me.

And I'd like to thank some of my devoted fans (or rather, people of whom I am a devoted fan) who don't use colored scrollbars: Eris. Caveat Lector. Revolution Nine. Nod Ltd. Digital Down Low. Exposure.

The Biography Project is up and running. That is - there are some bios posted, finally.

As predicted, everyone is busy or lazy, and they're trickling in slowly (mine included). But the ones I have so far are definitely worth reading. More soon, I promise.

Okay. I know we've gotten used to the idea of terror and terrorism. And by "used to", I mean "likely to completely freak out and go on a media rampage at the mere mention of".

But let's step back for a second on the Beltway shooting thing, can we?

I'd like to know how the site looks on it. It should be pretty backwards-compatible, except for the CSS.

For those of you on backwards versions of Netscape with all your useful stuff turned off, I think I resolved the text/background contrast issue that you were griping about Saturday night. Will you look again? I can't make my old Netscape behave quite so badly as yours seems to.

Also, if you're colorblind or otherwise impeded, let me know if the color scheme is a problem. I'm a little worried that the wine color is too dark/not dark enough.

I came upon this cavorting day idea in some random digital travels today.

Just had to share the idea. I think it's cute. It's oh-so-slightly revolutionary, too. But in a good way, more of a happy thing for the People than an annoyance.

I've decided that, despite the cold, I'm moving to Chicago.

This is based entirely on the fact that Dick Durbin is an amazingly good speech maker and senator, and that my senators are horrid conservatives. I mean, John Warner has the whole senator since the beginning of time working for him, and is very dignified and smart, but he spews as much thoughtless rhetoric about patriotism as any other senator.

Or maybe California.

I guess I should be glad that at least some people of Congress are considering both sides of things, but it upsets me that they're practically all talking like the war/no war thing is their decision.

Representatives, get it? Representatives.

(Oh, and new design. Is it broken for anyone?)