by leaping onto my desk and landing with one back foot in my mug of tea.

He removes foot, shakes it all over the wall, the desk, my pencil jug, my newspaper, and then walks across my desk and my telephone, dotting and carrying one, leaving little wet paw prints everywhere.

Impressed by his actions, he returns to inspect the damage, attempts to assault the roll of paper towels I'm using to mop up the now considerable scene of devastation, and rather unexpectedly finds himself on the outside of a shut door!

I am currently planning a new pair of fur mittens for this winter.

sixwordstories
Whether you're in the mood for a creative challenge or you're short on time or attention span, this semi-addictive community is perfect for those who find flash fiction way long. Once you get the hang of it, you won't be able to stop. The prince turned into a frog. The girl ran home to mother. Tough to write. Easy to read. It's a double threesome of fun.

dailyfoodie
Delicious, ambitious, and occasionally nutritious dishes make for an eclectic, all-you-can-eat feast. Whether you're searching for recipes for your next dinner party or you're jonesing for a late-night brownie fix, your cravings are sure to be well sated. A warm and inclusive community that welcomes all orientations, from carnivores to vegans, from gourmands to junk-food junkies. Guaranteed bias-free, food-positive, and pan-epicurian.

It's done!

Well, not quite. But yesterday I put the second coat on the ceiling and did some touching-up on the gloss. Today I did the second coat on the walls. Assuming it dries in a solid coat (and it looks to be doing so) the painting at least is finished. Not much left to do now, except clean up the grouting around the tiles, put new sealant around the bath, clean the tiles, clean all the fittings, put the fittings back, clean the floor and bath and sink, add a scatter of tiles decoratively around the walls. That's not much when you say it quickly. But at least the bathroom is no longer an embarrassment.

Next, the toilet. Hmm!

that we didn't tell anyone what the plan was.

( And really, the plan was? )

Okay, I didn't get round to writing this up on Thursday, so this is a late catch up before I plunge into the on-going fray (and can you believe I just had to check that last word in the Shorter Oxford because, you know, it looks wrong).

Anyway, Thursday was blue day, I finally got around to putting the blue paint on the wall. And it looked grey. Help, had we made some terrible mistake? Except it dried blue; then the light changed and it changed colour, then we put the light on and it changed again. Can we just, for once, get a colour in a room that stays the same colour all the time? I must say, though, it looks pretty damned good. Not only that, but it makes the tiles around the bath look more vivid than before. A definite win.

Then yesterday we ran away for the day, because we are both tired and stressed and desperately in need of a break. Actually what we need is a week away, (in Maureen's case, probably quite a bit more than that), but we made do with a day in London. We had lunch at the Diwana, so MKS could have the bhel poori she's been dreaming about (and yes, it was worth it). Then on to the British Museum to see the Moctezuma exhibition, which was interesting if not entirely satisfying. There really wasn't as much as all that on display, and it was remarkably light on context: even simple things, like the map showing the extent of Moctezuma's empire might have benefitted by overlaying the borders of modern-day Mexico. But some of the stuff was fascinating. The explanation of the Aztec calendar was about the most lucid I've ever seen, and I wish they had done a great deal more about the name glyphs. In the end we spent over an hour going round the exhibition, so it must have had something going for it.

Then, on the way out of the BM, we noticed a very small notice pointing to the Staffordshire Hoard. What we found, at the top of a too steep flight of stairs, were two small display cases containing in total about a dozen little pieces, so it was really just a taster of the Hoard. Nevertheless, it was fascinating. Some of the pieces had still not been cleaned, this was very much a rush to satisfy huge public interest. And since we'd got all the way up there, it was worth wandering into the next room to find the Sutton Hoo treasure, and then the next room to see the Lewis chessmen, and then the next ...

After that there was just time to stop off at a Starbucks so MKS could indulge her taste for a gingerbread latte while I had a very necessary cup of tea, and, since it was christmassy, we had a mince pie apiece. Then we stumbled onto the train and tried very hard and not altogether successfully to stay awake for the journey home.

Today, I need to put a second coat on the ceiling and touch up a little of the gloss. Tomorrow I'll be doing a second coat on the walls. But we're nearly there, and we can see what the finished bathroom is going to look like. At last.

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... )

... also very virtuous ... but definitely dull.

Though hungry_pixel and I were just debating what Rosa would like for Christmas. h_p suggests a secret volcano mountain base would be ideal, but we don't think Amazon stocks them, and I don't want to have to do eBay, so I Googled 'secret volcano mountain base' and found some instructions for making my own ...

Meanwhile, Nicodemus is getting his very own beanbag footstool,* to replace the bag of shredded paper he currently sleeps on, which is splitting and shedding paper everywhere ... like a million little mousie tails. And anyway, it is supposed to be for composting.

PK has just described this as a 'floof pouffe'.

Howl's Moving Castle – Diana Wynne Jones
(London: Methuen, 1986)

Castle in the Air – Diana Wynne Jones
(London: Methuen, 1990)

House of Many Ways – Diana Wynne Jones
(London: Harper Collins, 2009)

I am in the middle of a project that requires me to reacquaint myself with some DWJ novels that are old friends, unread for some time, and catch up on novels I've missed. My favourite DWJ novel is still Fire and Hemlock, but Howl's Moving Castle has always run it a very close second, while Castle in the Air is a slightly mysterious long-time acquaintance, that possibly suffers from middle-book-of-trilogy syndrome in terms of being slightly overlooked, and House of Many Ways is a brand new read, fresh through the post this morning.

( More thoughts )

Out of 5

Howl's Moving Castle ****½
Castle in the Air ****
House of Many Ways ****¼

53/50 books. 106% done!

So today I finished the gloss paint. We picked colour called Quilted Calico – don't you just love the names paints are given – because it was as close as we could get to the colour of the bath. It's a light, sandy colour. One problem I had not anticipated was that painting this onto the white undercoat, it was often surprisingly difficult to tell where the white ended and the yellowy colour began. Still, I find painting gloss very satisfying, particularly the door, and by mid-morning it was done. Which left the afternoon to paint the ceiling. We have a version of the same colour, Quilted Calico, which we hope will look particularly good against the blue we've chosen for the walls, so obviously I had the same problem. I kept reaching a stage where I thought I'd finished only to spot another place where the white undercoat still showed through, only when I went to put some more paint on the spot I wasn't sure whether it was white or just a trick of the light. After that I put the second coat of gloss on the window surrounds, which produced a much better result than the patchy first coat. And that's it for the day. Tomorrow I put the blue on the walls, and after that it's a matter of final touches, second coats if needed, and giving the room a thorough clean. And that will be the first room we've redecorated ourselves.

So the decorating starts off simply enough. We have an earth wire running across the top of the skirting board, and one idea (our electrician's brilliant suggestion) had been to cover it in the sealant we use around the bath. Nice idea, lousy in practice; so I started by unpicking all that sealant, a fiddly job but done reasonably quickly. Then I started putting the undercoat on the walls, which is where things started to go wrong. We had a white emulsion on one wall which wouldn't shift when we tried to scrape it clear. But the moment I started to roller the base coat over it, the emulsion came away from the wall in huge flakes. So I stopped painting, got out the scraper, and tried to clear the rest of the wall. Nothing shifted. So I started painting again, and again the emulsion came away like a titan's dandruff. I hadn't thought that the easiest way to get paint off a wall was to put new paint on it. Still, by the end of the morning I have managed to get a fairly solid coat of white over the whole wall (thanks to MKS suggesting I put it on with a brush). It's not perfect, but at least it gives us a base for the next stage.

This afternoon I finally got around to putting some colour into the room. I got gloss around the window and skirting boards. The skirting boards will be fine with one coat, the window frame is going to need a second coat. Not quite on my original schedule, but getting there.

aiyatheydidnt
The Chinese version of ONTD, AIYA is a dynamic international community that welcomes users who share a love of contemporary Chinese pop culture. Dedicated to celebrity gossip and entertainment news, you'll enjoy gorgeous photos and breaking stories featuring the glitterati of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.

wendylady2
Designed to rescue fashion victims everywhere, this Brit-based community reads like a rag-ezine. Published once or twice weekly, you'll view bizarre highlights of the global fashion scene through captivating photos and delightfully snarky editorial. Sit tight for a virtual fashion tour from the runways of New York to Milan to Paris and back home again to London in homage to the adage: you can't buy good taste.

soldiers_heart
A passionate community for veterans of all ages (mostly American), plus families, friends, and supporters. View poignant snapshots detailing life in combat and back on civilian soil in the form of original artwork, personal narratives, poetry, and photos. Be forewarned that members don't shy away from describing their disappointments, disabilities, and struggles.

It's now pretty clear that I'll make 60 books this year (I should do that before the end of November), but how far beyond that I'm not sure. Anyway, over the last month I finished:

51: William Golding: The Man Who Wrote The Lord of the Flies by John Carey. I've already noted this one here; it's a superb literary biography, a model of its kind.

52: Cloud and Ashes by Greer Gilman, reviewed for SF Site. This is certainly going to be one of my books of the year; not an easy read by any means but wonderfully rewarding.

53: The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster, re-read for an essay I needed to write for a reference book. This is still one of my favourites among Auster's novels, perhaps because (along with The Brooklyn Follies) it's one of the most humane books he's written. And I would love to see the silent comedies by Hector Mann that he describes.

54: The American Epic Novel in the Late Twentieth Century: The Super-Genre of the Imperial State by W. Gilbert Adair, reviewed for SF Studies. First of all: W. Gilbert Adair is not the novelist Gilbert Adair, which is perhaps a pity. Secondly, this is a book that doesn't even bother to explain two of the key terms from its own title: Super-Genre and Imperial State. Thirdly, this is a study of four big novels from the 1970s, including Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon and Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany; the close reading of the four books contains some interesting (though not always convincing) stuff, but Adair really does nothing to say why these particular books were chosen (other than their size) or what might link them. In other words, it is a book that significantly fails to do what it says on the cover.

55: On Joanna Russ edited by Farah Mendlesohn, reviewed for SF Site. With a couple of exceptions (including the Gilman, above), this has not been a particularly sparkling year for fiction; but it has been exceptionally good for non-fiction. The Csicsery-Ronay, the Ruddick and now this are all books that well repay the reader.

56: The Prestige by Christopher Priest, re-read (for I don't know how many times) for an essay I'm due to write about the film adaptation. This is the first time I've re-read the novel since I saw the film, and it brings home to you how much the film and the book differ, and yet how true they are to each other.

cross-posted to 50bookchallenge

Years and years ago we had a lot of work done on the bathroom, the room was reconfigured, a new bath and shower installed, and tiling around the bath. The only problem was, the room wasn't decorated. We kept meaning to get round to it, but you know how it is. So this year, we decided we had to get the work done. While I was away at Worldcon, MKS made a start, stripping paint. Since then, when I've had a couple of hours spare at weekend, I've filled the cracks, put sealant on the plaster, primed the woodwork and done the undercoat. But at that rate, we'd still not have finished by Christmas. So I've take a week's holiday just to get the job done. And to make sure I keep at it, I'm going to record my progress here.

So today I've used builder's caulk to fill gaps in panels on the door and around the skirting boards; MKS has replaced the putty around the little window above the door; and I've put the first coat on the ceiling. That's the first extensive bit of colour we've got in the room (plain white, but hey, that's a lot better than the bare pink plaster we had before), and the room seems transformed already. Can't wait until we start getting the top colour on.

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

Some time ago I was invited to contribute to a list of novellas. I, and several other contributors, then added to our lists, and the amended list is now on line here, with my comments included here.

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.