Fragments of my life

http://www.ee0r.com/lolckyhorror/index.html
http://community.livejournal.com/metaquotes/6465309.html

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm -- D: This is not good.

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I think I may have pinned down a decent LJ solution to the problem of crossposting. People do it with tools and by hand, but it would be nice if it could be done LJ-based somehow. Newsgroups-style crossposting doesn't work well on LJ. But there may be a "collapse entry on friends page" tool coming down the pipe, a sort of thing that would still show you the username/comm/title/number of comments, and an option to uncollapse it. And if a post that was detected (either by the poster saying it was a crosspost, or the utility detecting that it was an exact dup in another comm) as a crosspost were to be automatically collapsed, with a note saying it was auto-collapsed due to cross-posting ... I don't see how that would do anything to mess anyone up.

Because some things are best done in little bits, I've just tackled the boxes and booze from the dining room area. The booze is now tidily and gloriously displayed on top of some kitchen cabinets.

I've been working on suggestions stuff most of the afternoon and evening. Is it wrong that I find this more engaging and entertaining than going to the work₂ party that I was planning to go to?

suggestions got a whole influx of people because of that post. I am immensely proud that the suggestions regulars are helping out the way that they are, and am pleased as anything about the volunteers helping too. <3

Work this afternoon was very slow. I was one of only a handful on my team who stayed; our supervisor told us we had the option of going home.

V called last night.

Lightbox, Alaskan style.

Dad always knew winter in Alaska was gloomy, but when he heard about Seasonal Affective Disorder, something clicked, and he was amazed and delighted to find out that the deep dark winter could actually affect your mood for the worse. And he came up with a solution.

He bought a 500 watt halogen lamp, one of the sort that generally gets put on the outside of buildings, wired it up properly, and mounted it on a (don't try this at home, kiddies) camera tripod. The result was ungainly and decidedly unstable, and looked very homemade, but it worked well enough. He pointed the light at the couch and plugged it in.

500 watts puts off a fantastic amount of heat and light. Outdoors, it's a spark in the darkness. Indoors, unshaded, the couch turned into an instant bit of beachfront property. Dad called it "the basking light", and made references to lizards soaking up the sun.

It was an instant hit. Unlike some of Dad's other bizarre innovations, this one stuck around and got regular use. Dad always woke up first. He'd come down in the mornings, make some coffee, and curl up on the couch in what passed for his pajamas, in front of the light, waking up quietly and pleasantly. We'd join him some mornings.

The tripod was not a good solution. We tripped over that quite a bit, and there were some close calls. I don't remember if any of those incidents took the thing out, but by and by, Dad replaced the old contraption with a modern professional version -- a two-lamped construction light on a sturdy telescoping pole with three short and stable legs. Tay-Tay and I noted with approval that instead of just bare glass over the lamps, these were fitted with cages on the fronts. It worked very well, and Dad was even able to use it for its intended purpose, as we occasionally found him outside splitting wood after dark in the company of the lamps.