Adding to the Discourse on 'Cool'

I have a wonderful friend who recently insinuated that the Wii is not cool because it is a...wait, let me quote this directly:

...a little, plastic-looking white thing...

I think that probably makes all this crap uncool too:








And that's just what I could grab from the VERY FIRST PAGE of some guy's Flickr set of all of the Apple front pages in recent memory. In fact, the only thing that distressed me at first about the Wii is that it looked like Apple made it.

Now I'm completely confused about what is cool... ::scratches head::

Whirlwind Tour, or We're Not In Kansas Anymore

The last few weeks have been interesting, but we've been able to see a lot of people we had to wave goodbye to when we left VB a little over a year ago. First up, Joe and Erika were here as a stopover as Joe moved to take up a new job.

We got the excuse to do a few things that we haven't done yet because we had company in town, including going to a large local farmer's market and also up in the Arch. To wit:



After some airline shenanigans, Erika did get a flight out after helping to get Joe ready for the second leg of his trip, though we all did like the Arch-visiting and fondue-eating part more than the packing part, I'm sure.

After a little car-loading Tetris, we determined that if we packed lightly for ourselves, we could just barely fit me and the B in the minivan as well, so we could make the trip and visit Dr. H, CK, and LWC. CK and LWC very graciously put us up (no mean feat when one of us is only one year old and chewing on everything she can get her little hands on. As you can see, she learned a lot about how to kick back while we were out West.



We had just a little time to spend there, as the mister needed to get back in time to go on a trip for work, so we savored those bare hours as much as possible before we started the trek back, also known as "When the hell will we be out of freaking Kansas?"

The B was a little trooper in the car, though admittedly the trip back was much pleasanter with an almost-empty van and plenty of room for me to sit in the second row with her and entertain her with various silly toys. We were glad to get home again, if only to get back into some sort of routine, but the B and I are both uncommonly sad to be here on our own for a bit until the mister returns from his work trip. We'll get through, though, and it will be a little strange to have everything back to normal again.

Confidential

In response to poor E, whose blog has been eaten by Blogger after upgrading to the beta version. (Apparently, you should beware before upgrading. Doesn't sound fun at the moment.)

I wrote the longest. comment. ever and blogger ate it instead of actually attaching it to your post. I will try to summarize.

The B has two teeth that are about halfway in on the bottom. There are two more coming in to match it on the top, according to her doctor after her nine month checkup. It is simultaneously thrilling to see the development and sad to see the end of that silly gummy smile.

Also, I think poor Katie's jacket was poorly tailored as well. She seems really small and there is no reason I can see that she would naturally strain buttons. I am still rockin' the white shoes and shirts, and all the people who apparently care about that grandma rule of no white after Labor Day can stick it.

Okay, that was what I tried to say. I'm out.

Actually, a CK/LWC Visit Wrapup Post is in Order

Well, it's just occurred to me that I never really recapped the marvelous time we just had with the K clan when they were all in town with us earlier this week.

We spent a nice, low-key evening after their arrival, havin' a little dinner and then just hanging out. Plans were made for the next day, including a trip to the Cardinals store at a local mall.

The next day, after the usual B getting up/getting fed festivities, we headed for the mall. We visited the Cardinals store, and I also found a nice Disney store and a Pottery Barn for Kids store. Boy, did I find a few things for the B in that last store. I wish there were four Halloweens every year for all the costumes I want to put her in before she's old enough to roll her eyes at me and tell me she's too old to dress up. I got her a little fairy skirt and a butterfly headband which I plan to just randomly dress her in whenever I'm feeling festive. She seemed to tolerate it pretty well. We also witnessed a command performance of Guitar Hero, which I got no pictures of, as the B and I napped on the couch a bit while it was ongoing. It wasn't the company, I assure you. I do like the catnap with the baby, especially when she wakes up at five and doesn't take her morning nap.

We had dinner with relations of CK's, and it was just delightful to meet them all. The B did OK, although everyone left in the restaurant at that hour was treated to her cranking noises when I took her to change her diaper. Here's an idea: how about better insulation on restrooms to keep the noise inside?

The next day, Tom was able to take off from work and we had a nice, leisurely breakfast to start out the day. We decided to go to the botanical garden to see the Chihuly exhibit, so we loaded ourselves into the minivan and cruised over there.

We wore out our cameras at the garden. Additional batteries were purchased, and we continued to take more and more pictures. Here's pictures of us wandering around. Here's a load of pictures of the Chihuly glass installation. Finally, if you are interested in such things, we also saw some flowers and a silly duck fountain.

A trip to Steak and Shake was next on the docket, where I was corrected, quite cheekily, as the Brits would say. I ordered a hamburger for my mister, and got, "Do you mean a steakburger?" from the man taking the order. ::eyeroll::

We took the food home so the poor little tired baby could sleep in peace, which she did. We hung out, and things were just started to seem the same as they used to be, when our houses were fifteen minutes apart (by car, not by Star Trek transporter, which they should hurry up and invent so we can start Friday night gaming again).

The next morning, after one more visit from their son, they had to load the cars and pull out of town, only to head as far in the opposite direction as they'd driven to reach our house. It was sad to see them go, and I missed my goodbye hugs as I had a sleeping, pretty cranky (several missed naps during the visit, but totally worth it) baby lying on my chest.

Good luck in your new town, CK and LWC. It was nice to see you, and we still miss you.

I've Monopolized Mkae's Blog Enough

I figured it was about time that I wrote my own damn Doctor Who season finale blog entry, seeing as I've damn near taken over the comments area on poor Mkae's post. I kept thinking that I didn't really have anything new to add to this discussion, or that it really isn't that important in the great scheme of things. However, I can't get it out of my head, so I suppose this is my attempt to purge it so I can go back to, you know, devoting my full energy to raising the offspring and whatnot.

That being said... As you may have guessed, big fat, honking spoilers after this point for the season one finale. I may even talk a little about the half-hour or so of S2 David Tennant that I've seen courtesy of some bootlegged stuff on YouTube. You have been warned...and 3...2...1...

So, my choice of picture is symbolic. CE couldn't skate away from Doctor Who fast enough, could he?

I realize that sounds bitter on my part when I see it typed out like that without the benefit of vocal inflection, but I really don't mean it to sound that way. I honestly understand why you would leave after one season if you wanted to ever be taken seriously in another role ever again. The Doctor is iconic (which is odd, considering how much he changes in different incarnations) and it would be difficult to reach escape velocity if one were to stay in the role too long. I completely get it. Not everyone is Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellan, who seem to be able to catch on in at least one role other than the big "franchise" roles they came to be associated with.

I also really feel I'll miss that actor in the role, even more than I missed Tom Baker after Doctor 5 showed up. I suppose my disappointment that CE's run was only one season long is a compliment. I really liked his work and his chemistry with other characters, Rose especially. While I realize that people I respect have said that David Tennant is doing a bang-up job as Doctor 10, I find myself wishing that wasn't the case, so I would have an excellent excuse to stop watching the show and let it all end for me along with Doctor 9.

A side note on Christopher Eccleston, before I consider the cessation of the beating of this deceased horse. After reading his entry on Wikipedia (yes, I told you, I was pretty bummed out that he left the show, and I went looking for answers—this includes a drive-by at Wikipedia) I conclude that I could walk past him on the street and never realize it was him. He looks different in every single picture! At first I thought it was the close-cropped haircut showing off the ears that made the Doctor look different from his previous roles, but there's another picture of him in a buzz further down the wiki entry and he looks different there as well. That's actors for you, eh?

Another random factoid I read while trying to purge all this from my brain is a rumor that the part of the ninth Doctor was offered at one point to Bill Nighy. I have such mixed feelings about that. I do like Bill Nighy and I can't begin to imagine the Doctor he would make, but I wouldn't trade the CE season to see it. I did think it was interesting, though, and I thought those of you who also like Love, Actually might like to hear what we almost had, casting-wise.

Maybe this is all guilt from when I was sitting in my brother-in-law's basement/rumpus room watching Rose and I thought to myself, "Oh, come on. Tell me that goofy-looking fucker is the Doctor." I got over that quickly, before the end of the episode, in fact, and now I can truly say that I thought he was...fantastic.

(Okay, mind. Can we move on now?)

(Yeah, right. You know you can't let the 'ship go.)

(sigh)

This One's for Retwin

So, imagine you leave on an errand with a pal of yours who's from the upper midwest, it's late at night in a tourist area, and you're looking for food. You drive past a diner-type breakfast joint and see that scrapple is being advertised on their sign.

Do you tell the nice midwestern boy what scrapple is just to see his reaction, or do you pretend not to know when he reads the sign aloud in a curious, but confused-sounding voice?

I chose to explain it, perhaps giving a slightly more disgusting definition than was necessary, much the same way that the truth is stretched for kids on Halloween, when they visit a haunted house.

I just read that again, and I can hardly believe it was possible to make scrapple sound more disgusting than it actually is, but I believe I may have given the impression that night, all those years ago, that scrapple is basically what the cook in a diner can scrape up on the grill and mash together into a patty, and that's cooked again in some grease and then served. Yep. If it's possible that there's something more disgusting to imagine eating than scrapple actually is, then what I described is about the only thing. It's also not that terribly far from the truth.

I'm still staying with my parents, showing off my offspring to them, and I saw these containers of (urk) commercially-produced scrapple next to the bacon in the disgusting-meats-you-really-shouldn't-eat case. I just had to snap a picture (hey, I have a baby, I go nowhere without a camera) and post it along with this nostalgiac big D memory.

Our Trip So Far

So, the Virginia Beach portion of our trip is nearly done. We'll be leaving here by 11:00 am today to get Tom up to Dulles airport in time for his flight back home. We've had a great time on this leg of the trip, and I'm using the heck out of the new digital camera.

We got in at the home of the best hosts ever, CK and LWC, and put together the B's east coast exersaucer, which has greatly enhanced her experience of the trip.

Not that she hasn't spent a lot of time in people's laps or taxing their arm strength, grinning at them and drooling...

She's even had some time to chill out.

And really chill out.

I think a good time has been had by all. Now, as I look forward to a week with my parents so they can get to know their only grandchild (but sadly, may go a week with little to no internet access) I can only hope I will get even more snapshots to put in my obsessive little family albums.

Sony: You're Nuts

I'm with Tycho, I'm not buying a PS3 for what they're asking for it.

Yes, Sony. I know that the official line is that five million people would buy your PS3 even if it didn't have games. Right. Whatever. "Gee, it's a real bargain if you are in the market for a Blu-Ray DVD player." Well, there's the issue. You've somehow convinced yourselves that there are five million people who give a rat's patoot about owning a Blu-Ray DVD player. It isn't even a standard format yet. It has to compete, Beta vs. VHS-like, with the HD DVD format. And for this, they want us to pay five or six hundred dollars for a gaming console?

It doesn't shock me that Sony included some crappy "features" to make the PS3 more business-model friendly. And by features, I mean crippleware. We'll get to why it doesn't surprise me in a minute, but here is a blurb from the current Wikipedia article on the PS3:

"Sony has defended its pricing model, noting the PS3's higher performance and inclusion of the Blu-ray drive.[24] However, it is not clear how useful the Blu-ray drive will be on the less expensive model; film studios may choose to turn on Blu-ray's ICT (Image Constraint Token) flag at any point, degrading the non-HDMI output to slightly higher than DVD resolution. A Sony executive responded that it is "too early to speculate at this point" whether movie producers will activate the ICT feature."

Gee, Sony. Now I dunno why you lost the Beta vs. VHS fight. With sterling judgement like you're showing now, you really should have won that one too. (sarcasm off)

Yes, that's right. You're expected to pay through the nose to get a Blu-Ray player because it supposedly blows regular DVDs out of the water from a quality standpoint, but companies who produce Blu-Ray format discs can activate a flag to make the difference nearly negligible, for no reason that I can think of off the top of my head.

"They won't activate the flag," you say. "Why would they make your experience more crappy than it needs to be?"

Yes, they will. Why would Sony press CDs that break your damn computer, install a root kit so anyone can break into your shit, and, in many cases, disable your CD-ROM drive? But they did that too, because they're afraid someone, somewhere, might listen to some music over your shoulder and they wouldn't profit from that. Soon, it will be illegal to open your car windows while you are playing a legally-purchased CD in your car, because people who haven't paid their tithe might hear a few seconds of music.

But I digress. When Sony got caught on this whole copy protection hoo-hah, I should note that their "rootkit removal kit" opened more security holes on your computer, didn't remove the rootkit entirely, and generally screwed you over more than you already are. Not that I know this pain from experience, but it still sucketh mightily that anyone had to do it.

Furthermore, I'd always been brainwashed to think that Sony electronics were superior. I just don't think that's the case anymore. I've compared price/performance ratio for many electronics purchases recently, and Sony really isn't near the top anymore. Their video cameras I tried were fuzzy and had bad UI. We bought a JVC and we love it. My laptop is, sadly, a Vaio, and I've never been less impressed with hardware than I am with this. When we replace it, it will be with something else. Even the original PS2 had that shitty Disk Read Error that plagued nearly every PS2 eventually, including both of the ones I've ever owned.

Face it, guys at Sony. You've convinced yourselves that we are drooling over this thing, and we're not. Some people will buy it for the exclusive titles, like Final Fantasy, but a lot of us just don't have time for your crap anymore.

Me? I might just be buying a Wii and then be done with it. Traditional Nintendo games are cute and the B will probably love them as soon as she gets some motor control. I hardly have time to breathe anymore, let alone play games, so I'm good. The mister will be playing WoW until the cows come home, so we're covered there. And the Wii has wifi built in, which every console should have had five years ago.

All right, rant over. I could have bored you all about how stressful it was to fly on a plane with the B (she did great, though, two little cries before I got the bottle in her mouth for the descent), how much it sucks that I left our digital camera on the plane, and how much I hate Enterprise for screwing us on the car rental. I have chosen to keep that rant to myself, and just be glad that I can see a few people for awhile before I visit my parents for a week and let them meet their grandchild.

Shout Outs

Stuff I keep meaning to tell some of you, but I haven't had time to send individual emails:

1) Shocho: Technorati's search utility works really well. (Try mine, way down at the end of the right column. I searched a couple of words I knew it would find in several posts and it seemed to find everything.) You get it by signing up with Technorati, claiming your blog (their term, not mine) and then editing your account to insert their search box into your template. Have fun! I still haven't decided where the form should be in my template, so for now it's just shoved there in the right column.

2) Mkae: I saw little plastic Superman chairs at the KB Toys in our mall. I thought you might want to get them for your wee ones, so take a gander at your local toy shop.

3) Dr. H: I'm sure you have a more convenient way of keeping track of this stuff, but if you get a Google calendar, you can add information about all the DVD releases to it really easily, and it can email the info to you to remind you if you want it to.

Okay, that is all. But do look at the next post to see my offspring in her cute little Easter outfit, if you haven't already.

Peace Out, Y'all

Well, we got professionally packed (courtesy of the new airplane company) yesterday and then loaded onto a moving truck (again, thank you new airplane company) today. Our old house is now empty and waiting for the closing.

Even though I had to do much more minimal labor than if we had to move ourselves, I still feel somewhat like a truck ran me over. I've just completed a two hour nap, which brings me to 9 hours of sleep over the last two days. Hopefully I will sleep most of tomorrow, when we drive somewhere between 13 and 15 hours in one day out to the arch. We have to do it in one day, you see, because we will be carrying two cats in a cage in our back seat. I just didn't have it in me to put them in the cargo hold of an airplane.

Those boxes to the right are a mere pittance of the 210 boxes and 160 "misc." items on our manifest. Where did we get all that crap?

The very good news so far is that, contrary to many professional moves, our load is the only load on the truck, and the driver is actually based out of Archtown. He is really happy to be headed home and basically asked me when I wanted the stuff delivered. I went from having a 3-7 day delivery window to being able to say, "How about 9 a.m. on the 15th?"

This means that all my televisions and my computer will be there and out, ready for the cable, telephone, and internet installer to show up that afternoon and connect everything.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Anyway, to those of you still in beach country, we're out as of tomorrow morning. Thanks for everything.

A Random Assortment

Think of this as one of those boxes of chocolate candies where you don't know what's inside them until you pop it in your mouth.

First, if you are interested in the structure of the web and are anything of a digithead, you may find fascinating this article about the birth of Google.

Second, I have now found a few people who don't think that I look exactly the same after three months of pregnancy as I did before. This has saved you all from a long post about how fat you all thought I looked before I was pregnant. I can hear the collective sighs of relief out there.

Third, I need to know how Dr. H moved his big-ass TV. If you have a moment, please leave a comment. We may be moving it soon and I had a terrible dream last night that it was shattered on the other end.

Fourth, and finally, the mister and I watched Closer last night. I had to wonder how much my experience of that movie was changed because I recognized the music from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte (sorry, can't be bothered to find the accented i for Cosi) and know the plot of the opera. I honestly don't think the movie makes as much sense if you don't have that information. I can't decide if that movie is horribly sexist or not.

A late entry: Fifth, and finally, the most satisfying moment of my day consisted of saying the word ipconfig. It was an odd moment, but it fundamentally changed the way another person was interacting with me for the better. Always good to be able to convince someone they can just ask you to do something rather than having to explain it to death. It made the rest of the conversation soooo much easier. Easier is good.

Frozen in Time

In our hallway, just outside the doorway to the master bedroom, is a goofy little collage I did of pictures from the first race where I ever won any money.

(For the record, a time trial where I recorded the third fastest women's time overall, and first for my category. I was beaten only by a professional mountain biker and a professional triathlete/personal trainer. I used to be really fast. Perhaps I'll do it again someday.)

I had the second start time, behind the previous year's winner. There was no pre-registration, and my carpool of people got there really early and were the first to register. Behind me was a group of guys from my team competing in the five-man category.

Several of the pictures in the collage are of us in the staging area and at the start line. They make me incredibly wistful. Directly behind me is a good friend of mine, also my former boss. I'd love to say it wasn't true, but my stint of working there changed our friendship in a less than good way. There aren't hard feelings (not on my end, and I don't think on his end either) but it has changed nonetheless. Being around there, I learned a bunch of things about several people I wouldn't have known if hadn't worked there--idiosyncracies that make you see them in a new way that isn't entirely positive. Not terrible, unforgiveable things...just, maybe things you don't need to know about your friends.

Behind him is a guy who used to be the captain of our team, who now works for a competing shop and is on their race team. It was odd, to leave that way, and it's really quite uncomfortable. I hear he still comes on the store rides (they're open to all) and tries to stir things up. Sad, really.

Behind him, someone in the service who was stationed elsewhere before we really got a chance to know him very well. He had just started to loosen up and we got to know the guy behind the sort of nervous, self-conscious guy who was trying too hard to fit in.

Next, another man in the service who was stationed overseas later that summer. I heard from him a few times when I worked at the shop, but once we leave this area, I betcha I'll never talk to him again. Shame...he's a hell of a nice guy. His wife is really great too. I do miss riding with them, and talking with them about politics. It's a subject we didn't agree on, but you could actually disagree with them and still have an enlightening, constructive conversation.

The last guy on the team is yet another person who's moved away. One of our closest friends in the riding group, and a big loss to us when he felt that he had to move to be closer to family and to do the right thing for his kids. Another person I can disagree with and still have a good conversation, which I find to be a rare commodity.

We're all smiling ear to ear in those pictures, despite the cold of the morning that day, and the fact that we were about to leave on a 40 kilometer (about 25 miles) trip of complete agony. It was my second time trial and I knew the pain that was coming, but I had my boys behind me and I could hear them cheering for me until I went around the first gentle bend in the road. When they passed me (which was inevitable, there were five of them and they're each individually faster than I am) they encouraged me again, telling me it had taken forever to chase me down and that I was going to do well if I could keep up the pace. I saw them one more time, when they'd bounced back on the course from the turnaround point and I was still approaching it. Even though they were going full out, they all yelled out to me.

That was a great day. I remember the pancakes that G went to get us, and the over-ripened banana that I had to choke down to get enough energy to set myself up for a good race. I remember joking that time was standing still because I was on the trainer warming up, and I remember the big "arm warmers or no arm warmers" debate.

More than that, I remember drifting in to find them all waiting for me in our warm-up area, and then the six of us lining up for a picture. I made sure we all got a copy of it. There's a copy of it up in the bike store. When we go to St. Louis, J will be the last one left here from that partial team picture.

But every time I see the collage, we're all happy and smiling and together, about to have a good race. And we always will be.

Helping a pal of mine

Hey all. My friend Amanda (many of you know Amanda—this is quintuplet Amanda) is trying to help a friend of hers in an advertising competition. The topic is "Gaming and Star Wars", so pretty much everyone reading this right now is qualified.

Do your part to help humanity...okay, one human...and e her at adwilla@yahoo.com.

Thanks.

Things I learned today

A watched web page never updates.

Nervous salespeople make me outrageously uncomfortable.

When you hear the figure "30% off wholesale" and you know it's true, it makes you buy things. Even from nervous salespeople who make you outrageously uncomfortable.

When one of your friends forgets to do something and has to fess up to their wife that they didn't do it, it is a friendship test whether he chooses to unfairly throw you in front of the train to save a tiff in his marriage or not. On this particular occasion, count it as a failed test.

Some things are not do it yourself projects.

There is a good reason I wear a sports bra when I play DDR. If I forget it when I plan to play away from home, I should probably just not play.

Trust your instincts when the telephone rings. 90% of the time, some part of you knows who it is.

When you think to yourself, "I have to remember to do that later" at a time when you are perfectly capable of performing the task in question, yet you do not because you are too lazy and choose to procrastinate, there is a 100% chance that you will forget to do it entirely. You will realize it too late, and spend the rest of the day berating your lazy ass inside your own head.

If you go outside your sphere of people you've grown accustomed to and really watch the 'new' people around you, you will get the distinct impression that your average person is at least a little bit insane.

Perhaps the most annoying type of person is one who is poorly-informed in a particular subject, yet completely convinced they have it all figured out. In fact, they are so sure that they correct you, even though it is clear that you know more about it than they do. Double the irritation if it is your job to know the things the person is correcting you about. There is a disease running rampant, and it is 'know-it-all-dumbass syndrome'.

I love my laptop, but I hate that I have grown so accustomed to its keyboard that my right hand is naturally offsetting itself on 'normal' size and layout keyboards.

I currently own three more video games than I have time to play. Yet, I am bored a lot of the time. Someone explain that temporal shift to me.

I have made a shift. Until recently, if I was given a choice of reading a book with a fabulous plot and a so-so writing style, I'd take that over a well-written book with a so-so plot. I've made a complete 180 there.

I'm sure I learned other stuff, but I was probably lazy and forgot to commit it to memory.

The Problem With 'Blogs'

Here's the trouble with blogs. Who's the audience?

I mean, I can't complain about my job if I'm going to someday let the address of my blog slip through my lips while I'm there. Not that there isn't a book I could write about the wackiness at my job, but isn't that all of us, really? Who wants to read about that, anyway? If you want to experience a job sucking, most of us just have to get in the car on Monday morning and drive to our own.

I'm usually a lot more fun than this. Let's start again.

I can't bitch about my life at home, because I intend to give out this blog address to people I actually know in real life. None of them would believe me if I complain about the husband, because he is, in all honesty, nothing to complain about and they all know it. What he's still doing with a snarky troublemaker like me is a mystery, truly.

You can bet that I'll be injecting talk about Dance Dance Revolution, and either celebrating or complaining about songs I can and can't pass. For many of you, this will be a paragraph to skip over while you shake your head indulgently at a 32 year old woman who spends hours and hours every week bouncing up and down on top of a padded mat in her own living room. Better for the floor to be padded than the walls, but there are no guarantees.

However, I have secrets. Don't we all, really? It's hard to remember all that if you plan to hand out your URL to people you have to look in the eye. I guess I'll have to though, especially when you consider why I would choose to contribute to the noise to signal ratio here on the internet in the first place.

This brings me to another point, actually...why start a blog right now, this very second. Well, for starters, as I am a modern, digital girl, everyone assumes I already have one, and I don't. I did actually keep one a couple of years ago that degenerated into the same two posts over and over: "I hate the people at my job" and "I hate the people who drive around me". Not very interesting, really. Sort of a whiny bitch sort of vibe to it, and nothing anyone who has to actually know me in real life should have to put up with.

The real reason to start a blog right now is that someone we've known for several years just moved out of town. (And by 'just', I actually mean, 'at roughly 1:00 p.m. today'.) A couple of years ago, another friend took a job out of town and had to leave, and at the end of last summer, a third friend of mine moved away to be closer to family, and I've struggled to keep in touch because I suck at making telephone calls and every email I open up sits there staring at me, blank, with its hand on its hip and its toe tapping impatiently for me to be witty or heartfelt or something.

Okay, so emails don't tap their toes. I used to be exceedingly good at them, though. Met my husband that way, although pretty much anyone who's likely to read this will already know that story, so why bore everyone again?

However, perhaps if I get a blog (although I don't really like that overused term, but what can you do?) then I can sweet-talk those fine, out-of-town friends into getting one, and we can stay connected in some small way by reading whatever it is that comes out when we're faced with the Big Scary Blank Text Field.

Is that so wrong, really?