Happy Wednesday!

Administration
Happy late birthday to gothwalk, swisscheesed, and yourdrkangel!
Happy on-time birthday to cynan_poly and walkingbear!

Hello to new readers dakiwiboid, joemorf, mystic9429, pandemona, suri, and wolflady26! Heh. I get an influx of new readers whenever theferrett talks about me. And they say people listen to me...

Still not 100%
But definitely getting there. Give me a little more time to settle before I get with the returning of e-mails.

Pimpage
Go take hardgirl's '80s cartoon poll.
Also take olliesmama's poll. Entertain her.
azagthoth needs a new icon. Someone help him!

Focus
Like most people, I need to be beat over the head with the clue bat repeatedly. I've known since the beginning of this year that I wasn't supposed to have any relationships this year, because they scatter my focus; I become all about pleasing my partner and don't pay attention to myself. Which was a major contributing factor to the agony of August and September.

vidicon's theory is that if I'm satisfied, I lose the edge that I need to do the spiritual work that I'm doing. Kali's weapons ought to be sharpened daily, you know.

What I do not like about this theory is the idea that this could maybe last a while. I'd be okay if it was a finite thing - no getting distracted by boys until penguinboi gets here, and then I get him as my reward.

Things I NEED to be focusing on
* Writing. I am a writer. I need to be writing. Progress was made yesterday.
* Spirituality. Everything in that vein has fallen by the wayside lately. I need to get more active with that.
* Drumming. Which is connected to spirituality, really - but I need to find a drum circle, preferably one big enough for me to play my big bodhran, which overpowers smaller circles.
* Art. I was telling Vid last night about the oil paint/found objects work I used to do in Vegas - I miss that part of me. And also jewelry making. There are parts of me that were cut away after the rape that didn't need to be cut away; my art is one of them. It took me seven years to get my writing back. I'm due for getting my art back. First step is the jewelry, I think, and the first step in that is to give myself a budget to buy supplies with... jewelry-artist friends, got any links to any good online stores? I have a stack of Fire Mountain Beads catalogs...

Okay.
I need to do work now. Will return after these messages.

Also.....

My sitemeter registered a hit yesterday from apple.com! Hey! Who are you, and what's your employee discount? I want an iPod!

Uncle Rob says...

"You have done without it long enough, Pisces. This state of deprivation can't go on. Up till now there's been a certain value in you not having the stuff you've been aching for, but as of now its continued absence would begin to have a soul-shriveling effect. Therefore, on behalf of cosmic forces, I hereby authorize you to take all necessary steps, as long as they're ethical, to get the goodies. You may even resort to the desperate pleading that kids use on their parents to get a beloved treat at the grocery store, including: "I promise to be good," "I'll never ask for anything again," and "I NEED IT!!!!" "

I'm trying to not think of this as being about sex.....

Note to those around me

Do not let me start planning my Halloween party until October 1.
Do not let me start planning Thanksgiving until October 28.

I have a tendency to leap ahead and focus on things in the future, and no one wants to see incessant "Are you coming to the party?" posts from me starting now when the party is not until late October.

Help theferrett!

theferrett, creator of The Ultimate Purity Test and The Ultimate Gaming Purity Test, posted a while ago that he has a new test in mine...

The Ultimate Blogging Purity Test.

Got any question ideas for him?

Black holes are singing!

Reprinting the whole story here just in case CNN cleans its archives. I want to keep it.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/09/10/blackhole.music.reut/index.html

WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) -- Big black holes sing bass. One particularly monstrous black hole has probably been humming B flat for billions of years, but at a pitch no human could hear, let alone sing, astronomers said this week.

"The intensity of the sound is comparable to human speech," said Andrew Fabian of the Institute of Astronomy at Cambridge, England. But the pitch of the sound is about 57 octaves below middle C, roughly the middle of a standard piano keyboard.

This is far, far deeper than humans can hear, the researchers said, and they believe it is the deepest note ever detected in the universe.

( more! )

Icon Favor

Can someone make me an icon of the first picture here?

CAUTION - NOT A WORK-SAFE LINK!

Just the face/hair, not the body. xanadumalion, could you add a little more auburn to the hair?

Grrrr.....

From the Girl Scout troop leader:

"I have to reschedule the seniors activity this weekend. I forgot that I had an important appt. I would like to reschedule for next Saturday 9:30-1P. 9:30-11:30 will be spent at the nursing home. 11:45-12:45 practice for the flag cermony."

Only if she can get Elayna a ride there & back. That's the weekend penguinboi will be here!

GIP

New default pic! Art by xanadumalion from last summer - hair color retouching and icon-making by nichy! :)

I'll add the lollipop icon tonight - just want to save the pic I'll be deleting first.

Quote of the day

alphafenris, regarding the insanely fast response time I get when I ask for stuff:


"Hey, can somebody help me build my own nuclear reactor?"
"My car would be cooler if it had a cloaking device. Anybody want to install one for me?"
"I need a new pet. Can anybody genetically manipulate a koala bear to excrete chai? I don't care what orifice."