greyduck.net

Going to go by the numbers this time, right down the “Blogs of Note” listing:

• Jessy is back! But only for the weekend. Go leave her a nice comment and catch up on the post-move enjoyment.
  
• Captain Rooba’s a straight-B student. Well, at one school anyway. So much for guidance counsellors. He wants to add a special something to his life: A dog. Like any good free-thinking man he hates having to listen to or otherwise endure religious preachery. (I just made that word up. Sorry.) There was some mild golf suckage, but that’s okay. Who cares about golf?
  
• At debris.com, a server move was accomplished with a surprisingly small amount of anguish, though as usual the telco guys had no clue. You’d think that in the communications business they’d, well, communicate better. There’s some good ranting about the pervasiveness of advertising, as well as a link to some braindraining IQ tests. (I tried to take one of them, but ended up getting a server error at question 26 out of 35. No way in HELL am I going to take that test over again, thank you.) LPs were sold, though if I’d known in advance I’d have asked for some of those old Genesis platters…
  
• Snappy the Clam is back from vacation and once again casting a steely eye on the BigBlogs. Most interesting this week, though, is how much traffic he generated by linking to a Tom Tomorrow bit… and how said traffic has nothing to do with the link and everything to do with the title of the blog entry he chose to use. It’s a weird world, matey.
  
• Madame Sinister endured the snootiness of friends, less than lackluster customer service, and a misogynist jerk. On the flipside she’s been pampered a bit, received pleasant comments on her appearance, and has probably dodged a terrible fate… if you believe in that whole “comes in threes” thing. I wonder how the Maize Maze thing will turn out?
  
• Emily has left the building. Fear not, however. She will appear in a new building in another day or so. Before she left she chose to grace us with the world’s fastest-growing pizza, some WordDuckArt silliness, and an account of the end of her old foodservice gig. She also feels like makin’ bugs, sometimes.
  
• The ever-lovin’ Melpster got herself a brand new… template. I wonder if I should tell her that it looks an awful lot like Phoemeister’s? The Melp’ is a musical person, as well as a MST3K fan and of course a dedicated Vance DeGeneres devotee. We’re treated to more segment reviews and a handful of musical recollections. There was also decent closure on the Fantasy job thing.
  
• When Jason of Q Daily News said his output would decline, he was not kidding around!
  
• Speaking of which, fluttergirl is still on the road.
  
• Argephontes teaches us this week that you can microwave wet cigarettes. I leave deciding the value of this information as an exercise for the reader. There’s a bit of survey that attempts to detail your personality based entirely on your name, and the kitchen sink works again. (She should change her website slogan to, “We really do include the kitchen sink!” Or something cleverer than that.)
  
• Not only does Blogatelle provide the usual huge masses of outraged and entertaining bloggage, but also another delightful birthday card. (Note to self, make sure she knows when my birthday is due.) Oh, and her daughter reads Machiavelli. I should try to hook the girl up with my son in about, um, 17 years… give or take a year.
  
• Sar of Dragon Ink may not be a world-class Monopoly player, but she does take nice photographs and is gracious enough to share with the websurfing public. She can, if she wants to, literally curse a blue streak. And don’t worry, Sar… I’ve chased after the wrong bus more than once in my life. It happens to us all. At least, “us all” who ride busses.
  
• New to the Weekly Recap is someone I’ve corresponded with for a while now but neglected to link to until recently. The Cosmic Babe writes a lot. Almost every day. It is all deeply personal material, the “dear diary” entries of a woman in the midst of a complex and engaging life. As with Blogatelle, those with weak hearts or rigid uptight morals need not apply. This week she endured anxiety (no pun intended) about the start of her job; as a Portland-area parent she grieved along with the families of those dead girls unearthed so recently; there was a priceless parent-children bonding moment; unmentionables are mentioned; candles were purchased but the futon temptation was avoided; a naughty kitten terrorized, was chastized, and got revenge as kitties are wont to do; and the love-type-thing-type-thing sent a bit of neat artwork. All this in between laundry, needlework, email, showers, driving around and other domesticity.
  
• Last but not least, Phoemeister is #1 for “kosher-blessed goodness.” That’s what Google says, anyway. There’s hamster-trouble in dorm-room paradise, but that’s to be expected. Grunger Sheep and past-life Philosophers are popular. Oh, and Phoe… just say to yourself during those darker times, “I’m not a complete moron. Some parts are on back-order.” That’s what I do, anyway…
  

In the wake of Thomson Multimedia’s announcement that they’re going to charge fees for MP3 decoding software and equipment, Emmett Plant of Xiph.org posted a cheerful and amusing Open Thank-You Letter. It’s probably too optimistic to think that this event will drive the masses to switch to Ogg Vorbis audio, but it certainly can’t hurt.

For the record, Thomson MM has for a few years now been charging license royalties on encoding equipment and software, but until now were content to let decoders remain free. And now, like Compuserve before them, they seem intent upon raking in the dough on technology they’ve been giving away for a number of years. Good luck, guys.

Because I feel rather strongly about this sort of thing, I’m going to be terribly gauche and not only link to a Q Daily News snippet that links to some thought-provoking material, but also post here the comment I made to that snippet because dammit, I’m pithy and interesting and stuff:

If only I had a solution to the problems of mob mentality, closed-mindedness and how to achieve understanding through deliberate perspective.

It’s all about the perspective. If you’re willing to take a step away from yourself and truly think about how things must be for a rational thinking being other than yourself, you can learn to understand and appreciate a great deal about your fellow human beings.

Feh. What am I thinking? It’s much more fun to be in a big crowd of people who like to make fun of other people. We merely graduated from high school, we never really left it behind.
Q Daily News