Cascading downwards

Hey, anyone else on LJ use the custom CSS option? Anyone else notice that they renamed almost every class and ID on the freakin' page a few days ago? I couldn't figure out why my style sheet was suddenly not working at all, until I opened up the source and really looked at it. So I spent a pretty large part of today figuring out how to make it look like it used to (actually, a little better, hopefully). And it wasn't as easy as renaming all the classes and IDs in the sheet - they reorganized some stuff, so it wasn't nested under the same things and ended up in a totally different part of the page.

Although, I'm actually pretty happy - now I evidently get to have an actual tag cloud instead of a simple list. Maybe I'll actually start tagging. Retro-tagging should keep me busy at work for a few days (it's really slow right now). And, all that tweaking definitely taught me a bit more CSS. I know a lot more about relative and absolute positioning, which I have avoided until now, preferring to let things flow.

Still, I find it amazing that I haven't seen more people remarking on the changes. I guess almost no one does their own CSS instead of just picking a theme. I wanted mine to match my web site, and it mostly does (apart from the sidebar having to have a solid background instead of sharing the gradient - saaaaayyyy, I should test out that possibility with the new changes).

ETA: Hah, what do you know, I can make the sidebar with the gradient! Actually, I think I could have before and just didn't realize it.

Lifehacker used my script. I got mentioned in a Lifehacker post. I feel famous! OK, in a little, weird corner of the internet, but still!

1. Post 3 things you've done in your lifetime that you don't think anybody else on your friends list has done.
2. See if anybody else responds with "I've done that."
3. Have your friends cut & paste this into their journal to see what unique things they've done in their life.

I have:

1. Worn a formal gown into the McDonald's ball pit.
2. Graffitied my high school (the auditorium catwalks).
3. Literally spent my entire paycheck on books (it was Christmas! I worked at the bookstore!).

It's kind of sad that the first two date from high school. I'm not very exciting. Or, my friends are too exciting, cause there was a bunch of stuff that would have been unique in a lot of crowds, but not mine.

I was reading a blog post about marking age/reading levels on books, and found this wonderful philosophy regarding allowing your kids to read:

[My father] once told a friend who was astounded by something I was reading: “If she’s too young to understand something either it won’t hurt her, or she’ll ask us and we’ll explain it to her. If she’s old enough to understand it, then it won’t hurt her.”

Yes. I was allowed to read pretty much anything, and I think it contributed a lot to my education. Historical fiction is the only reason I know anything about certain historical periods, since I found history class to be unbelievably boring and always tuned out. And I would ask my mother, "Why would this character have done this? Wouldn't it have been a good thing?" and she would explain how the time/culture was so different from what I knew.

I plan to tell my kids they can read anything in the house. I may hide away half-a-dozen or so very explicit books, but that's it. Anything else is fair game.

Yesterday, as I drove home through heavy rain, my mp3 player gave me "When the Levee Breaks" followed by "Bad Moon Rising." How does it know?

(yes, it is very slow at work today)

I just came across an old, obscure word that I think is due for a slight update and renaissance: bloviate - "to speak at length in empty, pompous rhetoric".

I propose a modern twist: blogviate. Who doesn't think there's a crying need for this variation?

I got back from vacation on Saturday! yeah, I know, I was so very visible with the posting and commenting. Uh ... I was catching up on other stuff? (still am)

We had a great time just lazing around on the boat. Caught up on a few movies (not as many as I had originally thought), read a few books (ditto). I don't know where the time went.

Saw Mom and George when we docked in Florida, which was nice, since I don't think we've seen her for at least a year. We went to see Kennedy Space Center, which was pretty interesting. Great IMAX film (which actually required the funny glasses. I felt like a dork, but everyone else was wearing them too).

I am still pretty pale, but a nice rosy pale now. Except my calves, which are lobster red. I wanted them to look less fish-belly with skirts this summer, and went overboard.

And guess who was on my cruise? What Not to Wear! They evidently did a makeover where they all went on vacation with the victim, and did the shopping at the ports in the Bahamas, and did the reveal on the ship. No, I did not go (getting tickets involved getting up way too early for a vacation day). But if you see a What Not to Wear episode on a cruise, that's my ship.

I spent today entering more books into LibraryThing - this time, the ones I've read, but don't own. OK, just the non-fiction (waaay too much otherwise). Luckily, I kept a list of (new) books read from 2001 to early 2007. I don't think I'm going to bother much with trying to remember anything prior to that. I have to say, I do wish the library catalog would keep a record of what you've checked out.

I have read some truly weird stuff. But I can honestly say I found it all fascinating.

I love Amazon. I do. I've probably been shopping there for more than 10 years by now. But there is so much junk on their pages now, they take forever to load. It's irritating.

So yesterday I got particularly impatient, and started searching to see if they had a text-only site for accessibility (no they don't. Boo). And I found:

Amazon Wireless

OK, so it's designed for cell phones, but it's lightning-fast. Perfect. No one said you have to be using a cell phone to use a site designed for mobile access. In fact, I use a bunch of them, made into gadgets on my iGoogle page (this one puts me at 4 - Google calendar, LiveJournal, Facebook, and Amazon).

So, I hope this makes the day of someone who'd getting a little tired of Amazon's speed.

Rich appears to have the flu. We have not yet hauled him somewhere to have this confirmed, but he's sniffly, sounds like he's couching up a lung, and has a fever, combined with the chills. Poor baby.

And to top it off, he's being stupid about it. Just as I was waking up this morning, he was crawling into bed, shivering. I asked why he'd slept on the couch (not particularly unusual), and he said he didn't want to keep me up with his coughing. Idiot. I think the one who's sick gets the preferential treatment, the fact that I'm working today and he wasn't regardless.

But I guess that's better than if he was one of those really whiny sick people. Still, if he keeps this up, he's going to make himself worse.

So, what should I feed him, keeping in mind he hates soup?