Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or a presumption of functionality. (Via Wikipedia)

The brass, the grungy metal and paper, the gears, the dials, the pipes…I adore the steampunk aesthetic and have been roaming the web for months, searching for inspiration.  I finally got juiced enough to start the design in earnest on Friday, and walla! 

Is it wrong to keep looking at your own site because it’s so pritty?  :)

1. Choose 19 of the songs you like best, regardless of artist or genre.
2. Put them all together in a CD.
3. Make 6 other copies.
4. Post your playlist on your blog.
5. Choose 5 people and send them a copy of your CD each. Send the first copy you made to the one who tagged you.

Like Michele, I don’t have 19 favorites, I have craploads of favorites, but for form’s sake, I will narrow it down to the 19 I like best *right now.*

1. “Hold Tight” Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich
2. “The Love You Save” Joe Tex
3. “Don’t Be Cruel” Cheap Trick
4. “Who Did You Think I Was” John Mayer
5. “Down in Mexico” The Coasters
6. “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” The Hollies
7. “Hell Yes” Beck
8. “Let it Ride” Ryan Adams
9. “Come Back to Me” Sarah Borges
10. “Extraordinary Machine” Fiona Apple
11. ” Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” Daft Punk
12. “Legend of a Cowgirl” Imani Coppola
13. “A Girl Like You” Edwyn Collins
14. “Wonderboy” Tenacious D
15. “Red is Blue” Hoodwinked Soundtrack
16. “Slave to Love” Bryan Ferry
17. “Bank Job” Barenaked Ladies
18. “Falling Down” Scarlett Johansson
19. “Freedom 90″ George Michael

Yes, I have eclectic taste. I could have put “Nessun Dorma” on there, or Bernstein’s “Rhapsody in Blue…”

The five I tag to continue the madness are…

1. Caitlin
2. Coriander
3. Joan
4. Robb
5. and even though she won’t do it, Annette

Fun for the whole family!  Er, maybe.

I love you Firefox. Don’t become another cpanel, testing your new “features” on actual release versions.

…

When we send you access information for something called a “control panel,” mightn’t you get the clue that you could probably CONTROL things from that particular area? Playing stupid only verifies the fact that you are, indeed, stupid. Sack up, take some bloody responsibility, and quit expecting to be led around by your dick.

…

It’s Experiment Night here tonight. Corn and vegetable chowder can only be improved by the addition of spicy sausage, right? RIGHT???

If all goes well expect the recipe tomorrow. *drool*

Update: Oh, baby, that was a GREAT soup. And the italian bread fried in olive oil and garlic. *faints*

I like WordPress’ integrated Blogroll tool for this, since it makes the subcatting easy, but there’s no native mechanism to show newly updated sites, ie. with Blogrolling.com, which accepts pings through various services when a site updates. There is a WP plugin that purports to do the job, but the resulting errors when attempting to even load the site after installation make that a no-go. So, if you’re a new link and you can’t figure out why I’m hitting your site several times a day, it’s because:

1. I work from home, and multi-task like a mofo (with an average of 10 Firefox tabs open at any given time, on two separate monitors).
2. I’ve nothing that shows me your site has actually been updated or not.
3. I *need* shit to read, people.

So, for all of you who are posting only once a week or so, GET BIZZY.

Updated to add: The Husband had his first sugar crash last night. He got hot, opened up all the windows (it was in the low-40s outside at the time), and then started shaking like a leaf. The kids applied Chips Ahoy and milk and equilibrium was soon restored. It was not a fun time. Stupid diabeetus.

The entirety of your weblog is called a “blog.” A single fucking POST is not called a “blog.” It is called either a “post,” or an “entry,” as you like, but it is not fucking called a BLOG. You didn’t write five “blogs” on your blog yesterday. Idiots.

Get with the program or get off the intarwebs, kthx.

Love, Me

Updated to add: Holy crap that is one gorgeous book!

Updated again to add: Zoe brought me my Burt’s Bees lip balm sometime in the wee hours of the night last night. And just now she brought me the cap to one of the kid’s markers.

We’re off to see Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium now, toodles.

The fact that you prance around like a little ballerina who doesn’t want to get her tutu damp doesn’t make me any happier with you. If you’re going to run some damned app on your site, then you really, really need to know something about how to deal with it when your fuckstupid activities make it go tits up. The fix took about eleven seconds, and is so fucking far outside of our provided services as to be carpet cleaning that you’ve permanently made my List of Clients Who Couldn’t Extract Their Own Heads from Their Own Asses Even With the Jaws of Life Lending an Assist.

That’s not a good list to be on, people.

Oh, if anyone couldn’t comment over the past day or so, that’s now fixed. I am r00t!

Well, back to solving more people’s self-created problems. Growl.

Things like this make me cherish the very tubes of the internets: Google circa 1407

100 Word Stories is hopping lately. We can always use more participants, so if you’re into fiction writing at all, go on over and join in. (FAQ here, newbies must prove themselves via the comment area of the theme post before being invited to front-page posting status.)

Picked up some Jones Soda Carbonated Candy at Target last night. It’s….interesting. Not so sure I love the sensation of grape foam at the back of my throat. (Which is probably why my romance with Grape Ape went south as quickly as it did, but that’s another show.)

And finally, for Halloween, Handbags of Horror! Hideously expensive handbags and the hideous monsters they resemble. Social commentary at its finest, people.

1. The more shrill you get in your insisting, the more less true whatever you’re insisting on becomes.
2. When we tell you the remote network is queueing the mail for delivery, that’s because it is. Insisting that something is wrong with the server makes you the jerk.

Repeating the same old whinge over and over makes us repeat our responses. Over and over.

Your lack of comprehension is not our problem. If you don’t understand something, ask.

1. Not understanding that you’re not getting email because you didn’t even set up the email address at which you expected to get email is just pitiful.
2. Asking for a refund for the time during which you did not receive email because you didn’t set up the email account in question is the very definition of an exercise in futility.

No, it is not our job to keep your crappy software updated. It is yours. If we do anything to help you in this regard, it is a courtesy, and you goddamned better well be courteous throughout the entire process.

Keep a copy of your signup documentation. It’s really kind of silly to forget where your website is hosted/domain is registered.

You know what they say about assuming… If you cannot email someone, let us know the specifics so we can check the mail logs. Do not rush off to dnsstuff.com and start querying things. We guarantee you won’t understand the results, and telling us our servers are misconfigured because of that is just going to get on our nerves.

1. Do you even know what a stealth nameserver is? No? Then STFU.

Yes, we will suspend you over a $6 past due bill. It does not matter how much you owe, it matters that you pay it on time, just like any other service provider.

If you’re going to resell hosting service, make a frigging effort to learn some basic things. This will save you and your clients a great many big fat tears. And prevent us from hating your very molecules.

Have a nice day.

That doesn’t fix the whole “low-budget production value radio” thing, now does it.

Thing is, I go to the internets to READ things, not listen to them. And if you write a salutory article about one of my favorite sites, and the only version available is via podcast, then I’m not sticking around long enough to view the advertising for which your sponsors have paid so dearly. I’ve got other things to READ.