Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

We went to a sort of a party, I guess, tonight, featuring denizens from the austin.general newsgroup. It was ultimately boring. I suppose it wouldn’t have been if I had known anyone there. The kids were big hits and even though they were the only kids there, everyone was very nice to them. Some semi-inebriated, semi-clothed (ok, she was clothed, but skimpily) woman gave J. a handful of makeup glitter. You can guess what the most sparkly family on the block is. Sometimes it’s really obvious who doesn’t have kids of their own. Another guy was there showing off his Segway. Someone took a demo ride on it and proved that it is indeed possible to fall off.

After an hour the brewery owners started to shoo us off, so we headed over to Carraba’s for a bite to eat whereupon C. immediately fell in Utter and Complete Love with our waitress, who she dubbed “Sunny-D” for some reason. Every time the waitress left, C. started howling “Sunny-D! Sunny-D! Wh’AH you?” at the top of her lungs. We had an excellent meal and for dessert I had a chocolate martini (equal parts vodka and creme de cacao, served in a martini class whose rim is dipped in chocolate sauce). Oh but damn, that was good. I’m very much looking forward to hitting martini bars in Las Vegas.

Luckily J. discovered the flyer for Mother’s Day sitting near the back of our booth and pointed it out to hub. Now he knows. I knew he’d forget unless someone clonked him over the head with it and I didn’t want to have to do it again this year.

I watched Donnie Darko again last night. Second time’s the charm. I can’t get the movie out of my head. Or the soundtrack.

Since we just unloaded a house payment and yearly property taxes, I think we may buy a boat. We have one out at a lake an hour away that’s co-owned with my brother’s family, but considering we’re 5 minutes from a public boat ramp, it’s silly not to have one here at the house.

Right?

I don’t usually post silly online quiz results, but this was a good one…

The Dante’s Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Test

The message board situation exists, I was one of the donors. The only acknowledgement has been a throwaway one-sentence line (like “I’m not being evicted now, thanks to some people here) in the midst of a longer post about other things.

I’m not asking anyone to bow down and lick my toes, but thank-you notes serve a dual purpose. First, they let the giver know that their gift arrived and was received, and isn’t just lost in the mail somewhere. Second, they express gratitude for the gift, which is just common etiquette.

This is the third (and probably last) time I’ve gotten “whatever”ed at when I tried to help someone out. It will affect my actions in the future. If it’s too much effort to drop a short email, then it’s too much effort for me to help you out. Since it seems to happen frequently, I feel that I just shouldn’t even bother.

For what it’s worth, every charitable donation I’ve made in the past year has netted one thank you note, and sometimes two.

See what Baghdad Bob has to say about Featureprice.

Here’s a situation. You’re in dire financial straits. You’re a regular on a message board. Others on the board learn of your problems and send you a bunch of money ($100 per person, in some cases). Do you:

a) Thank each contributor personally
b) Thank each contributor publically
c) Make a blanket thanks publically without mentioning individuals

Just wondering what the etiquette is.

Well, maybe I won’t redesign totally, but I’m cleaning up the sidebar and adding in some coolio tags I found on The Girlie Matters. I’m also pondering skinning the site, since I think I’ve pretty well got content and style separated other than the banner graphic, which I can just pop into the style sheet… can’t I?

However, I am thinking of changing the site name. When I first started this blog, it was primarily links to other sites, but it seems to have evolved into an online journal, so the name “Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time” as well as the description “A melange of freshly culled weird/fun/disturbing/silly links and personal mutterings.” are both slightly inaccurate. The problem is that I haven’t a clue what to change it to. Perhaps the old standby, “Addlepated”. Whatcha think?

I’ve been browsing other blogs and seeing some really pretty layouts. It’s inspiring me. I hate to be inspired, because it means work is coming. Don’t be surprised if there’s a redesign in this blog’s future.