web-goddess

That was a hell of a comment spam attack, huh? Assholes. Snookums and I are working on a prevention system. (Every IP address was a different open proxy.) I’m still cleaning up the aftermath. The “recent comments” list will look funny for a little while.

Tales of the Weird
I stepped out of the break room after lunch today to be confronted by the weirdest little man: he had a ratty, pointy face; he was sporting a massive comb-over; and he was wearing an extremely fluffy white angora sweater. As my eyes adjusted to the cloud of fuzziness that was his torso, I realized with amazement that it was a woman’s angora sweater. It had puffy shoulders and everything! It was like meeting a 60-year-old Ed Wood. He started mumbling to me about angora so I took him over to the case where we keep the balls. (They’re expensive so we keep ’em under glass.) He started telling me about his beloved sweater and how he bought it for five dollars at an op shop, and how it’s his fondest wish to have another knit just like it. I went to get Losh, the other manager. “Losh,” I said. “I have a complete loony over there who wants to get a 100% angora sweater knit and I don’t know what to quote him.” So she came over to deal with him. After much hemming and hawing, she quoted him a price of $700. That’s $500 for the wool and another $200 for the knitting. Seven hundred dollars for a sweater, of which we’d need 50% upfront. Undeterred, he picked out a pattern and Losh set about measuring him. Afterwards he disappeared to “go get the money.” “He’ll never come back,” I said. “He probably just wanted some attention.” Lo and behold, an hour later he was back with the deposit. I couldn’t believe it. I deal with some characters, I tell you…

Holy crap! Craigslist Sydney has finally launched! Not much there yet but hopefully it’ll grow. I was surprised to see a link about US voter registration on the home page, but the explanation was delightful: “We’re including a link to this page on our non US sites just to show that we’re working hard to restore democracy to the US.” Brilliant.

Anybody still looking for a last minute wedding gift for my sister? She’d love a genuine Ultimate Warrior WWF Championship belt, I swear. Hee. (Link courtesy of Chandler.)

Bring on the election.
I was chatting to an old grandma at the shop today and she mentioned that she was from Arizona. “Oh, nice!” I love meeting fellow Americans. (Well, the nice ones anyway.) She said she’d just been reading about the Republican National Convention in the newspaper. Not wanting to say anything too controversial – at least, not before she’d paid for her wool – I just kinda nodded and said I’d seen something about it on the news. “You know,” she said, “I’m a registered Republican but I believe in voting for the man, not the party. And I’m not voting for that man again!” I broke into a big grin. Right on, lady! Later that afternoon a woman from New York recognized my accent and blurted out that she hoped I’d registered to vote. I told her the story of the Arizona lady and she was delighted. So party on, Republicans. The more you tighten your grip, the more moderate voters will slip through your fingers…

I’m fairly certain that everybody that wants a Gmail account already has one, but if you don’t, just leave a comment. I’ve got five more invites to give out.

Where did the computer go? *drool* I want one so bad it hurts.

Holy crap. Another reason to be glad we left England: a study of air quality in the UK has determined that breathing the air around Hammersmith – which is, oh, where we lived and worked for two years – is equivalent to smoking 27 cigarettes a day. No wonder I didn’t develop hayfever in London… My nose and lungs were completely coated in crap!

Last night Amy stopped over and we headed to Gleebooks for a reading by Lynn Truss. Truss is the author of Eats Shoots & Leaves, a manifesto for those of us driven mad by bad punctuation. She was an entertaining speaker who kept the crowd laughing with slides of real, badly-written signs. Afterwards we got our books signed and headed home. Then Snookums and I ate Subway for dinner while watching the director’s commentary of Dude, Where’s My Car?

And that pretty much sums up everything you need to know about me.