Totally Gay

When the American Family Association stuck a poll about gay marriage on their web site a couple of days ago, they did so with the intention of presenting the results as a petition to Congress. They apparently assumed that the respondents would be overwhelmingly opposed to the idea of marriage for homosexuals, I suppose. At first, it seemed as though their assumption would prove correct. Yesterday, more than 80% of respondents opposed it. I wonder if the AFA will still present the poll results as a petition to Congress now? I just took another look at the site, and more than half the respondents as of now approve of gay marriage, and a further 8% accept the idea of civil unions as an acceptable alternative. That means that fewer than 40% of respondents are opposed to some sort of legal recognition for committed gay and lesbian couples.

This turnaround appears to be the result of people voting in the poll after finding links to it at weblog sites, especially LJ, where word can spread very fast indeed. It's nice to see the AFA hoist on its own petard. (I'd say it's nice to see them get hosed, but that would sound, like, totally gay, man.) Personally, I'd like to see gay marriages legalized, not least because then I'd stand a good chance of getting invited to a lot of weddings with really, really good catering for a change. But I do wonder what would be thrown to the crowd of bachelors in lieu of the bride's garter? I'm thinking maybe a cock ring, but that's probably very, very wrong of me.

Well, I'm certainly in a strange mood tonight, aren't I? One could even say giddy. I attribute this to the fact that my brain woke up a good six hours later than my body did yesterday. In fact, only then did I realize that I had jumped two whole days in my mind and thought it was already Sunday. That's what happens when every day is like every other day. I need to create some sort of variety in my schedule. Perhaps I could dye one of the cats a different color once a week, using one of those color treatments which lasts only a few days. When the cat had faded to its natural color, I would know that the day had rolled around again. It would be like one of those tooth brushes with the clump of fading colored bristles in the middle. Do they make that dye in a spray? I hate the idea of dipping a cat every week. Of course, if I did dip a cat once a week, I would then be able to tell how much time had passed by how well the scratches had healed, too. In fact, I could probably forgo the dye altogether, and merely bathe the cat weekly. Yeah, that would work.

It's going to be a rainy Saturday. That means I won't have my light cue to wake me up. No telling when I might be back, in that case. I'd certainly like to see at least a bit of daylight this afternoon, no matter how dimmed by cloud it may be. I fear that I might develop SAD if I suffer much more light deprivation. It would be nice to spend a few days in some place sunny, but the cats would never forgive me, and Sluggo, left to his own devices, would undoubtedly take over the world. I guess I'd better just look into getting some extremely bright light bulbs. After I wake up, of course -- whenever the hell that will be.

Support Your Local ISP, If You Can Find It.

There's been some confusion with my Internet Service Provider recently. When I got the e-mail notifying me of my bill for December, it asked for double the usual amount. After exchanging e-mails with them, I realized that they had not cashed my October check until early November, and had not yet received my check for November. Thus, they took my October payment to be my November payment, and now their records show that I made no payment for October. Today, the Postal Service returned the letter containing my November check. The company had changed addresses (for the second time in the last few months) and had not filed a forwarding address with the post office. Worse, I decided to convert to an annual payment system (cheaper by five dollars a month) in order to avoid this sort of confusion for a while, and mailed it out two days ago -- to the old address. After I checked the most recent e-mail, I saw that they had indeed given their new address, but had not drawn attention to it in any way, and thus I had overlooked it. Rats! Now they will think that I have missed two payments. I hope they don't decide to cut off my service. I still have Juno as a backup, but it would be a major hassle to go around changing my e-mail address for everything. At least ChicoNet is a local company, and I can call them (toll free!) on Monday to see if the whole mess can be straightened out.

But then the fact that they have kept their new offices for only two months, and are now using a post office box as their mailing address does not inspire much confidence in the company's potential for survival. I'm beginning to wonder if converting to an annual service is a good idea. It looks as though I'll be hanging on to my Juno account for a few more months, just in case. I really prefer the local company, since they don't download badly coded ads onto my hard drive, and don't do stupid things such as refuse to accept e-mail from LJ's servers. (Juno finally quit doing that, by the way, and I could once again get my LJ replies from them, if I had to use their service.) But, if ChicoNet goes away, it looks as though I'll be hunting for a new ISP yet again. Crap. I wish I could just get broadband, but it's too expensive.

While on the subject of flakiness, I had an odd experience with LJ last night. The Xolibur scheme vanished, and the BML pages suddenly turned into something else. I thought the site was breaking, or that I had accidentally changed some setting or another, so I filed a support request. I was told that when the site is very busy, some users experience that. The Xcolibur default suddenly is replaced by the Lynx scheme. I'd never had that happen before, and it was early in the morning, so the site probably wasn't all that busy, but it's all gone back to normal now, so I'll just write it off to a haunted server.

The rain continues. It is less cold than it was, so I suppose there's not much chance of it turning to snow. The continuing overcast means that I didn't get to see Venus this evening. It is appearing in the southwest these evenings, very bright and growing brighter. If you live in a place where the sky is clear, go out and take a look (although most of you live east of California, so Venus has probably already set for tonight. Look for it tomorrow.) Now, I am going to go make some tea and listen to the rain for a while.