WTFLJ?

Is it just me, or is LiveJournal misbehaving very badly at the moment? It screwed up the formatting on my last entry, and now it won't post my edits or let me replace the post with a corrected version (I've tired four times, so if the updates are simply being delayed, I'm going to have that many duplicate posts showing up later.)

Let's see if this entry posts.

Edit: Fixed. But now my earlier entry is later, so it will show up before this one. Stupid computers. Stupid Internets.

Ephemera

Still no proper storm. A few gusts of wind and a shower or two perked things up for a while, but now we are back to dull drizzles. Hmph. The weather is on opiates. Even the Internets are more interesting than this.


R.I.P. The Telegram
1844-2006

The Western Union telegram died quietly, four days ago. The telegram as a type (no pun intended) probably isn't entirely dead yet. They probably still have them in other countries (for a while, at least), and those little companies which provide singing faux telegrams for birthday greetings and such in large cities will probably continue to operate, but Western Union, the company whose name was, for Americans, long synonymous with the telegram will no longer provide this service. I never got a telegram, and never sent one. I don't think I know anyone who ever did. The closest anyone I know ever came to sending an actual telegram was when my parents had to send money by wire to my older brother a couple of times. That isn't the same, though.

Just as Wells Fargo, which once delivered goods of all sorts to every corner of the nation through its system of railroad express cars, wagons, and stage coaches, continues to exist as a bank, Western Union will remain in business (it currently has revenues of about three billion dollars annually), providing other services, mostly to do with transferring funds, but the telegram has gone the way of the Pony Express. I'm really a bit surprised that the telegram lasted as long as it did. I wonder if people will start selling old telegrams on e-Bay now that there will be no more of them made? Telegrams from the famous have probably always had some value, but now even telegrams sent to or by unknown people will be artifacts of a vanished age.

Bleh

The kitty insists on hanging out on the porch tonight. There's nothing but drizzle and thin fog outside. She must be very tired of being in the house. I don't blame her. A warm day or two would be nice, so we could open the windows and air the place. It's gotten stale.


There was something else I was going to say, and it's gone. I don't know what's wrong with my brain lately. It drops things.


I can't bear to listen to myself think one more thought right now. Distraction is essential.