Rantlet with hope

So, Movable Type 4 is going to have an open source version, to be made available later this year (you can download the beta of it right now. Edit: the beta version you can download now is of the standard MT4. I don't know by how much the open source version will differ.) Interesting. That will sure force Mark Pilgrim to eat his three-year-old words—or not! Meanwhile, there's no shortage of MT users who feel they've been ignored for years while the company was dealing with other projects (most notably Vox, the faux LiveJournal.) Perhaps working on projects such as Vox provided some discoveries that 6A was able to use to enhance MT4, but if so then concentrating on fixing their flagship product first would have provided some discoveries they could have used in projects such as Vox, too. And what was the big rush in getting Vox running, anyway? It isn't as though teh Internets were hurting for yet another hosted weblogging service, or as though 6A itself didn't already own two such services requiring their attention.

Ah, well. Maybe the fact that there will be an open source version of MT is a sign that 6A is coming to its senses and will make better decisions in the future. While the most recent contretemps at LJ itself doesn't suggest that a smooth transition to a new regime is underway, perhaps the company won't bite the big one anytime soon, after all. I still say they've spread themselves way too thin for what they are. But maybe that can be lived with. It's teh Internets,after all, and most of the competition isn't all that impressive, either.

Today's actual non-rant entry: Wet!

My hours and hours of patient waiting were finally rewarded when, late this afternoon, the day's luminous, pearly sky of persistent clouds at last released a few sprinkles. It was the rain of which the breezy air had smelled since early morning. The sprinkles continued off and on until, an hour before sunset, a steady rain began to fall just as the western ranks of clouds parted and allowed the sunlight to stream down. The vivid trees glistened with rain and the pavements glittered and steamed, and I found the brightened evening as delightful as I'd found the gloomy afternoon. Twenty minutes of clattering rain and the road verges had become gurgling streams and the eaves and leaf-tips and grass blades all wore sparkling pendant drops, and then the rain suddenly softened into a veil of glowing mist.

I went outside and watched a hummingbird sip from the jasmine blossoms, while the acorn woodpeckers chattered and the jays screeched. Strong breezes unleashed fresh showers from the laden leaves and needles of the trees. The stretch of open sky, like a long blue lake, slowly moved northward between its gray cloud banks and, before the sun reached the horizon it was obscured again, so the dusk was grey and dim. The clouds must have remained thinner southward above the valley as I could see the sky there like a bright silver streak slowly fading as night arrived. Then, when full dark had come, part of the western sky cleared again and I saw Venus gleaming there, a lone bright star skirting the treetops. I knew that Jupiter was then rising in the east but was concealed from view by the clouds. Venus was sufficient, though, an isolated splendor adorning the chilly night. I heard distant purrs of thunder from the mountains. It sounded like contentment.