Well, I'm no longer angry about what's happened to the Trimarian Laurels' circle; I'm now at stage four in the Kübler-Ross model, having apparently skipped over the "bargaining" phase. (Not really much to bargain about in this situation.)

The very positive trend we were experiencing a couple of years ago is most definitely over (and has been so for a while now), and it doesn't look like there's much hope of getting back in the right direction anytime in the foreseeable future. I won't be able to get specific here, because if I did, I'd get hauled before the Laurels' House Un-Trimarian Activities Committee. (I wish that were an April Fools' joke.)

I used to come out of the meetings seething with anger at the way certain individuals were willfully destroying years of progress. But anger at the situation solves nothing, so now it merely saddens me to see the state to which we have devolved. And I don't even know why it had to be that way.

In the end, I guess it doesn't matter. All I can do is to be the best Laurel I can be. I do my duty to the Crown and Kingdom from which my titles and station have come; I do my duty as a Laurel at Arts and Sciences faires; I teach those who wish to learn from me; I strive to fulfill the duties of a Laurel as set out in Corpora; and I ask my pet question in candidate discussions,¹ knowing it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to some, but hoping the Crown hears it and understands what it means.

And though it may earn me nothing but contempt, at least I can be true to myself, and to my belief about what a Laurel should be.

1. Well, in the future I shall have two pet questions, and I'm sure that instead of being answered with a simple "yes" or "no", it will elicit as much of a shit-storm as another Laurel's pet question always does. But I think it's important to at least ask it.

Jeez, it seems the way to get traffic and comments on this blog is to post something controversial! (And it's interesting to see who's visiting the same post again and again without actually leaving any comments.) All righty, then, if that's what it takes...

Today is the American National Day of Prayer, an annual event sponsored by James Dobson's "Focus on the Family". What does one do during the National Day of Prayer? According to the Virginia chapter:

In 2004, approximately 40,000 events were held nationwide. Local volunteers and coordinators held a variety of activities ranging from prayer breakfasts, Bible reading marathons, concerts of prayer, rallies, church prayer vigils, student flagpole gatherings and observances held in sports stadiums.. In addition, Christian leaders address the current year's theme and other areas of interest (i.e. education, youth, families, etc.).

I remember seeing such events in Tampa; they held prayer rallies every year in a small park downtown. Sometimes they'd have religious leaders giving sermons and leading the crowd in prayer over a loudspeaker; sometimes people would pray en masse; and occasionally they would encourage passers-by to join them in prayer.

And yet, every year I can't help thinking: Isn't there something in the Bible about praying in public? Oh yes, so there is:

5. And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
7. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Now, every time a vocally Christian congressman introduces a bill to permit public prayer in schools, I'm impressed that he's willing to promote such religious freedom even though it contradicts the teachings of his own religion. But I don't understand why so many Christians go out of their way to reject those teachings one day every year. Perhaps someone could enlighten me (be nice, now).

Recently, I upgraded the 3D animation software I use. It is, sadly, copy-protected (a fact which inconveniences only the legitimate users of the software, as pirates use cracked versions that don't require the CD to be in the drive when the program starts up).

Anyway, it's giving me a really bizarre problem: it'll only run once, and then every subsequent attempt to run it results in a crash. There are only two ways to run it again: reboot the entire computer, or (and this is the bizarre part) run it without the CD in, whereupon the copy-protection complains and exits the program, but then it'll run just fine the next time I try to start it. (After which I have to run it again without the CD.)

So I do all the usual troubleshooting, to no avail, and I call the company's tech support line. We try a few things, but all we can narrow it down to is that it's failing in the copy-protection module — but it appears to be specific to my computer (it works just fine on my work laptop).

So instead of just telling me to reformat my hard drive and reinstall all of my software, like most companies would do, they're sending me a USB dongle which can be used instead of the CD to satisfy the copy protection. I offered to pay for it (I support these guys and don't want to take cash out of their pockets), but they refused, saying they want to make sure I stay happy with them.

Well, it worked; these guys really are amongst the best.

All I can say is, there'd better be a pretty big payoff at the end of this week's Get Fuzzy storyline.

Q. What's the last thing a Pelican with Alzheimer's will forget?

A. A grudge.

Mainly I'm just testing to see if I can get YouTube videos to work in Opera, but this just blew my mind.

Weird, huh? BTW, if it doesn't work for you, please let me know what browser you're using.

So I was thinking of getting an actual cellphone. I have one, for work, but it's not supposed to be used for personal calls. In addition, I keep finding little reasons to hop on the Internet with my Nokia 770 — looking up addresses and maps, searching for stores, and so forth — and using a Bluetooth-enabled digital phone with a broadband data service would be perfect for that.

While T-Mobile has the best plan, they want either a $500 deposit, or they'll give me either a voice or a data plan for the first year, but not both. Which is kind of pointless for my needs.

So I figured I'd try Verizon Wireless, since we've already got an account with them, and their EVDO network appears to be the fastest current technology. However, I know that in the past, they've crippled the Bluetooth functionality of their phones. I read that, in response to a class-action lawsuit, they'd started uncrippling four specific models (including the Razr, which is a snazzy-looking phone), but there are some rumors on the Internets that they still forbid Bluetooth tethering.

Well, the best thing to do is to go to the source, or so I thought. I spent an hour on the phone, mostly on hold, being transferred from person to person (three of whom weren't even in the right departments, and another two who had no idea what I was talking about).

Finally I hung up and decided to hit a Verizon Wireless store on the way home. The salesman at least understood what I was talking about, but wasn't sure how to connect my 770 up to the phones. (Catch-22: if I'd had a connection, I could have looked up how to make a connection.) I managed to get it to talk to one of them (not a Razr), but it kept dropping the connection (so either they still don't allow tethering, or it wasn't one of the four phone models that permit it).

Why is it so hard to get a simple answer?

After talking with Verizon Wireless again (and more endless transferring from person to person), I came away with the following information:

• Their customer service department cannot find anyone capable of answering the question of whether or not I can tether a Bluetooth PDA to one of their Bluetooth phones for use as a cellular modem.
• They cannot even tell me whether or not they're still crippling the DUN (Dial-Up Networking) capability on their Bluetooth phones.
• Even if they could do so, their lowest-cost plan with both voice and broadband data would cost me $50 more per month than the equivalent T-Mobile plan.
• Verizon's plan does not include free use of any wireless access points, such as the ones T-Mobile has set up in pretty much every Starbucks in existence.
• Parts of their "unlimited" Internet service cost an additional charge of 25¢ per minute. (I'll bet there's no limit!)

Since one year of the higher price would actually end up costing $100 more than just paying T-Mobile's deposit (which, in theory, I will someday get back), I decided to bite the bullet and go with T-Mobile.

As it turned out, they didn't charge me the deposit. Hooray! After reading reviews of the Razr, I decided to go with a different phone, the Motorola V360. I like it so far; nice and light, it's got a decent camera built in, I can transfer MP3s to it for use as ringtones, and it'll charge off a standard USB cable.

The best thing, of course, is that now I can get my Nokia 770 onto the Internet even if there aren't any open wireless access points around. The speed's about halfway between 56K dialup and ISDN; not blazingly fast, but certainly good enough for basic Web browsing.

Regarding the story "Leetspeak: Online Language Keeps Parents Guessing", by Scott Wahle:

While the article's intent, of keeping parents involved in their children's lives, is certainly commendable, the story is shockingly inaccurate. To wit, the communication shortcuts described in the article are not "leetspeak" at all. The examples presented in your article are, in fact, merely acronyms.

"Leetspeak" is the execrable practice of replacing Latin characters with other symbols possessing a roughly analogous shape, such as "1|)107" for "idiot", or "1|_|_173r/\73" for "illiterate".

Another difference is that where "leetspeak" was developed for the express purpose of obfuscation, the acronyms described in your article (the genre of which is commonly known as "textspeak" or "txtspeak") arose originally as a method of expediting text-based chat and messaging conversations, by reducing the amount of typing that must be done. While originally "invented" by poor typists who wished to speed up their online communications, it became greatly popular when telephone text messaging became widely available, due both to the baroque method of text entry on a cellphone keypad, as well as the limited display capabilities of telephone LCD screens.

It should also be pointed out that while "textspeak" enjoys a fairly widespread currency, "leetspeak" has generally been the domain of pubescent self-styled "hackers", who consider themselves "elite" (hence the name, a corrupt derivation of "elite speak").

Again, while I applaud the intent of your article, I must say that it is rather poorly researched and sadly inaccurate concerning the very definitions of its terms.

HTH, HAND (An acronym meaning "Hope This Helps, Have A Nice Day.")

P.S. I am not a kook.

It is now 3 AM, and I'm finally finished with the last-minute top-priority project that was assigned to me half an hour before the end of the workday. Subracting the hour it took me to drive home, realize that I'd lost my cellphone, drive back to work, find the phone and drive back home again, I put in an 18.5-hour workday.

I am likely to be a bit crabby today.

Once upon a time, some friends of mine traded in their car for a pickup truck. It was the right decision for them at the time, because it enabled them to do some things they couldn't do with the limited trunk space of a car.

Someone else in our social group went batshit insane when she found out, because then she could no longer be chauffered around by them all the time. It's not like she couldn't drive herself; she had a car, she had a license. But she preferred to be driven, and she felt that my friends should have taken her desires into account when making their own life decisions.

So.

It's hard enough to leave all our friends. It was hard moving out of Tampa — among other things, it pretty much ended the Calais Consort, the rehearsals for which (and the hanging out afterwards) were always the high point of my week — and it'll be even harder to leave behind all our friends in Florida. And it doesn't help when some of those friends get angry and won't even speak to us, instead of being supportive of Karen following her dream and taking advantage of a fantastic opportunity.

I can understand not being thrilled that we're moving away. I'm not thrilled about it myself. But it's not the end.

Our parents live in Florida, so we'll be back fairly frequently. If my boss can get approval, my job will still be in Florida; and I'll be flying back every now and then for job-related things, usually staying over during the weekend with nothing to do. Round-trip airfares to Tampa or Jacksonville cost $99 (not bad, considering it now costs $60 in gas to drive down to Tampa and back); and with the cost of living so much lower where we'll be, we'll have the means to travel more frequently. Of course we're going to do everything in our power to get together with our friends whenever we're down here.

So for those of you who have been supportive, thank you; it means a lot to us both. To those few who have not, please... don't act like That Person.

Potrzebie is a real word. It's Polish, means "as needed" or "as necessary", and is pronounced po-TSCHEB-yeh.

Huh.