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We grow with years more fragile in body, but morally stouter, and can throw off the chill of a bad conscience almost at once.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
Monday, July 28, 1997
Since I still felt rather fragile, I stayed home from work today. It reminded me of the time I spent after the strike I was in ended, and before I got called in on an agency contract. There was a period of some months when my daily routine was practicing on my PC, building my keyboarding speed, working my way through my Hacker's Guide to Word for Windows, and generally preparing for any sort of job I might be summoned to.
I would type away every day, listening to the radio. This was the fall of 1992 and the spring of 1993, and I didn't even have an internet account. If I had, I might not have kept myself so well on task!
So I listened to Talk of the Nation every day. I still feel a Pavlovian frisson when I hear that theme music.
* * * * * * * *
Some talk on diary-l about changing page designs, when and why. I spent yesterday and today working up templates for next month's journal, playing with a demo version of Fractal Design Expression (for the future, not next month) and marking up the map and course description for Cacophony's latest Badminton Golf event. (I had wanted to do this for the other two times we played this, but it never happened.)
I really do like Expression, and it interacts very nicely with my small graphics tablet. I didn't bother downloading the pdf file that contains the tutorial, which ignorance might have held me back a bit, but I did manage to do some things. But buying the full version may be rather spendy.
About redesigns: I think that many commercial websites change their looks too much. The web team that puts a site together looks at pages far more often than any real user does; no wonder they get tired of how they look! But that isn't a reason to redesign.
It's ok with me if people redo the look of their home pages or journals, but I don't usually demand it. Sometimes a refresh seems to come from the rambunctiousness or high spirits of the author/designer, like the stunts done by a skateboarder. Do more bright colors mean that Lance is in a better mood now? But other parts of his site retain a gray tone, which doesn't seem to reflect his personality. The idea that a web page design must say something about the author is verging on the pathetic fallacy. A design might just as well mean that this was something easily created and the author was in a hurry; or that the author wants zir page to look like the other pages zie admires.
* * * * * * * *
Tonight we had a meeting of the Microsoft Bookclub. We usually meet at a restaurant on the East Side, but this time we met at the house of one of the group and had a cook-out. It was a beautiful evening, just right for grilling burgers. I did eat my share, even though my jaws are still sore.
The book was Persuasion, by Jane Austen. This is a favorite of mine, as are all her novels except Mansfield Park. I think Mansfield Park is a good book, but it isn't one that I'm eager to reread over and over. I do feel that way about her other books.
Persuasion is almost a Cinderella story, with the heroine so unappreciated. It's up to the reader to hug her.
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