Lynne Simpson

Zoinks! Our local Internet provider dropped off the face of the planet last week, so we were without access for several days. They claimed to be having hardware issues, but given the very grim information in their parent company’s recent SEC filings, it’s much more likely to have been the result of unpaid bills to their upstream provider.

We ordered service from another local company on Saturday, and everything went live earlier today. Yay! Let’s hope these guys don’t get bought out by clueless n00bs like the last company was.

Edited To Add: I’ve heard that people may be having trouble posting comments since I upgraded to a newer version of WordPress. Please send me an email if you’ve commented and your post appears to have been eaten.

I’ve mistrusted Amazon book reviews for years. I mean, you read a book that’s sucky by pretty much any objective standard, and then when you look at its Amazon reviews, they’re all 5-star fangirl squees? Uhh, yeah. Like that happened legitimately.

Well, apparently there are gangs of writers and their fans who live for voting negative Amazon reviews as “unhelpful” or even reporting them as inappropriate content so that the reviews will be automatically deleted. Rumors about these tactics have been floating around the blogoverse for a few years now, but the most recent reports document a much more coordinated campaign.

That’s why I trust people like Mrs. Giggles to give it to me straight. I may not agree with every one of her reviews, but you know what you’re getting is her honest opinion. Gaming Amazon reviews is tantamount to fraud, in my opinion.

From 8 to 9 tonight, we plan to take a walk by the lake and then sit on the deck for a while. I wonder if our neighbors will participate?

You’ve gotta see this video at Jody’s site. I particularly loved the baby giggles in the background. When I played the video, all four of our cats came running into the room. Chester had a few things to say in response to the chirps and yowls he heard coming from Meankitty. Rosie insisted on climbing into my lap to watch the whole thing for herself. She already opens the bi-fold doors to all the closets, so I suppose it’s only a matter of time before she masters Meankitty’s door knob trick.

One of the big selling points of this new house was that it had a tornado room. Of course, instead of outfitting it with chairs, cat carriers, a litter box, a TV, flashlights, blankets, and other things one might need during a tornado warning, we filled it full of books, old clothes, and yet-to-be-unpacked boxes.

Until this morning, we’d used the storm room only once, but we’ve been down there twice already today, once before dawn and again this afternoon. In the past, we might have been tempted to ignore the tornado sirens and take our chances upstairs, but not after the seeing the nasty damage that took place in downtown Atlanta last night.

When the tornado sirens went off this afternoon, we had visitors from out of town, and all of us had to cram into the junk room storm room along with our dogs and cats. Zoinks. Fixing up the tornado room just got moved a lot higher on my to-do list. :-)