I kid because I care. Happy birthday, yo.

Happy birthday, Shawn.

Ben's parents put this unpleasant pepper stuff on the house and the deck to dissuade the weimaraners from chewing on it.

The dogs said, "Ooh, spicy! How thoughtful!"

Alack! Faith sends the following:

Hurrying thru an internet cafe ... cable's down & won't be fixed 'til late Sat. Apologies to you & to 600s for both of us...

Dude. I read all three of your blogs. Sheesh.

Great topic. It was, however, tempting to just post Don't I Know It, and link to my web page. Hee hee.

Do not be alarmed. The "CLASS" attribute is valid HTML, but the new HTML validator that Blogger now sports doesn't know that. Just tell it to ignore the error. And I've logged an issue in the support tool. While I'm at it, I might try again with the post-ordering thing.

Yay, at least I accomplished something today. Welcome home, Margaret. Best wishes for better days.

Enh. Fish. Nothing particularly noteworthy, or nothin'.

LoL, a parable from Bryan. Very nice. Boy, this blog's been getting political lately...

Faith, known issue: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

Note to self: Do not write during the first few days of your period, especially when you are trying to install alpha code into the testing environment.

Backdated octopi and coffee. (It's a metaphor, son.)

Yay! Hi, Shawn.

Logically, Bryan, you would think it would work. Blogger, however, is like an eccentric aunt: great to have at parties, but a little wheely when it comes to the particulars.

It posts the timestamps in Central time, but it orders them in Pacific time. This doesn't affect the majority of blogs, which are ordered with the most recent at the top. With ours, having the posts in forward-chronological order within a day but the days in reverse-chronological, posts between midnight and 2am show up in the wrong spot.

Short answer: Post at any time. Click the "Change Time & Date" checkbox and set the timestamp to say 2:02 am on Monday.

Do not be alarmed by the way the default times in the form boxes seem to suggest that it is converting times to Pacific; when it posts, it will post the time literally as you set it, without translating anything. It's part of the UI's charm.

And I am off to bed.

I don't know. On the one hand, there's always future-posting, of which very few of us seem to take advantage. On the other hand, we could all move...

I need some ideas from you guys. When we started this blog, we did not have any left-coast participants. Now we have four. Not a big deal, except that trying to get a topic up by noon, Central, is somewhat of a hardship for them, I think. Well, that, and we're jealous of their mountains. Having a topic posted early really helps the momentum. What do you folks--in all my timezones--suggest?

My waking thought this morning is that the dirt over a fresh grave is loose and piled high, so an easy way to dispose of a body is to dig up a fresh grave and toss the body on top of the casket.

I am disturbed that this was my first coherent thought this morning.

Ooh, posting from my PDA because the new version of Blogger has a lo-fi version that works in this browser. Wow!

Faith, that was a delightful recounting of that story. I enjoyed it even more than the first time. Too funny. Oh, and your puppy is adorable. ^_^

So, Ms. Just-Got-Back-From-Europe-And-Posting-A-Self-Serving-Topic Lady, you gonna write, or what?

600 seconds looks the same, but the editing screen looks very different, at least to me. Good different, but different. I don't use Blogger Pro for my own weblog, so this is the only experience I have with it.

It did? Looks like it looked yesterday, for me. 'Course, I'm still getting a JavaScript error...

Eep. Blogger changed again.

When the blog kicked from Pacific to Central time, all the post times changed. My post for next week shows up in the mix because I posted for next week this week.
That's my two cents, but everybody already seems to have found the bowl of dimes.
Ahhh, yes. Ambiguity, my old nemesis.

I think the time-zip thing was a one-time fluke. I posted, published, edited, posted, and published, and it did not change the time stamp.

Boy, that's weird. No, we didn't have that conversation, but we sure coulda. Jon's really pegged me. I feel... vaguely... predictable.

And no, of course I don't practice quirking an eyebrow in my monitor mirror. Much. When anyone's looking. Well, I mean, come on. You spend all your days on conference calls overseas, you need to feel like you're talking to a real person. It can be lonely, and you start to worry that you're getting weird. And... nevermind.

I add one little comma and look at what happens. I had no idea Blogger would also change the timestamp on my post. It should be fixed now. That'll teach me to care about my use of grammar!

As for Ben's, are you referring to his topic for next Wednesday? It looks like Blogger Pro's default is to sort by last modified, not necessarily by date.

Whether or not you're living in a time warp, however, is open to conjecture.

...I feel like I'm living in a time warp. Fred, did your post decide to future-date itself all on its lonesome? Ben, how about yours? What the heck is going on?

Or is my day simply spilling out onto the web? That would explain a lot. If you want to avoid bugs, naming your app PiCNiC is ill advised. Not to mention the finger gymnastics of typing that dumb-ass acronym. Grrrr...

What a great collection of satire and commentary! I was hoping for some rants, but this is even better. Awesome.

And, hi, Bryan. ^_^

Hadn't noticed. Updating...

Beside it sits a sleek silver laptop that exudes power and skill and, much to Hatch's chagrin, sex.

That's the funniest thing I've read all day, Ben.

Also, Sharon, is the blog's default intentionally set to Pacific time, or is that a glitch carried over from Blogger Pro's recent update? I'm used to it being an hour behind me (splitting the difference with central time has always made sense), but it's three now.

My post today would be funnier if they didn't already do something like it. It isn't Hatch doing it, but they do slow down computers to prevent illegal software transfer.

What pisses me off is that this attitude is very much against the piece of law that makes mix-tapes legal (personal, non-commercial use of legally obtained product. It's the law).That'd be the next step: revoking our right to transfer from CD to MP3. They already don't like the idea. That is, however, why it's legal for your media player to have a "copy from CD" option, and, historically, why it's OK for you to have a tape recorder on your stereo (Yeah, yeah, I'm old).

Saying that MP3 filesharing is illegal is the same as saying that mix-tape sharing is illegal, which is has never been. Sure, Napster pushed the line too hard, fair use still allows for sharing, as long as the copyright wouldn't be damaged and the possibility of marketing isn't taken away from the copyright owner. Napster made it hard to sell CDs. Small-time file sharing does not necessarily do so.

Thanks. And may I add, that was a delightfully awful pun.

Fred, I love the poem!

And Ben? Ew. Ack. Ew. Thank you.

Hail, hail, the gang's all here.

Faith has returned from three weeks in Europe, and she promises me she'll be writing again. [looks pointedly at Faith]

Margaret should be reaching Washington and settling in, so I hope we'll see her soon.

Bryan is a new addition. Among other things, he is Faith's sweetie. Inspired by Fred, et al., he started a mix exchange blog.

Welcome, friends!

This means that the topic rotation has reshuffled again. Whee.

Hrmrmr... Interface changes are unsettling.

Oh good. For a minute there I thought it was just me...

*blink blink* Holy Blogger Upgrade, yo. Nifty...

Um... I dunno? I remember, a while back, that Neil Gaiman posted a bunch. I think I discovered last night the email where I mailed those to myself. And sometimes I try formal poetry forms, just for the challenge.

Well, leaving the flame thrower aside for the moment, what sort of writing games did you have in mind?

What would motivate you guys? Topics of a different variety? Writing games? Free-form, no-topic days?

I know that what I need happens to be a flame thrower, but I imagine different people are experiencing different stumbling blocks.

Mmm... flame thrower...

From me?

Good one, Shawn. This fits well with my world view. I expect ABC will pick it up in the fall.

Okay, friends and neighbors, so here's a great reason to keep writing your ten-minute essays. Right now, I am listening to a freshly burned CD of Squid and Elwood, containing songs I have wanted to listen to since 1996 but couldn't because I had a bad dub. This CD comes to me courtesy of a fellow fan who stumbled onto my essay of Two-Fisted Acoustic Mayhem.

So, you see? There are untold benefits to being an active 600 seconds participant. I'm just sayin', is all.

And that's why my life is surreal. The words "beautiful execution" just gave Jonathan the seed for a fully formed card game. It involved the words "Benihana-style." I'm alarmed.

Anyway, I'll gladly help make sure your topics get posted on your days, Margaret. Hoorah for moving! Good luck, and I'm glad you're on your way home.

Oh, and *blush* thanks for the compliment.

Margaret, I tried to explain future-posting a few months ago, since it's a fairly simple process but one that's given us all some trouble at one point or another. I'm sure someone would be more than happy to post those topics for you while you're gone, but if you'd like to do it yourself...well, FYI.

I thought those two topics naturally suited to one another as well. How could we mind when so beautifully executed. Ooooh there's a good topic:

beautiful execution.

Would someone please post that for me when it is next my turn. My computer comes down on Friday or Saturday. I will be offline for a couple of weeks probably as we settle in. The kids and I head for our new home Sunday. Hey there's another one:

going home.

Since I do not know how to back or future date, would really appreciate someone posting those topics on my days.

Backdated, combining "Secret Passage" and "Ring of Fire" (*grumble grumble* still stuck in my head...), and completely disregarding time limits. I feel like I've told this story here before, but I searched through the archives and didn't find it, so I guess I'm good. You wouldn't mind, anyway, would you?