01-01-03 @ 3:49 am EST

Eww...ecch. I don't much like the new layout of the site, but as always, I'm probably the only one; I remember when the moving of the right-hand column to the left caused a big stir. I couldn't care less about the URL and logo change so long as my e-mail and items are intact (so it's now Writing.com...big deal), but the movement of the Item Jumps, Member Tools, and Author Tools, rather than make the site look "cleaner," make it look more cramped to me; I liked them better in one menu at the top. Sure they're more user friendly this way, but then again, I myself didn't have much trouble navigating the site when I first got here; I've never been able to understand people who can't figure anything out. I always figured I was the most ignorant one. *shrug* Anyway, they're useful looking, but the new placement of the search bars and such on items is also a tad cluttered...as is the favorites page and such...I can't really say why, just that they are. Everything looks kind of cramped and messy to me. Maybe that feeling will go away in time; I'm used to the left-hand column now, for example.

I did immediately notice two new functions straight from our portfolio pages that look intriguing. (Ugh, I just committed a cardinal sin of writing there, one I'm always correcting in OTHERS' fiction! "That look intriguing" is referring to TWO NEW FUNCTIONS, not to OUR PORTFOLIO PAGES. Sorry about that...) One is the option to change the access restrictions of everything on that page with one click; I don't see why I need that...oooOOOHH! Maybe I CAN use that function! I've been editing the parts of Manitou Island to change the restriction from Registered Authors to Registered Users and so far have like...ten parts done. Out of 103. Hm. They won't show up in the listings again, but maybe I should just use this option. Okay. Anyway, the other is a full-screen edit thingie that when you click on it, brings up the full text of your item in a new window. Interesting. I was afraid to click on it for fear it would start editing out the word "Stories.com" in all my items, when I don't really care that they say that. (I'm very anal about just leaving things be. So what if a lot of my older items say "Stories.com"? People will get the drift. Those that don't...probably shouldn't be reading my items as they won't get anything else I say, either. :P ) Unfortunately, the full-screen window is too big for my screen. I had to post in the Web forum about it...*cringe* I really hope I'm not flayed for that. I'm surprised, honestly, that there isn't already an option to resize that window, like the scrolling messages window. (Not that I IM anybody, or they IM me...)

So until a resize is available, that function is useless to me, but it doesn't matter much anyway. Just thought it might be useful for somebody else who's at 800x600 like me. (And no, I will not change it to a higher resolution; tried that and EVERYTHING looked like crap. Blech.)

The other day Ma found a woolly bear that was more messed up than I am. The dead of winter and the thing hasn't even changed yet. Poor thing. She nearly ran over it and brought it inside. I didn't know what to do with it so I set it atop the scanner, but it crawled away during the day and I figured it was dead. Well, Coz was paying an abnormal amount of attention to the floor beside me a little while ago, and what do you know but there was my woolly bear. So now I stuck him up near an old dead plant we have sitting on the shelf, since we have no living plants...poor thing...I hope he finds something to eat somewhere. Coz was indignant at me taking away his toy, but as I told him, it was MY woolly bear before it was ever HIS woolly bear. Poopy cat, it doesn't matter how much you mark things with your cheek; not everything in this house belongs to you. (He has EVERYTHING marked several times over. Whenever I'm in the bathroom he has to mark the sink again just to let me know it's still his. Then I wipe the mark off and he looks pissed. Dummy.)

The last time I saw woolly bears was when I took my walk along the tracks, back in...October, I think it was. They were all over the place. Man. This thing's schedule is way off. At this rate it'll never turn into a...monstrous tree-stripping moth pest or whatever it is that woolly bears turn into. *thinks, has no clue what woolly bears really are, resolves to go to Google to find out but is lazy and has to go to the bathroom after finishing this entry*

I recently finished Schoolcraft's Indian Legends and decided to start Leland's Algonquin Legends so I can learn more about Glooskap, Malsum, and Marten. (They have these cannibal ice giants called Chenoo who sound JUST like the GeeBees...everything is related (no matter what idiot Leland insists about their myths being a lot more Norse than Indian--I think he's an Aryan or something, since these myths look a LOT Indian to me!), including the languages, but I really can't figure out some of the relations. "GeeBee/Jeebi/Cheebi" and "Chenoo" really don't sound alike. Nor do "Myeengun/Ma'ingan" and "Malsum" or "Manabozho/Michabo/Michibou" and "Mahtigwess." :/ ) Hopefully this will help my story, though. (I bought Leland's book before realizing it's available online as public domain. DAMN DOVER AND THEIR PUBLIC-DOMAIN BOOKS!)

I found a disturbing description of the Fairy Arch in another old online book, in which the author said it was so frail it was likely to collapse in the next few years. That was like turn of the century or middle 1800's. :( So does this mean that the Fairy Arch is no longer in the guidebook...because it no longer exists? The two pictures I've seen of it make it look so pretty that I find this very disappointing...but I can't remember, if there's a description of it in my 1950's guidebook, then that means it was still in existence back then, at least 50-100 years after the warning was given. Why wouldn't the Parks Commission or whatever have tried to preserve it like they have Arch Rock? (An islander told me that the bottom of that thing has been cemented--I can't blame them!) I hope the reason it's not on any tours is because it's inaccessible. Anyway, even if it IS broken, I figured out how to best introduce it into the sequel--by its being broken! Ha! But this will also explain why none of the "new" races from the sequel, like the Michinimakinong and the Pukwudjininees, have appeared in the first story, especially when Charmian calls them all to the Crack. So a potential disappointment has been turned into literary (I use that term loosely as I'm not writing anything near literature) fodder.

One more thing. I helped Ma today. She came home late from playing cards or whatever at my uncle's for New Year's (my uncle is SUCH an idiot--he asked her to come over the other night to help him with something really stupid--oh yeah--WRAPPING PRESENTS!--and when she showed up, HE WASN'T THERE! Stupid dumbass moron) and after I awoke from my nap (after which I usually lapse back into a half-comatose state for about a half hour), she sadly told me that she'd lost Family Tree Maker. It's a program of hers...she's been working on this thing really hard for months, saving the family's genealogy and such. If there's any hobby Ma is as dedicated to as I'm dedicated to Manitou Island, then Family Tree Maker must come close. (Though she took its loss a LOT better than I would take the loss of Manitou Island.) So of course I was as surprised as she was to hear it was gone. She said she just couldn't access it anymore; it'd give her an error. The version she'd burned to a CD (written, I should say...sorry) didn't work either. She resolved to check it out tomorrow, but didn't sound hopeful...I went and restarted the computer and clicked on the program to see what it would do. And...it worked. :/ She was surprised. I told her that whenever something I'm using screws up, I usually try restarting the computer first...using the CD writer has resulted in ALL KINDS of crap that has made me constantly restart my computer, for example. I really hope this ISN'T a sign of something more sinister going on with our hard drive, but told her to back the program up properly tomorrow (later on today) anyway. Yes, every time she makes a change she'll have to do it again, but at least she'll have PART of it there, already finished and saved.

So I'm glad that I could get her her program back, even if all I did was restart the computer. I didn't ask her if she'd done that because I figured she had already, and doubted it would work for me...hm. Oh well.

Well, I slept through New Year's, but I don't really care because I hate NY's anyway. (Um, I meant New Year's, not New Yorkers. New Yorkers, I'm sure the majority of them are very nice people, like Michiganders, except for the muggers and murderers and such. o_O; ) Everybody's always out celebrating except me. So fooey; I'd rather catch a nap than watch a dumb glitterball and listen to Dick Clark or whoever else is hogging TV time when I could be watching Cold Case Files instead of a stupid Third Watchathon!! I HATE THIRD WATCH! Did you know that A&E had NO Christmas marathon last year (2002)? They ALWAYS have a Christmas marathon! Murder, She Wrote or Columbo or ANYTHING even now that Law & Order is gone! But they had not a thing...and even Toonami didn't give me yesterday off, nor will they today. ASSES!

Oh, it's that best of Heart commercial...I LOVE "These Dreams." *sigh*...