Ladies and gentlemen, I present my RSS feed. I went with version 0.92 (for now). I started by downloading NetNewsWire and subscribing to several blogs and news sites. Then I went through to find the ones that looked best in my aggregator. Based on their XML and this sample PHP script, I put together a bit of code that actually manages to validate. If you use a different aggregator, please let me know how it looks to you or if you’d prefer a different format. Thanks!

Oh, and if any GoddessBlog users want the code for themselves, just let me know. It’ll take you less than ten minutes to implement.

This is all over the ‘Net today but I couldn’t resist: What Tolkien Officially Said About Elf Sex.

Although Tolkien never said that the elves DID have hot gay sex, he also never said that they DIDN’T. And I know what I make of that.

Hahahaha… Even the Snook (a Tolkien nerd if ever there was one) found it pretty amusing.

Note to self: This is an excellent RSS primer.

World: 1, Overly-Sensitive-Feminist: 0
I stood out on Abercrombie Street this morning waiting for my lift to work and bracing myself for the inevitable harrassment. You see, I wore my black skirt and boots today. They’re not salacious at all, but for some reason the sight of my bare knees seems to draw the troglodytes from their caves like flies to honey. Mentally I’d already armored myself and my middle finger was poised and ready to flip at the slightest hint of a honk or wolf whistle. I scanned the oncoming traffic trying to guess from which direction the harrasser would arrive. I debated which stinging insult would best put the smack down. There was only one problem… No one bothered me! I stood there for four traffic light changes and I didn’t get a single leer. I started to get antsy. When you mentally prepare yourself for battle, you inevitably start itchin’ for a fight. At last! My ears detected the tell-tale sounds of some Neanderthal making dog-barking noises at me. “How low can you get?” I thought as I whipped around the confront the idiot… and found myself face-to-face with a big happy golden retriever on the back of a truck. *cringe*

Survivor was extremely satisfying. In fact, my voice is still a little hoarse from that magic moment when I saw “Johnny Fairplay” scrawled as only Crazy Lil can. She probably would have stood a better chance against him but I can respect her decision not to reward his behavior. And kudos to the women for finally getting their sh*t together! It’s about time. (Early in the penultimate episode I remarked to the Snook: “I sure hope you don’t have a problem with gay folks, because if these women fail to team up and vote out Burton I’m getting a sex change.”) The reunion show was mostly downhill after Sandra’s victory, I have to say. Since when does Jeff have such a big crush on “Savage”? Osten shouldn’t have even been allowed to attend. Does anyone else find Skinny Ryan sorta cute, in a nerdish way? Yeah, just me then.

This review of blogging tools got me thinking about the Movable-Typeification of the “blogiverse”. (I can’t believe I just used that word.) Don’t get me wrong; MT sounds great and some of my favorite blogs use it. In fact, a *lot* of them use it. I find that vaguely discomfiting somehow. I think it’s because most of them look sorta the same (I mean, in that they have the same set of components) and there are certain features that are only accessible to other MT users (like TrackBack). I feel the same way about LiveJournal, to be honest. It annoys me to have to post as “anonymous” on my friends’ LiveJournal sites. I don’t think that everybody has to program their own CMS; I just resent companies’ attempts to turn blogs into walled-off communities. It’s good for everybody to be a little different, isn’t it?

I tried making a mental list of all the blogs I know that don’t use one of the popular systems and I couldn’t come up with many. There’s me, Jeff, Jann, Martin, Tracey (well, she uses Greymatter, but that’s pretty rare these days)… Can you think of any more? Out of curiosity, if you don’t use one of the popular systems, why not? If you do, what do you like about it? Does the ease of set-up make up for slight loss of freedom? To be honest, this is just me going, “Hmm, everybody else is using MT. What do they know that I don’t know? Should I accept the inevitable and move, or should I bother writing the crap myself?”

Go 7396!
Just checked in with Amy, who’s coming up on Mile 18 as we speak. She’s going a lot of walking but she’s hanging in there and she sounded pretty upbeat. You can track her live results here (search on “Amy Howard”). Go Sis! I’m just in awe right now.

Update: SHE DID IT! Final time was just over seven hours. Thank you so much to everybody that supported her and donated to the cause.

Step by Step Guide to Voting by Absentee Ballot. Very handy bookmark for us expatriate types.

Friday Five:

1. Do you enjoy the cold weather and snow for the holidays?
I’m going to have to agree with Kristen here and rant about how “hemispherist” this question is. Folks, the majority of people in the world never have a white Christmas. Nobody in the southern hemisphere does (unless they live on top of a mountain). Nobody on the equator does. Hell, a good portion of the northern hemisphere never gets cold enough. So stop ramming it down our damn throats! That said, I personally wish I could have a white Christmas, not because it’s “traditional” or anything, but because that’s what I remember growing up. I miss sledding with Amy and Antny.

2. What is your ideal holiday celebration? How, where, with whom would you celebrate to make things perfect?
This is another one of those questions that stings for someone with loved ones on more than one continent. Ideally it would be my family and the Snook’s and all of our friends together… but it’s never gonna happen. Best not to dwell.

3. Do you do have any holiday traditions?
The day after Thanksgiving, we would always hit Michael’s craft store to pick up plaster ornaments and paints. Then back at the house we’d eat leftovers, paint the ornaments, and put up the Christmas tree. Mocking my brother’s artistic attempts was always a highlight. There’d probably be some sledding (if we had snow). As Christmas neared, it was inevitable that Amy and Antny – or as I like to call them, the Christmas Sneaks – would try to convince Mom and Dad that we should open our gifts Christmas Eve instead of morning. I was the traditional holdout. Sometimes they won; sometimes they didn’t.

4. Do you do anything to help the needy?
Not nearly enough. The bitter cold of London was always a sharp reminder that there were people out suffering in it. Here in Sydney it’s easier to sail through the day without noticing. I should make more of an effort.

5. What one gift would you like for yourself?
A really nice new digital camera, maybe even an SLR. That’d be cool.