Turn your Mac into a typewriter. Well, not really. But that nifty bit of shareware makes typewriter noises whenever you push a key, including a nice clunky carriage return when you hit “enter.” It scared the crap out of the Snook and made me giggle like crazy, which is pretty much a glowing recommendation. 🙂

The comment spam is really, really pissing me off. I’m happy in that I’ve succeeded in keeping it from showing up on the site, but I still growl every time I log in and find I’ve got 400 pending spam comments to delete. I’ve just coded in my latest grenade in this escalating war: a limit on the number of links per comment. Let me know if any of you legitimate users bump into it. (I don’t think you will.) Is there some way I could show this crap to Google and just, you know, have them remove comment spammers’ links from their index? Because that would rule.

Whoa! Somebody on MetaFilter is reporting that a friend got busted by US Customs after a bar of Lush soap tested positive for THC. She was threatened with jail time and received a $500 fine. And there I was three months ago, blissfully unaware as I marched through airports across the US carting about twenty pounds of Lush products home for the fam!

And while it was so awesome to see my family again, I’ve never been so happy to get back after a trip before. Almost three years to the day since I migrated here… and I guess it’s really finally home in my heart now. We’ve got lots of pictures and stories to tell, but for now I’ll be sleeping off my cold and my jet lag for the next 24 hours. Many thanks to Helen for watching the fort for us. (And as for the cat? We might as well have only been gone for an hour. Sheesh.)

Last minute San Fran tips?
Man, I totally miss blogging about, like, random Internet stuff instead of my life all the time. Only five more days til we’re home! In about twelve hours we fly off for San Francisco. We’re staying in this funky hotel and so far all we have booked is the Anchor Steam Brewery tour on Wednesday and Alcatraz on Thursday. Any last minute recommendations? I’m thinking of maybe making a pilgrimage to the Apple Store…

In the end it was all bright smiles and happiness. I made a minor error coming down the aisle when I forgot to stop at the right place and continued on with the rest of the bridesmaids, but luckily the preacher (and half the guests) waved me back. (Fortunately, both Snookums and my uncle Ron – the official videographers – were aiming at the little flower girl and ring bearer behind me, so my mistake has already been expunged from posterity.) Everybody said I looked really pretty in my orange dress, even though my sparkly dyed shoes turned my toes red. The Snook, as always, looked pretty fly. He completely cemented his place in the family with a stunning karaoke rendition of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” during the reception. Afterwards we headed to the hotel for a little jacuzzi and Papa John’s action. *sigh* And now all this wedding crap is over, so hopefully we can all get back to more meaningful pursuits… (like the second season of The O.C.!)

It’s four hours til the Wedding of the Century begins, and the tears and recriminations have already begun. It’s gonna be a long day, folks…

Australians often talk about going to “the snow,” as if seeing snow was the equivalent of visiting Disneyland or Paris. Other than a few flurries in London, Snookums had never really been to “the snow” before. Last night, the snow came to him. It started yesterday afternoon and fell throughout the night. Hooray for winter! This morning he was introduced to the duty of all Indiana husbands: scraping the ice off the car. After dinner Joey’s going to teach him how to make snow angels. Pictures are forthcoming…

Since nobody in Indiana seems to believe me when I tell them, let me just end all the speculation and confirm that I’m not Mrs. Snook. I mean, yeah, I married the Snook and all, but I’m still Ms. Howard legally and forevermore. Mrs. Snook is his Mom, and even she approved my decision to stay me. You are, however, permitted to informally refer to me as Mrs. Snook if it amuses you, which it seems to do for a lot of people. But only if you call him Mr. Howard. 🙂

Check it out everybody! I met yet another previously-known-only-via-the-Internet buddy tonight in the form of our very own Marci. (It’s always weird meeting people with blogs, because they never sound the way they do in my head. Moire, on the other hand, sounds exactly like the Hoosier I expected her to be.) She even brought us a wedding present! How nice is that? The Snook came along to listen to us chatter and have his first Applebee’s experience. All in all, a very successful meet-up.