Nice to hear neighbours enjoying a party last night, though it was loud. Brent Simmons of ranchero.com announced a war-free weblog, drawing a horrible new word from a reader: "I'm morally opposed to injectionating politics where it doesn't belong." Like many before me, I'm finding that blogging is radically changing my browsing habits, particularly using a newsreader. Whether this is for better or worse, I've yet to decide. I've been less moved by trying out the new approach to desktops Brent is packaging with NetNewsWire until Monday. Spring (Mac OS X) is undoubtedly "innovative" and original, but it didn't blow my mind. The bundle offer, nevertheless, is worth pointing out to people who think visually more than I do. OSNews has run a survey on the "definitive desktop".
On the war, I'm not going as far as Brent. After all, hundreds of thousands of people have been busy, particularly in the United States, seeking out information of every kind across the Web. A California-based "Internet Performance Authority" monitors how the Net is taking the strain: Keynote. Scarcely the sort of thing to interest the birthday crowd in the building across the garden out back in the small hours! Windows wide open, spring round the corner, but grey skies are back to mark the equinox itself.
Friends using Windows ask now about newsreaders for their machines. Without trying it, I'm told that a good one, if you're prepared to fork out $29 dollars, is Newsgator, which runs in Outlook Express.
However, one of those to recommend it, Martin Sutherland, has also opted to drop it! All things in moderation ... and he wants to stay in control.
This coming weekend, I doubt I'll be blogging much. I haven't seen my daughter for very nearly a month. She and her mum had excellent reason to go to Lille instead, the last time it was "my turn" to spend a weekend with her. That's cool, but when Miss is around, she's number one! And I suspect that when this computer wakes up, it will mainly be for The Sims, the processor of even a powerful machine groaning under the strain. I think the Vacation extension pack is about the last I can allow. If she wants the "kitties and canines" too, she'll have to negotiate that with her mother and her PC.
The phenomenal success of The Sims is scarcely surprising. It's most therapeutic, when you feel powerless in the face of the world out there, to play God in one of your own. And if a Sim behaves badly, you don't have to bomb him. You simply suggest he goes for a swim and then yank the steps out of the pool.
11:14:09 AM link 
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"Some people have cellars and spend the night there." (
Though widely reported, the Natalie Maines (Dixie Chicks) 
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