This will have to do.

[greygirlbeast]

I didn't want a foul black mood today, but it came upon me last night, and it's still here this morning, and I think it means to hang around a while.

Sometimes the words won't come because the words won't come. There's no knowing why. Sometimes the words simply will not come. And other times, the words won't come and I know the reason why. Yesterday was a day of the latter sort. I meant to finish the new vignette, "pas-en-arrière, " and I knew that I was probably only a few paragraphs from the conclusion. But my mood was beginning to darken, because of the frelling weather, the weather that's not even here yet, just the weather that's coming, and I realised that I didn't trust myself. I want the ending of this one to be so right. I don't want to settle because I don't feel up to spending however much time and effort is required to get it that way. It all rests on those last few paragraphs. If they fail, they pull the whole thing down.

I received the Alabaster ARCs yesterday. I guess that means I can't put off the proofreading very much longer.

I believe that I'm already growing disenchanted with my MySpace. Mostly I just don't see the point. I have LJ and Blogger and so many damned e-mail addys I've lost count, so why do I need MySpace and their ugly, flashing ads? It just seems awfully redundant. What is it that MySpace does any better than Blogger or LJ? Anything?

I have to find the road leading out of this vile mood. I have to do that first. Perhaps I need to do some magickal work, getting ready for Ostara, spending more time with the Ogham and our altar and the trees. Maybe I need to write a few Wikipedia entries. I haven't done one in several days. Maybe I need to get drunk and not think about any of it.

It is St. Patrick's Day, the only thing even remotely resembling an Xtian holiday that I'll observe, and I'd prefer it were called Eire Pride Day or something. Will I wear green today? Maybe I'll make a garland or crown of clover and that will be my green. Tá an aimsir go h-álainn inniú. I shouldn't waste my life thinking about weather that isn't here yet. Amárach beidh ceathach. I can moan about it all then. Ugh. My Irish's no better than it was last March.

Please have a look at the eBay auctions, if you've a mind to do such a thing. There's only four days and twenty-three hours remaining on the "choose-your-own-letter" Frog Toes and Tentacles auction. And the Apple Store won't take fairie gold. I've tried.

Comments

[wolven.livejournal.com]

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

As a first-generation Irish emigrant, I'll be looking for something snakeskin to wear.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Slainte!

MySpace pages seem to be mostly nothing but flash. LiveJournal is mostly text, and therefore we have the content . . . and mostly content. That's the deal--some of that MySpace stuff is fairly content-free. No wonder it appeals to the kiddos of today! (GRIN)

Hang in there. Go to your meditation and prayer or whatever corner--that seems the only remedy for moods like these (if there is one at all.)

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

No wonder it appeals to the kiddos of today! (GRIN)

Indeed.

Slainte!

Thanks. Go mba hé dhuit.

[forgottenbelief.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I have this strange sense of embarrassment when someone asks me if I have a myspace. As elitest as it sounds, I don't like the internet for the masses - I miss the days where it took a modicum of intelligence to get online. (yes, yes, flame away).

And as far as St Patrick's Day, it's the only day of the year I can go to the bar before noon and not be assumed an alcoholic. So, hurray for St Patrick's Day. I think there should be more of them.

[tactileson.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I have this strange sense of embarrassment when someone asks me if I have a myspace. As elitest as it sounds,

I feel the same way, which is why I don't have a MySpace. As for what MySpace does, it's a place where pretty young people go to shack up. As for having any real artistic or literary merit, I'm afraid I can't see any past the flashing ads and pictures of drunken eighteen year olds.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

As for what MySpace does, it's a place where pretty young people go to shack up.

Bingo.

As for having any real artistic or literary merit, I'm afraid I can't see any past the flashing ads and pictures of drunken eighteen year olds.

Bingo again.

[logrusboy.livejournal.com]

So we're all agreed. You'll ditch the WhySpace and devote the "extra" time to entertaining your devoted LJ readers. Good. :)

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

You'll ditch the WhySpace and devote the "extra" time to entertaining your devoted LJ readers.

Well, it's up now. I may as well leave it up. Inertia rules all. But I don't know that I'll be doing anything else over there. LJ comes first.

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what the big deal is with MySpace. It just seems clunky and counterintuitive. Kids seem to have latched onto it, but kids latch onto a lot of stupid things.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

It just seems clunky and counterintuitive.

Yep.

[sovay]

Tá an aimsir go h-álainn inniú.I shouldn't waste my life thinking about weather that isn't here yet. Amárach beidh ceathach. I can moan about it all then. Ugh. My Irish's no better than it was last March.

Mine's nonexistent. May I request a translation?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

May I request a translation?

Sure. I was just being cryptic.

Tá an aimsir go h-álainn inniú. = The weather is beautiful today.

Amárach beidh ceathach. = Tomorrow it will be raining (showery).

[sovay]

I don't in the least mind cryptic. Gaelic is just one of the languages I can't personally be cryptic in. : P

Thanks!

[tarots.livejournal.com]

When you mentioned MySpace -- I went and had a second look and was as unimpressed still as I was the first time I looked. I just didn't get it.
I meant to ask you about it, then fiddled around and forgot to post.
Ah well.

[haegtessa.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately for me, alot of my real-life friends only use MySpace, so I maintain an account there. What I do though is just copy/paste some of my LJ entries there, mostly just the ones where I post new art (because who knows, this may generate more sales). All the other good stuff I just leave at LJ.

[scarletboi.livejournal.com]

I pretty much maintain my Myspace due to peer pressure. It's the only way certain of my friends choose to communicate online, so I keep it.

But I don't really see much point to Myspace. There are forums, but they're awful. There's a blog, but it's not even as useful as Livejournal. There are "bulletins" but the signal-to-noise ratio is hideous.

Blah.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

I pretty much maintain my Myspace due to peer pressure. It's the only way certain of my friends choose to communicate online, so I keep it.

Indeed. But the fact that I've met one complete stranger through the service who I would actually be RL friends with is keeping me hanging on in the vain hope that there will be some kind of repeat phenomenon.

There are forums, but they're awful. There's a blog, but it's not even as useful as Livejournal. There are "bulletins" but the signal-to-noise ratio is hideous

Here Here. Baileys and shots for the boi!

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

There's a blog, but it's not even as useful as Livejournal.

I don't know if my blog's any indication or not, but I have, currently, 108 MySpace "friends" (something like that, a hundred and something), and if I judge readership by comments to the entries, no one's reading the thing.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I need to do some magickal work, getting ready for Ostara, spending more time with the Ogham and our altar and the trees. Maybe I need to write a few Wikipedia entries. I haven't done one in several days. Maybe I need to get drunk and not think about any of it.

I suggest options one followed quickly by option three (although I recommend Stout rather than the Green Fairy). Repeat option three until you feel you can drive the snakes from L5P. Find some garden gnomes to help you out with this. End with a showing of "The Quiet Man" if you feel it might help.

[stardustgirl.livejournal.com]

LiveJournal: a nice wood-paneled space, with comfortable classic furniture to sit upon and have an intelligent conversation while perhaps enjoying a libation in a proper glass receptacle. Nice oriental rugs on a hardwood floor. Dim lighting. Quiet music playing in the background.

My Space: a spot in a run-down strip mall abandoned by a formerly successful bigbox store, concrete floors, fluorescent lighting interrupted by bright splashes of blinking neon, and cheap bar alcohol or beer served in plastic cups. Crap music blaring through an over-noisy sound system. The occasional visitor puking in the corner. Large vinyl sponsorship banners are draped from the ceiling.

I found the TOS a turnoff, and pretty bold. If I'm reading it correctly, it seems that any unsolicited contact with another member could get you a $50 fine (wtf?) if they deem it as being "harmful", and they lay rights to your "content".

LiveJournal TOS: LiveJournal.com claims no ownership or control over any Content posted by its users. The author retains all patent, trademark, and copyright to all Content posted within available fields, and is responsible for protecting those rights, but is not entitled to the help of the LiveJournal.com staff in protecting such Content.

MySpace TOS: By displaying or publishing ("posting") any Content, messages, text, files, images, photos, video, sounds, profiles, works of authorship, or any other materials (collectively, "Content") on or through the Services, you hereby grant to MySpace.com, a non-exclusive, fully-paid and royalty-free, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense through unlimited levels of sublicensees) to use, copy, modify, adapt, translate, publicly perform, publicly display, store, reproduce, transmit, and distribute such Content on and through the Services. This license will terminate at the time you remove such Content from the Services. Notwithstanding the foregoing, a back-up or residual copy of the Content posted by you may remain on the MySpace.com servers after you have removed the Content from the Services, and MySpace.com retains the rights to those copies.

I passed. I think it fits in with my anti-consumerist phase... I don't need another timesuck site.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I don't need another timesuck site.

All else aside, this is ultimately what it comes down to for me.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Weird how myspace is, in fact, the opposite of the early impression I had been given of it.

I had never visited the site, but labored under the wrong impression that it was, primarily a sort of social networking site targeted for an older audience than livejournal - a sort of more "grown up" version.

I think I assumed this because most of the accounts seemed to use legitimate names (e.g. not "Aloysius Watermelontail") and because there was so little content - on the theory that very few people over the age of 25 have much time to write lengthy and plentiful entries into a blog.

I suppose, in a way, I am right about one aspect of that; it is more of a social network. There certainly is precious little blogging on the site. The impression that it was somehow more "grown up" than LJ is kind of amusing.

[sovay]

legitimate names (e.g. not "Aloysius Watermelontail")

I actually knew someone named Aloysius when I was in elementary school; he was the father of a kid who lived next door. (In all honesty, I think it might have been his middle name, but I don't remember clearly enough.) I'm sure he's forgotten this, but I still remain mildly traumatized that one day I asked him what his full name was, and he told me, and I laughed at him; I thought he'd made it up. I was about seven years old, I didn't know from saints; the only person named Aloysius I'd ever heard of was Mr. Snuffleupagus . . . I felt terrible.

That said, with all due respect to your livejournal handle: if his last name had been Watermelontail, it would have been about as productive to ask a seven-year-old not to laugh as to stop continents from drifting.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I think I assumed this because most of the accounts seemed to use legitimate names (e.g. not "Aloysius Watermelontail") and because there was so little content - on the theory that very few people over the age of 25 have much time to write lengthy and plentiful entries into a blog.

Personally, I suspect that the more parsimonious explanation would involve a lack of imagination of the part of most MySpace users. I think MySpace might somehow act as a selective force for "normalcy" or something. I was saying to Spooky, it's kind of like the internet for non-geeks. Wait...that's AOL.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

What is it that MySpace does any better than Blogger or LJ? Anything?

More teenagers? I haven't been paying too much attention to mine, except to add people to my friends thing. I find the MySpace system of posts and replies cumbersome.

The way I see it, it's a way of having my cake and not having to eat it. Or something.

Maybe I need to write a few Wikipedia entries. I haven't done one in several days.

Hmm. You could write an entry for Nar'eth, maybe?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Hmm. You could write an entry for Nar'eth, maybe?

Nar'eth's already pissed at me over this. The teeny-whore children annoy her no end

[mockingbirdgrrl.livejournal.com]

odd that out of all of the complaints lodged against myspace here that no one has mentioned that the domain is owned by rupert murdoch.
that was enough for me to steer clear, but peer pressure had me looking into creating a myspace account for, oh, about five minutes.
lucky for me that some glitch on my machine requires the disabling of all firewalls or antivirus software to access myspace at all.
i'm not about to disable all of this software just to look at flashy, drippy coeds. thus, LJ it is, and LJ it always shall be.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

odd that out of all of the complaints lodged against myspace here that no one has mentioned that the domain is owned by rupert murdoch.

I'd not mentioned because I was unaware of that fact. Now I know, and that's one more black mark.