Beneath the Surface

So I have no idea when this happened, but I've just discovered that at some point Yahoogroups changed every single group I belong to to delivering email in html. I've got an old computer. I've got an old email client. A lot of email sent in html is pretty much invisible.

::returns to changing it back by hand, one at a time!::

EDIT: Okay, so apparently you can set this for all your groups at once. Fine. Still doesn't forgive them changing it on me. And of course I didn't discover this until after I was half done changing them one by one... :P

Have you seen those commercials for some investment company, can't think of which one at the moment--they all have the same format, there's a scene (wedding, graduation, etc.) and some guy is making a tearful, heartfelt speech about how proud they are, how they always knew so-and-so would be a success, etc. Then it turns out that the guy isn't the father of the bride or graduate or whatever--he's their financial advisor. The actual parent is far less effusive. (The theory being, presumably, that this company's financial people have that strong of an interest in their clients' goals.)

But they're just so creepy! If I ever need a financial advisor, I'd never consider this company because the ads give me such a bad feeling.

Maybe I just need to stop watching commercials.

Why is it that everything goes wrong with cars all at the same time? :P

Lots of snow, glad I don't have to drive in it.
I'm tired of being sick.
I wish we had a few more days of weekend :(.

The snow is melting, the kids are arguing about who has which doll feet (frickin' Bratz dolls with disappearing feet!).

My computer has decided it doesn't need to access the internet today (using Dan's at the moment :)).

So, yeah, I'm late on everything net-related today!

Okay, I have to say it--I do not understand these folks who decide to become heathen or pagan and the first thing they do is look for "a teacher." Seriously, maybe I'm weird, but my impulse would be to do my own research first! Wouldn't it make more sense to try to gain a broader base of information before handing oneself over to some random person? Why would someone think that this random person would be at all knowledgable, or even trustworthy, if they had no exposure to the faith in question ahead of time? How would they be able to tell?

I don't mean folks who ask for information or to be pointed to resources--or who do some work, realize that they've gotten as far as they can on their own, and ask for assistance in going further. That's reasonable. But that's not what you see--what you see is people who are looking for someone to hand them a pre-formed spirituality, whether because they don't want to do the work themselves or because they can't let go of the notion that there must be a single Truth out there--or, I suppose, because they are looking for the secrets of the universe or some such thing, and obviously anyone who happens to be hanging out on an email list would not only possess them but would jump at the chance to hand them out to anyone who asked. I'm not particularly offended by this--caveat emptor and all that--but I just hate to see so many people shutting off their brains before they've even tried to engage them.

In the mail today I received a package of quilt blocks from an exchange; they would have come sooner if the swap hostess hadn't been waiting for one person to send theirs--well, this one person decided last week that they couldn't do it after all and dropped out, so the blocks were sent missing one. Which is kind of annoying, and not only because now I have to figure out a new layout for the top! The blocks that did arrive are nice, though--they're all usable, and that's not always the case with an exchange.