Beth Winter

Six days before getting on a plane to Budapest is probably a bad time for me to panic about not being able to speak a word of Hungarian, or even pronounce it without consulting a guide. Technically I know we can get by easily between English, German, French and Russian, but my brain is flailing in travel-induced panic.

Otherwise, I got friended by a crowd of people I don't know, again. It's not that I mind people viewing my public posts, but dropping me a note would be nice. As would telling me whether you want me to friend back - locked posts tend to be Real Life ramblings and file-sharing.

I was wondering what to write in my anniversarial, thousandth post on Livejournal. Good on Six Apart for dropping a topic into my lap.

I remember Time Before LJ. I had a blog, first on Pitas, then on my own domain. Interaction was via blog comments and shoutouts in your own entries, mailing lists and forums. Everyone else had a blog, but somewhere in early 2003 I noticed that everyone else was also, slowly, getting accounts on Livejournal.

I hated the service, for the clumsy way it looked, the lack of customisation and the way its one appealing feature - friendslock, the ability to get your post to the people you wanted to see it and yet not to the internet at large - required you to take the plunge and get an account yourself. I caved in in April 2003, and since then I haven't changed the title. I still call my LJ the way I used to call all of LJ: The Pit of Hell.

(Re-reading my blog, I realised I got my LJ invite from beckerbell. Should I be thankful, my dear, or kill you? ;))

The privacy and social networking features are why I'll probably stay here until it lacks the social momentum warranting them - until enough of my f-list moves elsewhere. Since I'm multi-fandom, that's unlikely to happen soon.

For those moving to GreatestJournal, I'm Extenuation over there. The account is used for RP, but if you're moving, please friend me and I'll friend back - because I don't want to lose track of people, and I want to keep reading my entire f-list, not just the people who stay here.

Dear Pit of Hell: happy 1000 posts.

As if the winter harddrive trouble weren't enough, on Saturday I managed to catch a virus on my home computer. Easy enough to get rid of - except for the fact that the bloody thing was so badly written, it managed to corrupt the partition table of all things. Looks like my only option is complete data backup, reformat and reinstall; I'm waiting to find out whether it'll be possible to accomplish free of charge or if I'll have to shell out for a commercial service.

So until further notice, no access to most of my graphics, software, or audio collection :/ I've got a backup of the fics etc, thankfully, but that's it.

I want better technical karma. And health-wise, because this would be easier to take if I were not tripping over my own feet.

Mail's down for some reason - I think it's a hiccup that concerns my whole net provider, because I can't get to their support site either. Comments here or tevildoATgmail.com until further notice.

Fixed now, thankfully :D

For some values of interesting, of course.

Inability to recognise faces as a disease (NYT Bugmenot ID) - not only interesting as a fictional idea, but bloody annoying. I think I might have a minor version of it - it's very hard for me to tell faces apart if they're the same type. Onscreen, fine, but on the street, I could walk past Johnny Depp and not notice.

Materazzi/Zidane slash. It had to happen. And it's amazingly well-written in a gritty and real way, saving some capital letters.

( Me as a Meez )

I also have a Vox account and two invitations. Anyone want to snare a username? I'm very impressed with the multimedia features, it's a great place for a photo/video log.

And I'm still looking for ficathons :(

Due to a gaggle of MySpacers and Xangers hotlinking to various files from my website, I had to turn on hotlinking protection. I'm still fiddling with it, so tell me if anything's broken - like my moodtheme on your friendslist.

I just saw everyone off to the train station. Until either Sunday or Monday, I have the house to myself - no parents, no cats. Still have the thesis to polish up, but that shouldn't take too long, especially since the bloody heat's about to ease off a bit, finally.

So this is a notice that anything you want from me, say it now or hold your peace for two weeks from Sunday :) I'll be checking mail every so often and getting back in the 16th, but apart from that from July 2nd colour me gone. This includes any plotbunnies anyone cares to drop in my lap ;)

Btw, LJ technical question - my extra userpics are about to expire, but if I don't pay up until I get back, will I have to reupload everything and/or lose my loyalty bonus pics?

I have a 2.23MB Quicktime file that needs to be rotated clockwise by 90 degrees. As far as I've been able to tell, this requires a quick tweak of video properties in Quicktime Pro, which I don't have.

Anyone got Quicktime Pro and a spare five minutes? *bats eyelashes* I'll do a drabble for you, any fandom, any requirements, and actually write it before the weekend is out!

EDIT: No, I don't want to install it, I can't. I just want someone to tweak one little thing for me? Pretty please with sugar on it?

Taxi'll be here in 15 minutes. I'll be checking e-mail. I also got less than two hours' sleep thanks to certain fanged creatures yesterday. Pah. Totally worth it.

Back on Sunday evening. Over and out.

Well, that was predictable. But still, gotta love a guy who goes out on ice and doesn't look like any of what he does takes real effort, and still manages to be perhaps the only guy who doesn't make any mistakes at all.

Apart from the Plushchenko love, highlights included Joubert's Riverdancing On Ice, Savoie's entire program (pretty!) and Buttle's lovely classic ballet - Buttle's second place in the free skate is certainly well-deserved. Also, there was this first moment in Takahashi's program, that little bow he did at the very beginning, that was very charming indeed. I'm just sorry for Lambiel - he's really good, but he overreached himself and when he finished, you could see he was just so angry about it all.

(In case you're interested: got an A in my exam, then came home and slept for 5 hours. One of these days, I'll get a healthy reaction to stress.)

Oooh. It looks like LJ added a draft post autosave. Nifty!