Cowboys and Aliens

There's a whale in the river, a big one. I'm a bit tempted to go and see, which is unusual for me. I'm as interested in whales as the next person, but I'm shamefully law abiding and seeing the whale involves officially tolerated, but illegal and not terribly common-sensical, gawking from a freeway bridge, and also a fairly lengthy drive. My mom and her flock were attacked by peacocks, or to be absolutely correct, a peacock and a peahen, a very Bonnie and Clyde sort of pair, as it turns out. They came to a similar end, I'm afraid. Don't look up videos of peafowl attacks on YouTube, it will surely make you sad as they seem mostly to go for completely unsuspecting children.

My quota of small boys was raised to five on Monday when a couple of cousins came to stay. The 3yo surely was cute, and I won him with my sparkly shoes and offers of tasty goods. By the end of the visit he was giving me hugs as only small children can and declaring his love. The neighbors across the street who were prone to drug-dealings, brawls, three-squad-car police visits and revving their engine loudly every night in the small hours succumbed to a large bribe from the bank to vacate the premises. And they did. Sort of. I was reveling in the quiet one night as I was drifting off, only to hear faintly that familiar engine. Was I imagining it? No. Truck guy is now camping in my next door neighbor's back yard, so he actually lives closer now, though his truck is thankfully muted. 'Casino Orphan' of more or less the same address, is also still around, having been abandoned with the parents of one of 8yo's friends. :( I've been debating whether it would be interfering or proper to offer assistance. What do you all think? If there's one thing I've a lot of it's little boy clothes.

Also, saw Cowboys and Aliens. Could have had more character development, but I was braced for disappointment and was not so. There are worse uses for 90 minutes than watching Daniel Craig be a complete bad ass wearing cowboy fetish gear. His American accent was sometimes endearingly thick.

Signal Boost: Return of the DDoS

Originally posted by deathpixie at Signal Boost: Return of the DDoS

For those wanting to know more about the recent DDoS attacks, yes, it looks like it was the Russian government trying to shut down the dissidents again.

As I said last time, while it's frustrating not to have access, LJ is a lot more than a social network platform. From the article:

"LiveJournal isn’t just a social network. It’s also a platform for organizing civic action. Dozens of network projects and groups mobilize people to solve specific problems — from defending the rights of political prisoners to saving endangered historic architecture in Moscow."

So while I know many are considering the move over to Dreamwidth and other such sites, supporting LJ is a way we can help support those who use it for more than a writing/roleplaying/social venue.


Also, as a FYI, LJ is giving paid users effected by the outage two weeks of paid time as compensation.