What is up, LJ?

I’ve gotten more spam comments in the last week than I ever have before. Has something changed with settings?

LJ hates me and a free book for you

My SBD post took several tries to post. And I can’t reply to any of the comments posted in the last day, dammit.

Instead I’ll post here: Yay! ::happy dance:: And thank you to Meljean Brook, ’cause I won her contest.

I also won (last week and I forgot to post about it, bad jmc) a contest over at Bam’s — a copy of Annie Dean’s ebook, The Average Girl’s Guide to Getting Laid. Once I’ve finished reading it, I’ll post a review or maybe just an opinion.

So, since I’ve been all win-ny lately, I’ll share the love. I have a duplicate copy of Meljean Brook’s Demon Moon due to order impatience/forgetfulness. Pick a number between 1 and 50 and post it in the comments (along with contact info if you don’t have a blog or LJ) in the next 48 hours. The first person to hit the number or get closest gets my spare copy.

Going to hear Al Gore speak

UMBC has established some sort of relationship with Maryland Forums. They’re hosting Cal Ripken as a speaker next week, then Al Gore in May. According to their post here, Ehud Barak and Bob Woodward were guests this past fall. I heart Cal, but I’m skipping his speech and holding out for Gore.

LJ-users, what’s going on with the HTML? I used to be able to put in jump links, because I hated losing my original page, but now I get mark up errors when I do. Anybody have insight into the change?

Argh!

In the midst of typing a post, IE closed.  And LJ is supposed to autosave, then offer to restore.  But no, the offer to restore hasn’t appeared.  Dammit.  Now I have to reconstruct.

New template

I’m thinking about changing my template. I could keep the wine one, or switch to one with turtles. Or this one, with sweets. But it may be a little too pastel for me. I’m not a pink woman, despite the fact that Mom gave me pink sweats for Christmas every freakin’ year when i was in high school — what was that about? Anyway, opinions?

ETA: okay, I’ve changed to the Hot Springs template, which I like. Except I liked the other template’s tag cloud. Not impressed with the straight list. And it doesn’t give me a link to move forward or back if I open a specific entry to comment. Hmmm.

LibraryThing widget

I’m perplexed by Blogger and my LibraryThing widget. When I first installed the widget, it appeared where I wanted to, on the sidebar, with a 5×3 block of books. When I checked that blog today (yeah, I’ve been neglecting the Spanish, working on a new post for it this evening), the books were gone. Well, not gone, but no longer beneath the LibraryThink link to my books. Instead, the book covers all appear at the very bottom of the blog. Huh? What changed? I didn’t edit the template code. When I opened up the template to fix it, nothing helped. I’m not sure what’s going on. If I can’t get it to work, I’ll just remove it.

Family and blog stuff

First, LiveJournal has new templates, so I’ve been fiddling. I kind of like this one, except I think maybe I need to change my userpic. But I love that pick, so maybe I’ll have to experiment some more.

Second, on the family side: I received an e-vite to my half-sister’s wedding last night. Found it in my inbox this morning. But when I clicked on the link, it was dead. Same for the “fix” link sent an hour later. I’m assuming it’s a technical problem. This is going to sound callous, but, well, it’s not like I was going to attend the wedding anyway. I’ve met her twice — once when she was an infant (I was 8) and once 4 or 5 years ago. We’ve spent maybe 1 hour in each other’s company in our entire lives. [There’s a half-brother, too, but I’ve never met him.]

The e-vite, I’m sure, was the thought of our stepmother (who did the emailing), who is very into family, and wants my father to have a better relationship with his children. Eh. To say that we are estranged would be an exaggeration, I think, since there isn’t any argument or anger or anything like that. I have a father-figure in my life, and while I would like a relationship with my father, I’m not comfortable with the parental relationship and huggy-touchy-feely closeness that stepmom wants. I do like her, by the way.

I guess that I’ll get her address and send a card and gift (or gift card). Unless the wedding is over Thanksgiving in Texas, I won’t be attending, because my vacation days and travel dollars are already budgeted for the rest of the year.

LibraryThing

LibraryThing is my new favorite website. I found it originally via Rosina Lippi’s blog. I added a whole bunch of books from my library — with many more to go. I really like the widget that posts random bookcovers from your library . . . except the javascript doesn’t work in Live Journal. So I’ve posted it to my blog over at blogspot . . . which gets very little traffic (intentionally so). According to a note at LibraryThing, they are working on a widget that will be compatible with LJ.

Short book report:

To the Tower Born by Robin Maxwell. Tale of what really happened to the two princes in the Tower, with an alternate bad guy in lieu of Richard III. Narrated alternately by Queen Bessie, sister of the two princes and wife of Henry VII (Tudor), and Nell Caxton, daughter of William Caxton, printer/publisher of books translated into English. Liked it lots, thanks to Jay who posted about it a while back. B

The Younger Man by Sarah Tucker. Published by RDI, the title and back blurb make this sound like chick lit. But it’s not, it is very much Women’s Fiction; the romance is a very small piece of the story; the reader spends a great deal more time with the heroine’s friends, daughter, esthetician (sp?), and memories of her defunct marriage. Got the feeling that the heroine didn’t really like men; she seemed to have no respect for them. I know, there is no black/white, just shades of grey, but the men in the novel were none of them particularly charming or likeable. C-.

Jump links test

The mess that was my spare room has been cleaned! The paint job on the trim is a little sloppy but I can fix that. The drywall guy was not happy with me, because I called his boss and complained that a 3 day project had turned into a 13 day project. Not to be a wench, but seriously, not showing up at all on days you were supposed to? And not calling? Not professional. And the lame excuse, that he lost my number so he couldn’t call? All three of them? No access to the white pages or 411? Did he also lose his boss’ number? Because she had my info, too, and was not aware that he’d failed to post on two occasions.

Was up til the wee hours this morning, rearranging furniture so that I could get to the bed without climbing over stuff and open the doors of the armoire all the way. The limited space to open meant that I was reaching in and grabbing at random, not the best way to select work attire 🙂 I also spent a couple of hours sorting my book collection, and realized that I need to invest in another sturdy bookcase. I’ve got a couple small shelves that I assembled that aren’t looking very healthy — they may buckle soon under the weight of the TBR pile. Also need to create a catalog of the books I own, because I found a couple of unintentional duplicates. Up side: I have a bunch of books to post at PBS.

Many thanks to Doug and Nicole for their instruction on how to create a jump link. My first attempt is in paragraph above.

It works! Woo hoo! Now I’m off to fiddle with the links on the side bar. Wish me luck!

Technical question

How can I create jumplinks? Right now, any link I include will take you/me to the new site without opening a new window, but I’d like to change that. I searched the livejournal FAQ, but didn’t find any reference, so I’m wondering if a) LJ supports that or b) it’s so elementary that a computer moron should be able to figure it out without instruction. Any info will be appreciated.