You know what strikes me as strange? Someone from Bloomberg visiting my site at 3 in the morning:

Seeing Derek Powazek on {Fray} reminded me about his City Stories Project. I love that project. I have a habit of developing intense attachments to cities.

I decided to visit Vancouver Stories, seeing as how that city is a new love of mine. But it's gone! No site, no nothing! What the heck happened?

Scenes from an overflowing bookmark folder:

I have a crapload of links that I haven't visited in ages, and yet I've bookmarked them for one reason or another. Upon revisiting a great many of them, I wonder why I hadn't revisited sooner, since they're certainly worth it.

I decided to go through them in alphabetical order. First up, [T.O.O.C.: The End of Tyranny Is Now].

Um, it's gone. Well, the archives are still there, but the front page is gone. ~shrug~

So much for that. How about Annia?

Ooh! Nice to see she's back, and better than ever! Her site was on extended hiatus, but now is back and full of illustrative goodies to excite my visual cortex with. Hooray!

What else have I got in here? {Fray}. Funny, I've heard so much about Fray, but I've never taken the time to read all the goodies in there. And goodies there are indeed! I can only imagine what a Fray day is like. Maybe Edmonton should have a Fray day!

What else have I got in here? Oh yes, a day late and a :: dollar short.org. Somehow I can always count on Mena to write something worth reading. Why don't I go there more often? Her submission to The Morning News was great.

Geez, I should go through my book marks more often!

Forever North and I went over to Randy's today to try and help him with his blog.

All in all, I'd say it was a success:

A good time was had by all, and the archive works pretty well, if not perfectly. Also, now that Randy has posted a pic of FN and I, you can see what a weenie I really look like from day to day. I swear I do not wear those glasses for a fashion statement. Health reasons, HEALTH reasons.

Dear LORD, you have got to be joking.

Has it come to this? Really? Has it?

Found, in a roundabout sort of way, via MetaFilter.

I'm growing disenchanted with my layout.

Old browsers can handle it, which I like. Low-tech enough for me to figure out, which I like. Can be viewed in 800x600 and larger without causing the computer to blow up, which I also like. Has HUGE WADS of empty space on either side of the page, leaving a mere 300 some odd pixels for my blog, which I do not like.

Not that I'm expecting anyone to come up with any clever solutions or ideas, but every time I see a nice, neat, tidy site, I want to pitch the whole thing in the recycle bin.

My ideas bag is overflowing, and my coding bag is empty.

Wanna see something weird? See if you can follow:

I started out at Randy's page, because I wanted to check out the archives thing I helped him with.

Rather absent-mindedly, I followed a link to Sharpeworld, and gazed at the many oddities that Randy had brought my attention to.

Sharpeworld led me to Cooper Black, Behind The Typeface, which was rather entertaining. She found that link via Textism, which I visit from time to time. I scrolled down to read that Leslie Harpold had had her domain, Hoopla.com stolen from her back in April. Yes, that's right, STOLEN. So of course I had to read more.

From there I went on to Metafilter to bathe in the full horror of the fact that if your domain is registered with NetSol, someone could forge a fax and steal your domain out from under you.

Anyone else queasy yet? Guess who Limeworld.com is registered with?

Not only am I amazed that several hours of my life disappeared because I couldn't stop clicking on links, but also that at any moment, *poof*, Limeworld could disappear on me. Excuse me, I need to read more about this so the same shit doesn't happen to me.

Today was sooooooooooo much better than the last 4. In fact, if it's possible for one day to almost make up for the shittiness of the last 4, this one would do it.

It started out a little tense . . . had a vet appointment for Koji this afternoon, and I was anxious about Koji's health and what the vet's thoughts on Mochi's post mortem would be. As it turns out, Koji has idiopathic seizures, meaning "we-don't-why-but-we're-pretty-sure-you-didn't-screw-up" seizures. A kind of chinchilla epilepsy, if you will.

I asked if calcium deficiency could have anything to do with the seizures. No, especially since he's getting tons of cuttlefish bone. I asked if hypoglycemia could have anything to do with the seizure. The vet laughed and said, "He's too fat.". I've never been so happy to hear someone tell me that my pet is fat. In fact, in light of how desperately underweight Mochi was, I couldn't be more pleased with Koji's pudgy little tummy.

The vet gave Koji a thorough examination, and pronounced him very healthy indeed. As long as his seizures don't become more frequent, we'll go without drugs and just try to manage them as best we can. Very, VERY good news.

I also asked the vet about Mochi's post mortem. The vet explained that Mochi had impacted stool in his intestines (known as megacolon), which would have been a result of loss of peristaltic activity in the bowel. This would have been caused by a number of possible factors, all of which relate to the nerves which connect to the bowel. The cause of Mochi's megacolon is unknown, although it's safe to say that what ailed him does not ail his brother.

It's all beginning to give me a sense of closure. As sad as it is to know that we probably wouldn't have been able to help Mochi if we had spotted his condition earlier, I'm relieved to know that he didn't spend his last days being pumped full of drugs and being given enemas, only to be euthanized in the end. Perhaps it's better that he was able to continue to live as he always did, full of gusto and by his brother's side.

All very good news. I think I might actually be able to have a good night's rest as a result.

More on the evening's drag racing event later, perhaps after the movies that were taken are posted.

Today I went downstairs to discover that Koji is in fact still very much alive, which I take as a sign that today will not be the clusterfuck that the last 3 were.

I did, however, discover that my guestbook is about to be destroyed because Oh, Hello is moving to a subscription based service.

Apparently I now need to go out and teach myself PHP so I will be able to build my own guestbook and implement some kind of comments. I'm going to go brood now.

Because life's shit obviously travels in packs, Koji had a seizure today.

Not the first, but we had thought that they were caused by a calcium deficiency. Considering that he recently demolished a cuttlefish bone, that's definitely not it.

Excuse me while I beat my head repeatedly against the wall, then call the vet to make an appointment.

We lost Mochi tonight.

We don't know why or how exactly. Yesterday he seemed fine, today we found him at the bottom of his cage near death. We rushed him to the vet, but it was too late.

To say that Forever North and I are in a state of shock would be a gross understatement. The cats are 10 and 6, with a life span of ~18 years. The rabbit is 2, with a life span of ~6-10. The chinchillas are 2, with a life span of 25-30. It wasn't his time.

He was a spunky, zestful little guy. To see him shriveled up and barely breathing was horrific. It was all his brother Koji could do to sit next to him and keep vigil.

Mochi was nothing if not bold. He grabbed life by the horns and gnawed it to bits with his little orange teeth. He was always staking out new ground, going on ahead of his brother, then returning as if to say, "I've staked it out, and it's okay. Follow me!"

He loved his cranberry juice, his shredded wheat, his Mazuri pellets, his horse crunch, his hay, his craisins. He mowed his way through cuttlefish bone and wood planks with glee. He devoured life.

I hope Koji is going to be okay. He relied on Mochi for a lot of confidence and assurance, not to mention love. They would groom each other, they would play together, they would sleep piled on top of each other. Now Koji will sleep alone.

I'll post more pictures when I can piece myself together. In the meantime, you're welcome to see all the pictures I have at Ofoto, which requires you to register.

It may take some time for me to put up pictures and answer emails, so please bear with me. Thanks.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Right. So the eye thing is done. Now the Blog Meet-Up.

The first person who arrived was Randy. Randy is a delightfully funny and intelligent guy who also happens to be a librarian. You know how we all think that librarians are middle-aged women with tight hair buns who check books in and out of libraries and shush people for making too much noise? Definitely NOT what a librarian is really like. Librarians are a way hip bunch, as demonstrated by Jessamyn West, Erica, and of course, Randy.

The second person to arrive was Steph, for whom I unfortunately have no URL or email address for. She came to learn more about weblogs, and brought some of her lovely photographs for us to look at. She also writes plays, which may be coming to a theatre near you!

The third person to arrive was Comrade Aaron, one of the members of the NaNoWriMo Guerilla Rebellion. Engaging in writing, equally engaging in person. It was great to have him there, even if he did have to tear himself away from his wife, 3 yr. old son and brand spanking new 2 week old baby. It turns out Randy held a convention many years ago which Aaron attended. It was at that very convention that he met his lovely wife Nicole! Small, small world, I tell ya.

The fourth person to arrive was Taz, a very cool music journalist who knows way more about music than I could ever hope to. The sharing of music knowledge between Taz and Randy was really something to behold, which I was only just barely able to follow.

Altogether it was a really fun evening, chock full of some of the most interesting conversation I've had in a while. Even if some of us write about intelligent, relevent topics, and others of us write about eye infections, I think there's something for everyone at these little blog get togethers.

I'm looking forward to the next one. Perhaps by then I will even have listened to some Wilco and read some Douglas Rushkoff. I could use a bit of mind expansion.

Well, it's been 36 hours or so now, and the angry dwarf that F-No referred to has been subdued.

After the blog meet, I noticed that the mere burning sensation had escalated to a searing pain in my right eye, which really needed the attention of a doctor. So off we went to the Medicentre, and lo' and behold, I have viral conjuctivitis. Lots of fun. The doctor wanted to make sure I didn't have a foreign object in my eye or corneal ulcer, so he froze my eye, put dye in my eye, poked my eye, squeezed my eye, flushed saline in my eye, froze my eye again, put goopy ointment in my eye, poked and squeezed it a bit again for good measure, and sent me on my way. By the time I got home I was half blind, although mercifully anesthetized.

Here's a public service announcement for all you contact lens wearers:


Do NOT wear you contact lenses until your eye infection has cleared up, or you will sorely regret it.

Trust me on this. Wearing my contact lenses the other day was a bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea. Your vanity might get the better of you, but then you'll meet the angry dwarf with the chainsaw, and you'll realize where your priorities ought to be.

More on the blog meet next.

Hi everyone! This is Forever North writing direct to you from the depths of the night to bring you this news flash!

Limegirl has taken something to help her sleep. She's sitting behind me giggling about her "I'm on drugs!" post of a while back - when she made a brilliant ode to the floaty-head inducing codeine. Soon she'll be passed out, and won't be able to complain how she feels like an angry dwarf is trying to cut his way out of her eyeball with a chainsaw. I couldn't be happier for her.

Ummm WOW, I only just now told her what you just read, and she's been laughing straight for the last 2 minutes! The pill is working! I think that is soooo cool - at least until I learn that it gave my Limegirl a brain tumor the size of a grapefruit or something. In anycase, rest assured that the angry dwarf has been pretty much crushed by a tidal wave of drug induced endorphins. (insert sound of screaming dwarf here)

Just to be clear, she's having trouble sleeping due to her eye infection. The doctor said it was viral, which totally took us both by surprise. I really hope she feels well enough to go out in the evening, since we were supposed to take our car drag racing. Don't worry though, she'll be back with plenty of tales and insight on her temporary blindness, and my amateur wordsmithing skills will afflict you no more.

One last thing, the blog meet was great! I pretty much sat there for the whole time, seeing as how I'm totally lame and don't have a blog of my own. If we'd taken a video of me you would have just seen me looking back and forth between people as they carpet bombed the conversation with names of writers, musicians, cool places to go, shows they like etc... Anyway, very very interesting people, and it really makes me want a blog of my own! Limegirl apologizes for not posting about it right away, but will write about it as soon as she's able to.

Okay well, that's it for me! F-No out.

My eyes are burning and I don't know why.

I do have a mild eye infection, which I've been treating with Polysporin eye drops, but I thought it was my left eye that was infected. Now my left eye feels fine, and my right eye feels like a protester at an OPEC summit.

The burning sensation has made it almost impossible for me to wear my contact lenses, which is frustrating when there are new people to meet. My glasses should really not be seen in public, unless I want to give the impression that I think it's still 1992.

In fact, I could really take that whole look to the next level and dig out some clothes that I never got around to giving away. Maybe a floral print dress with combat boots? Or a nice Club Monaco sweatshirt, the kind that everyone had in at least 4 colours at the time? Yep, that's just the kind of look I want to put across.

Well, without further ado, I'd like to present Limeworld.com version 2.0

I'm still ironing out a few things, including straightening out the archives and getting some comments up and running, but otherwise everything should be in good working order. I hope you like it!

Tomorrow is Blog Meetup Day, and I'm looking forward to meeting my fellow Edmonton bloggers.

A few new Edmonton bloggers I discovered:

Desiree


Randy


Marsha

Go see. They're a neat bunch of people. :)

Update: Desiree lives in Fort McMurray, which is not quite Edmonton.

I was milling through some old files, and I came across something that I had once intended to post but forgot:

Naomi

Phoebe

Frankly, I think they were separated at birth.

One more reason to love John Mayer:

John Mayer channeling other musicians

Dear Team Delta,

Thank you for inviting me to participate in your program. Even though it has absolutely nothing to do with my website, and I live nowhere near Massachusetts, it was great of you to add a gratuitous advertisement to my guestbook.

I was thinking to myself the other day that we never spend time together anymore, and I was beginning to wonder if we were drifting apart. It's great to know that you still think about me.

Although I will not be participating in your program, I will be wearing my tinfoil hat and broadcasting your message via psychic band waves to thousands of people in Brunei.

Spamerifically Yours,

Limegirl

Persona Don Grata is a great read, and a fellow canuck. He's also Asian and delightfully self-effacing. You'll want to read him. You'll also want to date him. Go now.

"I once thought I had mono for an entire year. It turned out I was just really bored."

So I'm back in Edmonton, happy to be back in big sky country, and currently listening to the fabulous music of John Mayer. Then something occurs to me:

What the fuck was I thinking when I decided NOT to go see John Mayer when he came to Vancouver?

Was I thinking, "He's a musical genius, but I'll catch him the next time around."? I should have spent my last $22 on a ticket to see him. WHERE WAS MY BRAIN??? I'm broke and living quite deeply into my credit card, but nevertheless . . . wouldn't it have been worth a few nights of crackers for dinner????

I will never learn. I always do stuff like this. My aching pocketbook will always rule over the possibility of a once in a lifetime experience. $22 would have been so much cheaper than the money I would have to spend to get to any of his US tour dates. ~smacks forehead~

Oh well.