So if I browse to http://www.livejournal.com right now, all I see is a single PNG image. I can still get to my journal just fine, it just seems to be the front page. Anyone else seeing that?

ETA: Must have been an extremely brief outage that I caught at just the right time. Clearing the browser cache cleared everything up.

Gay Marriage Bill Takes Effect In Nation's Capital

WASHINGTON — A law recognizing same-sex marriages performed elsewhere has gone into effect in the District of Columbia.

The bill was approved in a 12-1 vote by the D.C. Council in May, with council member Marion Barry casting the lone no vote.

Congress, which has the final say over the city's laws, had 30 days to review the bill. A push by black church leaders who oppose gay marriage failed to get a referendum on the matter.

And Congress took no action, allowing the bill to become law Tuesday.

Council member David Catania has said that recognizing gay marriages performed elsewhere is a first step toward performing same-sex weddings in the city.

Six states _ Connecticut, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire _ allow same-sex marriage.

That's definitely a step in the right direction - it also helps remind me of how much of a douche Marion Barry is.

A friend of mine introduced me to B.Storm on YouTube. He takes music and does a sign language music video for it. His Marilyn Manson video is awesome.

( Video behind the cut )

Current Music: Marilyn Manson - This is the New Shit

Bernie Madoff gets 150 years in prison for instituting the largest Ponzi scheme in history
I'm interested to see where they have him serve out his sentence. I always assumed he was under house arrest (thinking that rich folks don't serve time in the same way poor folks do). Apparently though he's been housed in the maximum security Metropolitan Correctional Center next door to the courthouse in which he was on trial. Assuming they stick with that or something similar, I'm totally OK with it.

Subject line of one of the spam messages I received this morning: "Postpone your love bomb's explosion."

This is perhaps topped only by the one below it: "Get real rod for doing her avatar fullflavored imponderous."

There is nothing more that needs to be said.

Current Mood: amused

So the Blackberry update I installed erased all my contacts and I cannot seem to recover them. If you feel I should have your phone number (or would like me to have it anyway), please leave it for me here or email me. All comments screened.

I was just glancing through the photos of Alice in Wonderland that just hit the Internet. Every time I encounter something directed by Tim Burton I find that his cinematic vision just doesn't seem to evolve - it's static to the point of stagnancy. The shots from Batman evoke exactly the same mood as the shots from Sleepy Hollow or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It just always feels like he's making the same movie again and again, right down to the actors. I know I'm in the minority when it comes to liking (or in this case disliking) him as a director so I'm curious. What about Tim Burton's films do you enjoy?

Current Mood: curious
Current Music: Covenant - Dead Stars (Version)

On a whim, I picked up a cup of the Siggis brand Icelandic style skyr yogurt I spotted at Whole Foods. I figured for $2.79 for a 6 oz. cup of yogurt, i could afford to try it once and see how it tasted. I went with orange & ginger, it was the flavor that most appealed to me. First of all the taste was wonderful. I'm a sucker for anything with ginger in it and they used real bits of ginger. It tasted richer than the Brown Cow whole milk (with layer o' cream) yogurt however it's 0% fat. It's 120 calories but I found I was getting full about 3/4 of the way through the cup. That might have something to do with it having 16g of protein (that's almost double the amount most yogurt has as I recall). It's good stuff, I'll probably get it again.

I suspect if I made a yogurt on skim milk, strained away some of the water, and threw in a bit of vegetable rennet (they use it as well) I could reproduce the thickness of this yogurt without the hefty price tag. I might have to experiment with this and see.

Current Mood: busy

Current Mood: geeky

Perhaps it's the fact that I was born in New York, but I am a total bagel snob. Bodo's back home in Charlottesville does a damn fine imitation of a New York water bagel, but I've yet to find something comparable in this neck of the woods. The coffee shop near our house brings in H&H bagels, but they're just not the same if they're not fresh. Are there fellow bagelophiles on my f-list and if so, where do you go for a good bagel?