For Christ’s sake, somebody turn on the heat! My beloved Canon returned home last Wednesday. According to the paperwork, they attributed the weird noise to its having “sustained some kind of shock”, which is patently false unless their definition of “some kind of shock” could be fulfilled by having it tap lightly against my sternum if I walk without holding it. That kind of hurts after a while (ever had anyone poke you lightly but repeatedly in a bony spot?), so I don’t even let it do that often. Anyway, it’s back, it’s fixed with a new optical assembly, and the repairs were at no charge to me, so whatever makes them happy in their notes is fine. Now if only the goddamned temperature would get above….oh, let’s say….FUCKING FREEZING! It barely crept above that yesterday, but it was so windy that it felt like it was down in the teens, so we didn’t go to the park. If I don’t get out there today or tomorrow (P’s taking a vacation day), I’m going to miss the lilacs, and that is entirely unacceptable. Yes, lilacs matter. So do cherry blossoms, violets, phlox, Virginia bluebells, and anything else that blooms and looks pretty. Bugs matter, too.

Today’s desktop, because it’s fun to put an adorable widdle cartoon Tux on a very Vista-y wallpaper on a system that doesn’t even run Windows, let alone the bloated, DRM-riddled hog that is Vista. I like Xfce a lot better when it looks mostly like Gnome and still uses fewer resources.