The Humane Society is running a photo caption contest about seals. That's right: to enter you have to make a nice (and preferrably funny) caption for the Cute Seal Picture of your choice. Right up my alley! Here's my entry:

...here goes:

Ever since I've had my first computer of my own, I've been using non-Microsoft software as much as I could, except for my OS. Many of my friends have given me good reasons for using alternatives ,and at first I did it just because they said so. Over time, I've grown used to it, and I've also learned more about the advantages, so that nowadays I'm often telling others why they should not use Outlook or Explorer.
So what do I use?
For e-mail, I've been using Eudora for many years. It's a good solid product with nice features. I've always been happy with it.
My browser is K-Meleon, which has grown into a mature browser while I was using it. It used to have an unfinished feel about it but lately it's been getting really good.
Before that, in days of old, I used the Netscape Communicator suite. And I may well be going back to it now.

You see, the company that made Eudora has given up on it. They have handed the code over to the Open Source community, which is in itself most commendable, and I wish software companies would do that all the time with software they'd stop developing.
Currently, an open source version of Eudora is being developed under the name of Penelope. But it's taking them a while, and I'm not sure I want to wait that long. Of course, I could continue using Eudora even when it's not being updated anymore. But wait...

I heard about another interesting open source project, another member of the Mozilla family: SeaMonkey. This is actually not one program but a suite, much like Netscape Communicator was: it contains a browser, an e-mail client, and a HTML editor. In fact, this is the successor of the Communicator suite.
I decided to take it for a spin today and I find myself liking it so much that I may ditch both Eudora and K-Meleon in favour of SeaMonkey.

The browser feels solid and fast; it runs on the same engine as FireFox does (as does K-meleon). My only gripe so far is that it doesn't let me grab and drag the toolbars to a new location. In K-Meleon, I can even stack them so the shorter ones can be in one line together. On a 12" laptop, screen estate is valuable!
But otherwise I felt right at home within the hour. (It may take you a little longer if you're coming from IE. But that's only fair since you have so much more to gain!)

The e-mail client looks slick and doesn't seem to be missing any features. It has a very nice search bar that will allow fast and easy searching for text in message subjects.
Furthermore, it imported my existing mail, server settings and address book from Eudora without batting a digital eyelid.

I'm impressed so far.
If you're looking for both a full-fledged browser and an E-mail client, I suggest you check out SeaMonkey.

I couldn't help myself and just had to order some stuff from Vistaprint again.
Of course, if you use the Very Very Special Offers Just For You - Hurry! that you can get by e-mail, the prices are quite reasonable. edko66 had forwarded me some of the mails (for some reason they'll only ever send me the American offers, no matter how often I try to tell the website that those aren't the one I want), so I could simply pick the best offers.
The best offers happened to come with free picture uploads. Good moment to make some new BookCrossing postcards to tuck into books, send to other BookCrossers or sneak into the Free Postcard-racks in OBCZs.
And perhaps some new stickers for labeling books would be nice, too.
So here's what I came up with:

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, (even if we don't speak often) please post a comment with a COMPLETELY MADE UP AND FICTIONAL memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good or bad - BUT IT HAS TO BE FAKE. When you're finished, post this little paragraph in your journal and be surprised (or mortified) about what people DON'T ACTUALLY remember about you.

(Saw this in miketroll's and diamondlucy's journal and liked the idea.)

A short list of some of my favourite freeware. Yes, sometimes there is such a thing as a free lunch, and it can be pretty damn good, too.


Some other time: how to make web surfing more pleasant, faster and safer at the same time by using a host file. Watch this space!

This is the funniest site I've found in a while. It features images of Jesus that are disturbing, kitschy, laughable or just plain weird. Most of them are not meant to be, and that's what makes them so funny.
Click on the pic if you need a laugh, and if laughing at religious imagery doesn't strike you as sinful. I recommend it.

This one was made by Stoneshop, not me. And yes, Tigger caught the rabbit himself. Now this is a *very* controversial picture, it was refused by the Lolcats site! They probably didn't like it because it shows a dead rabbit. Oooh, how scandalous.
Click on the pic to see a slightly bigger version, and to vote for or against the picture if you like:

See here.
What is it?
It's our kitchencam:
an old dinosaur of a HP digicam; that I bought second hand back in 1997, and that we now use as a webcam so we can see if the breadmaker has finished.
(Our living room is rather far away from the kitchen.)
But currently it's pointed at a LED display board Stoneshop found in a dumpster somewhere, and got back into working order.
Yes, he's a tinkerer. It's one of my favourite things about him.
The display board is running in demo mode, since he hasn't yet found a way to communicate with it and program it. It's strutting its stuff, so to speak; spouting seemingly random words and graphics just to show what it can do.
The camera takes a picture every 45 seconds, which is sent to a PC and shown on the page. Which is then shown on the internets, because we can.
The result is unpredictable.
Techno-poetry. Made with obsolete techology. I love it.

(It probably looks better when seen at night. Like it is now. Here, that is.)

Pretty neat...but I still don't like coffee.
I think I'll make myself a nice cup of tea instead!

The internet is full of them. Webcomics. Some are great, some are awful.
I have a 'group' set up in my browser, which means that I can start a browser window with a set of layers (you may call them 'tabs'), showing a pre-set set of pages; it's a fast way to get my daily dose of webcomics. So here's what's currently in that 'group':

Sinfest
Very nice, well drawn webcomic; deals with man-woman issues (or rather, boy-girl in this case) , cat-dog issues and with religion. Borders on the preachy side sometimes, but is usually good.

The Whiteboard
One of the favourites. Is supposed to be about paintball, but it hardly ever is. Furry characters, Mountain Dew and explosives. The main character reminds me of my boyfriend.

Dilbert
A classic about corporate hell. Often philosophical. Too true to be good. Some people say it's non-fiction; I don't envy them. Dilbert is a great reminder why I'm self-employed.

Wondermark
Very witty and often sarcastic comic made with old illustrations. It's good already but it seems to be getting even better. Check out the alt text, too.

Red Meat
Now this is plain nasty. Childish, black humour which uses a small cast of characters, none of which you'd like to meet up close, and seems to recycle the same drawings all the time. At times it's excellent. Sometimes it's gross. Often it's both.

Dieselsweeties
Pixelated goodness. About the young and the restless, and those who sleep with robots. It has cats, too! Check out the T-shirts; some of them are quite cool.

Brevity
This one is rather clean. Witty, good quality one-panel daily cartoons.

Disassemblance
The young and the goth, this time. Deals with depression, time travel and the hardship of being a Goth Christian. It's not at its best recently, but I'm giving it some time.

Savage Chickens
Plain silly. One-panel Post-it humor. I love it. The chickens don't always play nice, though.

So which webcomics do you keep up with?

I have decided I like it here, so I'm moving all my MySpace blogs over. This has to be done one by one, and some edits are needed, because I don't want the pictures stored there anymore either, for obvious reasons.
That sounds more ominous than I intended; I just mean the links to the pictures will break if/when I decide to delete the account.

Another reason to edit is that I've been learning a bit about how LiveJournal works, and how my entries can be seen on other's friends pages, with different layouts; and while 500+ pixels wide pictures work fine on my layout and my laptop screen, they may be too large elsewhere. So I'm limiting them to 300 pixels, and making them link to a larger version if I have one.

Of course, the comments to these old blog entries are lost. They can't be carried over from MySpace. Oh well.

So my archive will be filling up during the next few days. Nothing spectaculair, just some stuff about books and other things I'm interested in. Feel free to take a look if you're really, really bored.

(Originally posted on MySpace)
Or actually, I was entered into a prize drawing because I filled in a survey.
Or in fact I filled in the survey because it said you could win a watch, and then I was never asked for my e-mail address or any other personal data, so how could anyone ever win it? That's what I asked them in an e-mail, and they answered me, saying: Hmm, you may have a point there.
(Sounds familiar? Check this older blog entry. Am I the only one that notices these things?)
And so they decided that they'd let me win the watch. Either that or I'm the only one they had an e-mail address for.
Today it arrived! And they haven't been cheap about it. The watch looks great.


Yes, I know that it's a men's watch. I don't care. I'm going to have the strap shortened and wear it with pride.
Go, Läkerol!

(Originally posted on MySpace)
Here's another animation. It's quite different from the previous one. In fact it's weird, rude and I love it to bits. If you don't like puns, singing meerkats, sexual innuendo or bad language, don't bother clicking on the pic. If you do, go ahead and enjoy!

(Originally posted on MySpace)
I've just gotten myself a Christmas tree, but since it looks much the same as last year's tree did, I'm not going to bore you with a picture. Instead, I'll post a wonderful Christmas themed video of the Little Mole.
The Little Mole is the brain child of Zdenek Miler from the Chzech Republic, and I've known him since my childhood. Short films like this one were and are shown on German television in the 'Program with the Mouse'.
Without further ado, here he is: the Little Mole and the Christmas Tree. Enjoy.

(Originally posted on MySpace)
Oh, the wonders of processed meat! Mainly, I wonder how people can actually eat the stuff.
See this wonderful series of macro-photographs of some popular processed meats, frequently eaten by inhabitants of the US, or so I'm told. These pictures can be used as a great diet reminder.
It's so good to be a pescetarian! Abominations like those portrayed are rarely done to fish.

Here's a nice example pic so you know what you're in for:

Originally posted on MySpace
There's not much happening on my MySpace page lately. I've been too busy with other things. Seems I actually have a Life!
I'm not the only one, though; many of you seem to have deserted MySpace for now.
I'm so glad it's not just me!

*waves at friends*
See you later, and for now, enjoy your Life!

(Originally posted on MySpace)
...are all over the internet all of a sudden. Either it's that or I've been living under a rock. Suddenly there's lot of 'lolcats' sites like this one or this one.
Here's my very own lolcat:


Well, he makes *me* LOL...
If you like this pic, please go and rate it here!
If you don't, there's no need   ;-)

OK... I promise I won't make a habit out of this but here's another one. I'm told this one is better.


If so inclined, please rate it here.

(Originally posted on MySpace)
Well, others are welcome too, but it probably won't be very interesting.
This is just an announcement of the fact that my very serious and utterly useful (not...) site about instant noodle soup, which is entirely in Dutch (I told you it wouldn't be interesting) now also boasts a forum. Yes, it's also about instant noodle soup, and it's in Dutch, too.
Sorry to have bothered you.
*slinks away*