JURY DUTY
7:42A

Have been playing touch and go with having to do jury duty. On the third day of calling in, my number was up. I had to fill out a long-assed questionnaire, and then was called back for yesterday.

300 people in a waiting room is interesting to watch for about the first hour. Fortunately I came prepared with my triple grande cafe mocha, a bottle of water, my Palm (with a couple of blogs, A List Apart, Yahoo News, and Salon loaded up), my journal, an ID magazine, a slice of banana nut loaf, and the current book I'm reading ("The Blue Flower" by Penelope Fitzgerald). Well, that took me through the second and third hour. (If this comes up again, bring something to learn and a highliter.)

At lunch I went home and checked with HR to see what the policy for jury duty was after overhearing all the variations from other prospective jurors. Turns out my company will pay full salary for the first month, but nothing afterwards. When I did get in to see the judge/attorneys/the accused with the other 90 potentials, I was able to claim financial hardship and was excused around 5:15 p.m.

This was my first experience from this particular vantage point with the justice system. It was surreal to be in a courtroom with the attorney making a joke, the judge laughing, the potentials laughing, the accused laughing. And talking about multiple murders in between.

One little personal knot I uncovered during this experience was that although I'm not against the death penalty, I am unable to personally participate in deciding that a person should die. I found I don't think I can live with myself after doing something like that. So, that means I personally shove off that nasty little task to someone more hardcore, and I don't feel like that's right. Makes me think that if I can't personally participate, how can I support the death penalty? But yet if someone murdered my dear Sherah, I'd want them to fry. Hmmm, more soul-searching required…

BELIEVE IT OR NOT
9:08A

Can you believe the elections? I think we're gettin a primo opportunity to see how the presidential candidates will behave under pressure, and that's always an interesting observation.

Speaking of 'can you believe it', there are people out there who are not named Michelle. I know, I know, it's a handicap many struggle with. You've got to admire their courage. Here are the latest additions to Believe It Or Not:

The Barbara Page
Hey Bob
Jane-ism: A social philosophy for a modern society (I particularly like her 'Jane-ism the Austen Way'.)
Melissas of the Web Unite

Always like to keep up with local grrls. Here's Lilly Tao, another Funnyvale resident and my newest shining light.

Another shining light, Willa, has a blog for Mac news, MacBlog.

Just finished a massive pruning of fem•mass yesterday. So sad. Lost my very first fem•mass'r. If the pages hadn't been updated this year, gone. If they hadn't grown, gone. I removed the 'link me' links from all the pages, as I found it too hard to tell people no they couldn't be listed because I didn't think they 'shined'. Such a subjective thing. And I really don't like hurting people's feelings. Balance missing some of those great homepages that just fall out of the air via email with better control of content. Will have to see how it works out.

Ran across Dinah's Outline of Web Design Process. She also includes The Mormon's Guide to Avoiding Masturbation, and Why is Spam Bad?. Such a diverse grrrl.

Uncle Joe's fiesty 11-8th entry in Metacubed.

Now back to prowling for more shining lights before I go to BillyBob's birthday party. I can't believe it's been two years since he was born. Let me tell you, being a grandmother is much much much easier than being a mother.

GO VOTE
7:25A

This just in: Due to expected heavy voter turnout, Democrats are to vote today; Republicans will vote tomorrow. Now, back to your regularly scheduled broadcast.

STUPID TURKEY TRICK
8:48P

If you bake a turkey for Thanksgiving, cut aluminum foil into whatever shape (ex., a bikini) and lay on top of the turkey. Bake the turkey.

Hey, just gettin in the mood.

I saw that the width attribute was going away in the TD tag. What?!? So, I did some looking around to see how to declare the width of a TD within CSS. Here's one example of how a multiple column page with no table, no width can be achieved.

Check your style sheets online. And here's CSS Browser Support charts.

Viewable with Any Browser, Campaign for a Non-Browser Specific WWW. See their Accessible Site Design.

Looking for a different browser off the beaten path? Pretty Much OK With…

Misc:
Joe Gillespie tells how to optimize your monitor for web design.
Michael Moore asks the hard questions. I'm glad someone is trying to point out the facts.
A really stupid penis trick.
Dennis Interactive. Nice clean flash.
Ezine Tips

BUILDING PAGES IN THE DARK
1:16P

My server seems to be down right when I'm in the middle of things. I can load up stuff, but can't see my site hence the 'building pages in the dark'. *sigh*

At least it doesn't prevent me from gettin outta the house…

Started November's project: fem•mass. Does it seem a little brighter? It should, I've added the following shiny people:

Auntie Teck, a woman with a sense of humor. Although it's 'home for women in Asia', I like to visit too. Where else can you get articles on how to bind your breasts.

Cat, a woman with a cat named Steve.

Rachel Andrews. My heart always goes out to little mamas trying to raise the kids and themselves.

Sarah. Just to sit still and live through something is sometimes the hardest thing to do.

Tuff Femme, for 'strong minded, strong bodied, and strong spirited women'.

Feminist Media Watch, a collective news blog about women-related issues.

Steve Case of AOL and wife donate $8Mil to religious school with anti-gay ministry ties. Has anyone checked to see who Bill Gates and his honey donates to?

Not that I'm looking to get out of the country any time soon, but I thought this link would be handy - passports and info.

I have a wonderful hairstylist, Tracy. I bring in a couple of hair mags and say I want these bangs, this side, this back, and voila, Tracy puts it all together. I would list her url or the url of L'Image in Los Altos, but they don't have a website. And, yes, I've told them they need one. In the meantime, here's where you can see a variety of do's, and a few don'ts.

I just got BBEdit 6.0 and downloaded this handy-dandy plug-in for it, BBTidy, checks and Corrects HTML and XML.

From local girl, Jean: Marijuana As Art. She also won 2nd place in this year's Santa Clara County Fair for her pict, Medical Marijuana Rx.

Leave it to Wyyrd-Boy to come up with this: Victorian Sex Cry Generator.

Mothers, hide the children. I get lots of people saying the Stupid Penis Tricks are nice, but where are the Stupid Pussy Tricks? Here's one.

It's just amazing the stuff I can find.

2:30P…Still no can see. I set aside a hole Sunday Funday afternoon (including making sure Honey is occupado) for pruning fem•mass…

4:35P
While pruning pages in fem•mass…
I am saddened to learn that Ginkgo aka Eve committed suicide last week. She was a lovely person who created a powerful personal homepage with her pictures and words. I hope Eve is now at peace and no longer in pain. Here's a few words from her husband, Mark.

FIVE YEARS
6:46A

Five years on the Web! You can read about the journey complete with my archived versions of LMichelle and others.

You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll say dang, what's up with that horizontal page? I did five designs all vertical, all rejected because they looked like some kinda table of contents and didn't feel right. So, I went horizontal hoping people wouldn't mind scrolling. I did look into a javascript that would scroll horizontally, but it wouldn't consistently work on all browsers/platforms, hence the old-fashioned scroll your own.

I've met so many wonderful people during this time. Received lots of positive input, encouragement, and smiles from people I've never physically met, but whom I feel close to. Great experience.

The object of this month's project is my fem•mass area. I'm reconsidering what qualifies as a shining personal homepage as personal homepages have evolved over the past four years. I look forward to being inspired. Always gets me right *here*.

I haven't gotten outta the house much this past week since I've been enveloped in the journey, but here are a couple of links I did run across:

Truth in Advertising, funny QT movie. See if anything sounds familiar.