Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

As part of setting up my system again, I went to get AdBlockPlus Flashblock for Firefox. There was a "donate $5" link, and I looked at it, and thought that yes, I like that add-on a lot, I'll throw the programmer $5. So, connected to Paypal, specifically their Malaysian instantiation, which told me it was US$5, and that the money was going to Philip Chee. I'd hit the "submit" button before I stopped to think "that name sounds familiar," and I spent a moment wondering if it was the same one. The next day's email included a thank-you note, asking if I was the redbird he knew from rassef. I said yes, and told him he can find me here these days. He said he's too busy for blogs not already in his reader, but that was a nice moment of contact.

On my way home yesterday, I squeezed into the elevator up from the subway platform with three strangers: one was using a cane, the other two were pushing strollers. There were two more women on the platform, one of them visibly pregnant, and room in the elevator for one; they gestured that they'd wait for it to come back. As the doors closed, one of the women with a stroller said something about "so young," sounding as though she thought the women were too young to need the elevator. I said, mildly, that you can't always tell, that I have a bad knee and maybe so does she. (And noted to myself that priority for the elevators is supposed to be disabled and elderly people, not strollers.) Maybe it will help. I don't carry a cane either, but my white hair seems to take me out of the "too young" box in the minds of people who think that young people aren't supposed to need (or admit needing?) any sort of accommodation.

I have bought a yoga mat, on the advice of the trainer I'm working with; it may make some of the stretches and exercises she's teaching me easier or more comfortable. It came with a free exercise DVD; I don't want the DVD, but they didn't have any without the DVD.

Prompted in part by this post of papersky's, and mjlayman's comment there, I have dipped my toe back in rassef. There were in excess of 12 thousand headers since I'd last downloaded that group; I skipped most threads (on the grounds of age or general lack of interest), read or skimmed a few, and commented about chocolate.

I got a friendly email from Marilee Layman a couple of days ago, forwarding a post Dave Langford made to rassef [news:rec.arts.sf.fandom] recently. He was updating a couple of URLs that are cited in my rassef FAQ.

Said FAQ is much in need of updating--I hadn't touched it, not a jot or a tittle, in four years. So I've done a quck-and-dirty update, fixing the specific URLs Dave corrected (Ansible and TAFF) and the Worldcon information; this version is tagged as 1.8.0 (the previous having been 1.7.2) but I make no promises nor predictions as to how soon there will be a 1.8.1. I've barely looked at rassef in months; the FAQ is posted automagically by a server at MIT, which I just sent the updated version to.

A serious update -- any of the actual rassef cultural stuff, rather than just noting that Worldcons are now chosen two years ahead rather than three -- won't be possible unless I start actually hanging out there again, and I don't know how likely that is. But first I have to figure out why the server thinks I didn't include a "newsgroups" line in my email. There was some kind of server glitch, but when I re-sent the exact same message it went through, and will be posted to the newsgroup in mid-December. (I've set it for a 30-day cycle.)