Rinato

Now playing: Shy Child - Drop The Phone
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This happens, without fail, every time we have a guest over: Mum gives us performance reviews.

Today someone came over and about five minutes after she left Mum turned to me, ready to give me my Performance Review.

“Melinda,” She began “I liked how you were chatty and sociable this time, but I wish you wouldn’t make M laugh because of jokes you made about me. She’ll start every conversation with ‘Hey, do you remember that dig your daughter made about you and your…?’. Well, it was better than the last time. You didn’t even talk then,”

“… Thanks Mum”

And then she wandered off, most likely to give my brother or Dad his performance review, or to evaluate her own performance. I bet she has review check lists she fills out after every guest has left. That makes a funny mental image.

It’s one of her cute quirks! While being slightly irritating at times, it makes me laugh and wonder how she got into the habit. I think I may subconsciously take her advice an ‘improve’ a little each time someone comes over.

Now playing: Jack’s Mannequin - Rescued
via FoxyTunes

I had a really scary dream in which I sat all of my VCE exams a month early and had a nervous breakdown in the examination room because I had all of my exams in a row and couldn’t remember anything. It was, well, a nightmare.

And then I ended up failing all of them. And that was the end. My only consolation is, uh… That definitely won’t happen in real life! Nope nope nope…

A photo I took of my cousin. Aww! She is very photogenic. I take masses of photos of her.

Something serious happened within my family and our living situation has changed drastically, so I won’t have access to the Internet/computer for I don’t know how long.

Don’t worry, though: No one has died, and that’s the important part! (Or at least I like to think so)

So yeah, just wanted to give a quick heads up :).

Sometimes I wonder if my youngest cousin (4) will grow up thinking that Morgan from Bananas In Pyjamas has anger management problems and B1 and B2 are are actually sarcastic bitter jerks.

I mention these two facts to her everytime the credits roll for each ten minute episode…

Now playing: Athlete - Wires

Edit: Dood. I just totally fixed it thanks to Amanda giving me a cool link. Hallelujah! But I still don’t take that letter back. IE is causing too much trouble! I will put the new theme up sooooon, so soon.

Dear IE,

A long time ago, I used to be satisfied with you. I used to believe that you were the best way to use the Internet. In fact, I had never known that other browsers existed: I was completely devoted to you.

However, as time passed, I realised that there were better browsers that were not as half as demanding as you. I realised that I was actually behind and did not have a good browsing experience. Although we parted on good terms, I was much happier with my new browser. It was (And is) wonderful. I thought that this was the end of all the pain you had caused me.

But this was not to be. You are a naturally jealous browser, and I soon discovered that you wanted to make my life as difficult as possible. If you could not make me happy, you reasoned, then I would have no choice but to be upset.

When I code layouts, I do try to consider your feelings and make them compatible for you. But lately, you have become very difficult. You throw tantrums while other browsers display my layouts in near perfection. I do not appreciate this. I am not sure I can bend over backwards for you much longer.

This is your final warning! I am, desperately, asking for your co-operation. This is not a difficult task. I am fairly easy to please. All I ask is that you either imitate a better browser (Preferably Firefox), or commit an Internet form of suicide. That is all. It is not hard, is it?

Yours truly,
Melinda.

… If you didn’t get it, I am designing something rather smashing and it looks just fine in every browser other than IE. I would dismiss this and carry on my merry way, but the change is drastic: The sidebar jumps to the bottom of the page, so it looks horrible and my site is hard to use. I… Can’t tell you how frustrating that is! Ugh. I like the theme very much, and I am trying everything but it isn’t working. I am this close to deciding to sod the whole thing and apologize profusely to IE users in advance… While at the same time strangling them for using such a craptastic browser.

About two weeks ago, I was riding in the car with my four year old cousin in my lap. It was late (About 12:00) and we had a wonderful view of the sky and the stars shining very brightly. I said, pointing at the stars while tickling her tummy, “Look at the stars! They’re very bright tonight,”. She agreed.

About thirty seconds later she came up with “Look at the stars so that you can dream of stars tonight, and the sky will be full of glitter,”.

… I found that surprisingly poetic. From a four year old? Impressive! I said “That was incredibly poetic. You don’t know what that means, but you’ll find out when you get older,”

She just made happy bubbles and looked at the stars some more.