Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"I was one of those who was very happy when the original prohibition amendment passed. I thought innocently that a law in this country would automatically be complied with, and my own observation led me to feel rather ardently that the less strong liquor anyone consumed the better it was. During prohibition I observed the law meticulously, but I came gradually to see that laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law.

"Little by little it dawned upon me that this law was not making people drink any less, but it was making hypocrites and law breakers of a great number of people. It seemed to me best to go back to the old situation in which, if a man or woman drank to excess, they were injuring themselves and their immediate family and friends and the act was a violation against their own sense of morality and no violation against the law of the land." -- Eleanor Roosevelt (b. 1884-10-11, d. 1962-11-07), My Day (newspaper column) 1939-07-14

( Eleanor Roosevelt, on Prohibition )

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[grrrr... need line-eater food again]

Thursday: bad day, but somehow productive anyhow.

Friday: bad day, but followed by a very pleasant evening/night.

Saturday and Sunday: *oof* ... paying the price for Friday night.

Today: sleep pattern entirely %$#^'ed up; apparently still paying for having lost track of how many spoons I was using up having fun Friday -- but I did manage to shovel the sidewalk, at least, and with luck I'll crash soon and be in shape to accomplish one or two items from my to-do list tonight. (I meant to wait until it stopped snowing to shovel, but when I got outside I found that it had merely transitioned from big slow flakes to teensy flakes, but I think the rate of accumulation had slowed enough for clearing the sidewalk to be un-silly.)

Tried to watch shows I'd recorded over the weekend, once I felt conscious enough to do so. Discovered that one DTV converter, where I had adjusted the antenna so as to make sure the station I wanted was coming in well, decided it didn't like that station after all, so I recorded several hours of black screen with wee blue box informing me that there was no picture, and occasional bursts of kaleidoscopic noise. Also discovered that the other DTV cnverter had forgotten its volume setting (yes, the DTV box has its own volume control (and a mute button, but the mute symbol was not showing)) and had transformed three hours of Law & Order variants into pantomime. Oddly enough, despite not recording anything useable Friday and Saturday nights, the same stations produced almost good recordings Sunday night! (There was the occasional no-picture right at a dramatic moment, but I could follow the plots.)

Dammit, so far DTV just means "more stages at which things can break or glitch", drasticaly reducing the odds of seeing the shows that I want to see (and, in case anyone whose opinions and fears matter more than mine in this world, that advertisers really want me to watch, okay?)

I figure the bugs'll get worked out eventually ... but I probably won't be able to afford the next, un-subsidized, generation of converters.

Will try to post something vaguely witty later when I'm feeling more coherent and less grumpy.

Getting to 3LF tonight is unlikely, but if I've slept and woken up again by then, and hear that the roads are fine, and it hasn't been cancelled, then I'll try to get there.

'Nuther 'argh!': Finally managed to clip most of Perrine's claws, which was a win of substantial magnitude, but she was able to keep two retracted despite my best efforts, and they're on a front paw, so I'm still getting riddled with tiny holes when she kneads my ribs or my shoulder. Gotta get those last two!

( Brief summary of how my last few days have gone, short on detail, a little longer on grumpiness than is really warranted, with a not-quite-promise of more interesting reading sometime later )

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