I have conquered the CRT. I no longer have any tubes in use in my place. I just replace my last 17" monitor with a second 20" Apple Cinema Display. My studio Mac now has dual 20" Cinemas. I was going to buy a 23" one to go with the 20", but the 17" started to die and I didn't have the extra cash, so dual 20" it is. Damn this is nice looking.

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Poking head to post that, according to the Buffista Calendar, today is Kat's birthday. Happy birthday, Kat! With lots of wishes for a great day and a wonderful year!

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Happy birthday, Kat!!

So some forward-looking beach-lovers bought shore places long before the prices skyrocketed.

Friends of the family had bought a house up on Washington Island at the end of the Door County Peninsula in Wisconsin back in the late '50s/early '60s, long before it became fashionable. Since it's right on the water (Green Bay side), I'm sure it's worth a tidy sum now. As far as I know, they never did make it livable during the winter months, considering how isolated the island is during the off-season. They've been up there so long that they're considered islanders, even though they're only seasonal residents. Best story from Noreen was about the time that she went out to get the morning paper dressed in her robe and curlers just as the tourist-filled Cherry Train was driving past. The driver/guide said over the intercom, "And there's Noreen Murphy out for her morning constitutional. Everybody say 'Hi, Noreen!'" And they did, laughing uproariously. She had a few words for the guide the next time she ran into him in town.

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Bzzzzt! Wrong! I've had Mondo Gelato and it's not even on the same tier as Ciao Bella

Ciao Bella's texture is off. It's weird on my tongue.

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Happy Birthday Kat!!!

The thing with the cabins, though, and I'm guessing many of the places in Maine and even on the shore, is that they're not locations where many people would want to live year round. Many of them (for the Wisconsin/Ontario/etc. ones, anyway) don't have services year round like snow removal. So cost-wise, it's a lot more plausible for people without bags of money than it would be in more temperate climes.

This is how it works for us. My mum's place in Maine doesn't even have winter water. The water pipes to the house are right at street level, so there would be freezing issues. In October, the town shuts off the water to the whole street (and many of the streets in the town are like that--not year round housing), and the cottage owners have their house pipes drained of water, and put in anti-freeze, and then just leave. It doesn't have central heat either, but it does have some electric heaters built into the wall, and a fireplace. The electric heat is ridiculously expensive, so even once the place is opened up in mid-April, we wait a bit to go up.

When they bought the cottage '92, they remortgaged their home, and bought it out right. For the first few summers, they rented to family and friends for a few weeks per summer, to help out with the property taxes and water bill.

It is expensive, though. That's one of the reasons my mother is selling her Massachusetts house, and getting a condo. It will be easier to keep the house in Maine, if she does. And since she spends a substantial amount of time there in the summer, it is silly to keep the house in Mass. because really? She's there for falling leaves and snowy weather, which is too much work for her, now. A condo will be better. Ugh. I have to keep saying that to myself. She passes papers on that sale in a week, but I cry every time I think about it. I'm so going to miss my house.

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Happy Birthday Kat!!!!

Yahoo! tells me that fan-fic searches are v.popular, with Harry Potter leading. I'm sure they don't link to the good stuff.

But...NASCAR fanfic? Who knew? Cass, is this what you do when you can't sleep?

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Raq, I didn't want to natter any more than I already had in BBaBB, but I wondered about this post you made:

Not that I'm opposed to user-selectable stylesheets, but why are people opposed to Verdana? Every webdesign class I've had recommends using it, as it's whiskered.

What's whiskered?

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Hey Cindy...I was actually debating putting that in BBaBB++ or here, but I figured it somewhat had to do with the direction of the board.

Anyway, "whiskered" means the font has been designed for or optimized for viewing on a monitor. It's kind of like anti-aliasing. You know how some fonts get all jaggy at different sizes? So Verdana is supposed to be a lot easier to read on screen than Times New Roman, for example.

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Hey Cindy...I was actually debating putting that in BBaBB++ or here, but I figured it somewhat had to do with the direction of the board.

Oh, to be clear, I was only calling what I wanted to ask "Natter"--I just knew mine was a nosy question.

Anyway, "whiskered" means the font has been designed for or optimized for viewing on a monitor. It's kind of like anti-aliasing. You know how some fonts get all jaggy at different sizes? So Verdana is supposed to be a lot easier to read on screen than Times New Roman, for example.

Ah, okay. I like Verdana, myself. I think it is clean looking.

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I like it too, WAY better than TNR. Which is why I was wondering why DX and others (Plei?) dislike it so intensely.

The baby is on his back holding his toes and burbling. It's textbook baby, and totally adorable.

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