Rick:

Buffistas need to stop scaring themselves with unvalidated internet tests. You go to a therapist if you have persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, or anger that cause you significant distress. You go to a therapist if you have symptoms that interfere with your ability to maintain strong, satisfying social relationships or your ability to make a living. You don’t go to a therapist because you turn out to be different from the average American. For that, you need only rejoice.

In Natter --

brenda: Somewhere I aquired a Donny Osmond doll, and the best part was that it came with a little purple satin dickey. Even when I was seven I knew there was something not right about that.

Not gleaning someone else's woe for comedy, really I'm not. In technology:

DXM: Speaking of power supplies, a loud cracking noise just came from my main machine, followed by the odor of electrical smoke. That can't be good.

Daniel Jensen: Whoops. That's the magic smoke. Without it, your computer can't compute well.

DXM: Fortunately, power supplies are cheap. I'm just worried that it took something with it. It was a pretty loud bang, the most spectacular failure I've ever witnessed.

Tommyrot: Was it preceded by a synthesized female voice saying, "Warning. Magic smoke containment failure in one minute."?

DXM: Nope, but I may have turned that option off when I set the thing up.

The other possibility is that it was attacked by a Lutheran space fleet from my kitchen sink. That would explain a lot.

Daniel Jensen: Actually, if it was white smoke, your computer may have a new pope.

So, maybe Space Catholics.

DXM: Electrical smoke is supposed to be blue, isn't it? At least that's what my physics professor said. Would that mean BB King was elected Pope?

Steph L: This just in: blue eyeshadow makes me look like a clown. Or a whore. Or a clown that was so unfunny that she had to become a whore.

Raq: Breaking news: Mallory is crawling. Just started. And he's heading towards the power cord for the modem, so we could lose Intern

Robin in Natter: Watched the Colbert Report (or as I like to think of it, "My Secret Boyfriend's New Show Where He Sends Me Secret Love Messages Through His Eyes") last night. Thought is was awfully funny, but agree that it might not hold up over the long run.

Emily: I'd like to offer up a question to the hivemind. If you were submitting your resume to support your application for, oh, anything at all, would you include the freaking end dates of your previous positions, or just the starting years, as though perhaps you were still teaching in Prague despite having worked in Kansas for the last 17 years?!?!

It needed a double interrobang. I mean, it's personally annoying for me, because I need to ferret out end dates or make them up out of whole cloth, but what really gets to me is -- how can anyone think this is appropriate? Why would you just put the start years?

Calli: I'd only do this if my job history had some holes:

1997: Started at Big Important Company 2001: Started at Small, yet Boutique and Impressive Company (unsaid: January 1998: booted from BIC and spent the next three years living in parents' basement, eating junk food, and writing porny fanfic. Which I'd worry about being my fate in a few months if it wasn't for the fact that my parents don't have a basement. So you can imagine my relief.)

I'm just the setup, in Natter:

Kate P.: I have a question: if it's the 21st named storm, how come it starts with the 23rd letter of the alphabet? Shouldn't it be Hurricane Uma?

Dana: They skip some letters.

Calli: I believe they skip U, X, Y, and Z. And possibly Q. Pity. If we had to have this many hurricanes in a season, the least they could do would be to name one "Xena". Or "Zod". I'm not picky.

amych: They skip q, u, x, y, and z in the naming scheme.

(Hugely x-posty, natch. Or should that be alpha-posty, since the alphabet ends after W.)

(Leading me to wonder, does the world?)

Prognosticatey in Firefly:

Kevin:
The week of Serenity mudslinging begins tomorrow! From the theatre counts it looks like Serenity is going to almost completely disappear in the US on Friday.

Allyson:
I'm not sure why that triggers mudslinging.

brenda m:
Oh! I know! Cause we can all blamey on each other, and this time, we can back it up with data! Rock on.

Unrelatedly, does Google have a site yet where I can get specific by-theatre attendance numbers for theatres near people I don't like anyway, so I can start throwing some rocks? Just asking.

Allyson in GWW:

I mean, I could have come up with the name Lance Steelcock somewhere, but I have no recollection of it and don't want to take credit for anyone else's phallus.