--Henry Ward Beecher

I stand corrected.

One of the mixed blessings of keeping an online journal is that you can post your first reactions to current events just as they're taking place. While it's nice being able to do so, it also presents the possibility of shoving your foot deep into your mouth in public.

So, that AOL/Time Warner rant in my last entry seems to have fit that last category. At least in part. It seems that, unlike most in the silicon biz, America Online has actually been making money. A lot of money. In fact, if the chart in Tuesday's Newsday is to be believed, while AOL's revenue is a fraction of Time Warner's, its net income is several times greater.

I still think AOL is overvalued. I still think the 'Net is still volatile enough that anything can happen with it, and probably will. And I still think AOL sucks, for too many reasons to mention. But, with all of that having been said, okay, it makes more financial sense than I'd thought.

Which is not to say that I haven't done anything lately. Let's see... I moved more of the junk from my room to my closet in the hallway, which I've hardly used until now. It turns out that my closet in the hallways is capable of holding more than one might expect, provided that you don't bother trying to make it possible to get anything out of it. Which is good enough for my present purposes.

Oh, and along the way, amongst those cases of stuff, I found a few more copies of Writer's Digest (annoyingly, I haven't been able to locate the one quote I've wanted, from Madeline L'Engle, but it's gotta be around somewhere); a couple of brand new Scripto Airloc retractable felt-tip pens (I love those pens, but they're extremely delicate, so if you make the mistake of lending one out, even for a moment, it comes back dead); my New York City atlas (I'd wondered where that went); and, ummm, the manual for my first Discman, which was stolen long ago. The Discman was stolen, that is, not the manual. Okay, so not everything I've been saving is particularly useful.

"My hard drive," I replied, without missing a beat, having given the matter some thought in the past.

"That's all you need," she replied.

"But... but there isn't a fire..." I trailed off.

And, really, when you come down to it, what I'd most want to hang onto would be my writings and correspondence. My hard drive happens to have the largest portion of that in the smallest space, but that doesn't mean I'd want to abandon the rest of it, if I could avoid doing so.

Which is not to say that she didn't make a good point.

Why tap? Why not? I've wanted to learn it for ages; I figure it'd be nice to add to my wedding shtick repertoire. The slight crimp in that plan is that I don't imagine there are any tap routines designed for a Hora beat, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, too.

With that having been said, the one truly annoying aspect of the film was the insanely blatant product placement. And I would've prefered to see Penny do more, both because she was my favorite part of the cartoon show, and because she was played by Michelle Trachtenberg, AKA Harriet the Spy. But I'm quibbling.

(It may be worthwhile to recall at this point that I considered Batman and Robin to be the most entertaining movie I saw in the summer of 1997. Which in no way negates the fact that it was a bad movie... but it was an entertaining bad movie. You may now feel free to ignore anything else I have to say on contemporary cinema with a clear conscience.)

No, I haven't entered. I'm not at all unhappy with this journal, but it ain't anywhere near awardable territory.

And I'd thought bookstores were dangerous.

Actually, bookstores probably are more dangerous, all told; I've just had years of exposure to help me build up a bit of resistance. A very slight bit of resistance. Whereas this was my first time in a really big art store.

I think the janitorial staff is still busily wiping up the puddles of drool I left there. Oh, I lusted. I saw the stationery, and I lusted. I saw the pens, and I lusted. I saw the fabric paints, and did I ever lust.

After a trip to the ATM for reinforcement, I walked out of there with the white acrylic paint; some more acrylic paint in all three primary colors; red, black, and blue fabric markers; blue and yellow fabric paint; and a tie-dye kit, with enough of the relevant ingredients for fifteen shirts.

I'm still regretting not being able to get the blank greeting cards on fancy-shmancy Strathmore paper with a deckle edge. I love deckle-edged paper. I'd almost managed to convince myself that it would be economical, too, it being much cheaper than buying individual greeting cards (at seven bucks for twenty cards), but given everything else I bought, I couldn't justify buying it.

Still, when I'm back to scrounging up pennies to buy some macaroni, I'll have only myself to blame...

I still wanna shave, but it can wait 'till spring...

(Incidentally, it's particularly easy to find my posts on their recent messages page just now, as I seem to be the only person there currently hyperlinking their name, which makes it stand out somewhat. Ah, the fringe benefits of established habits...)

What does make me a trifle uncomfortable is that I've brought up my religious identity on there a couple of times in the past few days, which I'd always avoided doing in the past... but, then again, that probably owes more to the newly-widened focus of the site in general than anything else.