From the beginning, it was hard to imagine how Blockbuster was going to get away with its "No More Late Fees" campaign. It was just ludicrous -- yeah, no more "late fees," but if you kept a movie more than seven days, they charged you the full price for it! So instead of being charged, what, $5 or something if you bring it back late, you're going to be charged $50 or more. Sounds like a great deal to me!

Blockbuster settles complaints about 'No Late Fees' policy - Mar. 29, 2005

The U.S. Living Will Registry has a collection of links to free Advance Directive Forms, i.e., Living Wills, so that you can make your wishes known while you are able to do so. It's a good idea. I filled one out today.

Here's the explanation of the 911 Feature for Vonage. It makes sense, I guess. Basically, since the phone service is web-based rather than a landline, if you call 911, they have no idea where you are. You have to sign up for the service and register your physical address, and if you move, taking the service with you, you have to change the registration address as well.

Certainly worth checking into if you have a web-based broadband phone service, and being sure that it's activated.

Did you know that if you have Vonage as your telephone service provider, you can't dial 911 unless you've signed up for that service separately? I don't have it, but that seems strange to me. What this article doesn't explain is why it's that way. CNN.com - Web service sued over consumer access to 911 - Mar 23, 2005

He meant it as a piece of religious satire, a playful look at the life of Jesus. But Gerhard Haderer's depiction of Christ as a binge-drinking friend of Jimi Hendrix and naked surfer high on cannabis has caused a furore that could potentially land the cartoonist in jail.

Haderer did not even know that his book, The Life of Jesus, had been published in Greece until he received a summons to appear in court in Athens in January charged with blasphemy.

Crazy, because in the first place, jailed for Blasphemy??

But okay, presumably countries are allowed to make their own laws, and they don't have to make sense, really, you just have to abide by them, assuming you live or work there, I guess.

But to think that you could do something such as write a book, in your own country, and be subject to arrest in another country because of it, is just ludicrous. I'm not judging the merits of the book, because I haven't seen it, but certainly cartoonists do push the envelope of taste and propriety every day. Do writers now need to worry because everything they write is subject to government approval everywhere in the world? Sounds like the stuff of science fiction.

I was looking for a link where an aromatherapy eye pillow like my rabbit could be found, and found this: Animal Shaped Eye Pillows. Mine is just like "Rudi Rabbit." I guess they changed his name. Mine looks just like Rudi Rabbit, but mine is filled with lavender. Sydney Greensheep sounds interesting, with lavender and peppermint. Also the ones with mugwort (like Eartha Cat): "Sleeping on mugwort is thought by some to reveal dreams of the future."

Even people who love that cat admit that she is, in fact, the most annoying. She's a rescue, and very literally neurotic about being petted. She must be touched, at ALL times, including the middle of the night, and will pat your nose (with claws out sometimes) over and over and over, no matter how many times you fling her off the bed, hoping that you might pet her little head just a bit.

For awhile, Dinah would wake me up in the middle of the night by reaching out and touching my face with her paw. Endearing, but annoying. She hasn't done that for awhile now, but she does insist on being on my lap every single freaking moment that I'm home. Again, endearing, but annoying. And it's not just that she has to be on my lap, she has to be on my lap with her little head cradled on my wrist. Otherwise, it just isn't right.

Yarn-A-Go-Go

I had begun my blog two months before, imagining that it would act as a journal, a way of taking notes on my life, and at the same time be a sort of marketing tool to remind readers that I still existed in between novels. Almost immediately I discovered in myself a confessional impulse, a compulsive need to haul open the tattered edges of my emotional raincoat and expose the nasty parts lurking beneath.

Salon.com Life | Living out loud -- online

Speaking of God. It's snowing AGAIN in New York. Okay, we GET IT already Dude. It's like He spilled some orange juice on His weather machine, stickin' all the keys together, and He's like mashing on the keyboard trying to fix it. Just hit CTRL-ALT-SPRING already. Please.

Alien Loves Predator

U.S. and Austrian lawyers have filed a lawsuit demanding Thailand, U.S. forecasters and the French Accor group answer accusations they failed in a duty to warn populations hit by December's Tsunami disaster, a lawyer said Monday.

The tsunami disaster was horrific, no question about it. But when did we begin to think that someone has to be responsible for everything that happens to us, that there must always be someone to blame?

Does this mean that I should sue the State of Kansas the next time a tornado comes through, or that I can sue the local weatherman who fails to predict a snowstorm? I'm not making light of this, of course, but I do think that our society has become incredibly, ridiculously litigious.

You can't fool Mother Nature. And you can't sue her, either.

Yahoo! News - Victims Sue Thailand, U.S., Accor Over Tsunami

A friend sent me the link to this petition drive by Lifetimetv.com "in partnership with physicians, advocates and survivors across the nation." It has to do with legislation that will be introduced in Congress this year to "require insurance companies to cover a 48-hour minimum stay for mastectomy patients and a 24-hour stay for a woman undergoing a lymph node dissection. The legislation ensures that a doctor and a patient will make a decision together about staying at a hospital after a mastectomy."

I know that when I had my hysterectomy, I was stunned to find out that my insurance company considered it an "outpatient" procedure. My surgeon felt that I needed to stay in the hospital at least overnight, and fortunately, the insurance company agreed to cover that expense.

Hospital care is enormously expensive, and you can't blame the insurance companies for wanting to make money, but when you're talking about the welfare of patients, it should be a little different than most forms of commerce, I think.

He can say such terrible, mean things to me, and then, later that day, be so kind and sensitive that it brings tears to my eyes. He was always this way, accepting and fair, but capable of casual meanness; but he's mostly quite accepting of people. When he was 7 and we first started looking for his father, I asked him what he would do if it turned out that his father was strange, or standoffish, and Sam said genuinely, "Oh, I wouldn't care. I wouldn't care if he was a crook. I wouldn't care if he had a gun. I wouldn't care if he cut down trees and didn't replant." You can see that we live in an ecologically correct area.

But survey researchers plan to start calling cell phone users manually, making those calls on weekends. They want to develop a plan of reimbursement for respondents' time or lost cell phone minutes and come up with a code of ethics and safety so research calls don't endanger cell phone users involved in activities like driving.

Gee, I wonder how they'll manage that? "Rule No. 1: Don't call anyone while they're driving. Rule No. 2: When someone answers, ask them if they're driving. If they say yes, ask them when would be a more convenient time to call. Rule No. 3: If they agree to talk to you while driving, and you hear a crash, hang up immediately and delete that cell phone number from the records."