wherein Liz is still pissed off at Microsoft

Feedback message I sent to Microsoft about what they did to Hotmail:

To whom it may concern:

Has it never occurred to you that some people use services because they like the way the services are currently set up and do NOT, in fact, appreciate the services being changed without any way to opt out of the changes? Because that is how I feel. I have disliked every "upgrade" you have made to Hotmail over the years (...okay, except for the increased memory limit, because that one -- unlike the others! -- had NO EFFECT on the appearance or function of the site) and I do not appreciate your cheery assurances that I will like the new version of the site if I just give it a chance! I do not want to give it a chance. I just want the old site back.

Also your layout has way too much eye-searing white. It is actually somewhat painful to look at without adjusting my monitor display such that the rest of the internet becomes unreadably dark. Would it really be THAT much of an imposition to offer a skin to make the site look like Hotmail again?

Sincerely,
Elizabeth Culmer

...

I would have said more but their feedback form has a character limit. Grrr.

stuff about stories

I keep finding things wrong with my Ouroboros Mix fic. Like, yesterday I finished the scene I'd realized I needed to insert -- yay! -- and then this morning in the shower I realized the reason I keep being unhappy with the other scene I've been rewriting over and over is that it is the wrong scene. It's working completely against the emotional and thematic arc of the story, which is probably why it has grown longer and longer and longer and still never felt quite right.

So I will be ripping that out and redoing it yet again. Argh.

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In other news, last night I had a dream about two lesbian scholars/augurs/religious teachers who basically invented the germ theory of disease and a bunch of basic epidemiology on Firsthome, back a thousand years or so before Ekanu's day. It was the sort of dream where you wake up and think, "Okay, I have two main incidents and they both make reasonable narrative sense, but how the hell do I connect them into a single story because there are several years between them and... oh, right, flashbacks, duh."

Their names are Hesotha and Ujamulala, and they are from the same geographic region as Ayutha the carter from Clockwork. I should write an outline of their story before I forget the details. :-)

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And now, laundry!