Jennie Day Blog

Eggs

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I’m sad to share that this summer, Joel and I said goodbye to our sweet kitty, Eggs.

Joel adopted Eggs when he was a teenager and Eggs was a kitten, and they had 17 wonderful years together. I only got to know him in his final 7 years, and he was sick most of them. But it didn’t stop him from being the most affectionate cat I can remember meeting. He’d snuggle in our laps when we watched TV and curl up either alongside or on top of us in bed at night.

Eggs could not be deterred from snuggles – this was what happened when Joel wouldn’t let him crawl into his lap.

It’s bittersweet going through the pictures from before he was sick. We didn’t really feel ready to say goodbye (is anyone, ever, ready to say goodbye to a beloved pet? Rhetorical question.) And because his decline was pretty slow, it was easy to ignore how sick he actually looked. He’d been a 15 pound cat when I met him; in his final days, he weighed just 6 pounds.

Eggs was always a willing model when I wanted to play with my camera. A few of my favorite photos from his better days:

This one always makes me laugh. Sometimes auto-focus is not my friend.

Joel has always maintained that Eggs loved Mount Rainier, and would get really excited and talkative whenever he heard people say “Mount Rainier,” even just on TV. We decided to spread his ashes there, and picked a beautiful sunny day this summer to go hiking and find the perfect spot to lay Eggs to rest.

We both miss him terribly. Though the more recent memories of him are the countless vet visits and messes and him being sick, what I hope we remember is the stubborn but very loving cat that he always was.

The Follow-Up Files

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One of the things that inhibited me from returning to my blog for so long is that I’m a completist and I wasn’t sure where to jump back in when there were so many loose threads dangling. Should I finish up the recaps from my Belize trip? Should I recreate my media library that was lost when I transfered my hosting subscription?

I read through my archives and found a few small things that I’ve always meant to follow up on, so I decided to start there.

Christmas Tree Garland

Back in 2013, I wrote that I wanted to string together the origami roses from our wedding into a garland for our Christmas tree. If I remember right, it took an entire year before I got around to it, but the garland turned out even better than I anticipated and I love that we have this memento from our wedding to put up every year. It is quite fragile and not very long, so it only adorns the top few feet of the tree, and I know it won’t last forever. But I’m enjoying having it for as long as it lasts.

Julep

Then in 2014, I posted a couple of times about how much I love Julep, a monthly nail polish and beauty product subscription. Four years later, I still use and love their products — although, to be honest, I skip my monthly subscription box as often as I receive it simply because it’s easy to accumulate way too much nail polish when you get some every month. To follow up: I still use their nail polish and nail care products exclusively. They’ve released a ton of makeup products in the ensuing years, and I think the lip products are solid but the eye and face makeup doesn’t wow me. HOWEVER, their new Korean skincare line is fantastic – I use the “What Your Skin Needs” moisturizer and “Boost Your Radiance” facial oil daily. If you want to give Julep a try, I have a referral code that you can use to support my nail polish habit.

Clothes and Downsizing

Also in 2014, I wrote about cleaning out my closet. I kept it pretty sparse for a couple of years, but last year, I lost some weight needed to replace a number of items … and in the past three months I’ve bought almost an entirely new wardrobe and am wearing maternity clothes pretty much exclusively. But the lessons learned in those couple of years were helpful: if I repeat outfits, NO ONE notices except for me. If I keep up on the laundry, I don’t need to own an extensive wardrobe. Also, well-fitting and comfortable shoes make a big difference for feet and knees and hips and backs and are worth spending a bit more money on.

ANYway, the point I want to make is that although I still love reading about other peoples’ experiments and success stories in having less clothing, less isn’t always better. Our bodies change, and our tastes change, and often what we wear has to change accordingly. I hung on to a lot of clothing that had become too big for me to wear, but I was glad to have it earlier in my pregnancy, and I’m sure I’ll wear it again postpartum – even temporarily.

I’ll spare you a picture of my closet at the moment because I had to fully rearrange it to accommodate the maternity clothes and it’s not at it’s organized best. At some point, I’ll take everything out and reorganize, but I’ve had too many other priorities around the house lately.

Bullet Journal

I started keeping a bullet journal in 2015, and posted about transitioning to a pricey planner in 2016. Well, I gave up on that planner after four months and went back to keeping a bullet journal in a plain Moleskine notebook. That lasted most of 2016 until I misplaced my little notebook and then I gave up on a paper planner altogether. I went back to keeping a daily task list in Evernote, so I have access to it from my phone and my computer at work. But I haven’t found a solution that I really love. This time of year, I get really excited about pretty planners, but remembering my previous experience, I am reticent to spend the money. I don’t really have a point or solution right now. Just wanted to throw out there that my enthusiasm about paper planners and notebooks has pretty much died.

“Plans Are of Little Importance, But Planning Is Essential”

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At the end of 2014, I was introduced to the Bullet Journal style of journaling and note taking. I bought a Moleskine notebook, and wrote in a post that I’d be using it to get organized.

Well, ignoring the obvious fact that it’s taken me this long to get organized enough to post about it, Bullet Journaling was a very successful endeavor. The first thing I did most every morning was sit down and make my to-do list for the coming day. On Sundays, I’d think about the coming week, and in the final days of the month, I’d start thinking about the next month.

I took that simple, plan notebook with me everywhere I went because it had everything I needed in it:

  • Monthly appointment book
  • Monthly goals/tasks
  • Daily to do list
  • Weekly meal plan and grocery list

Once early on in the year, I triple booked myself one evening and had to reschedule an appointment and choose between two social events that I’d really wanted to attend. And one time, I missed an appointment that I’d forgotten to write down. Considering that, before using this system, I used to chronically overbook myself or forget appointments, this is a decent track record for me.

But sometime in August (i.e. around the time our bathroom remodel started going awry) I fell out of the habit, and the few things I didn’t like about the endless possibilities of blank sheets of paper became overwhelming. But I knew that keeping everything in a notebook was a more manageable system for me than my old method which was scattered between a Google calendar, Outlook calendar on my work computer, Evernote, and unending pieces of scratch paper or post-it notes.

So I decided to venture into the world of planners.

You may be thinking this doesn’t sound like a harrowing prospect, but … you may be wrong. It turns out that planners/planning are huge fads on blogs and Pinterest and YouTube. I quickly felt overwhelmed by the stickers and washi tape and multiple colored pens “systems,” so I just picked the brand that seemed to have the best reviews (Erin Condren Life Planner) and ordered one with the most subdued cover that I could find.

ec_life_planner_cover

Keep in mind that I was going from plain sheets of paper, to …

ec_life_planner

(Forgive me for showing a blank spread and keeping my lists of tasks and chores and appointments to myself.)

And, well. I didn’t love it. At first.

But now that I’ve been using it for a little more than a month, I’ve gotten used to and quite like the structure (although I’m slightly embarrassed to use it in the office because of the over-the-top girliness.) I organize my tasks for the day into three categories “work,” “chores around the house,” and “everything else.” I haven’t quite figured out what to do with all the other blank spaces yet.

To be honest, part of me would love to ditch the cheesy planner and pick up a new, blank Moleskine – I felt particularly inspired after seeing some of the show-and-tell posts on the Bullet Journal blog. But I already spent the money on the fancy planner, and it occurred to me that the important part is the writing down of my tasks and appointments, not what I write them in.

And indeed, Winston Churchill said it better than I could, in his quote which inspired and became the title of this post – “plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.” I’ve found it to be entirely true (and probably my biggest qualm about this planner-decorating craze on blogs and Pinterest.)

Plans are flexible – they have to be, because life is messy and you come down with a cold or have to tear your bathroom apart for the second time in six months. My planner is full of cross outs and scribbles. It’s not beautiful (there’s a reason I’m not sharing a picture of a filled out page.)

But the sitting down first thing in the morning to make my to-do list for the coming day, and on Sundays, thinking about the coming week, and in the final days of the month, looking ahead at the next month – that’s the essential part.

Oh, but next year, I’m not going to bother with one of these trendy (ahem, $$) planners. I’ll just get another plain, blank Moleskine notebook.

Of Snark, Sockpuppets, and Trolls: Being Famous on the Internet

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First, a note: this post originally started as three separate posts about disparate topics, all of which were interconnected in my head. It has become one mega post. I tried to explain the connecting threads, but this might all read like nonsense. If you manage to make it all the way to the end of the post and it doesn’t make sense, please accept my apologies; if you manage to make it all the way to the end of the post, I hope it’s at least thought provoking and you’ll let me know what you think.

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About a month ago, Rand from Moz posted about a video on his blog. It’s about the world of indie games, but on a grander scale, it’s about becoming famous and how popularity changes people and the internet.

It’s about a guy named Phil Fish.

Rand encouraged anyone in marketing to watch it, so I did. And then I watched it again. And a couple more times since.

I implore you to watch it too, but assuming that not everyone will, here’s a quick summary: Phil Fish became famous in the world of indie games, mostly for being outspoken on a games forum. Over the course of several years, that fame turned to hatred, and eventually, he was famous among the indie game community mostly for being hated.

internet celebrities

Screenshot from “This Is Phil Fish.”
I don’t know anything about the world of indie games … but on GOMI, my favorite snark site devoted to talking about bloggers, this same scenario has played out several times.

It usually starts with a well-intentioned person starting a blog and gaining a bit of traction. With that attention, the new blogger begins to behave differently, which leads to criticism, which leads to a blogger backlash against “the haters,” which leads to backlash against … the backlash, I suppose (or maybe at this point it’s a backlash against the backlash of the backlash?) Snarkers keep reading just to hate on the blogger, and pick apart every tweet and Instagram and typo. Eventually, the snarkers can’t remember why they liked the blogger in the first place and the blogger is famous, it seems, for being hated.

Although that example is specific to bloggers, it happens all over the internet. The internet allows us to build communities and connect with people who like same niche things that we like.

This gets just a moment’s mention in “This Is Phil Fish,” but I think it’s one of the more important points:

subculturally important

Screenshot from “This Is Phil Fish.”
What’s important to us, on an individual level, isn’t necessarily important to the culture at large. But it is important to other people, and we can connect with them in these subcultures. The more we talk about the things or people that are important to us, the more important they become.

I think this splintering of cultural importance is such a compelling point in the video, because if it weren’t for subcultures, people like Phil Fish would have no chance of achieving fame of any kind, and thus, no chance of being hated on such a large scale.

The central argument made by Ian Danskin (who made the video) is that internet fame is passive – something that happens to you. This is in contrast to the pre-internet idea of celebrity, which is something that you actively buy into (by signing contracts and creating records or movies or news or erm … legislature (my political naiveté is showing).)

This is my only point of contention with “This Is Phil Fish,” and the reason I’m posting this response. But I’ll explain myself with another story of internet fame.

Recently, I was linked to the story of Msscribe, a Live Journal user c. 2003-2006 who became internet famous in the Harry Potter fanfic community, mostly for being picked on by religious zealots. Most of those turned out to be sock puppets, but don’t worry – her fan girls stood up for her. Except those fan girls were sock puppets, too.

After her initial entry into the fanfic community, Msscribe was famous for being famous, then famous for being hated. This is a story of extremes – extreme fame in her particular subculture, extreme hatred, and the extremes to which she went for both.

It’s also the perfect example of someone who realized that she couldn’t sit back and wait for internet fame to come to her. She shamelessly promoted her fanfic, but it doesn’t seem to me (an outsider, reading ten years after the fact) that her motive was to gain notoriety for her writing; rather it was to become a member of an exclusive group within a subculture.

Msscribe is clearly someone who actively wanted, sought, and achieved internet fame – she wasn’t the first and she won’t be the last. If you’re thinking “well, that story’s old, it doesn’t count” a similar story broke just last month on GOMI. Her case was not as long running, but turned out to be equally jaw dropping because she had stolen her blog content from various sources (mostly other bloggers.) She was so hungry for attention and glory and so unwilling to wait for it, that she tried to cut corners both in writing her blog and promoting it.

You could make a case that these people, the ones who go to extremes to get famous on the internet, are few and far between. But I’m willing to bet that deep down, most of us who have blogs or YouTube channels or whatever harbor at least a niggling desire for even a tiny dose of fame.

Sure, it takes a good amount of luck for any one person’s videos or blog posts or tweets to get noticed out of all the videos and blogs and tweets on the internet today. But if they didn’t want even a modicum of a following, would they have put their videos/blog posts/tweets up for public consumption in the first place?

“Everyone has their own agenda,” as the saying goes, but on the internet, so many of us share the agenda of showing off, self promotion, seeking praise. If I’m being perfectly honest, I’m not above it.

Danskin’s argument that Phil Fish became internet famous by nothing of his own doing is kind of a foundation for the rest of the argument, and I don’t necessarily disagree in this case. However, though he didn’t actively seek fame, he was an active participant in being famous by maintaining his game log on the forum, being involved in a documentary, participating in at least one games panel – possibly more, those are just what’s mentioned in the video.

Another point made by Danskin (emphasis mine):
“[Phil Fish] seemed to perversely enjoy when people started talking about him. That cockiness usually comes with an arrogant assurance that you deserve to be spoken of, and a gnawing fear that you actually don’t.”

That point is what connected these three seemingly disparate points for me, because the same day that I re-watched the video, I’d read a comment made on the Msscribe story:

“Seems to me that the sockpuppets enabled her to play out an internal conflict between her admiration for those she wanted to be associated with, and her self-disgust for wanting it so badly and/or doing nothing to deserve it.”

(Again, emphasis mine.)

My little quibble with the argument in “This Is Phil Fish” is largely irrelevant. By whatever means someone becomes famous, they’ll doubt and question whether they’re deserving of that fame, and I’m sure this is true for the “household names” kind of celebrities, too.

I think it’s that self doubt that led both Phil Fish and Msscribe to more or less expunge their respective online presences. They were both called trolls, though for different reasons, and maybe because they recognized some truth to that or didn’t want to be called as such or both, they both dealt with it by stepping away from internet fame.

Remember the Slate article from a few months back about trolls? Here’s the link to the article, if you missed it or want to refresh your memory. Basically, it said that true internet trolls are a pretty small subset of people online, and they typically show signs of narcissism or psychopathy or sadism.

People on the internet don’t like trolls, for obvious reasons, but more and more, I see people on the internet pointing fingers and calling anyone who voices disagreement a troll. The response to the Slate article was kind of fascinating – I saw a number of bloggers with large followings saying things like “see?! You meanies are just narcissistic psychopaths!” (They might not have said it in as many words, but the sentiment was there.)

From what I see online, people are quick to accuse others of trolling and cyber bullying, but vigilantism against those people is pretty well tolerated. The internet is a weird place.

As Danskin argues in the video, once someone internet famous crosses that threshold into internet hated, there’s no going back, and it’s not because of something they’ve done. It’s because the rest of us have acted poorly against them – maybe said some deplorable things, maybe allowed someone to act as a vigilante against them. If the likes of Phil Fish and Msscribe aren’t trolls, then the rest of us have to face the fact that we’ve acted like trolls.

9e162af7-46d1-4301-9312-cd308e8c0349

source

I know this already tl;dr, but there’s just one more thing I want to say: I think the reason we get invested in the stories of Phil Fish or Msscribe or bloggers we love to snark on or anyone who achieves internet fame is because they’re easy targets.

When last I checked on Thursday night, the Phil Fish video had upwards of 254,700 views and a mostly positive response (15,000+ thumbs up compared to less than 1000 thumbs down.) Danskin posted on his tumblelog that if a video of his were to go viral, he’d rather it be about a more important topic — specifically, Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist blogger who started a Kickstarter about “tropes vs women in video games.” But (this is a point in the video and his post) he recognizes that a video about Sarkeesian wouldn’t generate nearly as many views and would have a far more mixed response.

GOMI admin/founder Alice said in an article posted earlier this week that “[p]eople hate-read blogs for the same reason they watch train wreck reality shows … It’s entertaining to see the mess and the ‘What the hell?’ of it all.”

Then there’s the Msscribe story, which, even more than ten years later, still gets talked about on social media channels and people like me find it and get involved in the story.

Stories about people behaving well on the internet aren’t nearly as compelling, and discussions about polarizing figures don’t always generate response because people don’t have the energy to get involved in the story and/or discussion. But these easy-to-hate people – we love watching them. They’re interesting and entertaining and, I personally think, we get a little thrill from feeling like we’re above them.

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If you’re still reading, congratulations! You’ve made it to the end. Thanks for sticking with me.

My Favorite Jenny Lewis Songs

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I know all of my readers have been waiting with bated breath to hear if I’d find a solution to my so-called “digital dilemma” – what to do with all my old CDs?

The short version is, although iTunes won’t let you transfer music from a device to a computer (which is one of my many gripes about iTunes,) it’s quite easy to find a third party app that will. So yes, CDs are obsolete.

As I’m going though my old music, I’m flooded with memories from my community college days and my time working at the library. I’ve been reminded of bands I loved but had forgotten about, and the friends I had who were as into music as I was. I admitted in my post about my digital dilemma that some of my old music is really terrible, but some of it is lovely and brings waves of nostalgia.

I’ve not forgotten in the ensuing years how much I loved the band Rilo Kiley and front woman Jenny Lewis’s solo act, but I had forgotten how much and maybe why I loved the music. Listening to it again has been like finding an old friend. And if you’re thinking “wow, that looks kind of like the haircut Jennie sported back in 2007-2008” … yep.

If Rilo Kiley sounds familiar, you might know this song from the opening scene in the first episode of the first season of Grey’s Anatomy. If Jenny Lewis sounds familiar, you’d probably recognize this song which was used in the TV teasers for The Hangover Part II or maybe you’ve heard her voice in the background of The Postal Service.

It’s been a while since I shared a playlist, so for today, here are my favorite lesser-known songs from Jenny Lewis and the bands in which she’s been involved.

Jenny Lewis – Melt Your Heart

Rilo Kiley – Let Me Back In

Jenny Lewis – See Fernando

Jenny and Johnny – Animal

Rilo Kiley – More Adventurous

Customer Service Stories

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Later today (or, by the time you read this, sometime yesterday, or earlier this week or month, or long ago when I was just a young lass) I will spend an hour at the front desk at work, and I will bend over backwards to be super nice to everyone who walks in (or calls, whatever) especially the people who are entertaining the idea of spending money at this establishment.

I don’t mind covering the front desk, but I am really glad to not work as a receptionist anymore. I’ve spent many Mondays of my life staring down the barrel of another week in the receptionist’s chair.

I’m making this all about me, but what I’m really trying to say is that I’m sympathetic that working as a receptionist is thankless and boring at best, and at worst, you get yelled at for other people’s mistakes. Most of the time, it doesn’t bother me when my interaction with a receptionist is just kinda okay.

But there are two places in this world where receptionists need to be outstanding: the gym, and the dentist. I have visited both in the past few days. Here are two stories …

At the gym

Yesterday, Joel and I planned to meet up with our friends to tour a gym in our neighborhood and talk about membership plans. We decided to meet there at 2:30, and Joel and I ended up getting there about 15 minutes early. We figured this would work out perfectly, as it would probably take a few minutes to drum up someone who could show us around.

As it turned out, the person who could give us a tour was on lunch, but would be back in about 20 minutes. No problem, we said, since our friends would be there in another 15 minutes.

Now, it’s probably not fair to call the person who was working the front desk a receptionist – he was probably someone who only works at the gym in order to get discounted or free membership. But still. When a group of four people who are potentially going to pay a recurring monthly fee walk in and stand in your lobby — you’re nice to them, right? Not this guy.

After 45 minutes of waiting with no explanation or apology (or even much acknowledgement) from the receptionist/guy-who-drew-the-short-straw-and-had-to-work-the-front-desk-yesterday-afternoon, we walked out and drove down to the 24 Hour Fitness in the local shopping center.

When we walked in, the receptionist was helping another customer but acknowledged us, and before we even made it to the front desk, a well dressed guy walked up, shook our hands, introduced himself as the gym manager, and asked how he could help us out. 30 minutes later, we sat down and handed over money.

Oh, and when we were walking out the door, a woman who’d been working out when we were touring said “did you guys sign up? You won’t regret it, I’ve been going to this gym for years and it’s great.”

I don’t really like going to the gym, but I’m happy that we picked a good one.

At the dentist

This story starts back in 2007, and it’s a little embarrassing for me. It was a Wednesday morning, and the night before, I’d finished a big paper and then celebrated by drinking too much wine and watching too much South Park. Because I was newly 21 and in college.

Oh, well.

ANYway, at 7:30 in the morning, my phone rang and even though I had a wine hangover, I picked it up. On the other line was the receptionist at the dentist’s office, to tell me I’d missed my 7 am appointment that morning. She asked if I’d be able to make it to the 7 am appointment I had scheduled the next week, and when I told her I probably would not, she gave me a lecture about not making appointments if I didn’t know that I could keep them. Then she asked if I would like to reschedule my appointment for six months out. I told her I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep it and hung up on her.

But that is not the most embarrassing part of the story. The embarrassing part is this: I used that one receptionist as an excuse to not go back to the dentist, any dentist, for five years. 🙁

When I finally made my next dental appointment, I chose a dentist in my neighborhood who came highly recommended by one of my massage school teachers. The dentist is good, but the real reason I’ll keep going to this dentist is that everyone who works in the office is so damn nice.

This is the best, most customer service oriented part – when I walk in the door, the receptionist says “hi, Jennie!” I doubt she actually remembers my name – she’s probably looking at the schedule to remind herself, but that little thing makes going to my least favorite place in the world so much more bearable.

The Digital Dilemma

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This is not one of my usual posts, where I have a well formed (I hope) opinion that I try to convey by blog. Nope, this is full of whines and me asking for advice.

My parents gave me my first iThing for Christmas in 2004: an iPod. I still have it kicking around and every time I come across it, I’m amazed that my iPhone is smaller, lighter, and can do more than store and play music files.

Oh, but that isn’t my point. My point is this: remember back in the early days of iTunes when your purchased music had to be backed up on CDs, otherwise, if your computer crashed or you otherwise lost the files, you were SOL?

I remember those days well, but even if I didn’t, I was reminded of it this weekend when I came across those old CDs while sorting through my approximately 300 CDs, about 30 of which are the backups of my purchased music. Having those CD backups saved my precious files more than once because since that first song purchase from iTunes in 2004, I’ve had two computers and one external drive die on me.

Imagine my surprise when, earlier this year, I clicked a button in iTunes that had been unchecked and all those songs that I’d downloaded nearly ten years ago showed up on my phone. Another button, and all of the photos in my photostream show up in my PC. Amazing.

I know there are plenty of people who are very freaked out by this, but I love the convenience. I have just one conflict; a digital dilemma, so to speak.

The reason I was sorting through my 300 or so CDs this weekend is one of my my Black Friday purchases was a new external hard drive. First, I backed up my photos. Then I sat down to sort through my music.

Of those 300-ish CDs, I’ve probably bought about 20 in the past five or so years, but in the past year (after I upgraded to a car which lets me plug in and play music through my phone) I’ve bought exactly zero. I’ve purchased a couple records through iTunes, but mostly I use Spotify to stream music.

And allow me to make a confession: about half of those 300 CDs are truly awful music. The way I listen to music has changed, but my taste in music has, too. I’m being generous when I estimate that I’m importing about half of them on to my new hard drive. The rest I doubt I will ever listen to again.

So the digital dilemma is this: a good portion of my CD collection is going in the trash. There are probably a few that are worth selling. But what should I do with the rest? Given my track record with computers and hard drives, I’m reluctant to get rid of them, but based on how infrequently I use or even look at them, I’m not sure they’re worth holding on to. Any advice for me?

Welcome to Standard Time

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My biggest pet peeve right now is people who don’t understand what it means when Daylight Savings Time ends. They’re the ones saying “I love the extra hour of sleep, but I hate Daylight Savings Time!”

The Best Thing About NYC Is You And Me

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The playlist I’ve been listening to on repeat all week:

1. They Might Be Giants “New York City”

2. Ryan Adams “New York, New York”

3. Frank Sinatra “Theme from New York, New York”

4. Billy Joel “New York State Of Mind”

5. Simon and Garfunkel “The Only Living Boy in New York”

A Farewell to Lobster

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There is a font called Lobster. And I am sick of it.

lobster

I made this handy little graphic, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the font to get an idea. Now that you’ve seen it, you probably recognize it, right?

I understand the appeal. It’s available free from Google Fonts, and it’s a nice, legible cursive font. Which means it’s approaching Comic Sans in terms of overuse (and maybe even inappropriate use.)

It’s one thing to see Lobster on blogs where bloggers have been able to easily install and download the font to keep a consistent look. Hey, I did the same (my “accent” font is Ribeye (also a Google Font) and I know it’s a little cheesy.) But it’s better than Lobster (and at this point, I’m not inclined to redo every image on my site with a new font.)

It’s a little worse when local tourist attractions are plastering the local buses with Lobster. (I won’t name names, but I’m thinking of one mountain resort in particular.)

But the last straw came last week when I saw Lobster on a sign in a Starbucks. Are you really telling me that a major national chain who spends millions on interior decor can’t do better than a cheesy, free Google font in their coffeehouses?

The Lobster days are coming to a close. Have a backup font.

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On an unrelated note – I’ve changed my blog’s settings to automatically close comments on posts after 30 days. This is in response to the amount of spam comments I’ve been getting, and also because the comment activity here is low. Most of you seem to be more inclined to interact with me via email or twitter – which is great, and I’m better at tweeting and emailing! – but it seemed silly to keep comments open indefinitely when it’s just the spambots leaving responses.