It's Captcha Craptcha Day!

I had to join this blogfest, too, mainly because it's really easy to just say:

Turn the captcha off on your blog! Blogger has wonderful spam filters that snag all the stupid spammers and ad-bombers in comments and that don't require me to stand on my head while chewing gum and auditioning for Rain Dance. It's annoying for me to compose a brilliant blog comment, click submit, and then have to spend 2 minutes puzzling through 5 rounds of captcha codes just to justify the 30 seconds I spent composing said comment. (Okay, that's an exaggeration. Sometimes my comments only take 5 seconds to compose.)

Go here for instructions to turn the dang captcha code off.

That is all.

Back to NaNo. (Which really needs its own hate day.)

UPDATE: Shelly's post today included a TED talk from one of the guys responsible for the Captcha codes--and some of them are helping to digitalize books. He doesn't mention the stupid blurry pics of numbers, but he's really doing some amazing things with the hours we're all spending puzzling those codes out. Also, check out Duolingo. And watch the video (I've never met a TED talk I didn't like):

Why I Love[ed?] Ray Bradbury

Sometime in my grade-school years (this was probably high school, but might have been middle school), I was required to write a paper on a favorite author. I chose Ray Bradbury.

I read, I believe, everything he had written, from short stories to novels and the thing that struck me the most, and which I wrote my paper about, was his habit of giving power to the traditionally powerless.

In one short story (forgive me, I can't recall the name), a colony of African-Americans moved to Mars and, when a spaceship full of white people fleeing the nuclear holocaust on Earth asked for refuge, the colonists initially cordoned off the back half of buses for the newcomers and designated separate drinking fountains and the like. Then the refugees arrived, full of tales of places that were gone. The hill where a colonist's grandfather had been lynched, gone. The sites of other racial atrocities, all gone. The colonists then tore down all the separation markers and accepted the refugees as equals. It was their choice, and the refugees told them they'd rather be slaves than dead... but the colonists forgave them. It was beautiful.

Of course, not all of Bradbury's stories ended so happily. I remember one where the spoiled children who lived in an automated super-house programmed their nursery-slash-virtual reality room with real lions who ate their overworked parents. Then, of course, there's the short story The Small Assassin, which should never be read by a pregnant woman. *shudder*

There were scores of other examples. My paper was called "The Rulers of Bradbury." Clever title, yes?

Ray Bradbury helped form my appreciation for science fiction as well as my views of the world. His haunting stories (like the one where everyone abandons Mars to go back to Earth and fight in the last world war... except for one guy who answers the phone one day to find that he's not the last human on the planet... and that he wouldn't marry the caller even if she IS the last woman on the planet) keep popping up in my brain at odd times. He had a perfect balance of innocence and horror--and the "innocents" inflicted the horror as often as they suffered from it.

His stories were empowering to the downtrodden... and put everyone on notice that weak does not equate harmless, that beauty can hide the beast, and that men, women, and the smallest of children can rise above fear into a bright future.

I'd say he'll be missed, but he's left so much of himself behind it doesn't seem like he can ever quite be gone.

Perception

My six-year-old is sick. He's been running a fever for more than a week. Not counting the last time he was sick, a couple weeks ago. That fever is normally around 99 degrees, but last weekend, it was spiking to 106 degrees. Scary stuff.

Monday, my husband took him in for blood work and we discovered that his white blood cell count was frighteningly low. He has swollen lymph nodes. This COULD be an indication that he has lymphoma, but, at present, we know nothing. It could be an infection. It could be almost anything. It could be nothing.

Next Monday, we're taking him in for more blood work, so we can compare the blood work from last time. After that, we might be referred to a pediatric oncologist.

(By the way, who in their right mind would ever want to be a pediatric oncologist? I'm sure they're needed and I'm grateful they exist, but shoot. Talk about a buzz-kill profession.)

Anyway, my husband is a wreck. When he tells people about it, he leads off with "my son might have terminal lymphoma." Yeah. I wanted to hit him. Bad enough he's not eating, sleeping, or keeping things in perspective! Does he have to get everyone else thinking worst-case-scenario, too?

By contrast, I'm a cold-hearted you-know-what. I don't like worrying, so I don't do it. I don't use the c-word where the kids can hear me. I don't break down. Ever. I'm not being strong, I'm not toughing this out, and I'm not ignoring the facts. We don't have any facts. Until we do, all the hair-pulling, tear-jerking, heart-wrenching, and fist shaking in the world will accomplish exactly nothing.

Time enough for that sort of thing when we have some actual news, methinks.

Or not, since I fully expect this to be nothing.

So where does the glass sit for you when possibly horrible news is looming?

(Oh, and if you know us and you want more info, don't call my husband. I'll be updating my Facebook page when we have news, and I'll probably tweet and drop a line here, too.)

Tech-Savvy

Hey, hey, hey! I have new About Me and Stalk Me pages! Please feel free to check them out and let me know what info I should include. :)