Trying to distract myself last night, my mind stopped on the clothing designs for Galadriel and Arwen's costumes that Paula described in her excellent story - Fashion Star.

After several years of living on the cusp, my mother suffered a major stroke Monday and passed away this morning. The next week or so is going to be rough.

Don't know if they're connected, but I've noticed that the Kudos counts for stories are way down the RH column now, where they used be at the top above the author's story list.

All of the sudden I'm getting a message Checking browser before connecting to BigCloset (or something to that effect) when I come to BC.

We need these on BC!

"This video below with Hillary Clinton, encourages an internet ‘unplug’ tomorrow, Monday, April 22, 2013, in protest of CISPA.

Just saw a report online that at 10:48 PM EDT there was a report of an officer shot and a shooter loose on the MIT campus. Why is all I want to know. Why?!?!

Well, I've done seven, yes SEVEN years here at BC! Whoda thunk? I've penned a few decent stories, read a lot of damned fine ones, and made the odd enemy or a dozen or so.

From WIRED magazine via Huffington Post Gay Voices:

Found the start of an interesting "commentary" over on Feminist Ire. Somebody wished a happy International Women's Day to all, pointedly including marginalized groups such as Trans* women.

Okay,I understand that everybody is working very hard to make things all spiffy on here, and I do appreciate it.

Looking for a story I read a few years back. A successful well-off bachelor has his life (and body) stolen from him by renegade witch with a grudge against men.

Worth a read

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/27/domaine-javier-laws...

Apparently there are groups such as the Mattachine Society trying to take the trans people out of the Stonewall Riots.

Okay, for those of you that haven't seen the 2013 SuperBowl Budweiser commercial, get a box of tissues and follow this link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=o2pr...

A sad thing for me, just an hour or or two before the shooting started in CT, an 18 year old high school senior was arrested in my home town for plotting to trap the other students in the school audit

I think this link is worth reading. It's not funny or anything, but it is one that should be widely spread, as it affects all of us. Be sure and have some tissues handy.

Why do I keep having to re log-in all the time, it wasn't this way before. I was replying to an email when I got caught in the three AM reset and lost my reply.

So, this evening I find something new when I pop up on the site, a black "toolbar" across the top of each page. Most of it isn't functional (for me at least) or meaningless. It does have some kind of logout clickspot, and if I knew what it would log me out of I might try it. However, these days I lean towards the "don't f**k with anything unless you know what you are doing" option.

So, is anybody else seeing this thing or know what's going on? The Luddite in me just wants it to go away.

Should anybody get a strange email from Lauren Travis, be very careful. I got one this evening purporting to be from her, saying she sent me a private message that requires me to click on a link to read the message. Now, call me suspicious, paranoid, whatever, but I'm not going to click on that link. If Lauren sees this she might want to do some checking on her computer.

Noticed a lot of tea-drinking in the stories lately. Well I'm gonna speak up for all us who are addicted to our cuppa joe. Found this on Gizmodo after hearing about it on the news.

Coffee Drinkers Live Longer

Millions of us start the morning with a coffee and think nothing of it. But new medical research suggests that it could be helping you live longer—if you drink enough of it.

Found this on PhotoBlip.com:

Today, after I watched my dog get run over by a car, I sat on the side of the road holding him and crying. And just before he died, he licked the tears off my face.

Today, someone else's tragedy provided the miracle my family had prayed for. Thanks to this stranger, my dad will have a heart. It's so odd to think that an accidental death just saved his life.

Much more can be found here: http://www.photoblip.com/pictures/34178/these-damn-onions.html

Found this on Boing-Boing, which sometimes has the darnedest stories. So if you are into such things, here's something that makes the guys cringe when they see it.

http://boingboing.net/2012/05/14/jagged-anti-boner-ring.html...

Sarah McBride says she loves politics and loves her home state of Delaware.

A native of Wilmington, McBride, 21, has been active in Delaware politics since the age of 13 and worked on the 2008 election campaign of Gov. Jack Markell (D). When Markell won the Democratic primary in September 2008, he and his wife Carla invited McBride to introduce the future governor on the stage where he delivered his victory speech.

I want to introduce y'all to this author on BC. She's a damn good writer and has penned some really good stories that are posted here. She's even got a story/novel on Amazon. Who is this paragon, you may be asking?

ABC News

By JULIA KATHAN and SHEILA MARIKAR (@SheilaYM)
April 18, 2012

Dick Clark, the music industry maverick, longtime TV host and powerhouse producer who changed the way we listened to pop music with "American Bandstand," and whose trademark "Rockin' Eve" became a fixture of New Year's celebrations, died today at the age of 82.

Clark's agent Paul Shefrin said in statement that the veteran host died this morning following a "massive heart attack."

My grandnephew came through surgery just fine! His new heart is working just fine, his color is good, he has good circulation in his extremities, in short everything is positive!

My 11 yr old grandnephew is in surgery as I write this; he is having a heart transplant.

London's dystopian Olympics: criminal sanctions for violating the exclusivity of sponsors' brands

BOING BOING | APRIL 14, 2012
By Cory Doctorow at 5:50 am Saturday, Apr 14

Anybody heard from Lauran Travis? She hasn't posted in several years and I haven't heard from her in at least that long. Then all of a sudden I started getting what appears to be the typical spam message from her addressed to me. So I was wondering if anybody had kept in touch with her and had a reasonably current email addy.