Happy as a hill of beans

I'm writing an essay, and looked up synonyms for "jovial" in Word 2003. There are your standard fare, like cheerful, jolly, cheery, happy. And then there is "full of beans." Full of beans? I've never heard of such a phrase, and it sure seems like a strange one to show up in Word's thesaurus.
So yeah, that's all. It made me laugh.

Of Wrong Things and Red Ink

So I got my first college essay back today. Of course, the teacher told us we were all wonderful people and got us all anxious and expecting our papers to be a flood of red ink. So after reassuring us for a good five minutes, he handed our essays back, and sure enough, there was a good bit of ink scattered about the paper. But there was one problem: it was blue. Blue ink. Blue? I thought, blue ink? This would not do. Correct my mistakes, tear my paper apart, disparage my writing, but please, do it in red! Being disparaged by blue ink is a crime against humanity! I don't want some subconsious good feeling because my incorrect assertions were kindly pointed out with a peaceful, good-feeling blue. I want them shouted in red ink that says "Fix this! It can be better!" Now, perhaps the professor simply had used up all his red pens on the essays before mine, or threw his last red pen at the wall in disgust. But somehow I doubt that such problems could be the case. Red pens say "this is wrong." Blue pens say "well, this might not be the best...but I don't want to hurt your feelings." Please, tell me I'm wrong. I don't need a blue pen to make me feel better about myself. The red pen helping me become a better writer will make me feel better about myself. So would profs please break out the red pens and let them flow? Of course, if you like blue pens, that's okay. I wouldn't want to damage your self-esteem.

Google Checkout at Buy.com

So I was trying to redeem an awesome deal at Buy.com, and it involved the $10 discount with Google Checkout. So I get ready to check out, and there's no way to get to Google Checkout. I scoured the FAQ's and Google's site, and nothing! Finally, I noticed somewhere it said that Google Checkouts would be treated as guests. So I log out, find my stuff again, and there's the button, hiding below the little sidebar shopping basket. So I log back in, and sure enough, there it is.
So the moral of the story is: once you've added your last item, DON'T click the big "Proceed to Checkout" button. Click the Google button that may be hiding farther down. If you've already gotten all your stuff, add something and then remove it so you get the sidebar cart, because that's the only way I can get it to show up.

ShinyStat rocks!

After checking out my new counter, I have decided that it's pretty awesome. Really easy to navigate, lots of information...it's great. So I definitely reccomend ShinyStat - here's the shameless plug. Check out http://www.shinystat.com/en/, their basic counter (what I'm using) is free, you have LOTS of options, and it's easy to do. And no, they're not paying me to do this.

Almost perfect...

A couple things:
First, I added a new, better counter. It's pretty sweet, and I like it a lot.
Second, as an indirect result of adding said counter, I was inspired to try to get the design looking better. So I attacked the last major glare spot: the comments section. It's a pain to work with for various reasons but now comments look 150% better than they did (they were quite an eyesore previously), and there are a couple other tweaks that make me happy. So, a more perfect blog now greets your eyes. Now, leave some comments and look at them, and bask in the wonderfulness that is CSS.