Unexpected Hiatus

I'm so sorry to have been gone for so long! Here's the deal: My employer, as is certainly its right, has newly blocked a number of sites that fall into the "personal use" category. Luckily, I wasn't one of the poor Facebook addicts who showed up one morning to find themselves cut off cold turkey on their office workstations, but unfortunately the Blogger Dashboard, by which I post to this site, is also blocked. Which is totally reasonable, of course, but if I can't throw together a post during a coffee/lunch break and publish it while at the office, that's a barrier. I spend the vast majority of my day staring at my monitor, so the idea of firing up another computer when I get home so I can blog is rarely one that comes to fruition. Further complicating things: I haven't finished installing the photo software on our new laptop, so I can't even get photos loaded up at the moment.

So that's the deal. I'll try to do a better job of prepping things to publish in the evenings. In the meantime, hope you're enjoying your spring. :)

No Title Needed

Props to shewar over at Jezebel.com for the awesomeness below:

A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away

Just came across an article from JIVE magazine called "The Complex and Terrifying Reality of Star Wars Fandom." A small excerpt:

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans.

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

Tangent: Did you know that Luke Skywalker was recently named number eight on a list of the top ten wimpiest action heroes in movies? Says the L.A. Times:

Other characters got the immortal lines such as "May the force be with you" and "Luke, I am your father." But what did the ostensible hero of the original "Star Wars" trilogy whine in his first appearance? "But I wanted to go to Tacchi Station and get some power converters!" This is the son of Anakin Skywalker? No wonder his dad was trying to kill him.

ANYway, if you have any feelings -- positive or negative -- about The Force, you owe it to yourself to check out the JIVE article.

OH! And I've been thinking for a few days now about a new Sparklegirl feature. Introducing: RandomSongStuckInMyHeadRightNow, (RSSIMHRN). Currently, it's Ms. Underwood getting nasty, which is much better than a few days ago, when it was that song from the Pantene commercial.

Clicky-Clicky

Coming off a mid-week holiday is so strange -- it feels like you had half a weekend. I've got a chunk of things to get done today, but with the mood around the office palpably sluggish, I hope you'll forgive me for phoning in today's post. Let's just take a peek at some fun links clogging up the tubes this morning, shall we?

• From CuteOverload!: a teeeny-tiny-but-oh-so-mortified bun
• From OIM: A child after my own heart and the rationale (at least for one bridesmaid) for domestic violence
• From Go Fug Yourself (a fiesty new Sparklegirl fave): Oprah Winfrey goes to clown college? Nope, it's just Lauren Hill.
• And finally, from YouTube-via-Garden Rant, some time-lapse gardening!