1. I have officially been declared a casualty of the flu. This weekend was awful. I was so sick that I actually had trouble sleeping; I barely slept for more than an hour or two at a time on Friday and Saturday. Now I've got this prescription antihistamine that's helping me sleep, but it is also giving me weird, scary dreams that I can remember in detail. (I rarely if ever remember my dreams.) But I do feel better today, so I guess it is working.

2. I couldn't sleep and I couldn't seem to focus on reading, so I spent a lot of time fooling around on Photoshop and fiddling with LJ customizations. My new layout is all thanks to minty_peach, although I did modify the CSS quite a bit. I like it so much that -- apologizes in advance -- I've turned off simple comment pages for the time being. I know some consider that bad manners when you have a custom layout, but I think it is clean and should not take long to load. ( But I noticed some funny business! )

3. I discovered a Tiny LJ Icon Generator! If you've ever wanted to change the default tiny icon next to usernames or communities (i.e. caitiedidit hates ohnotheydidnt), this makes it really simple. All you have to do is plug in the URLs and size of the tiny icons you want to replace the default ones with. It generates code that you simply paste into your custom CSS box. It is literally as easy as 1 2 3! (The only catch is that there is a fix you have to do for certain layouts, but it's still really easy.) You can get custom icons from a lot of places, but I recommend FamFamFam.

4. I'd say that Johnny Weir should shoot whoever costumes him if I wasn't 100% certain that he designs every inch of his horrendous outfits, meaning he'd have to shoot himself. (Which, actually, I don't have a problem with! I KID YOU, JOHNNY WEIR. NEVER CHANGE.) But even I have to admit that he was pretty great at nationals and was totally robbed of the title. I bet he would have won if his outfit wasn't so HIDEOUS and embarrassingly literal.

5. TV Guide got a great letter about last week's stupid cover story in which the "women of House House" were profiled based on their relationships with House, all of which were approached in romantic terms. And this has been my problem with House for awhile. House is supposed to be a misanthropic jackass, but most of the women who cross his path are attracted to him, often inexplicably so. His superiors and his underlings react to him in generally ridiculous ways. It drives me up the wall when characters' flaws cost them nothing. I recently had the same problem with Beka Cooper and her so-called shyness in Terrier.

6. I know Pitchfork is... Pitchfork, but the score they gave In Rainbows was much with the lulz.

7. I think the Scientology protests were ridiculous. I understand that the event was organized to protest censorship by the church, but that's not how it came off, and I'm sure that's not why most of the protesters showed up. I get that people think Scientology is really weird and creepy, but the fact of the matter is that all three major religions also believe some pretty crazy stuff and have branches that are also pretty freaking creepy. It is all very people-living-in-glass-houses-throwing-the-first-stone to me. Most annoying of all is that if such an event was organized to protest Christianity I'm pretty sure we never would have heard the end of it. Bill O'Reilly would totally have gotten off on it.

8. This is iiiinteresting! A while ago, Obama pledged to abide by public financing in the general election if the Republican candidate would also agree to do so. Well, John McCain has agreed. And since Obama's nomination is looking more and more likely, McCain is already demanding that Obama honor his pledge. I am very nervous about us losing our huge financial advantage, and it's totally the opposite of pragmatic, but I still think this would be a really cool thing. It would also go a long way towards proving to me that Obama is the kind of candidate he claims to be.

9. I saw the most depressing Valentine's Day documentary on Current this weekend, all about roses, chocolate, and diamonds. I already knew the bad stuff about chocolate and diamonds, but apparently most of the roses we buy are grown in South America. And since South America's safety laws are much more lax than ours, the growers use awful chemicals and insecticides and herbicides. Since the roses are grown in greenhouses, the chemicals are even more dangerous. There were even a few cases of greenhouses asking women to submit proof that their tubes had been tied before they could be hired. They claim it's a productivity issue (which should not even be legal; can you imagine if pregnancy was allowed to be considered a liability against hiring women over here?), but it's a flat out lie. They just don't want to have to pay out the ass when their workers' children are born with mental and physical problems because they exposed them to chemicals on a daily basis that no living thing should ever be exposed to. Just so our flowers look pretty! So there's another thing I won't be buying anymore.

10. Attn: Avatar fans! Since Nick has remained silent on the issue of when we'll finally be seeing episode 3.14, boosette is hosting a very clever Pi Day (3/14) ficathon. Be there or be square, etc.

P.S. Barack Obama held my hand when I was frightened! (by way of carrielh)