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What's with the switching of cat avatars? The other one was cute!

The new cat suits my personality better than the hipster cat i had before.

I figured something like this was going to happen eventually.. Formspring screens questions for hate speech buzz words. I was not aware of this until looking at my latest set of inquiries. My first flagged question is sitting in my inbox. What do I do with it?

Thus far, I have answered every question that has been submitted. It has never seriously crossed my mind I would get a question that I thought was too personal to answer. Indeed, I assumed I would have one of two reactions. Either I would think my personal stories might benefit someone, or, if the question was from a troll attempting to jab at me, rip him to shreds. Those two reactions would make the whole Formspring bit fun and interesting. I had wondered, however, how to handle a question from an obvious troll who is just trying to stir up trouble.

Whoever this troll is, he asked if I thought the recent uptick support for gay marriage is because people have forgotten AIDS and Jeffrey Dahmer, and wanted to know my suggestions for reminding people of those things. I do not think the question deserves an answer from me. It is ignorant and presumes I am a bigot. Those are the two reasons I assume it is either from a Fred Phelps type or a immature progressive who is making a back handed swipe. I only post the question here so you get an idea of why I have had to think about what to do with such things when they come.

I let anyone say anything they want here. The comments are completely unmoderated. I do not delete any after they have been posted. Even every spam message I have gotten over the years is still there. It is probably unwise to keep those, but I do so because I want clear evidence I do not censor anything. The only restriction I have placed is no anonymous comments. I only did that because anonymous posters were starting to debate each other, which got confusing. So I naturally do not set guidelines lightly.

Here is my Formspring guidelines from here on out:

1. I will look at any new questions Formspring has flagged. If the site is being to politically correct, I will answer it anyway. Formspring added a request that I delete any flagged questions in order to keep the site fun, but it does not require me to do so. Since I answer questions on the blog and not the site, the site’s objection is irrelevant. However, if the flagging is for a good reason, then I will delete the question and not answer it.

2. If I suspect a non-flagged question is trollish, I will publish it on my blog and explain why I will not answer it. Or I will rip the questioner into itty bitty pieces from everyone to see. It depends on how I feel that day.

The bottom line is unless I agree with Formspring’s flagging, it gets posted. The questioner may not get the response he wants, but he is not paying for it, and therefore has no room to whine. Every other legitimate question will be as welcomed as it always has been.

What's up with the polls all of a sudden? You're gonna be sick of them once the GOP primary really starts to pick up.

I am sick of politics in general now. Forget about when the primaries crank up. The weekly poll is one of the few political aspects of the Eye that is left, and half of them so far have had nothing to do with politics. In all likelihood, most of them will not.

I am an accommodating soul, however. If the polls are unpopular, out they go. So far, I have had a decent level of participation, so I assume most visitors enjoy them. Or are at least ambivalent. You are the first person to express anything negative about them.

If the weekly poll becomes unpopular, out it goes. I would be surprised to find out anyone has strong emotions about it one way or the other.

Blogger either screwed up in its updating, or made an error during routine maintenance, which you choose to believe, but the repairs swallowed a day’s worth of posts. They have promised to restore them, so I am going to give it some time before I repost yesterday’s stuff.

In the interim, I am going to go ahead with regular posting since that at least appears to be back in working order.

UPDATE: Posts are back. Whew. No rewrites!

UPDATE II: Comments for the last couple days are gone. It is not my fault, folks.

A few months ago, my sister gave me a brand new laptop. I had to use Internet Explorer for the first time in at least six years in order to download Firefox. But before I could get to Mozilla, I noticed IE 7 had a feature that could enlarge the display by any percentage I wanted. That was a blessing for my pitiful lone peeper, so I declined Firefox to stick with IE 7, numerous warts and all.

Internet Explorer 7 and I had a happy, though often sluggish and reluctant to handle Java relationship all these months. A couple days ago, it became clear IE 7’s inability web browsing was overshadowing any benefits I received from easily enlarging pages to any size I needed, so I switched to IE 9. I am profoundly disappointed with the switch. As far as I am concerned, IE 9 has been just as slow and troublesome, but does not allow for the entire page to be enlarged. Only the fonts. What a gyp. Why would a developer get rid of such a useful feature two browsers later?

In response to my disappointment, I downloaded Firefox 4 and Chrome whatever the heck generation it is. Thirteen, I think. I have been playing with all three to find out which is the best. I am still having a tough time with the pros and cons.

I have gotten used to IE over the last few months. I am prone to get into a groove and stick with it, even if it is not the best, because it works for me. Hence, I stuck with IE 7 much longer than I should have as far as optimal browsing is concerned. So I am still comfortable with where everything is, but only having the fonts enlarged is annoying. Plus, even though I have downloaded the latest updates, I am still having problems with java.

Firefox 4 is a disappointment from past versions, too. It runs sluggishly even though I have a barebones, very few applications browser. It will enlarge the entire page, as well, but it will not stay that way. I have to enlarge every page I visit rather than it being a permanent setting like it was in IE 7. I never thought I would say it, but aside from its better handling of Java, Firefox has fallen behind IE for the first time ever.

Which brings us to Chrome. It is still an unpopular browser outside of the youngest web surfers, but I notice Firefox 4 has copied many of its features. The barebones chrome I have been using is lightning fast, which I like. Again, Chrome will enlarge a page in its entirety, but has to be done for every page visited. No problems with java, but book marking and access to bookmarks has really annoyed me so far. It is the only browser I have ever seen that puts bookmarks on the far right. Exactly where my blind eye cannot see it, of course.

Out of the three, I have wound up using Chrome more than the others. I have still been switching almost arbitrarily between the three when I go online hoping some new ly discovered aspect of one will completely blow the other two out the water. So far, not really. If anyone more technologically minded has any insight on something useful I have not yet discovered, please speak up.