The perils of getting online too early

Given that I'm home today (President's day in the US) I slept late, until nearly nine... awoken by the shrieks of children pursuing each other around the house. After preventing bloodshed, I went into my garage bedroom and tweaked Merope's keyboard to bring her to a similar wakeful state. Or something. One e-mail, reminding me that I needed to be more tactful and considerate. Then a glance at my LJ friends page... no entries since 12:26am. Huh? I looked dully at the screen, then stumbled off to brush my teeth. No entries at all? Unusual, since several of my friends keep late hours.

Then fear and paranoia strike... maybe I've managed to offend several of them (all at once?) and I'm off of their lists! Figures, I've been entirely too self-absordbed lately and have probably managed to tick them off without even noticing. Back to the screen... sure enough, this person has two new entries on zir page since midnight. That person has one too. And that person over there... quick, slightly-panicked glance at my LJ profile... no, no apparent changes. What's going on? What have I done? Is someone hacking the LJ server?

In a flash, it comes to me... the answer. Try hitting "refresh" on Netscape on my friends page... (silly, sheepish grin). No, I haven't been suddenly excommunicated or hacked. The perils of getting online before being fully awake... it could have been worse, I might have e-mailed someone! (shaking head)

Canadian niceness won out...

Amidst all of the media teeth-gnashing this week over the Olympic pairs skating judging... I've noticed that the Canadian pair have resolutely resisted provocative or leading questions by reporters to trash the Russian pair, or even the skating authorities. They were classically good sports and almost stereotypically "Canadian nice." And I believe that it actually worked in their favor, making it easier for the authorities to do an about-face.

A US pair would probably have whined, blamed the organizers, the other skaters, or even failed to accept the silver medals at the initial awards ceremony. And the rest of the world would probably have been glad to let them hang, while the US media worked up a frenzy of "we were cheated, they all hate us anyway." Remember Munich?

Now I wonder which Second Cup in Edmonton was the shop where Jaime Sale worked, four years ago, and if I ever bought coffee there then...