I hate kids and pets. They're all a royal pain in the butt.

Only... so not really. I took my kitty, Tribble, to the vet yesterday for... oh, we'll just call it general gastrointestinal nastiness, to save you the explanation. She's one of my seniors, and at 14 she's earned the right to be a little bit cranky. But she was so good. $200 later, we have antibiotics, new food, and bloodwork to analyze but she already seems a lot happier. I think she's had a low-level GI thing going on for a while. Keep your collective fingers crossed it's not a thyroid issue. Older cats are susceptible to that.

If it's Sunday, doesn't that mean I get to be random? Sure it does. Here goes, with a bunch of ifs:

• If you like scifi, we're now officially open. Check it out just for the setting, even if you don't want to play.


• If you're curious about one prolific writer's writing process, you should read jaylake's journal.


• If you're wondering what's going on with the Sugar Quill, don't ask me. I have no idea. I'm just a lowly staff member.


• If you have any Halloween costuming hints on making a better member of Organization XIII, drop me a line. I sense the fabric store in my very near future.


• If you have good thoughts to spare, send them to a few people on my friends list who need them: wickedtrue, villainny, heather916 come to mind. I know there are more of you but if I list everyone, I'll have to list you all. ♥


• If you can believe it, I might actually draw today instead of write. Thank you, lostinapapercup, for putting that thought in my mind.

There, enough random. Except, you know, I'm sure there will be more. Food calls. It calls me personally, so I'm off to pay it heed.

Ed has never seen this before.

OK, all you computer-savvy people out there, I have a problem and maybe you can solve it.

I run three browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera. In Firefox and Opera, graphics are beautiful. In fact, on my desktop and in all my programs, graphics are beautiful: crisp, sharp, lovely, delineated.

Except Internet Explorer. What I have there looks like crap. It's all pixellated and stupid... but just the graphics, not the fonts. IE is supposed to have an option to use the Windows system-set graphics display... but it's missing. So... I upgraded to IE 7.1 which is in beta, and the option doesn't exist there either. (So I took it off. Wasn't crazy about it anyhow.)

Anyone know what's going on? Or should I just say damn you, Microsoft and never use IE again? (But... but... I like having 3 browsers. I use them all for different things. I... I... I guess I could do without IE easily enough, right?) But seriously, I'd love to know if any of you have any ideas. Otherwise I'll have to trek through the Microsoft Knowledge Base and that, as you probably know, is an absolutely hellacious experience. For what it's worth, it's been this way since I got my shiny new laptop. I suppose I could call Dell... hahahahaha.

Any takers? Do you love me enough to help me resolve this?