This blog is designed for viewing with 16bit or better color, in a 5.x or newer browser and 1024x768 or above screen resolution (you can read all the content at 800x600, but you have to scroll to "center" the text on your screen). Pretty modest requirements, if you ask me. Oh, you do need JavaScript if you're going to authenticate to leave a comment or have the site "remember" your identity (it just sets a simple cookie, no biggie).

I highly recommend using Firefox, just on general principles and because it's a better browser, but also because IE sucks and several things on this site look weird in IE, despite the fact that the CSS and the HTML are entirely validated.

The random quote generator is a CGI script which was written for me by Andrew and is avilable for free download. It uses SSI to put the quote on the page, but you could do it with PHP inclusion, as well (although that's not documented because, errr, I've never documented it). The quotes, themselves, represent many years of collecting. The quotes you see are all simply ones I personally like, chose, and found interesting for any of a thousand possible reasons. After all, as Somerset Maugham said, "The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit."

The toony anthropomorphic unicorn chick in the design was done by me. Yes, really. It's meant to be a sort of a characature-in-spirit of me, although I'm not that cute (as should be obvious by the webcam picture).

I keep the content here fairly clean. I do this by choice. There is some occasional mild swearing (and I do mean mild), the occasional link to subject matter that's not really appropriate for children, and sometimes I write about things that are probably best left to somewhat more mature audiences. Still, it's never worse than that which the American film industry would rate PG-13 (Australian ratings would probably say M for Mature Audiences), and most of the time, it's entirely G-rated. This is not because I am unable or unwilling to swear. I can make a Marine blush, and I know because I've done it. I just choose to keep it mostly clean on this website.

... me

I am an expatriate American woman who lives very happily in Melbourne, Australia with my GenX Australian programmer husband, Andrew, our Australian children, Zoë and Miranda, and my blue-cream tortoiseshell tabby, Missycat, who came with me when I moved to Australia in 1999.

I happily became an Australian citizen in October of 2003 (oi, oi, oi!). I'm a web designer (professional, but nowhere near as active as I once was, owing to burnout in that line of work), an artist (professional as well as personal), a writer (amateur, but maybe eventually professional), a seller of jewellery, perfume, and various other goodies you probably don't need but which you know you want, a lover of history (particularly art history), something of an Anglophile, excruciatingly introspective, profoundly spiritual although not very religious, notably cynical, fairly unsociable, and very much an internet/computer geek. I've been on the net since 1993, and I own the server on which this and many other domains reside. I'm also actually pretty darned contented with my life, and while I have my days of frustration, stress, etcetera, I'm actually happy far more often than not.

I am 50% Asshole/Bitch. I am abrasive, some people really hate me, but there may be a group of other tight knit assholes and bitches that I can hang out with and get me. Everybody else? Fuck 'em. Take the Asshole/Bitch Test @ FualiDotCom

I am opinionated, passionate, and verbose, and I'm a compulsive communicatrix (I don't know if that's actually a word, but I like it anyway), which is why I keep a public journal/weblog. This blog is all personal, and it's all mine. It's a soapbox, a "message in a bottle", a means of sharing links and bits of humor, something I do for my personal entertainment. That other people seem to like to read it is also okay.

I write with a dry, often biting wit, often a heavy dose of irony, and I do tend to view the world in a somewhat unconventional way. I have a fairly dark and twisted sense of humor at times. My idea of "optimism" is generally, "Maybe it won't be as horrible as I think will be." As for that glass that's half full or half empty, what difference does it make? It's still "half" one way or the other, isn't it?

I am a survivor of a highly dysfunctional family, of various forms of abuse, of domestic violence, and of mental illness. I'm all right now (I have a psychiatrist's assessment to prove it), but it was a long and painful road, and I still have some issues that I have to deal with regularly, most notably Panic/Anxiety Disorder and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (and for writing on that topic, I keep a journal specifically for the purpose, rather than write much about it in this one, which I like to keep more general).

I write to express my own opinion, not to change anyone else's. I honestly don't care if people agree with me on almost any topic at all. As Oscar Wilde so cannily observed, "When someone agrees with me, I always feel I must be wrong."

So, hey, you're welcome to disagree with any of my opinions, positions, and views. In fact, I encourage people to think for themselves and consider their options before blindly accepting things other people write on their websites. I'm not into arguing, though, particularly not with people I don't know well, so if you write to me to bitch me out or flame me or try to get me to argue with you, you're not going to get very far, other than possibly having your mail posted as an example of the Moron Mail™ I sometimes receive (but the mail has to be both stupid and entertaining or I delete without comment).

The thing is, I don't actually believe that most people in the world give a fat, hairy rat's arse about my thoughts, my opinions, my ideas, etc. As mentioned, I write for my own self-expression and to communicate with whomever wishes to receive the communication, and to fill the internet with even more noise and bandwidth wastage.

In other words, it's just a weblog, don't take it too seriously, okay?

And remember: I can't give offence. You have to take it.

If you're even remotely interested in learning more about me as a person, visit the rest of my domain and have a look around. There's more about me on this domain than anyone could ever possibly want to know.

If you want to know more about the etiquette of reading weblogs, visit READ ME.