Things on the Internet that Puzzle Me

1. GIFs. Oh, how do I hate GIFs, especially the twee animated ones? I cannot count the ways.

2. What is it about Livejournal that gives me nightmares? Is it the stark black-and-white? The cheap font? The fact that the comments are put into ugly black boxes and criss-crossed around the page? The creepy head-and-shoulders icons? The endless time apparently spent by users choosing obscure and unintelligible graphics and quotes for their signatures? (don't people have jobs?) No, I think the scariest thing is the idea of grown-ups "friending" each other. I didn't like age eleven the first time, dude, and I'd rather not revisit it.

3. Internet flame wars. Sorry, but these are just funny. I think the AAR "Nora Roberts is too sexy in her author photo" fiasco has to go down in history as one of the all-time silly wastes of the time and energy of otherwise intelligent people.

4. Blog commenters who are suck-ups. Why?

5. How Alison Kent manages to have so much damned fun on her hot-pink site. Can I be her for a day? That would be cool.

6. How it happened that RWA spent money on a site redesign only to replace "boring" with "identically just as boring." Has no one noticed it's boring?

Sorry, these things were bugging me. I'll go read a book.

Abby