The room was a bit chilly, in spite of the roaring fire in the kitchen, but the waterbed was warm, soft, and comfortable. The person half buried under the large, colorful comforter was oblivious to … everything! … but what was in front of her …

The Animal Crossing game was becoming the center of attraction … on a more and more frequent basis. That sudden realization caused the woman to temporarily lose touch with the game as she let her eyes glaze over and worried yet again that she wasn’t spending as much time on her computer interests anymore. But … if she were to start spending her free time on the computer again, what should she work on? Her favorite AardwolfMUD character, the mud building and coding she wanted to do (but was always a bit nervous about starting), the blogging she’d been promising to do f.o.r.e.v.e.r … ??? …

… but then again, there was also that yummy bread she could be baking … or maybe even a pie … or the crocheting on that lovely afghan for the grand-baby which had become such a looooong project …

The inner peace and quiet she had been experiencing vanished like a cherry pie at a pot luck as each of the “would-be-projects” began vying for 1^st place in the “Ohhhh! That sounds like fun! Let’s do THAT one!” category.

And so, she wondered … let’s narrow it down – which one of those really was the most important task to tackle?

Just then, trying to escape from the tumult of guilt trips careening through her head, she took refuge in the first sensations that penetrated her consciousness …

… they were warm … and soft … and made quiet whuffling sounds …

The woman lifted the DSi and peered underneath it to get a glimpse of the source of those sensations and sounds. It was laying on her tummy – a tiny little beagle, soft brown eyes at half mast, and looking so trusting and loving that she simply couldn’t break her gaze away from the heart squeezing tableau. Without thinking, she closed the DSi, and set it aside. For the first time, she became aware of how heavy and warm the sleepy little bundle felt, and as she ran her fingers through the soft warm fur of the drowsy little puppy, she slowly became aware that the cold air was tracing wet trickles down both of her cheeks.

Just at that moment, the cacophony filling her head dropped to less than a whisper, and her question was answered in one simple thought which came with marvelous clarity and cogency:

After having spent the last six months with such an unpleasant bout of sciatica that I had to get myself a cane in order to stay upright, I went from being just a bit pudgy … to be a LOT pudgy! *cough*

This morning, I sat in my nice warm waterbed, and made a grocery list for the next week: rutabaga, turnips, carrots, diet dressings, salad veggies … etc.. I was determined that I would spend a while taking off some of the “extra” that was making my clothes look more like body paint than I’m comfortable with. (We’ve all seen the ladies who wear spandex on wayyyy too much personal span! *cringe*)

Anyway, feeling very confident in my decision to unpack some of the recent filling … I got up to face the day with determination and a sense of purpose …

… however, the first thing I saw was the dining room table … and that photo above shows what was on it: an entire tray of donuts from one of my favorite donut shops! These donuts leave the chain donut shops looking like yesterday’s leftovers. I hadn’t had any of these wonderful donuts since I had an office in Wells, ME … which was near the wonderful restaurant that makes these little beauties.

There was a note next to the donuts, written by my son Darian; it said: “Someone needs to put these away. Have at! :o)” Images of turnips and rutabagas faded from my mind like snow in July. My only concern was which one I should eat first!

Okay … so, I’m still going to diet … but it’s just been put off for a couple of days … and will last a bit longer than it would have before today! My baaaaad!

It was nice to experience Homer Simpson’s idea of a perfect Christmas morning … even it was in the middle of June! :o)

by Robin Wauters on February 17, 2009

Isn’t it ironic that Facebook, which is so often used by groups of people to protest and demand changes for just about anything, has reverted to its former Terms Of Services under pressure of the community?

After trying to calm everyone down first, Mark Zuckerberg has now posted a new blog post stating that the company will revert to its previous ToS while they “resolve the issues that people have raised” (the post is being hammered right now so it’s going up and down).

The company has even polled some of its users in news feeds asking them if they should go back to their previous ToS.

According to the young CEO, it’s a language thing and they just did a poor job explaining the changes. But those changes will still be coming in the next few weeks, this time including the Facebook user community to make sure everyone can live with it / gets it (I always thought it was impossible to please everyone, but anyway):

Our next version will be a substantial revision from where we are now. It will reflect the principles I described yesterday around how people share and control their information, and it will be written clearly in language everyone can understand. Since this will be the governing document that we’ll all live by, Facebook users will have a lot of input in crafting these terms.

You have my commitment that we’ll do all of these things, but in order to do them right it will take a little bit of time. We expect to complete this in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we’ve changed the terms back to what existed before the February 4th change, which was what most people asked us for and was the recommendation of the outside experts we consulted.

Update: Barry Schnitt, Senior Manager, Corporate Communications and Public Policy at Facebook, weighed in on the discussion on the “People Against the new Terms of Service (TOS)” group.

Facebook has set up a group for its “Bill Of Rights”, where people will be able to provide feedback on the ToS changes. Only 2,000 people have joined the group at the time of this writing.

This isn’t the first time the company backtracks on a decision that got its users and outsiders all riled up. Beacon, anyone?

Original article here

Let’s see what they come up with … from the sounds of this, they’re going to shove the same piece of work down our throats using different words. Be aware. It will be too late to complain when they arrogate your work (or photos, or blog posts, or … ) to themselves.