I have pared back my friends list recently, primarily to read the things that interest me most. In case anyone feels personally slighted, I'm offering an explanation.

I dropped two communities, altparent and vaginapagina, because of their high signal-to-noise ratio. I'd still recommend AP to anyone interested in alternative and general parenting topics, but I got tired of the increasingly frequent disagreements there over what I consider "agree to disagree" topics. Unless VP has drastically cut back on posts since I stopped reading it several weeks ago, it was just too high-traffic with posts I thought were more appropriate for other communities and people using irrelevant subject lines made me want to go beserk with a clue-by-four.

Individual users:
- amethystgreye: I got too alarmed when you posted things that insinuated that your personal situation was dire, then shrugged them off as overreacting. Check that box of Tavist in your drawer and if it's past its expiration date, dispose of it.
- gimmickless: I forgive but I can't forget when someone in a better financial situation takes advantage of something of significant monetary value we loaned with spoken intent to return. I hope our old recliner eats you.
- holeinthedonut: Simply lost a feeling of connection with your posts. I always enjoyed seeing your latest sketches and wish you success with your art. By the way, Gimmickless is still mooning over what happened in January.
- morganastar: Also lost a feeling of connection with your posts. Love your rats and hope you are happy wherever you live.

Several people I don't know have me on their Friends list: amie_e, architectstorm, el_hombre, jack_burroghs, paradoxymoron, and rkmlai. If any of you want me to add you in return, drop me a line introducing yourself since I couldn't glean much from your userinfo pages.

Until further notice, all anonymous comments will be automatically screened.

Individual event photos have been posted for mountain_hiker' birthday party (link) and Saturday's LARP with Andy GMing (link). Any other photos taken at the party (and ID of the ladies in the first photo) and anyone that LARPed that could help me caption the photos with what's going on in them would be greatly appreciated. I prefer e-mail for both but will deal with it if you comment to this post instead.

A few stray notes:
- Cake pans will go up on eBay sometime this week as I haven't gotten the photos finished.
- Saw a one-antlered young bull elk today, but haven't looked at the unloaded photos yet. Hopefully at least one shot will be good enough to share.
- Knights of Columbus remind me a lot of Masons, but I don't think they have a secret handshake. They did look at us funny at the pancake breakfast today, but it was probably just their Satan Sense tingling since I'm not Catholic.
- Our 2001 (last year) tax refund finally arrived, check instead of direct deposit because the IRS had to adjust it after we got more child tax credit than I calculated, and truncated my last name. Will have to see if the bank will let me deposit it before Himself arrives later this week or if I have to wait until he's here to co-endorse it since his name's not shortened on it. Too bad, since "Craw" would have been funnier than "Gutie" (I use both last names, no hyphen).