Last thought before bed

And it's more than half rhetorical, inspired by a mention on a mailing list of selling your house yourself, and advice on preparing to do so.  Right there on the list of to-do's, sure enough, was"de-personalization".

I've always wondered about that.

Why is it that, when endeavoring to convince some person that your house is a place they want to live in, the first thing a realtor will advise you to do is to remove all personal touches and turn the house into a bland, sterile, cookie-cutter place that you wouldn't want to live in?

Less is more

Bauhaus is reforming, and will release new material for the first time since 1983, reporteth Auntie Beeb (found by docwebster).

STS-14 launching today

They just went to a 45-minute hold as of about 0948 Eastern.  If nothing goes wrong, they should fly right around 1040 Eastern.

Good luck and a safe flight, guys.

Avoid dogtagsonline.com

Almost a month ago, I ordered new tags for our cats from this site.  Quoting from the PayPal complaint I just filed:

This order (for pet tags) was placed and paid for on 6/29/2005, seller's order # XXXXXXXX, seller's invoice # XXXXX.  Seller promised my order would ship the next day, and projected delivery in 7 to 10 days via US Mail or 3 to 6 days via Priority Mail.  The order has never arrived.  I have attempted three times to contact the seller via email, once via the problem report form on the seller's site, and once via FAX, but have never received any response to any of my contact attempts; the vendor is completely unresponsive.  There is no telephone number on the seller's site.