Learning...

Tonight, I talked to someone who I have a significant personal disagreement with, and I was not a complete jerk.

This was a big step for me, and I was grumbling, but I just kept telling myself that it's far more important to be polite in this world than to do exactly what you want all the time. The karma that I've built up so far has worked out pretty well. I could be a dick, and throw some of that away for some personal satisfaction, or I could be polite, grit my teeth, and be the all around good guy that I'm pretty good at being.

I really think in a lot of cases (although not all) it is probably just better to let things slide. Granted, expressing problems you have with other people is a necessary skill, but only so far as its possible to improve the situation. If it's someone you're forced to deal with every now and then, but really just don't like, I think you're better off just being polite about it, rather than starting an argument or anything else.

Participated in a church service on IRC this evening. A log of the service is available. It was very interesting. The pastor, ladysisyphus, has more information in her journal which you may find interesting. I'm probably going to try to write an IRC bot to replay the ceremony, so that people who missed it can at least participate somehow. Making me think about my faith, which is something I don't do a whole lot of.

Spent Saturday night hanging out on IRC with a bunch of friends, which was fun. I also had a nice lime juice and rum drink that Jess made for me: can't recall the name. It's nice to have someplace to retreat to where I have social interaction, but don't have to go out. The idea of going out to a bar still causes a lot of anxiety in me, mostly due to complete and utter lack of experience. I have no idea how to dress, act, etc. in a bar.

More birthday posts are still forthcoming.

Back to work tomorrow: Lots of projects coming up soon, so I hope to be productive this week and bang out a bunch of stuff to clear off my plate.

S2 Style Contest

There is a competition being held by LiveJournal for new S2 System Styles. There is Information on the contest available, for those of you who might be interested.

I know there are a huge number of people out there who feel they have awesome design skills but can't figure out S2 for the life of them. I don't blame them: S2 can be hard. However, I know it pretty well, and I hate to see people limited because of their tools.

So, if you design a style, but don't have the ability to convert it to S2, let me know, and I will work with you to recreate it in S2. When I say "Design", however, I don't just mean a photoshop layout: I mean an actual HTML layout, preferably already done in S1. However, I'm open to be a bit flexible on that point.

So, for any of you out there who have an S1 style and think it's just really awesome and would be awesome as an S2 style, let me know, and I'll help you convert it, and you can then enter it in the contest. I have no need for glory or anything like that, so you can enter it yourself. I just want to help people do their best work.

(This icon was created by spratt. It has a transparent background: if you can't see it, click through and read my journal in my style, where the icon is shown against white.)