When I checked the mail today there was a box marked ‘fragile’ sitting beside the mailbox. I was surprised to see it was from FTD. I had no idea they shipped living plants and flowers in sealed boxes through USPS!

In the past I’ve ordered (and received) from FTD online to send flowers to another city, but they have been delivered from a local florist by car…

Here it is:

That’s the shipping shrapnel on the table, and I assume the long sticks prevented the plant from rolling over in the box. The pot was wrapped in bubble wrap, and the soil is quite damp.

It’s very cute, isn’t it? And I’m sure those lost flowers will grow back soon.

(PS: Thanks M, T & M!)

For those of you using feedreaders and who may have tried adding this blog recently without success, feed functionality has been rejuvenated. Awhile back I thought it wasn’t ‘necessary’ to have feed functionality (even though it’s included and automatic with a Movable Type installation) so I deleted the templates. Now I realize more and more people live by their RSS & XML feeds alone.

For those who have never heard of a feedreader, it is either a light software program or browser-based management system to organize and easily read blogs or websites you are interested in. For example, instead of returning regularly to your bookmarked favorite sites, you could subscribe to several of the sites through a single viewer that displays updated content from all of them at once, without having to actually visiting them. The blogs & sites supply the code files (called RSS, Atom or XML, etc.) that distributes their content to the feedreaders.

Confused yet?

For more info here are two examples of feedreaders: Bloglines (accessed through your internet browser) or Feedreader (software you install).

I registered for Bloglines about a year ago, but haven’t really used it up until now. The more websites you read on a regular basis, the more useful it becomes. One major benefit is you get to bypass all the advertising some sites bombard you with.

While searching the internets for ecards, I came across this bizarre site affiliated with Fye. It’s called Pimp My Tree, and by sending ecards from the Pimp-O-Matic 4000, you get 10% off at Fye AND create holiday weirdness at the same time.

Planning to watch Christmas specials on TV during the season? It’s a safe bet you won’t get see any of these, the 10 Least Successful Holiday Specials of All Time. For example Christmas with the Nuge, a show produced by VH1 that features Nuge “bowhunting, and then making jerky from, four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree”.

If by chance you’re in NYC this coming weekend (as we will be), try your best to avoid getting trampled by Santas on Saturday. SantaCon is basically a pub-crawl by a gaggle of folks in Santa duds:

In what must be one of the greatest examples of the power of communication via the internet, the World is accepting apologies from America. (Thanks to Shane for the links).

Some of my fave shots, from America:

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Last week I updated to Windows Service Pack 2, and waddayaknow, it dropped an ad/spyware bomb into Internet Explorer that most PC users won’t figure out how to remove.

Thing is, ALL my file folder windows were taken over too, by a taskbar with color-coded drop-down links to search for gambling & adult content & more. It took a couple of days use before I was frustrated enough to find out how to get rid of it. Here’s a link to the tech support forum thread with instructions for removal.

I use adaware regularly, and usually do custom installs of software to avoid accepting junk I don’t want or need. I also use Mozilla or Firefox browsers to restrict pop-ups, and only do testing in IE. It’s still not good enough! Though I can say I’ve had no serious issues with this PC for the past year. So, for helpful tips on avoiding spyware and hijackers, look here

Anybody else get this? Pretty sure it’s only an SP2 update issue. Thanks Microsoft!