Two recurring messages that are really getting on my tits

1. Whenever I go to my LJ Friends page without first logging in, I get a popover video ad and above it is the legend "Once this ad ends you will be returned to your LiveJournal experience." Blow me, marketers. I do not have a "LiveJournal experience"; I have a LiveJournal. Stop dicking me around when I'm trying to use it for its actual purpose.
2. I watch a lot of videos on VEVO which has the same problem of a lot of web-based for-profit services, namely a narrow pool of advertisers. There's the occasional pay-per-view pitch or Army recruitment ad, but at least half the time there's the same bloody ad from an agency calling itself "Defeatthedebt.com". I've long suspected that the people who are so incredibly concerned about the national debt now that they've launched a nationwide ad campaign are the selfsame slugs who couldn't have given a shit about it under Bush and I've finally gotten around to pulling their curtain. The ads are funded by the EPI, a project of superlobbyist Richard Berman (a.k.a. "Dr Evil"). FOAD.

Early to bed

Nuphy used to scoff when I repeated my father's characterisation of me as a "frustrated morning person", but the older I get the more clearly I can see what he meant. When it comes to sleep, the timing is as important as the amount. I got more sleep Saturday night than Sunday, yet my mood could hardly be more different. Matters I felt so riled about yesterday seem so trivial today. I still feel draggy--and it will get worse after lunch, I have no doubt--but there's an underlying complacency which I sorely missed before.

Midnight seems to be the magic dividing line. If I get to sleep before then, then I don't end up feeling so fragile and useless. I stopped consuming anything at around 9 p.m. on Saturday, but not long after that a friend of Tuppers confided her concerns about his sketchy new boon companion who claims both to be straight and to be "smitten" with Tuppers, which is--in her words--kinda "suspish". So I promised to keep a fish eye on him for the evening and since he didn't leave until 2 a.m., I didn't either. (Fortunately his female friend--a totally sweet Ohio farmgirl--had the decency to offer me a ride home in the cold and wet. I reciprocated by making sure she wouldn't have to pee in an alleyway.) After debriefing the GWO and unwinding, it was three o'clock before I finally dropped off.

I'm relieved he won't be there tonight for Tuppers' birthday dinner, just me, monshu, and Tupper's boring friend Tall T. The latter seems nice enough, but he's pretty quiet and quite frankly he was semi-useless at the party on Saturday, which is one reason why I ended up on door duty for so much of the night. Awkwardly he was good friends with a recently deceased co-worker who was also boring and semi-useless, so I'll have to artfully dodge discussing him whenever he comes up. Hopefully this will give me a chance to air some of my dissatisfaction in a relaxed and chummy way while also feeling out the mad Mancunian about Mr Metrosexual.

I'm happy to see monshu and Tuppers hitting it off, since they could both use more intelligent and responsible gay friends. The former recently described the latter as "interesting but difficult"--not an unusual combination--and drew parallels to his friend Mr Medlar. Which was good to hear, since the same comparison had occurred to me. Except that Tuppers doesn't seem nearly as confused about the direction of his life. On the contrary, he's rather driven, which brings its own set of problems. Romantically, however, it's a very different matter, and he could use someone looking out for him a bit.