Loyal blog readers may have noticed that Journalscape has instituted a cool new security feature when you post a reply. They show you a picture of numbers and letters as they might appear through an LSD-induced haze, and you type them into the provided box proving that you are an actual human and not some spam-producing animatron trying to fill my blog with advertisements for penis enlargement devices.

Mostly, this works just fine. But at least one reader informs me that, for unknown reasons possibly related to solar flares, a small percentage of users are being sent through an endless loop of these security features. Journalscape's resident techies tell us they are aware of the problem and hope to have it fixed, possibly within the next 24 hours. Fingers crossed.

And while we're doing a little technical housecleaning, might I direct your attention to the handy-dandy "subscribe to this journal" link above? If you'd like a friendly e-mail each time I post a new blog entry, you can click on that link and enter your e-mail address. (Ignore the option to join a group entry.) I use this service for other Journalscape blogs myself and find it super useful. I can also assure you they don't use or sell your e-mail for any other purpose, including but not limited to the advertising of penis enlargement devices.

This concludes your public service announcement. I now return you to your regularly scheduled blog reading.