Right now I'm liking Red Cats (green flavor) and GrApple Yummy (blue).

I hope the memory leak is fixed.

Eudora for Mac was not an option, unfortunately, because I had to convert the mailboxes, and I would lose some message markers (and statuses, I think). Converting the mailboxes was not successful, anyway.

So it's been a slow move to abandon a program that's been good to me the past decade (!), and with so much history saved, who would? But it had to happen. And I did it last night with the most logical choice: Mozilla Thunderbird.

It's taken a couple of hours all together since last night, but I'm back up with email in a native setting. I can finally keep Parallels shut when I don't need CQDE.

Thanks to the following software for making this transition possible:

• Eudora Mailbox Cleaner – conversion
• FreePOPs – awesome program. Took an idea I wanted to try out

PS – Happy Futon Day!

The tricks?

• Don't let your RPM go above 2000.
• Neutrality is good. Shift to neutral where it makes sense (downhill, whenever you think you need to slow or stop).

There are other ways to save on gas consumption, but these two tips don't require anything more than altering some habits in the driver's seat. And at least for a Honda Accord that typically gets 25 MPG on the highway, the change is significant: 24.37 MPG in the city.

The bad: we went to a memorial service for a family friend's great aunt, and the food was not vegan-friendly. But we could not starve ourselves.

And I'm underwhelmed.

For a long time now I've been trying to envision how they did things, and when working on our own platform [‘ our own’ being VarLabs], I've been thinking, ‘Am I approaching this the right way? How is Facebook tackling this?’. And the answer is that I'm doing it far more elegantly and orderly, I think, than Facebook.

There are some interesting things for sure, but on the whole I'm a bit disappointed. So either I'm a delusional jackass for missing something amazing, or I'm as good as I think I am and just not having a chance to show off my skills.

Based on the code, I think Facebook's strength lies in how they mix together applications written in different languages, their MySQL scaling, and their consistent and pretty UI. Their coding and any clever queries, not so much. At least from what they've openly released.

Whatever the case, it's working well for them, so I'm just being a stickler for details. What they've done has inspired and guided how I'm approaching new projects. So good for them.

I will try to find farms and farmers that are sane, and if I agree with their practices, I'll buy dairy and eggs. But there are certain outcomes that may not go away ever.

Still on the fence about honey.

I would not call myself a vegan; the label is like that of feminism. The overall ideals might be noble and positive, but in the end, they're labels. And those labels make for extremist thought. I want to call myself cruelty-free and fair, hopefully in every aspect of my life.

This isn't just about animals, after all.

At the same time, I can't understand people's sensitivity towards following a vegetarian/vegan diet. People are honestly offended when someone doesn't want to eat meat? Really? These people are either ignorant of how those animals were treated from birth to death, or they're just sick. (Or both.)

(And just to be clear, this isn't against meat-eaters in general.)

What happened to rationality and compassion? It's been missing for thousands of years, sure, but it can't be that hard to have.

Anyway, let's see how this all plays out. And move on to happier things.

Asma, Mona, and I went to Poplar Spring yesterday. I fell in love with a new birdie:

That's Arabelle. She's a guineahen. Someone let her go, or she escaped, and she was found on the streets of DC. Meh.

She's currently under partial isolation, but one of the co-owners, Terry, asked if Mona and I could take Arabelle outside and watch over her while she explores. I was happy she asked, given that it was only my first time at the farm and I was too caught up in taking pictures to do much real work.

Good times were had. I'm going to go every weekend for sure.

And horses take huge dumps.