So I turned 27 today. As I've matured, I've acquired new skills over the years. But 27 should be a landmark year.

See, 27 is 3 to the power of 3 and is also 30 minus 3, and I rolled a die thrice and got 3 each time. 27 is also the escape key in the ASCII character set, and the smallest possible integer that can be named in English with 4 syllables. There are also 27 straight lines on a cubic surface (whatever that means) and is the atomic number of cobalt.

All of this leads to some exciting new skills and abilities to be developed over the next year.

Matti and I went to the London Blogger/Podcaster Meetup last night at Molly Blooms, and we were joined a bit later by Rachel and Mike.  There were a bunch of really friendly local bloggers, about a 12-15 people all together.  I also got to meet Greg who posts here quite regularly in person for the first time.

A lot of people brought business cards to the event.  I unfortunately didn't have any business cards myself or for the LC.

People seemed pretty interested in the site, so hopefully we'll have a few new members soon.

Sidebars: both on the right side.  The right-most sidebar will always be visible, and be used for blocks that we always want to display.  The inner sidebar will be for specialized blocks, ones that are only displayed in special cases.  The inner sidebar should not be displayed at all if none of its blocks are to be displayed on a particular page.

Only the outer sidebar should be visible for the front page.

Some of these blocks would have to be created with views.  One or two might not be possible with current versions of modules.

A few new features introduced to the site tonight.

• Cancel your own account
• Moderate comments in your own blog
• Trackbacks
• reCAPTCHA

We also added a log in link where the log out link is like Alex suggested. Mike McGregor also did some work on the About LondonCommons.net book page.

Here's a video from the BBC on a new tent city that has sprung up in Los Angeles. The people interviewed are all former home owners, who lost their homes in the sub-prime mortgage meltdown.

It reminds me of the fruit picker tent cities outside of LA during the 1930s.

I often say and hear said that real pressure for change won't happen while the middle class is so comfortable. That real change isn't possible until more people are negatively effected directly by the evils of the capitalist economy. Is that finally happening, at least in the States?

An international group calling itself Anonymous declared war on Scientology on January 21st. On Feb. 10th Church of Scientology "Orgs" were protested by 7000 people in 93 countries. Scientology's web servers also suffered from Distributed Denial of Service attacks. Scientology (which has an extensive history of targetting its critics with legal and illegal measures) has obviously been fighting back. The "Church" petitioned twice for an injunction against members of Anonymous protesting near CoS buildings, and both times have been turned down.

Hi folks. This is it, the upgrade we've been talking about and working on for so long. There are still details to work out, but most of the work is done. Until everything is all wrapped up, you'll continue to see the word 'BETA' on the top banner. There is now a lot more you can do with the site!

Everything that used to be on the site is still here, usually in the same place. Here are some of the new features:

So it's been almost two months since I've signed in to the site.  I don't want to bring up the specific events that broke the camel's back, but I was at the centre of a major conflict on the site.

That's not just it though.  The last year hasn't been the easiest for me.  I mean.. life in general has always been a struggle but the last year has been particularly bad. 

Some of you that know me personally know that I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and have been undergoing treatment since the beginning of the summer.  The diagnosis is good news because it means the problem been identified and I'm starting to get help.  But enough about my problems..and I mean that: please refrain from expressing sympathy towards me on the site.  I know it's well meaning, but it's also embarrassing.

All this talk about freedom of speech reminded me of a story that had slipped my mind.  I caught wind of it on The London Fog just over a month ago and even spoke briefly to Mike (from the Fog) about it when I ran into him at a show.

A conservative forum site called FreeDominion.ca recieved a letter from an officer of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.  Here's the text:

I found this funny blog with "normalized" pictures of politicians and pundits.  Here's Stephen Harper made to look normal:

Check it out:  If Only They Were Normal.