Reasons To Be Cheerful

#1 Rob Haggart has again vastly improved the quality of his "I Like These Photos" slideshow by cutting in half, from 297 to 146, the number of pictures on display. As Rob tells it, this feat was accomplished without the loss of a single entrant simply by cutting each picture in half and stitching it to a similar shot by another photographer. Makes sense to us. After all, if you can hire a photographer from one picture, you can hire one from half a picture.

#2 In other arithmetical news, Joerg Colberg has reduced his use of the word "quite" - as in "I quite like these unusually banal cibachromes of Moldavian agricultural workers" - to only 43 instances this month, down from 171 last month. Keep up the good work, Joerg!

#3 Finally, after further deconstruction, the notorious "gallerina" article is now understood not as the sexist screed it was originally thought to be but instead as a cleverly disguised attack on grumpy people everywhere. Concerned bloggers are protesting by posting multicolored badges with the obscure phrase "Don't ask me nothin about nothin, I just might tell you the truth." Honest!