taste_buds
Holidays provide a built-in excuse for indulgent entertaining. This all-purpose foodie community covers everything from homemade hangover cures to dinner party menus. Need quick advice? Get five-minute snack suggestions, low-fat ingredient substitutes, and even measurement conversions. Delicious recipes garnished with humorous advice. Yum.

naturesbeauty
Always on the lookout for compelling images, we were delighted to discover this flourishing community of artists who share a love of nature. Honoring the subject with photographs, paintings, sketches, prose, poetry, and other creative works, you'll be simultaneously riveted to your monitor and inspired to run helter skelter towards the nearest wooded dale.

Clover - "Hey"
Solis - "Chemistry"
Rather Sound than Safe - "Fairytale"
Bjork - "Hyperballad"
Baxter - "Fading"
The Shroud - "Black"
Depeche Mode - "Stripped"
Delerium - "Duende"
Smashing Pumpkins - "The End is the Beginning is the End"
Hooverphonic - "2Wicky"
--
* Front 242 - "Crushed"
* Portishead - "Machine Gun"
Conjure One - "Sleep (Carmen Rizzo remix)"
Amon Tobin - "4 Ton Mantis"
Hol Baumann - "Benares (Varanaci edit)"
Garbage - "#1 Crush"
The Tear Garden - "In Search of My Rose"
Massive Attack - "Teardrop"

* = request

backpacking
Want to embrace your wanderlust on the cheap? If you're tall on adventurous spirit, but short on funds, this community can help you plan a trip to anywhere. Offering plentiful tips on how to travel light, you can post about bargain hotels and hostels if you're into urban exploration or discuss camping gear and mosquito netting for the great outdoors. Hitch your backpack, pitch your tent, and carpe diem!

**FINAL EDIT Thu Dec 10 02:15:47 UTC 2009**

So there is the final update... Over the past day we have processed around 11 million jobs out of the 12 million that were in queue at that time. Please bear in mind that over this past day, more jobs for notifications are also created. So while the queue has been dropping, we are still not fully caught up at this point, due to backlog and new jobs. We have roughly 3 million jobs still pending that involve the notification system in some manner. We had hoped we could have fully cleared the queue in a day, but unfortunately we can't clear it too quickly, since we need the rest of the site to operate normally. From our current perspective on the amount of jobs that are left in queue, and how many it has processed thus far, we believe it will take around another 8 - 12 hours to process everything.

And finally some answers to some questions:

( Read More and Get Some Answers... )

freeskiers
While some of us long to escape the cold, dark stretch of winter for hot tropical beaches, for others, there's nothing quite like whoooooshing down those shimmering sugar alps. If you're fond of freestyle skiing, get ready to slide down the slippery slopes in good company. This passionate, international community shares travel/gear tips, anecdotes, photos, and videos for those who can't get enough of the sweet stuff.

seasonal_icons
Need some extra twinkle to decorate your place? Check out these dazzling holiday-themed icons. If you're an artist, you can post your own creations, provided you abide by the simple rules (which is to say, all cheer and no politicking). Be sure to comment and give credit if you wish to borrow a little spirit (no direct links, please). If you're feeling a touch of humbug this season, this is an instant shot of festivity.

handmade_gifts
High on creativity, but low on cash? You'll find tons of brilliant suggestions for do-it-yourself crafts sure to please everyone on your holiday gift list. Offering detailed instructions, photos, budgets, timelines, and active support, you'll soon turn spare remnants of fabric and time into cherished keepsakes. Be sure to search entries and read user guidelines before you post for help!

Tomorrow at Ceremony...

Down With Tempo
Slow and sexy, all night long. Oh yeah.
with DJ Mothra and DJ Lost Boy and
Ash from 9-10

12.7 - Down With Tempo -
Slow and sexy, all night long. Oh yes.
DJs Mothra and Lost Boy
Ash 9-10 PM
tarot readings by Sara Wendell

12.14 - The ZNUH Vs. The Dirge -
We're decking the halls and hauling the decks for
this epic battle of dueling DJs.
Fred Yarm's Yuletide Circus of Hellfire 9-10 PM

12.21 - THUD! -
Boston's premier new industrial/EBM dance event.
DJs Shivar and Static
Alexxxan 9-10 PM

12.28 - Ceremony's 2nd annual Snow Ball in HELL! -
Get dressed up and go crazy once again as we
blow out 2009, Ceremony style!
Get dressed up for this one and get in for only $3!!!
DJs Mothra and Addambombb
Black/Mail 9-10

**EDIT Thu Dec 3 23:24:15 UTC 2009 **

Hey Everyone, we are about to run the last alter job that we need to on our database servers. This will effect userpics / scrapbook / vgift images for the next few hours. Have no fear, your images aren't lost, there is just a really intensive process running on the servers which store the information for mogilefs. Thank you for your understanding and all the LJ love...

Hey LJers,

I just wanted to let you all know that we are going to be performing some mogilefs maintenance over the next few days. We will be upgrading our current version to latest stable as well as changing some db config information to better handle the amount of files we are currently hosting. This shouldn't cause a big impact on site stability, but you may see some minor delays with userpic / scrapbook images appearing or other requests associated with our mogilefs. We would love to not have that happen, but unfortunately with some of the steps we need to take we have to cause a delay with images. I figured this was a better solution than taking down all of LiveJournal because well lets face it, we all need our daily LJ fix ;)

Thanks,

backpacking
Want to embrace your wanderlust on the cheap? If you're high on adventurous spirit, but low on funds, this community can help you plan a trip to anywhere. Offering plentiful tips on how to travel light, you can post about inexpensive hotels and youth hostels if you're into urban exploration or discuss camping gear and mosquito netting for the great outdoors. Hitch your backpack, pitch your tent, and carpe diem!