Hello, stranger. You need to be a Jyte user in order to enjoy the Shrubbery.
If you don't know what Jyte is, it's a place where people vote on claims like:

It also has cool features like cred and stuff, but most important for the shrubbery:
You can define other users as your contacts.
One of the things missing (IMHO) in Jyte is a messaging system. The Shrubbery is [or at least intentds to be] a [sort of] messaging system for Jyters where spam is useless by definition. [How? Stay tuned...]
If you're a Jyter already, just login and welcome aboard.
If you don't have an OpenID identifier yet, you can sign up for one here, at Jyte , or anywhere you want. Once and for all.
From then on, you can sign in once a day, when you open your browser, and then visit many different sites and blogs (there are more every day) without having to fill a form, pass a captcha test, verify via email, or - most important - remember yet another password in order to do so.
The main difference between OpenID and Windows Live ID is that OpenID technology belongs to the people (Yeah. You).

Up to you :)