tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58992552012-01-30T07:00:18.725-05:00Dear Diary - 2.0Submitted for your approval: random thoughts, opinions on subjects political, cultural, and psychological.Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.comBlogger6291100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-7003536486121061842012-01-09T10:53:00.008-05:002012-01-27T08:40:26.701-05:00I appreciate Andrew Sullivan in general - a good writer, broad interests, a relatively reasonable conservative - but this kind of thing is one of his more annoying habits. My friend David Brooks writes the following:I’m to Rick Santorum’s left on most social issues, like same-sex marriage and abortion.No, no, no. David is to Santorum's right on both issues, if left and right retain any meaning. Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-21123949440114847652011-12-28T16:23:00.004-05:002011-12-29T07:33:28.960-05:00Christmas is over. Whew.As I've said, I find Christmas shopping stressful and don't handle it well. I wish my family could use this system. Travel is always problematic, and only gets worse during busy seasons. My flight to see my parents last week was fine (slight delay announced while I was in the terminal, but it was so slight that they made up the time in flight), but my flight back here lastCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-63457939078501620232011-12-22T15:38:00.000-05:002012-01-04T15:26:23.618-05:00I'd really defend my opinion that the new Superman #1 was objectively bad. A plot synopsis: Superman fights bank robbers too dumb to live and some random monster no one cares about, vague hints are dropped foreshadowing doom in an attempt to give a bump to less surefire series, the writer does a bad job of handling the state of modern journalism, and the status quo for the series has been Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-73113745425338993482011-11-28T14:28:00.003-05:002011-11-28T15:44:24.983-05:00I think flying bothers me more than I should. I know that the experience itself can be uncomfortable for some people, but I'm not particularly claustrophobic, acrophobic, agorophobic or aviaphobic. I don't like the expense of it, but I'm not frugal about other things, and of course, it's not like anyone enjoys the expense of it either. The only problems with it I can articulate are the security Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-22433170912845990712011-11-28T11:16:00.002-05:002011-11-28T14:28:53.124-05:00My anxiety about flying? Totally justified in hindsight. My flight from DC to JFK on Wednesday was delayed by about half an hour, so we'd still make our connecting flight but we were worried about having time for dinner. We had plenty of time for dinner, though, because our flight from JFK to Burlington was delayed again and again due to multiple problems, I think. We arrived after midnight Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-82492863002054225692011-11-22T12:17:00.002-05:002011-11-22T13:24:22.548-05:00I really need to get better about how I handle travel.Well, organization in general. Retirement planning, coordinating my days off with other stuff going on, etc. But I think I'm particularly bad about travel, and it's particularly relevant right now, of course.For one thing, I want to stop booking flights with layovers. To get from DC to my parent's place in Vermont, flights with one stop tend Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-48718035176995745742011-11-18T16:05:00.004-05:002011-11-28T10:46:29.998-05:00I might get back into reading comic books. That worries me.For years, I read superhero comics fairly regularly. I'd estimate that my total collection is roughly a third X-titles (X-Men, X-Factor, etc.) a third other Marvel titles (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, etc.) and a third DC and other publishers. My comic-buying probably peaked during college or shortly after. Since then I've lost interest inCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-65134557033233865342011-11-17T15:21:00.002-05:002011-11-17T15:51:17.379-05:00My mom's cousin died a week ago today. R.I.P. Chuck.Cancer sucks. He was sick for less than a year, and the last month of it was in hospice. I probably I should have done more than I did for his family. I don't see much of them, though - maybe annually since I moved down to the DC area - so until near the end I was content to go on what I heard from my parents. I didn't make it to the memorial Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-55345016767161007942011-10-28T15:58:00.004-04:002011-10-28T16:41:13.154-04:00Wow. OK, so something funny happened to me yesterday.T. invited me to a party at the Irish Embassy. It was a masquerade ball, vaguely Halloween-ish but not full-body costumes and stuff, domino masks were provided if someone didn't bring a mask of their own, but there was a contest for the best mask. I happened to dress up as the V For Vendetta version of Guy Fawkes last year, so I pulled that Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-72804017915049502642011-09-27T16:43:00.005-04:002011-10-21T08:41:36.909-04:00I've always been an introvert. I take after my mom in that. But over the past month or so, several different events reminded me that, you know, it is kind of weird.August 26 to September 6, I was on vacation in northern California with T., where she's from. In addition to the usual tourist stuff in the area - San Francisco, Yosemite, wine country - I also spent several days hanging out with T.'s Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-19387675383116242672011-08-26T14:40:00.002-04:002011-08-26T14:55:36.821-04:00It's funny how now and then completely minor choices have repercussions you can never forget. For example, the pants I wore Tuesday caused me to spend more than an hour sitting around and waiting in the hot sun, and if the earthquake had been just a bit worse, my pants might have cost me several more hours.
Let me explain. I have a pair of pants that are perfectly good - look nice, a bit warmer Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-65579507791232218602011-08-19T13:59:00.003-04:002011-08-19T15:37:05.466-04:00I read this post, which is more than a year old but I just stumbled on it so it's new to me shut up, and found it interesting.
On the one hand, I’m not crazy enough to say that the “Star Wars” prequels are good. There’s some rough sailing there, for a variety of reasons: Lucas hadn’t directed a film in a long time, his scripts were less polished due to a lack of a strong editor…and the less said Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-67427780939796290122011-07-20T17:11:00.002-04:002011-07-29T08:33:25.452-04:00Independently-owned bookstores are going out of business because 11 years ago, some French guy got a job that required him to move. OK, that's obviously ridiculous. However, it wouldn't be ridiculous to say that I've stopped supporting such stores because that guy got that job, even though I never met him. Even that isn't clear and certain, but it's not ridiculous either. Between high school and Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-82256945133180404032011-07-18T08:35:00.004-04:002011-07-18T19:47:28.539-04:00Yesterday was busy. It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, but not relaxing or unproductive.I spent some time sorting Magic cards, or trying to. I keep on thinking of cards I'm sure I own but can't find. If it were more valuable cards going missing I'd suspect theft, but as often as not it's simply rare-but-useless or common-but-old cards I can't find, so I think either they're in some pile of cards I Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-35620579193169519202011-07-13T13:14:00.002-04:002011-07-13T15:40:12.151-04:00Google+. Should I join it?This seems to sum it up pretty well, except for the fact that it's not nearly so easy for me to decide. A couple friends already have joined it. One has even said on Facebook that he plans to close his Facebook account and anyone who wants to stay in contact with him should switch to Google+. On the other hand, another friend points out that all the annoying things aboutCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-56545222237126788872011-06-09T11:41:00.003-04:002011-06-09T15:07:20.568-04:00It seems almost ridiculous how much I'm planning things out on my commute. As I mentioned, I've been biking home from work for a while. It's about 3.3 miles, uphill or level the whole way, so it's decent exercise in a reasonable amount of time. And by the Bikeshare program, it's free, except for the annual membership fee. I started out with a simple route. It's not great - major streets all the Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-64444170511708805612011-06-06T17:08:00.003-04:002011-06-06T17:13:25.093-04:00I hadn't followed the Weiner story for several days after it started. I wish I'd stuck with not following it. I got a bit depressed as soon as I read on another blog simply that Weiner had a press conference and Breitbart was there; aren't these things supposed to be by invitation? It's depressing that people in general and Democrats in particular still treat him like a reporter and take his Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-2402295013833012312011-05-12T13:07:00.000-04:002011-05-13T13:45:25.453-04:005. Get the tone right.Some comics books are fun thrill rides. Some are grim angsty nightmares. Some have been both at various times. Many comic book characters have been around for 50 years now and are still in publication or at least appear in other characters' titles, and a few have been around for almost a century. That's a lot of moods to choose from. Pick one and stick with it. Also, the Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-12633349315903213832011-05-10T09:55:00.005-04:002011-05-19T08:28:33.976-04:00How to make a good comic book movie1. Pick a character.Pick a character or characters that have sustained an ongoing series for at least a dozen years. Longevity is a decent indicator of a character's star power. You'll want a built-in fanbase, or at least a bunch of people with fond memories of it even if they aren't all going to go on opening night. You'll also want a ton of backstory and side Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-70008509951727464532011-05-03T09:30:00.005-04:002011-05-09T08:23:33.572-04:00I've been reading the Merchant Princes series recently, and it's been downright harrowing. Partly that's just because this is an unusually good series of books, I'd say. It's a fantasy/sci-fi (blurs the line) series about a normal person from the real world (sort of) who stumbles on another world where magic is real (sort of) and gets caught up in that world's power politics and becomes royalty (Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-52585869089141012122011-04-29T10:15:00.004-04:002011-05-03T09:17:14.896-04:00A discussion here and this post shortly after got me thinking about just exactly what the purpose of education actually is. (Sure, to enlighten people, prepare youths for the world, etc. And more generally it depends on what part and what kind of education you're talking about, and whether you're talking about what the purpose is or what it should be, etc. etc. etc.) While I was in college or Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-37290626387114601732011-04-25T10:37:00.005-04:002011-04-27T14:01:40.011-04:00Exercise: for most of my life it's just been a chore. True, I enjoyed martial arts when I practiced them, although haven't fit them into my schedule for the past five years or so. And I like the nice views and breeze in my face of biking on country roads, but my bike has remained in Vermont all the time I've lived down here in the DC area. And in college, it was really convenient to work out for Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-45721285477204247112011-04-20T14:24:00.007-04:002011-04-20T22:25:06.409-04:00I've deleted several recent work-related posts and reposted them on a new blog I've created specifically for that kind of thing. I may go back and do the same for other posts of the same type. I also have a few posts in mind still waiting to be written, but I'm not sure where they'll go - here, there or both. It's the old anonymity thing again, but I'm handling it differently because I'm now at aCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-88577897492936308032011-02-17T14:30:00.002-05:002011-02-17T15:15:17.147-05:00The other thing that's bugging me today is I'm not sure what the etiquette is regarding a memorial service for a co-worker. The question is, can I get away with skipping it? I realize this is more than a bit selfish of me, and he was a nice guy, and it's certainly sad - he was only in his 50s - but I barely knew him and I don't know his family one tiny bit. If I had a specific, time-sensitive Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-19133017238872331672011-02-17T12:42:00.003-05:002011-02-17T14:28:31.263-05:00Not having a good day today. There are two reasons for this.First of all, today is one of those "procrastination catches up to me" days. I procrastinate a fair amount, but it usually doesn't cause many problems. Normally I let my more low-key projects at work slide until a deadline approaches or I have really nothing else at all going on, and that works fine because it's very unlikely that Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-71680618729668444772011-01-26T09:50:00.004-05:002011-01-26T12:12:46.183-05:00Today seemed like it was going to go so well. What the hell went wrong? Well, there's no need to frame that as a question, I know the biggest part of the problem: I left my ID badge to get into the office and CAC card to log onto my computer at home. As far as I can remember I've never done so before, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. As I've said, I'm kind of surprised it hasn't Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-73402662738853863082010-12-27T10:31:00.003-05:002010-12-27T12:05:01.411-05:00Wow, yesterday was a mess.I took a Christmas vacation from Dec. 22 to 26 up with my family in Vermont. Maybe just one more day would have been nice, and I had some maudlin moments for reasons I'll try to talk about later, but I'd say that as vacations with my parents go, this was just right. On the 23rd I finished my shopping (I had done more shopping this year than usual, and got more of it doneCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-40155207021904712972010-11-30T14:34:00.004-05:002010-12-06T08:30:22.189-05:00Office Space was a documentary. Earlier today I got a phone call from the lawyer on a certain project team, asking me to identify where we used a certain phrase in a recent document. We had hoped that this thing would be published before a certain date, but it looks like it won't, so we now need to make sure that we didn't promise that it would be.When he spoke to me, I was starting to dread Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-17724163450579907492010-11-22T10:11:00.002-05:002010-11-22T11:46:40.708-05:00Dilemma of the day: correct someone who is being stupid, or let them continue?Someone on Facebook posted something warning people about this urban legend in earnest. If he were a real friend, I think I'd correct him, totally politely of course. An aunt had a habit of sending out e-mail forwards, as did someone I knew through my previous job. In both cases I sent them a link to Snopes saying what Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-30543584585258158052010-11-17T15:20:00.002-05:002010-11-17T17:07:03.256-05:00I had a meeting yesterday which really made me wish oratory was not a lost art. Everyone who was anyone used to be deliberately taught how to speak at length in public, and while teaching methods have changed for the better since those good ole days, that subject could do with being rediscovered. People get to middle and upper management because they know the right people and have the right Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-15833766218073582902010-11-09T14:29:00.002-05:002010-11-09T14:57:16.608-05:00If I could control my attention to detail, I'd be indispensable in any job.Yesterday, I got back another writer's review of something I had previously edited. There were a lot of editing marks on it. As for most of it, I could pretty easily think that it's all fair enough, this was never supposed to be the final version, I made mistakes just like everyone else does, et cetera. In two instances, Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-87374677306417530652010-11-04T17:00:00.003-04:002010-11-04T21:03:44.984-04:00Wow. As I mention all the time, I'm a pretty cynical person. Basically, I tend to believe the worst of people, especially collectively rather than individually and in commerce rather than non-economic efforts. So I would assume it's unlikely that news of brazen deceit would surprise me.Silly me.Unicredit America Inc. agreed Tuesday to stop sending letters to consumers threatening them with arrestCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-30402298088380561292010-11-03T14:31:00.002-04:002010-11-03T15:10:01.539-04:00How many black Republicans were just elected? (At least one that I know of.) Of the Congressional districts that switched from (D) to (R), how many of them are in the former Confederacy? Of the majority-black districts in the former Confederacy, how many switched districts yesterday? Democrats did bad overall yesterday, but did they do better or worse in the South than in the rest of the country?Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-92156070029470780612010-11-03T12:25:00.003-04:002010-11-03T22:09:04.647-04:00I was looking through my archives recently and found this.It's a bit ironic that book publishers, of all things, are getting into the intellectual property protection controversy. Audio/video media, software, merchandising, reference material - all of them really might have something to lose if it's safe and easy to get their product off the Internet. But books? I can't imagine myself reading an Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-8299481087938895672010-11-03T09:36:00.002-04:002010-11-03T10:06:01.664-04:00It figures. There are 12 House races which CNN has not called yet, and the one my girlfriend's job depends on is one of them. Being kept in suspense is annoying, but realistically this isn't all that big a deal. She has been saying since well before the election that she wants to find a new job, for personal reasons, and she has already been sending out resumes and networking, and the only Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-19771538607765480812010-11-02T10:42:00.004-04:002010-11-02T12:09:49.183-04:00I think I saw the signs in the back of this particular picture personally, maybe the "use your inside voice" sign and definitely the back two, and maybe also a few others in that photo gallery. Buzzfeed also has a thread (I'm not linking to it partly because my office seems more serious than usual this week about non-work-related e-mail use and Buzzfeed seems more obviously not-work-related than Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-80674857634055952462010-10-30T10:17:00.005-04:002010-10-31T07:32:48.958-04:00The Rally to Regain Sanity and/or Fear10:19 a.m. Waiting for friends to join us at our place and then we'll take the metro down to the mall. T. has rice krispie treats and similar stuff for a day outside with friends. I'm wearing a t-shirt that reads "Republicans for Voldemort" and have my Halloween costume in my bag: a "V for Vendetta" Guy Fawkes disguise. Just to be ready for Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-90013072393551416852010-10-29T15:15:00.002-04:002010-10-29T15:38:16.182-04:00The Onion was dead-on about politics this week. This, for example, is just as accurate and insightful as anything in the NYT, and a good deal more honest than Fox. But what really jumped out at me was this article:Alumni Office Dispatches Navajo Tracker To Hunt Down Glen Schutt '98TEMPE, AZ—Representatives in the alumni office at Arizona State University announced this week that in an effort to Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-31723444611974039322010-10-26T09:32:00.004-04:002010-10-26T12:18:08.540-04:00Party invitations: one of the many problems I avoided through years of being relatively asocial. T. and I are planning a party to show off our new place. A housewarming party, basically, although we haven't called it that because we think that sounds like we expect people to bring gifts even though we don't. T. pretty easily came up with a list of more than 20 people she wanted to invite: about Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-53806608862283991512010-10-25T12:59:00.002-04:002010-10-25T13:35:11.411-04:00There are two ways to handle temptation: avoid the source of it, or consciously resisting it or not feeling it in the first place. The relative ease of them depends on the person doing it and what the thing in question is, and one is probably not better than the other overall.However, a problem comes when someone who relies on avoiding the source of temptation (me) moves in with someone who Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-42467967865902139282010-10-22T10:07:00.004-04:002010-10-22T12:50:17.000-04:00You (whoever you are) may notice things look different. Here's what happened: every time I logged onto Blogger for the past few weeks if not months, I saw a message saying that I have "followers". I would click on that to see what that means or who they are, and it tells me that in order to find out I have to upgrade my blog. I ignored that and went on with my business.Today, though, I decided toCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-32846999115903912982010-10-22T08:39:00.002-04:002010-10-22T09:34:00.164-04:00Apparently it's election season. I plan to vote, but beyond that, meh. I agree more with August J. Pollack than with John Cole. (Not that I'd stand by every word and nuance of the phrasing of either of them, of course.) I hope the Democrats win, and the leading Republicans are indeed horrifying to imagine in positions of power while being hilarious in their current role as mere topics of media Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-58330611395090317712010-10-14T14:15:00.006-04:002010-10-25T06:57:26.432-04:00Pet peeve of the week: books with nonindicative titles. It comes to mind at the moment because I have the Mercy Thompson series on my e-book reader and I can never tell which book is which. I read the first four pretty much continuously but happened to take a break of a couple weeks before starting the fifth and last one, and I had to open every single book with that author's name to figure out Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-48581502247460613432010-10-12T13:46:00.002-04:002010-10-12T14:33:03.653-04:00Why am I so bored and lethargic today?Is it because I didn't get a good night's sleep last night? Got to bed a little after the usual time, but more importantly, I was awake for at least half an hour or so starting at 4:15 a.m. Am I sick, or getting sick? T. got a flu shot last week and found that it hurt more and longer than she expected and over this past weekend she was blowing her nose and Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-3359239278105644492010-09-24T09:43:00.003-04:002010-09-24T10:24:30.592-04:00Facts about Christopher LeeFirst of all, important roles he's played, in no particular order: Dracula, Bond villain Scaramanga, Saruman the White and Count Dooku. Also "Mephistoles" (the Devil in what looks like a little-known campy Italian film), Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, Rasputin the Mad Monk and Sherlock Holmes' even smarter brother Mycroft. Lee also voiced Death (from the Discworld), the Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-32309952863660379182010-09-21T11:38:00.004-04:002010-09-21T11:52:47.093-04:00The move is basically done. I had yesterday off work, so I was available for an appointment with the cable guy. I got confused and worried about some stuff I had to do, but in the end the big stuff turned out OK and we have the wireless network set up. I also assembled a bookshelf we had bought at Ikea over the weekend. It's only half loaded up, and we had trouble fixing it to the wall (screws Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-72416656479132978172010-09-13T16:13:00.004-04:002010-09-21T11:38:00.684-04:00Well, the move is probably done by now. My stuff was all moved in on Saturday, thanks to T.'s cousin Dave. Saturday and Sunday we moved some of T.'s stuff and unpacked a bit. She took today off work and hired movers who presumably finished up. I say "presumably" and "probably" just because I haven't called or e-mailed her yet today, but they were scheduled to start by 9:30 and if they aren't doneCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-72706900250089911472010-09-09T16:44:00.003-04:002010-09-09T17:53:02.923-04:00Only got one carload of stuff done. By the time I was done it was around quarter to five, so another load would have been right in the middle of rush hour. Oh well. I can probably fit it all in T.'s cousin's van, and if I can't, both my roommates have cars and could probably be persuaded to help me take a few boxes across town for a reasonable payment. Busy, tiring, stressful day here. The move Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-63893438934353964942010-09-07T23:29:00.002-04:002010-09-07T23:42:01.773-04:00Packing progress: well, I'm daunted by the amount I still have to do, but my stated goal was two carloads of stuff tomorrow afternoon, and I think that's plausible. It'll depend on how big the rental car is, of course; I got some kind of Civic rather than a van or something, partly to save money and partly for ease of driving. Other than on vacations, I haven't driven in two years, so I figured ICyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-62202206385909431802010-09-07T11:41:00.003-04:002010-09-07T12:50:03.315-04:00How I procrastinated on packing this weekend: cutting down a tree limb that was hanging too low, and yes, the irony of procrastinating on packing to move with a home improvement project is not lost on me. But at least my roommates and whoever moves into my room next won't have to worry about it. Also by watching at least half a dozen episodes of Dexter and two of the Futurama movies from between Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-25509304347684912492010-08-02T11:36:00.003-04:002010-08-05T19:47:34.722-04:00Good god, I'd forgotten just how enthralled I could get in a computer game until I installed Starcraft 2. I've been playing World of Warcraft all along, but it's been months since WoW has been like this, maybe not since the current expansion was released more than a year and a half ago. These days if I'm ever in WoW for longer than I plan or "should" be, then it's almost always because I'm in a Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-50800064639596423562010-07-23T09:19:00.004-04:002010-07-24T09:23:07.335-04:00The Express SucksA continuing seriesLooking back, I'm surprised I've never posted about this specifically before. But the Express, a publication of the Washington Post and one of the two major free commuter dailies in the DC area, really sucks. Crappy, vapid, juvenile, sensationalist, drive-by reporting that starts with Broderish centrism and is always trying to lurch even further right like a Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-72364584700982050402010-06-25T14:13:00.003-04:002010-06-26T17:42:13.143-04:00So I read about Dave Weigel (DC reporter, libertarian but apparently moderate, reliable critic of nutty right-wingers) getting private correspondences leaked to the media and being forced to resign after that, my first thought was, "What does that say about me?" (All the previous post's disclaimers about self-centeredness still stand, of course.)About Weigel himself, it sucks. Here's the general Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-32888250057455980142010-06-23T15:28:00.005-04:002010-06-25T14:08:14.017-04:00My sister has finished college and has been looking for work for the past few months now and has been a bit worried/depressed/despondent about it. Bad economy in general, our home state of Vermont is particularly thin on young people, where my parents live now is way too rural for her to have any fun, etc. For the past couple months I've been feeling vaguely sorry for her, but not enough to Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-90166449763600874982010-06-23T08:58:00.001-04:002010-06-23T09:12:53.553-04:00In addition to yesterday's griping, I also have been thinking about a list of little things people could do to make my job easier. Well, now that I phrase it like that it sounds pointless. Of course everyone should do things to make my job easier, right? But still, a lot of this is pretty simple stuff which seems straightforward and yet nobody does them. The two examples that came up yesterday: Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-66785245395789395662010-06-22T17:03:00.004-04:002010-06-23T08:57:56.989-04:00Ugh. Work annoying. After one tech editor (that is, me and people doing jobs similar to mine, just assigned to different projects) is finished with a document that's at all consequential, the policy is to give it to another for a peer review. Seems simple, right? I did that with a recent project, and it hasn't turned out well. Not disastrous - I've certainly had worse - but low-key annoyance and Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-2634098537924613952010-06-11T13:57:00.000-04:002010-06-11T13:58:16.610-04:00I learned something new Wednesday night: Elena Kagan is really short.Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-23522413950071681152010-06-09T16:52:00.001-04:002010-06-09T16:54:07.358-04:00A new hobby: Gapminder World.Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-10905371357795985812010-06-07T12:02:00.003-04:002010-06-07T19:06:02.747-04:00The rest of the weekend: fun, there's just less to say about it. T. and I went to the zoo on Saturday, which was cool just because I've never been to the Washington zoo. We also watched some TV and ran errands and ate out and just generally hung out Friday and Saturday. I was feeling a little bit guilty because we had had plans to get together Thursday night but I cancelled at the last minute, Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-73067954712045247292010-06-07T10:17:00.003-04:002010-06-07T12:49:29.745-04:00Last night I witnessed such a concise, compact character study that if I was still in college and submitted this blog post to a Creative Writing class, I would automatically get an A for it. I mean, this blog post wouldn't actually get a good grade just because I'm not going to waste time parsing word choices and trying to show rather than tell every little thing, but I thought it was a great "Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-65431501330789559102010-06-04T16:20:00.003-04:002010-06-07T10:09:49.689-04:00Argh. I wonder how long it will take for computer illiteracy to become something that people feel the need to better themselves on, or at least shamefully hide.I'm not talking about knowing some computer language or an in-joke of some online subculture. I'm talking about hyperlinks in e-mails. And not some esoteric or barebones e-mail program either; in this office, everyone has Microsoft OutlookCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-80634831285797783052010-05-28T17:54:00.003-04:002010-05-28T18:06:22.677-04:00It really is surprising how much time people spend traveling on a day-to-day basis. My hour-long commute isn't annoying because I more or less made a conscious choice to trade time for money and convenience (that is, using public transportation takes longer than a car would, but it's cheaper and I don't have to worry about parking or insurance or maintenance), but still, every workday I walk 10 Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-58099901429359439592010-05-25T17:30:00.004-04:002010-05-28T17:53:24.499-04:00Ugh. Mild headache all day today. Probably just caused by a little too much beer last night and staying up too late and then getting up too early this morning. No good reason for that, I was just watching TV.In addition to tiredness, stress or busyness more generally is probably making things a bit worse. Planning to move in with T. is going well so far - that was the lifestyle change I vaguely Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-16929310426945862802010-05-19T09:50:00.004-04:002010-05-20T08:53:05.948-04:00Wow, this is horrible reporting. Sure, it's hardly the worst example out there, but two paragraphs in this article about Specter's primary loss really jumped out at me:Specter is 80, but for Democrats in 2009 he was the new 60, the parliamentary crowbar Democrats needed to help muscle President Obama's policies past Republican opposition in the Senate... With Specter's loss, expect a major Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-31152233493429582472010-05-14T12:10:00.002-04:002010-05-14T12:34:24.083-04:00Wow. I wonder if anyone I know was here?Well, probably. At first I couldn't name that crowded plaza in all the pictures, and I thought of two different places it could have been until I realized that the party was so big there are probably pictures of both places out there... but still, I lived in that city for a year as an exchange student, and there were 9,000 people at this apéro. Even if I Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-46036986802424039582010-05-10T15:01:00.004-04:002010-05-10T15:27:09.443-04:00At my office there's an "X days since last bad thing Y" sign on the first floor. There are three Ys, actually. The numbers are suitably high to be impressive; the top number is in the 20s right now, the middle number is around 340 and the bottom number is in the 60s. OK, cool, good work everyone, 340 and 60 days are indeed good lengths of time to go without letting those bad things happen. But inCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-66070589587364235612010-05-07T14:39:00.003-04:002010-05-09T07:46:21.497-04:00Since I mentioned work, though, I might as well vent a bit. Two days ago, I finished a project similar to this - not the same thing, but the same type of thing and I was having the same problem with it. And yeah, I wound up doing a half-assed job on it. Oh well. The person who gave me the assignment came back to me with a few problems with it but accepted the glaring vagueness of the data withoutCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-90697161714311850652010-05-07T14:12:00.005-04:002010-05-07T15:25:51.922-04:00Nothing is hanging over my head at the moment - mailed off a Mother's Day present on time or very close to it, finished my taxes on time, completed some minor but particularly frustrating projects at work - and it feels great. I'm still keeping busy, but as far as I know I've finished all the stuff that I "need" to take care of in my personal life for at least the next month; everything I do Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-43297657629988080192010-04-27T15:40:00.005-04:002010-04-27T19:25:41.251-04:00I wonder what it's like to have a plan for life? I know stuff happens you can't or never would plan on, but it seems like most happy and successful people have at least some kind of plan for where they want to go in life and how to get there. I don't, unless you define "plan" so broadly it becomes pointless, and I wonder if I'm missing out on something or I'm going to because of this.Despite how Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-59511339131185083492010-04-22T19:16:00.002-04:002010-04-22T21:35:19.568-04:00Dilemma at work, although this time not at all work-related: this morning a right-winger circulated an e-mail about how Earth Day was a Communist plot or something like that because it's Lenin's birthday. The official explanation for this is that the first Earth day was a Wednesday, thus not in conflict with exams at any major colleges at the time it was founded or any major religious holidays, Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-83486323073501821442010-04-21T18:57:00.004-04:002010-04-21T22:19:20.377-04:00Kind of depressed today. The weather doesn't help - cloudy and apparently it rained during the day and it looked like it was constantly on the verge of rain while I was on my way home - and I've been short on sleep lately, blah blah blah, but part of the problem is work, of course. The latest issue isn't a high-stress problem like the last one I talked about. It seems so minor and trivial that Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-13108216640197020202010-04-20T08:51:00.003-04:002010-05-04T09:53:36.604-04:00Other than the thing I posted about yesterday, though (to be scrupulously accurate, I posted that elsewhere yesterday, and copied it here about an hour ago), the weekend was good. On Friday, a birthday party for a co-worker of T.'s. On Saturday afternoon, we went to a movie instead of the gardens. Kick-Ass, which lived up to its name. That night we went to the birthday party of a friend of mine. Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-59206219008359384752010-04-19T09:51:00.000-04:002010-04-20T08:51:27.115-04:00On Saturday I was going to the White House garden with my girlfriend. They wouldn't let me in with my Leatherman pocket knife, so we turned around and left, which sucked. There was no place I could leave it at the security checkpoint. It was throw the pocketknife in the trash or leave. Sure, it's partly my fault, I should have read the ticket when we left the apartment - or just slipped the thingCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-23667243141147723092010-04-12T10:36:00.002-04:002010-04-12T11:30:42.272-04:00I've said it before: standardized tests are stupid. Or maybe "standardized" is the wrong word... multiple-choice test about subjective issues?This one starts with the following intro to every question in the first part: "YOU NEED NOT HAVE PERSONALLY SEEN OR EXPERIENCED THE ACTIONS. During your last 30 workdays at your duty location what do you estimate the chance that the action below COULD have Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-21169270146495071412010-04-11T19:33:00.002-04:002010-04-11T19:44:19.932-04:00My World of Warcraft account got hacked. I thought I was doing OK with computer security, but obviously not. Actually, just yesterday I installed an addon to make finding something for a certain quest a little easier, and the hacker was in my account around 8 or 9 this morning, so it's a safe bet that the spyware came from there. And I thought that nothing could be safer than getting a familiar, Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-79916665288106764102010-04-07T15:10:00.002-04:002010-04-07T16:03:43.965-04:00Time for more griping about work: today, as of 20 minutes ago as far as I know, we're finished with that big project. (Yes, this is about a week past the deadline. No one seems to mind, which makes me wonder why we all had to do rushed, slipshod jobs on previous steps in the first place.) I got an e-mail at 9:15 this morning: two people on the project sent me the results of their meeting with Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-81773738273939888292010-04-07T13:18:00.006-04:002010-04-07T17:26:54.126-04:00Not Always Right is really funny stuff - horror stories about the assholes that people have to deal with at work, the stupid things customers do, especially when they are annoyed or embarrassed or whatever - but a lot of the stories here and there seem like they might be sad. All we usually get is dialogue with a little scene-setting, so a lot of the time it's clearly someone just being a jerk orCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-10844545593152703222010-04-06T15:19:00.002-04:002010-04-06T15:47:12.399-04:00It's been two years since I was a reporter, but it still tickles me to read about national news covering stories and/or people I wrote about myself. (Or in one case, someone I was friends with while I was a reporter, although the way I knew him had nothing to do with work.) Like this, for example. In a recent Express there was an article about it, even briefer than that, and I almost laughed out Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-40973168116445936692010-04-05T16:03:00.003-04:002010-04-05T16:43:04.990-04:00The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, I guess. I spent this past weekend at home, with nothing going on at all, not seeing T. or doing anything outside the house except walking to a nearby restaurant for lunch... and I was bored out of my skull. "Bored out of my skull" is a bit of an exaggeration - it wasn't all that bad, and it was partly because I was trying to get some Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-52075571956895843362010-03-29T14:24:00.008-04:002010-04-03T19:36:37.406-04:00The big project at work has become downright surreal over the past few weeks. More and more, I find myself describing my job with Douglas Adams quotes, and if that isn't a bad sign I don't know what is. As for the big, final, main deadline, we aren't actually over it, but we have been over so many milestones by a few hours or a day that I'm surprised it hasn't added up to making us more than a Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-86663326901274933522010-03-26T15:04:00.007-04:002010-03-28T13:50:36.809-04:00Now that I get around to enumerating that list in the previous post, it doesn't seem so bad at all. A girlfriend, Magic, and a little more work - so what, right? And my sessions at the gym have petered out completely over the past few months - jogging on a treadmill was just a chore, fitting it into my day actually was hard now and then, and I've been eating at least a little bit more healthily Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-35082268556583610972010-03-26T08:48:00.003-04:002010-03-26T08:57:31.225-04:00Entirely too much going on lately. Or it's not necessarily too much - and of course, a lot of it would be good news on its own - but it's more than I'm used to. Over the past two months I've started dating someone (woo hoo! Yay me! Hi, T.!), started playing Magic again with Paul and a friend of his from college and at a local store's tournaments, and got a lot busier at work than usual on one Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-65165948972378618512010-03-12T16:52:00.002-05:002010-03-12T17:04:48.444-05:00I've spent little or no time with my guild in World of Warcraft last week or the week before. Just didn't get around to it, didn't get computer problems fixed in time, had other stuff going on, whatever. This Tuesday I got on and we raided like usual, or maybe even a bit better than usual. When we got to Festergut, though, we got wiped out probably at least five times. Just couldn't kill him; Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-36034586477918490582010-03-12T10:03:00.005-05:002010-03-12T11:49:30.939-05:00It never fails. If I'm traveling, or even just going to spend the night somewhere other than at home, there's always something I forget. No matter how much I think I'm overpacking, no matter how brief the stay... Last time, it was my black leather belt. I was going to work the following day, and the brown belt I had happened to wear that day didn't go as well with my slacks and dress shirt as theCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-75457193504318637632010-02-12T12:04:00.006-05:002010-02-12T17:09:34.998-05:00Ugh. Tired, even though I got to work two hours late. And the snow had nothing to do with that, except very indirectly and except for providing an excuse. I just got very little sleep last night, and got to work late mainly because I had to make a stop first. It's funny, with a week off due to snow, I would expect to have got more accomplished. But no, shoveling burned a fair amount of energy Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-22495042372226798092010-02-02T16:08:00.004-05:002010-02-08T18:57:57.827-05:00I've been trying vegetarianism. Saving money and reducing my personal environmental impact are side benefits worth mentioning, but the main reason is to eat a bit healthier and I figure that this could be the easiest way. I don't want to make a blanket rule to swear off junk food or empty calories because sometimes there's nothing else available, and anyway, such extreme measures aren't needed. Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-91495883724594458122010-01-12T17:05:00.006-05:002010-01-12T18:54:07.286-05:00Tvtropes is fun, but it really changes the experience of reading, especially of reading series long enough that I'm spending several days or even weeks putting the books down and coming back to them. The Codex Alera, for example. I've been ambivalent about the series for a while. On the one hand, it's by Jim Butcher and I love his Dresden Files series, but on the other hand it looks like yet Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-55579761068841951422010-01-11T09:38:00.005-05:002010-01-12T23:46:33.441-05:00Lots of ups and downs over the past few days.Down: Wednesday I wasn't feeling well. A bit of a fever and headache. Nothing I couldn't work through just fine, but some people advised me that those symptoms are exactly the kind of thing that's contagious, so I took Thursday off. Up: I felt fine most of Thursday. A little tired, and I had a headache in the afternoon, but no worse than usual on a dayCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-51708149304331239512009-12-22T15:09:00.003-05:002009-12-22T15:58:03.506-05:00The Airing of GrievancesA Festivus tradition!1. Holiday shopping sucks. I know the holidays are a stressful time for a lot of people, and I can't be the only person for whom finding decent presents is the biggest part of the problem. It seems especially bad within my family, but even if my parents and sister all loved comic books, there's still a lot of difficult thought about gifts compressed Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-61617348974341172002009-11-23T10:08:00.004-05:002009-11-23T12:06:50.500-05:00Lots of stuff going on in World of Warcraft. The bigger personal event is, I fiiinally earned the Insane in the Membrane achievement on Saturday. It took a little more than seven months, judging by the date on the achievement I got for the first step of it. I'm a little disappointed that no one has remarked on it out of the blue, other than congratulations when the announcement dinged up there. Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-40969489337778413582009-09-08T13:03:00.001-04:002009-09-08T13:03:55.407-04:00I know it's weird how I'm getting back into posting a bit after a hiatus from October 2008 to June 2009, and/or weird how three of the last four posts were about purely geeky stuff. I'm no more into WoW and comic books than usual, I don't think, I just seem to have more to say about it than usual. Other stuff that's going on: a relationship ended weekend before last. Obviously, that sucks and I'mCyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-12710433789555795632009-09-08T11:53:00.003-04:002009-09-08T13:06:22.299-04:00I'm finding myself wondering whether it's ethical to raid old-world instances in World of Warcraft. Sounds dumb, but what if I go in there looking for something different from everyone else?One stumbling block in an epic level 60 quest chain is a hard-to-get material called elementium. I've been stymied on it so far because it can only be found in one raid instance, and the one time I've been Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-67316782708587515852009-09-03T13:23:00.003-04:002009-09-07T16:01:50.704-04:00Driving is safer than flying, they say, even though it doesn't seem that way because plane crashes resulting in dozens or hundreds of deaths are big news but everyone ignores minor car accidents. I'm not sure if this is primarily attributable to the media or human nature or what, but this tendency makes one part of my job harder and more frustrating than it should be.In 2004 and 2005, two Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-101643747305452252009-09-01T16:02:00.002-04:002009-09-01T16:07:38.948-04:00So, Disney bought Marvel Comics. I might as well repost what I wrote at Matt Yglesias' blog when I first read about it: Ugh.I was twitching when I read about it. I haven’t bought a comic in months and I don’t think of myself as a fanboy or Marvel zombie or whatever, but maybe I am after all. I enjoyed almost all the Marvel movies in the last 10 years (I never saw Electra, and Fantastic Four 2 Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-24537551786756795892009-08-24T20:55:00.005-04:002009-08-24T22:43:16.252-04:00Torn about World of Warcraft. When Wrath of the Lich King was released, I deleted my rogue. He was the first character I had created, and there was some fun stuff about him, but it just wasn't enough. For the way I play - a little pvp, but mostly pve, in a casual raiding progression guild - there was almost nothing he could do that my main character, a feral druid, couldn't do. Sure, my main was Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-89060911904237072682009-06-23T10:49:00.003-04:002009-06-23T11:13:10.692-04:00Like I said last week, I tend to drink coffee in cycles, and I have since I was at the newspaper. (Or at least, I used to have that cycle.) First I have a little in the morning - from the cafeteria here, a 12 oz. cup; from the kitchen in Vermont, one coffee cup - for a few days, then a morning comes along when I have a lot to get done or when I was up late the night before and I have a little Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-6975516976183811372009-06-23T10:07:00.003-04:002009-06-23T10:49:10.797-04:00Um, maybe it's not time for a Kindle after all. Unfortunately the publishers decide how many licenses, that is devices, a book can be on at any one time. While most of the time that will be five or six different devices there will be times when it’s only one device.At the present time there is no way to know how many devices can be licensed prior to buying the book.In other words, if his Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-82138981020727929552009-06-15T08:25:00.002-04:002009-06-15T09:52:20.695-04:00I'm not sure if my computer picked a good weekend to go on vacation* or not. One advantage is that June is a good time for it. Sunday was sunny and hot but not too hot and all around the best day imaginable to spend time running a few errands on foot. And I made headway on some bookkeeping and cleaning up and stuff. Not much, but some. It's not a big deal either way, I've long since stopped Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-72026954113822882522008-10-03T01:55:00.003-04:002008-10-03T02:52:46.669-04:00I watched the vice-presidential debate a couple hours ago. I'd say it's good news, just because no news is good news.Obama is calm and cool under pressure (see his debate), eloquent (see his nomination acceptance speech), and wonkish (see the policy focus in his debate and his acceptance speech.) Biden is competent and experienced (see this debate), albeit a bit... unfocused (see his gaffes). Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5899255.post-21241587483109069052008-09-24T23:26:00.002-04:002008-09-24T23:56:49.985-04:0026,500 hits on Google for mccain "walk and chew gum" at the moment. It's only eight hours or so after the news broke that McCain would "suspend his campaign," whatever that means, and wouldn't show up at the debate scheduled for Friday. I guess this means that he's going to demonstrate selfless nobility by talking about how he's trying to rise above partisanship in this current economic crisis. Cyrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07079100744662487169noreply@blogger.com0