And we're back at it tomorrow.

Everything meets tomorrow, so I have a relatively early morning. Only relatively, though. Still, it’s time to fly or fry. Starting tomorrow, it’s not entirely all downhill from here, but the tilt should start running in my favor rather than against me. Need to remember to have my resume looked at, and start job-hunting. And then there’s the approvals I need to do the graduation thing. This should all be doable, though. So, here we go.

Giant rabbit stalks English vegetable gardens. Peter Rabbit meets Monty Python? Or a sign of things to come! (*thundercrash!*)

A reminder to all of us while we’re on-line - if it's on-line, people will find it. This includes prospective employers. Does that mean I should start f-locking myself until I’m comfortably in a job? (I hope not. I don’t think I’ve put up too many things that someone might consider offer-rescinding.) But if it can be read by someone, it could potentially be read by everyone. So put your best... or most accurate... face forward, right? And don’t forget your Play-Doh scented cologne.

Along with resolutions, lots of people go in for prognostications about the year to come. Rather than being their optimistic, cheery selves, the American people expect war, famine, pestilence and plague. And on top of that, 25% think that the Second Coming is this year. Slightly more think that the draft will be in by the end of the year. When asked what they’re optimistic about, science-types said that religion will be going away and war/violence will continue to lessen. Compared with the plebes, these people are being optimists indeed. And they’ll have to compete with Pat Robertson, who predicts that a nuclear tragedy will occur this year. Perhaps that’s where that 25% that expect the Second Coming are getting their information from.

In France, tents camped along the sides of a canal protest homelessness. Not all those tenting are homeless, which is encouraging. What’s somewhat staggering, though, is that the number of homeless in the country of France is about that of the city of Los Angeles. It’ll be a very happy day when we can get our country’s homeless down to that number or less.

Looking back in time, Neatorama has a look at thirteen photographs that changed the world. All of them in black and white, I note. And at least some of them I’ve seen before. Not all of them, but some. Any others that people might want to suggest as world-changing photos? (I would advise against choosing something like the Child's Railway toy... from Hell! as a selection. You can,however, laugh your butt off.)

A Ferndale gent may be getting a life sentence after he broke a display to get at a mannequin not soon after being released from jail. There was a movie somewhere about a mannequin that came to life and had a relationship with a man. Perhaps this is that movie in reverse - the man wanting to have a life and relationship with the mannequin? (A joke about how some women doll themselves up so much as to be mannequins would not be amiss here. Nor would a Barbie joke.)

The New York Times reports that The United States isn't allowing nearly enough Iraqi refugees to immigrate to the United States. The longer they stay in an area where they could be killed by a countryman for being seen too close to an American, the more likely it is that someone will end up killing them. And with the furor over the handling of Saddam Hussein's hanging, there’s an increasing chance that violence will intensify rather than abate.

A comparison of boot camps - a weight-loss "bikini boot camp" and the Canadian Forces basic boot. One that promises to make you fit in that cute little fabric nothing, and the other that promises you’ll be in shape and able to shoot anybody who catcalls you. Somewhere, my brain is having some cognitive dissonance.

Apple's tightly integrated iTunes-iPod scheme appears to have triggered an anti-monopoly lawsuit. That’s one way of getting after restrictive DRM. Of course, there are workarounds, but wouldn’t it be nice for someone to do whatever they damn well pleased with the music they bought? (And, say, video and software, too?)

No Child Left Behind comes up for renewal soon. I hope it dies in a messy and embarrassing way. That legislation has done significant harm to the educational process by believing sincerely that its standards are effective and that every school has the means of achieving them, and then removing necessary components from schools when they can’t.

They fly through the air with the greatest of ease... the giant kites, that is. Flying kites of anywhere from 2m x 3m to 15 x 16m and bigger. Big freaking kites. Here's some pictures to give you an idea of the scale of these things.

Last marker for tonight - Matthew Mainen says that we should judge our allies by how they treat their women. In Pakistan, where the government is semistable, rape is a tough offense to prosecute, but the new President is trying to ease taht burden. In Saudia Arabia, where the royal family rules the roost, a women gang-raped by seven men has received a sentence of 90 lashes for “adulterous relations”. The men? Nothing, so far, if there will be any at all. Rather swift to punish the woman, who, if she were to give a defense of herself, would probably be accused of “inviting it upon herself” by showing an ankle or something like that. At some point, I would like to say that in this country, we don’t have those ways of thinking. I really would. I know better. I hope, though, that kind of mentality is not just minority, but minority of minorities, and looked at oddly by even them.

Anyway, that’s it. So, to avoid being depressing, think on this - if you’re having trouble seeing something in front of your face, try crossing your eyes. Not only will the thing you’re trying to see come more into focus, you might manage to make someone laugh while you’re at it. See you all tomorrow.

Another year looked at.

The last year was likely a year of growth for me. Definitely the trenches of the graduate work, of which I worked my way steadily, although not necessarily calmly, though. Looking over the entries of last year, you see ea lot that

In January, the link parade started so very long ago entered another year or good, bad, and weird. For whatever people get out of it, it’s hit or miss about sparking lots of comments, but I figure that it gives people who are looking an insight into my head. Of course, decoding what’s there is probably the trickier part of the operation. przxqgl dubbed me an official computer geek, which really was more a reaffirmation than a new declaration. I got my TV tuner card hooked up, which I have put to good use of the past year for both television and gaming. Even then, I complained that my biorhythm schedule is off when it comes to three hour lectures. Maybe I don’t really have the attention span for it. If that were true, I should buy a laptop and keep myself distracted, or something. Whatever the case may be, I only have one more semester to wonder whether I’ll be able to stay awake long enough to get maximal benefit. We can, of course, hope that the classes this semester are interesting, and will thus keep me awake.

January also produced another Five Things I’m Proud of, but in shorter form. It would appear that a significant amount of my journal is cyclical. I guess I need someone with memory or archive-searching technique to remind me when I’m going over old ground. (I suppose, if my archives were tagged, that would alleviate the problem... but I have no desire to tag my archives.) I had trouble then coming up with five, and I still do.

February, the shorter month, had an espousal of beliefs that were valid at the time. At some point, perhaps another declaration of beliefs is in order. There was a tiny expose on the structure of the Greater Llewelynland government, as I saw it. It was an Olympic year last year, which means that I was sneaking glances at hockey feeds among other things while doing homework. There was also the Winter Break at the end of the month, where I tried to unwind and succeeded, at least partially.

March picked up the tempo some in terms of graduate schooling. There was also the usual anxiety about actual success outside, whether anything that I’ve experienced and learned will make sense, and whether or not I’m learning anything or just going through the motions. Some anxiety about whether career choices actually match personality and desire. Paper problems (Aren’t they always like this?) continued to eat my sanity.

April saw the relief of the paper anxieties and the end of another year. I also moved out the house I had for that year, and into the current residence. Having several months’ perspective on it, that move was a fantastic thing for me to do. April also represented success, as I snagged the first of my summer internships during that month. I think I had both of them laid in by the end of that month, too. So April was definitely a happy month.

May brought on Anime Central, which is always a happy, happy thing. The beginning of work arrived in May, too, so I finally got hands-on experience at the library profession. There was also the first time I got to see Play! A Video Game Symphony. There was significant squee in the month of May.

June brought the beginning of the other internship, which was as informative as the first was about the profession. There was OS upgrading (goodness, how long have I been running Linux now?) and significant angsting about the state of my hero complex. Cycles, cycles. The rest of my life proceeding pretty well apace.

July is the month I manage to tick over another counter on my age, assuming that I’m still alive enough to do it. One of the people that my high school circle of friends would never find a girlfriend shocked us all and got married to a very beautiful woman. (In my suit, I felt under-dressed, I recall.) Perhaps unfortunately, this also led to my taking stock of my own relationship situations. The Blue-eyed monster got me. Family reuinions as well, so seeing Dad’s cousins and his side of the family. Always fun to do.

August? Pure hell. Although with bright spots - like finishing Kingdom Hearts II, and the last week of my internships (yay, no more weekends for a bit). That leads pretty directly into...

September, when classes began anew. It being year two, I only had to take three courses for the semester. One of my best friends from earlier in life returned to nearby, and since he did, I’ve been hanging out with him in vain attempts to catch up on lost time. Soon I’ll probably be the one moving away. I stuck through Xenosaga II and defeated the story of it. Did take a trip to Georgia as my Big Impulsive Thing and had lots of fun while I was down there. That flowed into October.

October had things going well, albeit hectically. Preparations for U*CON, as well as the eventual impending doom of projects and papers. It’s relentless - you get done with one sequence only to find the next begins. The fun run of the baseball team ended with a World Series defeat, but still - they did better than they have been for several decades. Upgraded the OS again (this should be a regular thing).

November meant Okami took up a lot of my time, U*CON went off as smoothly as it has been in years, there were congressional and ballot elections in the country (the Democrats, surprisingly, won a majority in the Congress, either overcoming their poor perception or capitalizing sufficiently on the “anyone but them” campaign.) We awoke to a world where state institutions were not permitted to use “preferences” in making decisions like admissions, among other potential impacts. And there was the paper panic in my schooling, too.

November also meant a return of a bigger, badasser version of the Five Things I’m Proud Of sequence, and a gift from unlikely sources of the computer I’m using now. There were also festivals celebrating the need to be thankful.

December brought on the end of the paper panic and of another semester, the realization that the padded rugby team was not, in fact, going for the championship game, but to Pasadena, the VEWPRF, presents and gifts, cards, and the end-of year festivals. I celebrated the new year’s arrival with welah, sporklord and his boyfriend, laforce, and the special guest appearance by welahsister. And now, to another year, and all the potential that it holds.