I'm alive! Woo!

Finally, my powers are restored, and my connection has returned to me. I suspect my previous problems with connection may have been my router rather than any other thing’s fault, after my connection started behaving erratically soon after all the installation and setting-up was done. Removing the router from the chain appears to have fixed the problem.

Anyway, the long-awaited link list strikes again. In celebration of being untethered and unfettered, some articles that probably would get caught by a work filter - Toke Like A Girl, which wonders why women don’t do more marijuana statistically, and How to Look Good Naked, a television programme that seeks to make women who feel unhappy with their bodies look good, well, naked (or probably pretty close to it), and then build from there. And one more thing - the birth control pill is apparently helpful in fighting certain types of cancer.

Shameless exploitation and yes, a potentially undying bad joke - Buy Uranus. Actually, heavy on the bad joke, less on the serious. Hur, hur, hur.

More seriously, a Northwest passage shipping lane may now be open, thanks to Arctic ice melt. So while shipping may fall down, the environmental impact could be much, much worse. And while biofuels may help, they have to be done in a sustainable manner, or it really doesn’t do much or good, and possibly even more harm. In some ways, perhaps Soylent Green's predictions are on-target.

As a reminder to all of us, and something that anyone who’s worked in retail or other jobs where cash and such things change hands can say with authority, properly distracted, the human mind will believe it sees money when it was only given blank sheets of paper. Or nonwinning tickets exchanged for payouts. It relies on you not paying attention to what you’re getting and working under the assumption that this is a transaction like any other. And that’s a relatively small-scale distraction. Who knows where the perception filters and somebody else’s problem fields are. Or when people try to change them, like Universal Media Group claiming that a collector can't resell promotional CDs given to him, because since they were never sold, they remain the property of UMG.

Last for tonight is a pinnacle of hacking and evolution - Super Mario World levels that require no input to clear. That’s the original found, and if that’s intriguing, ten more of the same type await those who prefer the easy yet flashy route through the stages. I, however, am going to go to sleep. Work beckons tomorrow, and I still have to do some work that I didn’t get to tonight.

Things I have learned in my first weeks of work.

The things I have learned in my first few weeks of work and living here are as follows:

1) The weather here is moist. Thus, finding condensation on the outside of your car window is not something to be surprised about. Nor should I be surprised with light rain being a companion in my days.

2) I will not be surprised if, on the second day of working at my library branch, someone who teaches French stops by and I am thus able to exercise a language that I thought I would not speak again past the time at university. Speaking in halting, conversibile, and inelegant French is still apparently enough to impress my co-worker.

3) My co-workers get my humor, are unafraid to fire first, and will respond if attacked. This creates a fantastic working environment. Similarly, my bosses do not require nooses nor full suit and tie as required dress for work. This also contributes to a fantastic working environment.

4) I will not be surprised when, after a week, I have been handed three projects and have likely volunteered for two more. I will also not be surprised when a critical piece of information useful to the current project was not communicated because, frankly, I didn’t ask and they didn’t say.I will also be very aware that other projects that look alluring may also waylay me in the alley and steal my free time. I will resolve to ensure that my work stays at the office.

5) There will always be choice phrases uttered within hearing distance, such as “I don’t want any of those books. They’re too historical.” I will ensure that those sayings are chronicled in some manner so that more people will be convinced that libraries are not dull and stodgy places. I will also note that the lure of free knowledge, once sufficient, has been supplanted by the lure of being able to access one’s MySpace page, and adjust my persuasion tactics accordingly.

6) Living within a short walking distance of a hippie grocery store, a chain grocery store, and a video game retailer is a really cool thing. If I stay here for another a couple years and the new construction project goes according to schedule, I will be living across from work, which is even cooler.

7) I will not be surprised when the hippie grocery store checkout person asks when I’m listening to, asks which game when I say “Video game soundtracks”, responds “Really?” when I say “Super Smash Brothers Melee” and proclaims that Castelvania: SOTN is an excellent soundtrack, and that The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess is also good. (He recommends playing Metroid as good Wiimote training first, and then Twilight Princess as a nunchuck trainer.)

8) The concept of space has been so foreign to me over the last six years that I have a slight “whoa.” moment when I find out that between all the stuff that I brought with me and the material that I’ve purchased all fits in my living room. (And some part of my kitchen). The bedroom’s space is still mostly available. What I’m lacking now is not space, but storage units to put it all in. And a desk. And a chair. But those things will wait until I have some money in the bank account.

9) Knowing people in the area you’re moving to is a big plus. Even more so when you can meet them and get mauled at board games soon after you arrive.

And finally,

10) Being able to do one’s laundry inside the apartment is a fantastic thing. Maybe at some point, perhaps if I ever have enough dishes to warrant its usage, I’ll even consider running the dishwasher.

All this in only a little while. We’ll have to see how many other things appear just within the first year.

Another Monday's work in the box.

These late Mondays are definitely going to be an interesting thing. Getting out when it’s dark definitely means I have to start planning for temperature when I leave as much as when I arrive at work. Payday will finally happen at the end of the week, yay! And I get to throttle the Postal Service, as they apparently did not see fit to forward on an important bill of mine even though I’m pretty sure I filled out the forwarding instructions well in advance of the bills’ arrivals. As things are now, though, it looks to be good. Maybe starting next month, I’ll get all the old stuff forwarded on to me.

Cold is alternately retreating and advancing over territory in my nostrils. Another hot shower tonight and some decongestants, perhaps, and I’ll be good. I think.

And that’s enough of my life. You want the news. So here we go.

Potential replacement for the Attorney General post announced. So, what’s he like? An ass-kisser or an ass-kicker?

Actually, this is not news. The wall-to-wall O.J. coverage is a distraction. I doubt that it contributed to a Chinese gamer died after playing games for three days straight - that whole food thing, y’know, but it might have let the following gems slip by unnoticed, like the Secretary of Transportation saying that bike and walking paths aren't part of infrastructure as part of a campaign to avoid raising gasoline taxes, or perhaps increasingly sophisticated automated surveillance technology, including stuff that might peek in your windows with the related first unmanned vehicle kill recorded, so that you can be spotted and shot down without too many humans intervening, which could become important because Blackwater USA, the "private security firm" has been banned from operations in Iraq. That war, which, even according to Alan Greenspan, had a strong oil motive.

Hrm. People are speculating about Condolezza Rice's sexuality. As I said to przxqgl, I wonder if the Republican party has more closeted homosexuals than all the other parties have open and closeted ones. Still I don’t see the point in speculating, unless it’s to put forth a point that people who support a party that, in its current incarnation, wants to make them second-class citizens, if not force them to hide themselves on pain of humiliation or breaking the law seem pretty insane. But perhaps that’s a minor party doctrine quibble with some. And perhaps for others, they do want to be punished for it. A self-injury fetish, perhaps.

To close out this section - The Word according to W: 50 religious insights from George W. Bush.

Mathematical models from your data could be used to tell you what year you're most likely to die. I wonder, though, if that self-knowledge will become self-fulfilling or possibly reduce the expectancy some. Staying on the doctor track, but mixing in the successful con artist part from before and we get How Drug Reps Make Friends and Influence Doctors.

Taking out the doctors part and adding in politics regarding marriageable age versus statutory rape and we get a hoax that was supposedly selling young girls as brides, potentially legally, if any girls were actually involved, which they were not.

From the “Stupid, stupid rat creatures!” files, bladespark has excellently chronicled the RIAA's dumbest move yet - sending cease-and-desist orders on the MP3 tracks that Reznor himself released in promoting his new CD. After this fiasco, Reznor said something to the effect of “Fuck it. Steal my music - here, it’s right here, at yearzero.nin.com.” As you can see, pissing off the artist is a bad, bad thing.

Anyway, that’s all from me tonight (and it probably looks more like a standard post from me, too). Well-wishes are appreciated, of course. And storytime starts next week. I have people, this is good. Now we’ll see if I can perform for them.