Previously, in Trip's Life...
31 December 2010 - Friday
Modern Medicine: This time I had the humidifier on
full and amply provided with water, but I still woke up about 5:00 with
my nose impassable to oxygen. Bah!
Brain not significantly larger today.
Textual Entertainments: The Domino Pattern
is the fourth or so in Timothy Zahn's "Quadrail" series. More interstellar
trains, more skulduggery. Also, <rot13>fzbbpurf</rot13>.
Food: Marith and the Monkeycats and I went over to
Earl and Cat's to eat cheese fondue and more cheese fondue and even more
cheese fondue, and hang out until midnight and stuff. Cheddar + Gruyere
+ Raclette = NOM.
Gaming: We made Ayse happy by playing some King's
Blood.
Cats:
Earl's new(ish) cat Seeker permitted me to gaze upon him. Madeleine
still hates me. Phoenix is still mellow.
Make a comment!
30 December 2010 - Thursday
Modern Medicine: The nose-only mask does not work so
well when one's nose is congested, bah. According to the machine I only
failed to breathe a couple of times per hour (anything below 5 is
considered OK), but toward morning I woke up with coughing and not so much
breathing. I think the humidifier actually is important, so I need to pick
up some distilled water to feed it.
Work: Check. Today, no one opened a case to complain
that they thought performance should be better just as I was trying to
leave, so I actually left.
Sequential Entertainments: Yotsuba&! vol
9, yay!
Visual Entertainments: No Slayers,
because we have no Dave and little motivation.
Cats:
While I was in bed, Marmalade sniffed my head a lot, but he mostly chewed
on my hair (which grows back), not on the expensive headgears. Also, he
purred.
Make a comment!
29 December 2010 - Wednesday
Modern Medicine: I slept with the tentacle
attached to my face for the whole night (although the machine claims
it was used for only 5 hours) and did not die. In fact (according to
the machine) I only stopped breathing once. However, my brain does not
appear to be any larger today.
The cats did not eat the machine. I didn't notice them snuggling up
to me either, so perhaps they are scared of the strange noises it
makes. I'm sure that won't last.
Work: Check.
Textual Educations: Snoop, by Sam Gosling,
is ostensibly about how you can find out about people's personalities by
looking at their stuff, but to do this it has to explain just what
"personality" means (for this purpose, the "Big Five" model of Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeability, and Neuroticism) and how
people intuitively make these judgements with varying degrees of accuracy
(some stereotypes are actually based in truth, but without actual research
you can't tell them from the stereotypes that are completely bogus), so the
book really ends up being mostly about what people are like, with the stuff
as a frame.
Brains are peculiar! (But also tasty.)
Visual Entertainments: More Kenichi, The
Mightiest Disciple because it requires only a tiny brain.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
28 December 2010 - Tuesday
Modern Medicine: I finally picked up my
face-tentacle-machine!
I was also trained on its usage and sold a cover for the hose which
may or may not protect it from cats, so night-time respiration should
be go!
The SleepQuest office is
inconveniently located just a couple of hundred meters from where I
work... on the other side of the 101. The nearest place to
cross is a couple of kilometers away, where I normally cross to get to
work from the train station. Bah, stupid car creatures!
Work: Some customers broke their clusters
immediately upon returning from the long weekend, but we fixed them.
Textual Entertainments: Labyrinth
is the fifth book in Kat Richardson's series about a Seattle PI who
gets killed in the first couple of pages of the first book. Things go
downhill from there, and by Labyrinth they are quite low
indeed.
Visual Entertainments: Dave is still busy doing
things with the Clan of Dave, so no Tuesday Night Anime for us.
Gaming: Marith and I trundled separately (and soggily)
to Ayse and Ken's place, where we met Ken's childhood buddy Tamir and his
wife Selena. Their brains seem tasty, although Tamir's face looks enough
like Eric S's that I blink every time I look at him.
Ken crushed us all at Betrayal
at House on the Hill, because he is naturally evil. (That's my story
and I'm sticking to it.)
Cats:
I bet Aspen doesn't mind being an indoor cat so much tonight!
Make a comment!
27 December 2010 - Monday
Accomplishment: PARTIAL FAIL! (I made an
appointment to pick up my face-tentacle machine tomorrow.)
My, the Internet really is full of things:
Ninjas, Swimmers, Cats and Sushi!
Sequential Entertainments: There are only two paper
volumes of El Goonish Shive
and I have them both, so I had to reread on the website. There's quite a
lot of it. Maybe more than that.
Visual Entertainments: At least the first part of
Kenichi, the Mightiest Disciple follows the traditional
formula of "cowardly wimp strives to suck less and gains l33t martial arts
skillz". I don't know if I'll bother to watch more than this disc.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
26 December 2010 - Sunday
Accomplishment: COMPLETE FAIL.
Visual Entertainments: The plot of Strike
Witches doesn't actually make any sense, but it only shows up in
3/12 episodes, and doesn't introduce any extraneous pants.
There's allegedly a second season, but it doesn't seem to have been
brought over yet.
Cats:
Oh dear, Marmalade has finally managed to open one of the kitchen
cabinets. Fortunately he hasn't generalized from scrabbling at the right
side of the door to trying both sides until one works, so he can only
get into a couple of them, not including the one where extra cat food
goes.
Make a comment!
25 December 2010 - Saturday
Work: National Holiday!
Festivities: Marith and I went over to Ayse and Ken
and Julia's again for more hanging out. Marith pushed Julia around on
the new firetruck toy until her back gave out. Vrooom!
Food: Turkey of exceptional crispiness! Mashed
spuds! Leeks! Carrots! Stuffing! More turkey!
Gaming: We managed to play a game of Carcassonne
with the Abbey
& Mayor supplement. Marith crushed us all by having gotten into farms
early.
I suck at Carassonne, like I suck at all games, but building things
is satisfying.
Textual Entertainments:
After reading Kill The Dead yesterday, I went back and
reread Sandman Slim for the context. It probably wasn't
really necessary, though, since I correctly remembered the salient
points.
Discord's Apple (Carrie Vaughn) is about that
apple, in the near future where wetting your pants over terrists is
mandatory by Federal law. It turns out about as well as you'd
expect.
Visual Entertainments: Apparently no women in the
world of Strike Witches wear pants, it's not just the
Neuroi-fighters.
Cats:
Extra kitty treats for all who want them!
Make a comment!
24 December 2010 - Friday
Work: No work today!
Festivites: Marith and I went to Monkeycatland and
hung out.
Textual Entertainments: Truthseeker (by
internationally acclaimed author C E Murphy) follows the timeless formula:
cute Earth girl with magic talent plus hot elf guy with tragic past equals
DOOOM! (And smooches.) The story will be wrapped up in the next volume,
but currently my bet is that the main character is doomed without her
sidekick.
Isn't it weird how much English-speakers lump into the word
"truth"?
Kill The Dead (Richard Kadrey) is the sequel to
Sandman Slim, in which the main character escaped Hell to
wreak a terrible revenge. Earth pretty much sucks too, being full of angels
and human magicians, who are all bastards, but there is always monster ass
in need of being kicked. This setting would probably work pretty well
for an RPG. Most of the magic could even be written up in Hero.
Visual Entertainments: Strike Witches 8:
Of all the possible reasons to keep the (male) Other Ranks away from the
pantsless teenage girls, that really is the one that fits this genre.
Food: Pork chops! Broccoli Rabe! Nom!
Plus, adventures in turkey brining.
Cats:
Twelve adorable paws!
Make a comment!
23 December 2010 - Thursday
Work: Why must people decide they don't like how our
software runs at 16:30 on virtual Friday? Bah.
Visual Entertainments: Slayers Try 3-5:
Yay return of characters from last season!
Food: Nom pizza nom!
Cats:
Miau miau hmph!
Make a comment!
22 December 2010 - Wednesday
Work: Why must customers break our software?
Visual Entertainments: Started the second disc of
Strike Witches. Still almost no pants.
Cats:
Twelve adorable paws!
Make a comment!
21 December 2010 - Tuesday
Work: Today I did not stay in the office until
forever o'clock! Yay!
Textual Entertainments: Kitty Goes to War
(Carrie Vaughn): Werewolves vs the Military-Industrial Complex! (Okay,
more like the Military-Soulless_Reductionist_Science Complex.)
Visual Entertainments:
- Shakugan no Shana II 23-24 (end):
<rot13>Xnmhzv</rot13> didn't
<rot13>qvfnccrne</rot13> after all, but there was obvious
setup for season 3 (which we may or may not watch).
- Ef - A Tale of Memories 10: Huh, that was almost like
not very much doom after all.
- Bakemonogatari 6-7: Oh good, Senjougahara and Hachikuji
still oppress the protagonist, and now Kanbaru can help.
- Higurashi When They Cry Rei 4: Philosophy attack!
Everyone recover 3d7 points of emotional damage! (Next episode,
the silly returns.)
Cats:
Still not appreciated as much they deserve! Marmalade came to snuggle
me while I slept, though.
Make a comment!
20 December 2010 - Monday
Work: Double check, almost. I didn't even leave
the office until I should have been getting ready for bed.
Bah. Cough. Bah.
Cats:
Kitties deserve much more adoration than I had time to give them!
Make a comment!
19 December 2010 - Sunday
Gaming: Monsters are a little more effective when
they avoid Dave's character, but the first fight with the
rock-stealing undead was still only a level+0 encounter. The second
fight, when the shadow demon showed up, didn't finish by the time we
had to break. Maybe I should have Adam's character show up to
rescue them next session, although I have no idea what anyone would be
doing out there in the necrotic swamp.
Textual Entertainments: Having read all the other
Garrett books, in order, I'm back around to Gilded Latten
Bones.
It's still kind of odd, but not so different in feel from the last
couple before it as from the earlier ones.
I wonder if this is the last Garrett book. The last line suggests it,
and it would be an okay place to stop, but there are certainly more stories
that could be told, and at least a few more metals (bronze, electrum,
platinum, ...). Or, since GLB involved a lot of Garrett
sitting at base while other people ran around, there could be a spin-off
series from the PoV of someone who does legwork while Garrett stays at home
tending his collection of orchids babes. (I'd vote for
Singe, but I don't know if that would actually work. Penny Dreadful,
maybe?)
Visual Entertainments: After a long period of not
watching Farscape, I watched another disc. As of 3.22,
our hero seems pretty hosed.
Silly Computer Games: Jeremy says the secret to Mushroom Tower
Defense is to build only pure Thunder towers. I haven't tried it
yet, and might not bother.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
18 December 2010 - Saturday
Work: Yay! I'm not on call!
Health: Boo! Still coughing up my innards.
Textual Entertainments: Whispering Nickel
Idols is back to a more standard Garrett antagonist, but Cruel
Zinc Melodies heads off toward other genres again.
Also, Pular Singe rocks.
Cats:
I got close enough to touch Aspen even though there was nothing
holding her in place (like food or a comfy spot)! Only briefly, of
course.
Make a comment!
17 December 2010 - Friday
HAPPY HAPPY SHERILYN-DAY!!
Work: The entire office is down for maintenance
today, so we're all working from home, without the VPN or any company
servers like email or the bug database. At least our
support tickets live on an external site.
Modern Medicine: Apparently I fail to breath about
40.7 times every hour that I try to sleep without a CPAP machine. With
the CPAP machine set to 8, that number becomes 0, or too close to it to
distinguish. I guess I get to sleep with tentacles on my face from now
on.
I had the sleep center fax my prescription to SleepQuest, the
tentacle-machine provider that Jeremy and Rachel recommended.
Presumably soon they will contact me.
Textual Entertainments: Faded Steel
Heat and Angry Lead Skies. The spread of law and
order in the setting continues, and the fantasy elements are moving
away from the traditional.
Visual Entertainments: Episodes 2-6 of
Strike Witches also contain No Pants (pants would
interfere with the thigh-high flight boots).
Cats:
Twelve adorable paws!
Make a comment!
16 December 2010 - Thursday
Work: Blargh.
Visual Entertainments: Strike Witches is
very silly, and almost pants-free.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
15 December 2010 - Wednesday
Sleep: FAIL. I didn't cough much that I noticed,
but apparently my sore throat was enough to keep from sleeping
properly like I usually do.
Work: Blargh.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
sore throat by Jeremy (Thu Dec 16 17:42:55 2010)
Are you using a CPAP? Humidification is your friend.
Re: sore throat by Trip (Thu Dec 16 19:10:48 2010)
No, I don't find out whether I would be best helped by a CPAP or euthanasia until tomorrow. I'm pretty sure this was plague of some kind, but it's mostly gone now.
CPAP or euthanasia by kit (Fri Dec 17 23:51:54 2010)
laughs I'm glad to hear it's a CPAP and not euthanasia which will help!
Re: CPAP or euthanasia by Trip (Mon Dec 20 14:09:21 2010)
I dunno, breathing seems to involve a lot of coughing. I'm not sure I want to keep it up.
Make a comment!
14 December 2010 - Tuesday
Work: Check. So far this has been a pretty slow
week, but of course that could change at any moment.
Gaming: I had a thought, but forgot to record it
in the mind
map. Perhaps it will return.
Textual Entertainments: Petty Pewter
Gods is kind of silly, or at least over-the-top. (And someone
offer up some vibrators to those godesses, sheesh.)
Visual Entertainments: There was confusion over
what was shown last week vs what I was given to catch up on, so it
ended up that each of us rewatched one episode of something. Oh the
inefficiency!
- Ef - A Tale of Memories 9: Oh the doom. (Is it just
me, or is there a lot more sex in this than in most anime with
characters in this age range?)
- Bakemonogatari 4-5: Nooooooo! Senjougahara, don't be
nice to him! (What do you mean you can't be tsundere
without some dere? Bah!)
- Higurashi When They Cry Rei 3: The thot plickens!
- Shakugan no Shana II 21-22: Yuji is just full of
plans, isn't he? But I'm still rooting for Kazumi and Shana to
run off together.
Food: Pizza My
Heart is tasty, but awfully thin and not as filling as more plebian
pizza. The calorie count is probably right up there, though.
Cats:
Twelve furry paws!
Make a comment!
13 December 2010 - Monday
Work: Check. Blargh.
Textual Entertainments: More Garrett. By Deadly
Quicksilver Lies, I think we're starting to see a little more of the
interior damage of the villains. Also the Dead Man's TK is starting to get
quietly ignored.
Visual Entertainments: Eddie Izzard, "Dressed to
Kill". Okay, that was pretty funny, although I didn't bust a spiracle or
anything. History-based humor!
This show was from 1999, so Portal had not yet been dreamed of, but
the bit about the Anglicans and "Cake or death?" made me think their slogan
should actually be "The death is a lie!".
("'"'The death is a lie!' is a lie!" is a lie!' is a lie!")
Silly Computer Games: Blargh.
Cats:
Eight snuggly paws and four paws that are far too good for
me!
Make a comment!
12 December 2010 - Sunday
Gingerbread: Partial check. I went to the party,
but did not actually eat any gingerbread. I did see people I don't
often see, like JHart and Jim, and approximately a zillion other
people. I think it was a smaller zillion than previous years, though.
Everybody I know sucks much less than I do.
Textual Entertainments: Red Iron
Nights, sixth "Garrett" book. This is where Block and Relway
start to become important.
Food: Party munchies until I died.
Silly Computer Games: Still can't get anywhere with
level 4 of Mushroom
Tower Defense. Bah.
Cats:
Aspen and Marmalade are so cute curled up together in a little blanket
cave!
Mushroom Tower Defense by Jeremy (Tue Dec 14 20:57:03 2010)
Won my first game. Is there a way to make it harder?
Re: Mushroom Tower Defense by Trip (Wed Dec 15 10:02:11 2010)
All the way through however many maps there are? Wow. (How many maps are there, anyway?) I guess you can try to reach the gold score on every map.
Make a comment!
11 December 2010 - Saturday
Textual Entertainments: I finally got around to digging
up all the "Garrett" books, lining them up in order on the shelf, and
starting to plow through them. They are quick reads, and I'm very lazy, so
I got through the first five today: Sweet Silver Blues,
Bitter Gold Hearts, Cold Copper Tears, Old
Tin Sorrows, and Dread Brass Shadows. They are much
more action-oriented than the latest one (Gilded Latten
Bones), and in the first one, Garrett even leaves TunFaire!
Visual Entertainments:
- Higurashi When They Cry Rei 1-2: That first episode
was very very silly. The second one is more like what we expect, but
this may still end up being the Fur Seal arc.
Now I am caught up!
Cats:
I oppressed Aspen with the seizins, but I don't think she is at all
getting used to being held. Bah.
Make a comment!
10 December 2010 - Friday
Work: I took the credit for figuring out that one
can only INSERT INTO table_a (SELECT * FROM table_a) so many
times before it fills up one's database and one become sad, even if one
tells Support that table_a is tiny and not important.
Textual Educations: Despite the goofy subtitle and
the last chapter, The Philosophical Baby (Alison Gopnik) is
mostly developmental psychology (or developmental philosophy, if there's
much of a difference). I don't think what Gopnik has to say about babies
will be surprising to anyone who's at all up to date: babies aren't passive
sponges, they're optimized for learning, and predisposed to learn
important human things like language and theory of mind. Learning
complex stuff requires the ability to think about counterfactuals, so
little kids are full of imagination. Children are empathetic and want to
make people happy. All of this is only true if they haven't been damaged
by being raised by humans.
Also I hear babies are cute.
Visual Entertainments:
- Bakemonogatari 4: Hm, Senjougahara is not quite as
awesome in this one. But it's still pretty good.
- Shakugan no Shana II 20: Boss fight!
Silly Computer Games: I finally beat the second map in
Mushroom Tower
Defense! The third map was much easier.
Cats:
Twelve adorable paws of adorableness!
Make a comment!
9 December 2010 - Thursday
Work: Check. Is it nap time yet?
Visual Entertainments: No Slayers.
Germs.
Bakemonogatari 3: Oh good, Senjougahara is still driving the main character nuts!
(Although apparently he takes 2x effect from girls anyway, so she doesn't
really have to work at it.)
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
8 December 2010 - Wednesday
Modern Medicine: I felt a little more conscious
and useful in the morning than usual, but not overwhelmingly so.
* * *
I felt useful much further into the evening than usual, but of
course that could be psychosomatic.
Work: Despite being trapped in the wilds of
Sunnyvale, I made it to work at the usual time. Wheee.
Visual Entertainments: Marith brought me a thumb
drive of catchup anime, because she and Dave are nice.
Ef - A Tale of Memories 8: That's
some doom, all right. (Whatsisface seems suspiciously certain about that
"forever", but it might just be that the writers thought brains
don't change.)
Cats:
As predicted, I was thoroughly miaued!
Make a comment!
7 December 2010 - Tuesday
Work: Check.
Modern Medicine: Only a few months after being
told I'm too stupid to sleep and breathe at the same time, I went in
for a sleep study. It was like sleeping in a small windowless hotel
room, except for the part where a nice veteran of the Russian army
spent an hour taping electrodes to my head (and a few to my chest and
shins). There were also some straps with strain meters (?) that went
around my chest and abdomen, a tube with a couple of little prongs
that lurked at my nostrils, and a brief exposure to a couple of
different styles of CPAP masks.
Despite the tubes and wires, it didn't take all that long to fall
asleep. It was almost as though I'm not well-rested.
At some point during the night, they decided they knew enough about
my ability to sleep unaided and woke me up to attach a CPAP mask. That
made it hard to go back to sleep, not so much because there was a
thing strapped to my head but because it was the nose-only sort and I
had to keep my mouth closed, which is the opposite of relaxing.
Textual Entertainments: The most recent of Glen
Cook's "Garrett" books, Gilded Latten Bones, is weird and
not very Garrett-book-like. It's kind of disjointed, but also Garrett
doesn't do a whole lot: all the characters from the past N books do. I'm
pretty sure this is by design, to show that Garrett is growing up (a
little), but it still feels weird to me.
Also I apparently need to reread the past three or four books.
Textual Entertainments, Cont'd: Most Cthulhu mythos
(and spin-off) stories are about preventing the rise of the Great Old Ones.
The stories in Cthulhu's Reign (edited by Darrell Schweitzer)
are about what happens when they inevitably rise anyway. We already know
the answer is San loss, mutation, death, and the breakdown of reality, but
there are plenty of ways that can play out (a minimum of 4!). Some of these
ways are more interesting than others. Alas, I don't think any of the ones
in this book were as interesting as "A Colder
War".
Visual Entertainments: No anime for me. Sleep
study instead.
Cats:
I had Marith check in on them. I hear they were fuzzy even when I wasn't
observing them myself!
Make a comment!
6 December 2010 - Monday
Work: Check.
My, the Internet really is full of things: Love and
Tentacles.
Food: Maybe I should just buy a huge pile of
Trader Joe's frozen stuffing and keep it in the fridge for the
non-holiday season.
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
5 December 2010 - Sunday
Work: No major on-call incidents! Yay!
Gaming: This session, there were no combats. However,
there was a bit of sneaking around in the sick man's mansion and trying to
give him a heart attack by telling his wife was having an affair with a
werewolf, which justified some XP (even though he didn't croak). Also the
election was resolved without significant interference from the PCs, so the
reform party won.
Next session: combat with the skeletons that are stealing the Soul
Sucking Rock!
Food: Pesto works pretty well on chicken strips.
Silly Computer Games: Still can't get anywhere in Mushroom Tower
Defense. Bah.
Cats:
Twelve fuzzy paws!
Make a comment!
4 December 2010 - Saturday
Work: I had to do a little bit of on-call work,
but once I got logged into the system and could see what the guy was
doing, I was able to add the requisite environment variable to the
crontab file and all became well.
My, the Internet really is full of things: The thermodynamics of
money.
Textual Educations:
Earth (Richard Fortey) is, again, what it says on the
tin: the structure of the Earth, with particular reference to the
parts that constrain humans, and how it got to be that way. I had
vague ideas about much of this stuff, but the specifics were
interesting (Africa is plowing northward into Europe, hence the Alps;
the ocean between Europe and NA opened, closed, and is now opening
again, which is how some of NA got stuck onto Scotland and some of
Europe got stuck onto Newfoundland; the Deccan Traps in India
are apparently near the city where cow orkers V and P are and look
like giant staircases).
I still can't really picture some of these events where rock flows
like thin mud. It seems like it should break instead.
Textual Entertainments: The story of The Right
Hand of Dextra (David J Lake) reminds me a lot of Bios
(Robert Charles Wilson), only with all the quantum entanglement foolishness
replaced with undefined ESP and the chirality of biomolecules. The SFnal
ideas seem pretty dated now, but were probably new and interesting in 1977.
(The social attitudes were also a few decades less progressive, but, well,
it was 1977.)
Food: Check.
Silly Computer Games: Curse you, Mushroom Tower
Defense! Why do you mock my feeble efforts so? (I can't even win on the
second map, sheesh. Neither upgrading my fungi nor growing huge masses of
level 1 fungi seems to work.)
Cats:
Aspen and Marmalade are the cutest kitties ever when they curl up
together all white and orange on the black comforter.
earth by kit (Fri Dec 10 02:06:58 2010)
that sounds like a good book took. I need to start writing down good books you mention so I can someday read them. (I first typed "write them". doh.)
Re: earth by Trip (Fri Dec 10 09:12:10 2010)
You can write many good books, but I think someone beat you to writing this one. :)
Make a comment!
3 December 2010 - Friday
Work: Last workday in the US for cow orker P. Next
week, cow orker G and boss G will probably be out of the office. Oh the
doom. At least cow orker S will be here for part of the week, and he is not
really a n00b any more.
Food: Yay
Rangoon
leftovers!
Cats:
Twelve adorable paws!
Make a comment!
2 December 2010 - Thursday
Work: The last of the upgrade doom had to remind
us that it is still doom. Bah.
Visual Entertainments: No Slayers. Work.
Food: Cow orker P, who has been trapped in the US for
many months while we didn't have enough people, finally gets to return to
India this weekend. Those of us who were around the office (all two of us)
gave him a farewall lunch at Kabul
Afghan Cuisine in San Carlos, (which is apparently completely unrelated
to the Kabul in Sunnyvale). I
virtuously got challaw sabsi (spinach gloop with rice), but wickedly got
kadu (pumpkin of death).
People who are not me get to eat food from Rangoon.
People who are me suck.
(Okay, people who are me get to eat a little Rangoon food, since
Marith and Dave brought it by afterwards.)
Cats:
Twelve paws!
Make a comment!
1 December 2010 - Wednesday
Work: Worked from home today, which is kind of a
pain because the VPN software won't stay connected. If I did this more
than a couple percent of workdays, I'd probably have to Take Measures.
Since I was out for a big chunk of the middle of the day, I felt
obligated to work into the evening, but meh. It's not like I would
have been doing anything that great otherwise.
I think the last of the doom from last week's upgrade at Big
Customer X is getting cleaned up. Must be time to upgrade someone
else.
Modern Medicine: Having coherent radiation applied to
my eyestalk was surprisingly anticlimactic. The actual laser part of the
event lasted maybe five minutes, and from my point of view was just more of
the staring into bright lights that comes with any visit to the eye doctor.
(There was a lens that may have been put directly on my eye, which would
have been squicky except they gave me so many eye-numbing drops that I
couldn't tell.)
Now I just wait for the fluid to drain away over the coming months,
I guess.
Textual Entertainments: Genesis (Bernard
Beckett) has the feel of an SF story written by someone who doesn't read
current SF. The science is relatively modern (clay-based abiogenesis, the
memeosystem (though not by name), a discussion of Searle's Chinese room
that didn't make me hiss and spit), but otherwise it could have been
written in the 60s just as easily as this spring.
Also, the Surprising Revelations™ didn't have enough of the
obvious-in-retrospect quality that makes them more than a cheap
gimmick. (I want my gimmicks expensive, darn it!)
Food: Check. I should probably find something to
put on chicken strips besides salsa.
Silly Computer Games: Hardly any.
Cats:
Poor Marmalade did not get to help me work. He was a sad kitty.
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