It's the most nerve-wracking time of the year.

Hands down, the pressure put on you by society is highest this time of year, what with such nuggets as "X days 'til Christmas!" and "'Tis better to give than receive."

Thanks, Charles Dickens. He wrote more Christmas books than anyone else. Of course, there's the classic "A Christmas Carol" which has been bastardized into more works than anything else I can think of, and only concerns the material side.

Keep your eyes open.

A slashdotter is going to run for political office.

More to follow.

I'm waiting for a phone call that will successfully conclude a month plus of waiting.

Due to certain contractual obligations, I can't talk about what until either a) I'm rejected, in which case I'll gladly relate the info, or b) I'm accepted, in which case there will be more waiting whilst I giddily salute.

Unbe-fucking-lievable.

I didn't even realise I was this lazy until I looked at the Fatwa post.

There she is: 19 Nov 04, and it's 18 Nov 05 now.

364 days.

Wow.

What's changed in that year?

My age, and that's it.

I'm in shock over the slaying of Theo van Gogh by "Mohammed B", as he is called by the Dutch police.

I'm in fear over the call to kill Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born, Muslim-reared, Dutch MP who wrote the screenplay.

I'm in mourning over the Dutch reaction, turning from one of the most tolerant societies to another America, in the intolerance given to those whose faith is different. (Legacies of Calvin in action.)

Since I figure people may read this...

I play a LOT of poker online as well as in brick-and-mortar casinos.

My personal, all-time favorite online poker room is UltimateBet. The interface is the cleanest and most intuitive, and they reward you even for free play. Clients for Windows and Mac are available.
http://www.ultimatebet.com (Let them know I sent you.)

note to self: ten drinks in two hours yields unfortunate consequences.

the hangover that lasts forever is barely the beginning.

My current laptop, though venerable and durable, is definately on the road to immolation. (I'm writing on it now, and I can feel it get angry at me for typing such things, and the fact that its next incarnation will be as a server will annoy it no end.) It's a Compaq Armada M500, which I bought used and should've gotten repaired, because it had a few months of warranty left, but I snoozed and I losed, as the expression goes.

Last night I spent seven hours on transferring data from one computer to another the hard way, aka through physical medium transfer.

Eww.

I had to reboot his 2000 box twice to get it to copy files, and it even missed his bookmarks in Mozilla.

Eww eww eww.