I've started rereading some books. Starting with Ender's Game. The next one I go to will be Xenocide, by far my favorite of the series.

To be honest, they are really the only two which stand out. They are truely above the rest of the series, not only in literary style, but in the entire universe they construct, right down to the most basic physical aspects.

Very few books left an impression on me when I was growing up. Some short stories did. I read the entire Narnia series, yet retained nothing from it because most of it was used material. A short story read to me in 4th grade, however, remains vivid in my mind, a story about a boat with the name "EMIT LEVART" carved into it.

Most of my reading is grounded in philosophy, physics, and science.

What's your choice of genre? What stories leave their mark and why? What books do you want to go back and read again, knowing that you'll taqke more from them this time than you have previously?

Lunch was good. Freezing cold, but good. The Tom needs a scarf.

Got some chili and rice from a local Mexican place. The chili wasn't as good as last time, but the rice was spot-on (kinda hard to mess up rice though).

Got back to find a good laugh from RailGunner's reply here. A cookie was awarded.

The phones have calmed down. I am beginning to remember people's names. I still hate phones and the act of answering them, but it's easier now that I'm relaxed a bit.

2 more hours.

On another note, I completely skipped gushing over the concert Jenn and I went to on Monday night. Tally Hall is an amazing band. Their music is fun, they play the cutest song in the world, and they are by no means a studio band.

The second link up there will let you hear some of their music. Make no mistake, the quality of recording there is what you hear live. When the first song started, I thought it was a recording, the entire sound was perfect. Nope. It was live.

The guys in the band are great; they're the kind of people who would fit in around here. They even have clever swag! I got a "Don't not listen to Tally Hall" t-shirt for free, plus they're mailing Jenn and I t-shirts that aren't printed yet because we put up signs for them.

The one thing that's much different in the recording versus live though is the drums. In the recording, the drummer play the drums. Live, the drummer plays the songs. He's good. Like, really really good.

Anyway, they're coming back to Boston in January for another show. If you're not in Boston then check out their events page, they're touring all over the North East right now.

That is all!

So I decided to do a favor for the place I work. They have me answering phones today.

If you're in a position to put people in jobs, repeat after me:

"I promise to never ever put an IT person at the front desk on phone duty."

5 can't come soon enough. This is seriously freaking me out.

You know the rules, we've all done this before.

Book: The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide by Douglas Adams.

Sentence: "At that moment thr dull sound of a rumbling crash from outside filtered through the low murmur of the pub, through the sound of the jukebox, through the sound of the man next to Ford hiccupping over the whisky Ford had eventually bought him."

Tag. You're it.

It seems that the newest 419 scams involve donating money in the name of our Noodly Lord, like so:
--
Dear Friend ,

Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I am Mrs.Jennifer kimberly,a widow to Late james kimberly, I am 74years old,I am now a new Christian convert,
suffering from long time cancer of the breast.From all indications my condition is really deteriorating and it's quite obvious that I won't live more than two months according to my doctors. This is because the cancer stage has gotten to a very bad stage.

My late husband was killed during the US raid against terrorism in Afghanistan,and during the period of our marriage we couldn't produce any child.

Mylate husband was very wealthy and after his death,I inherited all his business and wealth.
The doctor has advised me that I may not live for more than two months, so I now decided to divide part of this wealth, to contribute to the development of the church in Africa, America, Asia and Europe.

I selected you after visiting the website and I prayed over it, I am willing to donate the sum of USD$2.5Million to you for the less privileged.

Please I want you to note that this fund is lying in a security company and upon my instruction, you will file in an application for the transfer of the money in your name.

Lastly, I honestly pray that this money when transferred will be used for the said purpose, because I have come to findout that wealth acquisition without Christ is vanity upon vanity.
May the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God,and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you and your family.

I await your urgent reply.

kindly contact my lawyer Barrister williams smith
and his email address: barrwilliams_smith01@yahoo.co.uk

Yours in Christ.

Mrs.Jennifer kimberly
--
At least they're not telling me I won the international lottery anymore :-/

Ramen.

You have no messages waiting on the system. Either none have been sent, or they have been deleted or purged from the system, or they have been sent via another delivery method.

Ah, it feels good to have no messages. I read them all and now don't have to deal with them.

Let's play the corrupt wish game! Here's how it goes: I make a wish in the JE, then somebody replies with a way that wish corrupts and makes their own wish. Somebody then replies to that wish with a corruption and makes their own. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Example: I wish my work computer was faster.

Reply: Granted, but it's now a Mac and you're obviously too cool to work, getting you fired.

<new wish>

So, let's start. I wish Taco Bell food was healthy so I'd have an excuse for eating it.

Any of you ever heard of TaFusion Mepis Linux? I'm in a position to advise a company on whether to use or not use this, and want to know if any of you have used it and give it a thumbs up or down.

I refilled my stapler.
Had a nice chat on AIM with abm0raz.
Discussed the awesomeness of $girlfriend with $girlfriend.
Got a check that should have been in my hand two weeks ago.
Had a bowl of chowdah.

Seriously thinking about starting my own onsite tech service for the Boston area. I did it plenty in PA, and have now done it plenty here. I could work for 8 hours and make what I do in two weeks with my current employer.

The only major thing stopping me is the lack of a car. If I had that, I could start to do the work on the side and build up a customer base, then when things are even, jump ship. Gah, I really want to lately.

I got me a bike helmet. So there.

Well, I figured riding down Mass Ave (the busiest street in Cambridge) at night wasn't the safest idea, so as I was about to pass the bike shop, I stopped in and got me a helmet.

Want a good workout, ride from one end of cambridge to the other and back again. Now go do it so you pass every other biker on the road (except the guy decked out in marathon gear on a marathon bike, he's allowed to blow your doors off).

I'm in an odd mood now, it's that "just got done working out" mood. Imma listen to "It's All About The Pentiums" now, because that song rocks (even though I'm an AMD fanboy).

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you January 12. Somebody here's gotta have it.

2. Where was your first kiss? Back porch of the parents' house. I journalled about it, go look it up.

3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property? Not unless you count windows (the OS) as property.

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex? Nope, nor do I ever intend to.

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people? If by "large number of people" you mean "with the windows rolled down driving through a town in PA", then yes.

Since I didn't read past question 5 for anybody else, that's all I'm posting to.

Well, I'll take up a bit of your time.

So over the weekend I went to Baltimore to help blinder move up here. Ah, Baltimore. It's everything I don't miss about Philadelphia and so much less. I'm glad for his sake that he's out of there.

Moving the stuff around wasn't as bad as he made it out to be. I'm just going to be spending Saturday in bed to let my back calm down a bit (for those who don't know, I have several back problems. The one that's acting up now is the cracked vertebra(sp?) in the lumbar section of my back. Someday I'll grab an x-ray and post it for all of you to see, it's really quite interesting to look at and wonder what the hell happened), but it was pretty easy. He didn't have much stuff, and of what he did have, very few things were heavy.

Blinder did give me the best bike I've ever ridden, and because of that I've been getting more exercise, what with riding to and from work. Next on the list of things to get is a bike helmet. SW, have you gotten back on a bike yet?

Thanks to Solemn, I have an excellent collection of music to keep me occupied while at work. I recommend everybody listen to some A3 immediately.

$girlfriend is the best girlfriend anybody's ever had anywhere. Sorry all slashdot ladies, that's just the way it is ;-)

I am not at work today. I'm sleeping in with $girlfriend, then we're making breakfast, doing some laundry, then getting me on a plane to Baltimore.

I repeat, I am not at work right now.

Damn, I thought if I said it enough I would believe it -_-

This is now the official home of the Yummy Foods for Us (Y, FU) Party, formerly the First Official Anti ethelreD (FOAD) Party.

As our first act, we claim Pancho in the name of all that is yummy. Tea and truffles are the official snack of the party starting as soon as we get a delivery of said truffles from said Pancho.

Let's not be selfish and only speak of the awesome though, we must not forget to denounce the competition!

Shall we place the blame where the blame is due? I think so! Thus, already having the blame, no more defamation is needed.

But we cannot forget The Repressor himself! So 3vil that he chose the other team leader as one of his very members! We have it on good word from some woman, who assured us that her sources are believable, that Ethelred himself is the Supreme Liar of the Universe.

Join us, our goal is not to continue this war but to represent the people in their choice against our enemies!

From today's comments after the newspost:
"Just to be clear, we're talking about a person that a couple total assholes find rude."

That's the quote at the bottom of slashdot right now. Seems kind of appropriate, considering my job and what people ask me.

Guy: Do we need a new server?
Me: Yes, you do. See that Pentium 4 sticker? That means that you machine is too old, they released a new sticker recently that adds to system performance.

Ok, not really, but still. I told them to get a dual Xeon server instead.

Any Mac gurus in my fans list? I've got a good issue for you involving Postscript, Photoshop and Quark that not even the guys at Quark could figure out, thus we reinstalled the OS and started from scratch. If you think you're up to the challenge, I'll post the issue.

How's your work (or gaming, as the case may be) going?