(no subject)

My wonderful, hectic holiday week-and-a-half ended sometime yesterday, when I was able to make myself comfy with the thought of working again. Or, well, at least doing things besides socializing. Speaking of, I succeeded in the orchestrated social collision on Tuesday evening, though some badness threw off schedules and plans enough that it was a small gathering -- me and N and M and C and Q, two bags of Icehouse pieces, and M's homemade Zendo stones. Everything went like you'd expect it would, if you know any two of these people.

Today I made some nice progress with MIGS. At this time, I have a MIGS system that can set up a Tic-Tac-Toe board. Doesn't sound like much, but the upshot is that the project is far along enough to provide visible output, which is very encouraging. Of course, I still have everything to learn about SVG and, it turns out, JavaScript (actually ECMAscript, which seems to be a superset of JS, if anything), but I'm confident I can create the core of a nice little system fairly soon.

Meanwhile, feedback from tech reviewers has started to trickle in. Pre-feedback, really... mumbling about the holidays and how they'll have something in a few more days and such. (What does that remind me of.) Tomorrow morning, I'll shift back into that mode. Whew.

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Maybe from reading other people's new years' resolutions, I have come to remind myself, once again, that my diet is The Devil. Really, beyond skin, teeth, hair and nails, I think all but ignore my bodily upkeep requirements. For someone who digs the mantra of planning to be around to see 2112 and beyond, I'm actually doing a piss-poor job on my end of the contract. (I have no direct control of the research on the immortality engine nanofactories, but I trust that it's coming along apace.)

I guess I could try the Hacker's Diet again... I actually stuck to that for more than a month before losing all momentum, couple of years ago. While the writing and pace seems to be aimed at obese people (I am merely soft) the presentation and core concepts are fine for all bad-slacker hackers: exercise every day, and don't eat when you don't need food. Simple. In theory.

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I am listening to Tag's Trance Trip again. Mostly it's musical white noise, but I can't deny that it can be pleasant to work to.

I wonder what Mr. Tag is up to these days. One of things I liked best about this particular MP3 stream when I found it was the human voice who'd pop in at rare moments and talk about whatever. I think this first happened after I had been tuning in to the stream for well over a week: the DJ suddenly appeared, mumbling greetings and explaining that he had dropped by the studio to fix something. Then he dropped a screwdriver behind the desk and swore. I thought it was great.

I didn't mind as the months passed and he started feature himself more frequently to wax about Red Bull or the weather in SF, but when he started dragging his girlfriend (maybe wife now? not sure) on the air with him for lengthy sessions of goo-goo talk, I said: yecch, because I am a grump. So I explored, and now my iTunes stream playlist has many interesting channels on it. But lately I wander back to TTT-land again, and I have heard no voices at all. Hum.

Heh, I see Jim's name among the recent PayPal donators to tagstrance.com. Right on.

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powerbarf.com is owned by squatters. Feh.

payments and payments

I finally got a cellular phone today. Mail me if you need the number.

I wanted to get in on the same calling plan that cthulhia scored, but the nice VoiceStream lady told me that my credit rating was in a state of "still being established", which I took to mean as something like calling Afghanistan a "developing nation". So, I had to choose a somewhat more expensive plan or nothing at all, and fork over a two-month security deposit to boot. Shrug... I took it anyway. It took me a long time to build the resolve to march in there and get that phone. (Well... it's more than since I've become more social, and differently busy in general, I several times a week have been finding myself in moments where I wish I had a phone on my person.)

So far I am pretty happy. The phone is wee, charges very quickly, and works when I call myself. It gives me an excuse to get an AIM account, too. (You wouldn't necessarily guess it, but AIM is the IMer of choice among a lot of ORA-centered hackers I know.)

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I remember when I hit the halfway mark of my car's five-year lease; it didn't seem like too long ago. Today, to write my latest payment check, I looked at my account information online, and noticed that it ends in November 2002. Say, that's the year I've started writing on my checks.

You just blink your eyes, and out the door they go, all grown up.

The same site says that, the way things are looking now, I'd have to part with another $10,000 after the lease matured if I wanted to purchase the car. Hmm. I dunno. We'll see what happens.