(no subject)

Thanks to laureth's post of notable quotations, I have a new obsession of the moment. I'm going to break out my short wave radio when I get home!

"Numbers station enthusiasts are usually in their late 30s, because they would have had to grow up with shortwave, which most people consider a dead media these days, but also they're usually what we call Anoraks, obsessive nerd types into railway engines and things like that," he says."

Well, one out of two isn't bad....

(no subject)

I've been too busy to write anything here since Friday night. Too busy to be online much at all really. That's my problem with being on IM; I'm seldom sitting down in front of my computer for more than the time it would take to say hello and goodbye. Either that, or I'm doing something like balancing my bank account and don't want to be distracted.

Tonight was spent helping Dwarf set up a small LAN for his brother's real estate business. He is leaving the group he was with and starting his own office doing appraisals and such. I was over there from when I got home from work until about ten o' clock, receiving large amounts of homemade pizza from Dwarf's mom in return. As I told him, if I seem to be useful enough to his brother to have me come and work on things more than a few times, maybe I'd think about asking for a nominal consultant's fee; after all, I have been thinking about trying to do some side business to make a little extra money. But for the moment, I'm happy to help out a friend from time to time in return for dinner. It's been way too long since I'd seen him anyway. I have to admit that it was also kind of fun to go into his office at the place he was working and haul away all of the hardware that he had purchased on his own but that his cheapskate boss would be grumpy about parting with. I felt like I was in a cut-rate version of Sneakers.

Friday, the day I was originally going to be helping out in that endeavor, was spent largely in bed. Saturday morning was spent the same way. I remember awaking at about noon, getting water, and a bit of ice cream to soothe my throat, and going back to bed for another few hours. I finally got up about three and continued to do little but down ice cream, soda, and NyQuil. Yes, I eat terribly badly when I'm sick, but it really does make me feel better so I think it's worth it. I sat on the futon, frozen dairy treat at my side, notebook in hand, and laptop open to Nihongo Resources while I worked at getting a bit more Japanese grammar into my head. I can actually sometimes recognize basic sentence components when listening to animé; cool!

wooisme and polymorphism got back from their trip to Bristol a bit after seven, and the three of us went out to Miraz, the diner around the corner. Service was uncharacteristically slow, but the food wasn't bad. I had a really nice time talking with Danni a bit and we continued the conversation back at our house for a few more hours. It's tough for me to get to know people in large groups, so it's always wonderful to have time with friends in a smaller setting in a safe place. Finally, she had to leave to get down to Illinois in time to meet with a friend at the Faerie Festival, and Moira and I toddled off to bed ourselves. I was still having a little trouble breathing, though I was feeling much better, and was pretty worn out.

Sunday was, for me anyway, the best day of the weekend. I got up early so I could drive over to todd_riverden and serinthia's apartment. The three of us watched a bit of the X-games on TV while I painted Serin's toenails. But I'll expound more on that in an another entry. I think that needs one of it's own.

After that, posicat arrived. He and I had been planning to go to Madison to look at a car. That didn't end up happening, but I still wanted to hang out since it had been a while since I'd seen him. Shortly after his arrival, we managed to draw Moira over as well with the promise of a viewing of V is for Vendetta.

That was a very cool movie. The whole time I was watching it though, I kept thinking about when Andrea and I watched The Weather Underground. I firmly believe that the government should fear it's people, not the other way around. But what is the right way of inducing that fear? Where is the line between activist and terrorist? I wish I knew, but I'm not sure anyone really does. The movie was great, and I recommend seeing it, especially if you approach it with a little knowledge of real revolutionary groups and the results of their actions. It leads to some interesting thought, to be sure.

Later on, Todd got online to participate in a gathering in World of Warcraft and Andrea went home to work on her job search, so Serin and Posi and I went out to Miraz (I've been seeing a lot of that place lately) for some dinner. I just had a bowl of soup since I was still fighting the tail end of whatever cold I had and wasn't that hungry, but I did have a little bit of Posi's saganaki. I'd never even heard of the stuff before I moved out to Michigan to be with Moira and she introduced me to it at a little restaurant called Roger's Roost, just up the street from our apartment. Even though the staff of Miraz didn't shout the traditional "Opa!", it still made me a little homesick. It's odd how much I can miss Detroit once in a while. But that's for another separate rambling monologue.

I guess that about brings things up to the present. Tomorrow it's off to work again. I should have tried to get ahold of Serin to confirm, but I'm guessing that since I haven't heard from her about the job she was hoping to start, I'll be seeing her tomorrow morning for our usual car pool. I with both of then the best of luck in their job search; they're both very competent computer technicians and I'm sure there's something around here for them.

I'm off to shower, and, maybe after, write just a little more.

'Till later!