Ye gods, I got an early start today. Picked up $30 worth of galvanized flanges, elbows, downrods and pipe so that I can hang a bar from the ceiling for clothes on hangers. Now I just need a folding table to go underneath it. Got the car de-lovebugged, washed and waxed; this is my contribution to the water shortage. I figure that as soon as I get my car waxed, it'll rain. While the guys at the Car Spa were toiling, I moseyed over to Bob Evans for a veggie omelet, then grabbed a whiteboard and other stuff at the office store. Here it is noon and I'm ready for a nap.

I heard "Que Sera Sera" on Echo today and, of course, I had to run home and watch Heathers. (But not before taking my first dip in the pool in the courtyard -- heavenly!) I can't believe I never noticed before that Veronica Sawyer wears a monocle when writing! How cool. If I wasn't astigmatic and quite nearsighted, a monocle could actually work for me. It'd make me look evil, of course, but hey. And while walking to the pool, I celebrated (in an underhanded, utilitarian sort of way) Towel Day. I've got a box of sf to sort out. I bought it while at a VAX gathering this past weekend, figuring that at 25¢ each I couldn't go far wrong. Of course, my sf bookshelf (the short type) is already full. Which is fine, actually, because it means I can have a tall bookshelf full of sf eventually! I've uploaded the photo and text for my next teaser postcard. I'm having fun advertising my birthday party with postcards I create online -- upload a JPG of up to 1MB, type some text, upload address book entries, and off you go -- all for less than 80¢ per postcard, including postage. Gripe all you want about your precious 34th cent, but I think the USPS rocks. It's payday, and you know what that means: a trip to Best Buy. I got a portable cassette/radio with a clever remote attached to the headphones -- it not only controls volume, you can also tell the tape player what to do or turn on the radio and choose from your preset stations. Elegant design, really. Now, please, tell me why elegant design and digital tuning don't seem to go together on any of the clock radios I could find. I eventually chose a simple GE clock radio with analog tuning but simple and self-explanatory controls. I wish I'd bought two of those Bose Wave-inspired units, instead of just the one I've had for years. Digital tuning, great sound, remote control... the only thing it doesn't do is play CDs, and I don't think I'd care to wake up to CDs anyhow. Now, find me a nice clock radio with a digital tuner and a wireless networking card that lets me upload a few gigs of mp3s, and I'll be set.

Hmm. What to do with the weekend? I'm tempted to visit Miami while my uncle is in town, but I'd be exhausted. I'll probably join the mob at Pearl Harbor, maybe this afternoon. (Screw that, three hours and has been compared to The Patriot... I'll save my money.) I've got lots of books to read... and there are probably some things I can do around the house, too. If I get the kitchen clean enough, I could even start brewing that Wild Warthog Hefe-Weizen kit. And of course I'll be at another VAXer gathering on Sunday. Drive there in the morning, drive back in the evening... That was fast. Where'd the weekend go? I've ordered a copy of Nick Hornby's latest book, How To Be Good, based on the review I just read. Too bad it won't be for sale in the US until August, but there are ways around that.

I've created my own station on Echo.com. Anyone care to listen in?

Sometimes I think if anyone else forwards me that literature abuse thingy, I'll scream. But they mean well, and after all I am a bit of a bookworm.

The computer system I use at work is just so annoying. The vendor's current policy with regard to network security boils down to "We recommend you buy a firewall. Would you like to buy a firewall?". (In fact, when I pointed out that they shipped us a server running a spam-friendly version of sendmail -- on a server that doesn't even need to be running sendmail -- their response was to tell me I should buy a firewall.) They have been lambasted (by me and others) for shipping servers that run all sorts of unnecessary services, including uucp, RPC, nfs, you name it. One could rationalize this half-assed security policy by saying that they want to be absolutely certain that the server can do anything it might possibly need to do, but today I found out that their utility for changing data records en masse refuses to work with any masse larger than 9,999 records. For crying out loud! The thing is made specifically to change lots of data records, and yet it won't change TOO many records, even if you really want it to. I sincerely hope I've been brash enough about the problem that they don't try to hire me to fix the problem. Lord knows I can see that something's wrong with a tinfoir car without seats or seatbelts, but that doesn't make me an automotive safety engineer. And, no, I'm not going to mention the name of the vendor. I suspect they employ more lawyers than computer security professionals. PUNCHLINE: I spent the rest of the day writing a puff piece on the system we bought from this vendor. I am going straight to Hell. Oh well, I've always wanted to meet Martha Stewart.

Recently I've been taking the bus to work. It gives me more time for pleasure reading, saves money, and makes me feel good about not hauling my car around behind me. I don't mind using my car when it's called for -- uncharacteristically, I've driven over 1500 miles in the last two weeks -- but I live on the same bus route that serves my employer's office park, and within one block of my condo I can walk to a grocery store, a pharmacy, a chain bagel shop, an indie bagel shop, an indie natural foods store, and two video stores. ("Hail, hail, Suburbia, land of the brave and free!" -- with apologies to Duck Soup.) This newfound appreciation for buses has led me to volunteer for WMNF, preparing a grant application to get free park-and-ride service for their next annual concert. Unfortunately, Ybor City is changing, and that concert will probably not take place next year -- at least not in Ybor City. Oh, and I finally got around to setting up a blog or two. I'm not thrilled about having to send a password over the network in cleartext, but as long as I use my ISP for hosting blogs, I'm not putting my geek tribe's machine at risk. Now I can be as cool as Jonathan Young.