First of all, if you borrowed an Office Space dvd from me, please return it.

I just finished my end of the quarter, and it was a rough one. New vows about not procrastinating have been taken and are being taken more seriously.

My phone has been sketchy lately. It's been turning off in my pocket, and twice I've been clicking through the menu and it has shut down in my hands. So I'm getting a new one. Not the iphone because I don't like it. And not the Palm Pre because they're not planning on releasing the SDK any time soon. Instead I ordered a slightly older HTC Fuze. (I always thought it was pronouced "fuzz" but I just watched a video and they pronounced it "fuse".) It's gotten some mediocre reviews because of the AT&T bloatware, but I plan on removing all of that and installing a custom ROM as soon as I get it. It runs on windows mobile so there's a pretty wide selection of Apps available.

I can also get the phone without having to get a data connection, so that will save me $30 a month. I figure I'm online all day anyway, there's no reason to double my phone bill just to get the internet in my pocket. Pretty much everything I can put on there from my computer or write myself a note to do later at the computer, and there are GPS apps that don't require data connection. Maybe I'll have it push emails when I'm at a wifi but I doubt it.

Yesterday two trains collided on the dc metro up past fort totten. The national transport safety board is now "revealing" that one of the trains was old and should have been replaced. News flash: All the trains on the red line are old and should be replaced. For some reason the red line is where all the old decrepit trains go. Riding in it you can tell it's dingy and old, and you feel like you're in a third world country. I bet 75% of the train malfunctions happen on the red line.

That's all for now. Oh and I fixed my KVM switch. And by fix, I mean that I re-plugged and restarted everything and now it's working again. A little frontier medicine. It's a relief, it was quite the pain swapping USB cables manually.

Gene: My family tells stories from the great depression that you had to keep your dog close. If your dog left your yard and went wandering he'd likely end up shot and never return. People were literally hungry all over the world. This does not touch that. We are all still fat.

My KVM switch stopped working today. I'm not sure what the issue is. For now, I've disconnected my regular computer. It's nothing but work from now on, which might help keep me from wasting time by fidgiting with music, etc. (Note to self: it might have just been the work laptop's software just being finicky. You didn't try restarting the OS. Try plugging it all back together and rebooting next time.)

My landlords have built a new back deck. Kate was pretty amused to discover that it goes right above my kitchen window. Actually, it wouldn't be very noticable from inside except that they put a wooden fencing around the base of the deck to keep animals from living down there. And that goes right across the front of my window. No more morning sunlight. I guess I never really lingered in my kitchen to enjoy it anyway.

Today, on a whim, I used water from my britta to make coffee. There is no discernable difference in taste.

midnight edit: I'm eating some Ben & Jerrys cinnamon bun ice cream that Kate suggested I buy. Super sweet, but delicious.

(from a citibank stock forum. There's a lot of passion on these boards.)
arat: I just wanna sell this garbage called stock.

I was trying to make two turkey sandwiches for lunch today, but I discovered that I had only enough turkey for a single sandwich! I didn't want to go to the store, and besides I had already put mayo or mustard on all 4 slices of bread. Instead I split two hot dogs down the middle and fried them on the griddle to throw into my second sandwich. It's ingenuity like this that caused the industrial revolution.

Somehow I kicked my ottoman and bent my toenail in half. It doesn't hurt too much, it's just pretty uncomfortable. I guess there won't be any running today. I put a bandaid on the thing but I'm guessing chances are good that half of it will blacken and fall off. Gross. I've seen other people loose nails that way, but it's never happened to me before.

Some recent family drama. My mom's cousin John is planning a family reunion in July, and requested RSVPs from all the households as to who is coming. I told my mom I was going long ago, but apparently (as she told me on the phone last night,) she didn't RSVP for me. Because I don't qualify as a dependent for her taxes, she figured I was my own household and should rsvp for myself. WTF. Anyway, now I've emailed John, but it's after the RSVP date, and he sent out about a dozen RSVP reminders. (Though no listing of expected attendees or anything to indicate who has responded.) I'd be surprised if he replied with "too late" or "Damnit I asked for RSVPs a dozen times!" but if he does, f*** it, I'll stay here. You kinda feel obligated to go to a family reunion when there hasn't been on in 10 years, but it's probably not going to be fun. Sacramento in July is burning hot. And since when is one person a household? I still don't think I am at fault here. The more I think about this, the more annoyed I get. Time to do some work.

(Walking back to the metro after the Rent show. Joe almost bumps into a girl standing on the sidewalk)
Joe M: Oh, excuse me.
Joe M: (loudly to us) I just almost ran into a prostitute!
(Joe waited about 2 seconds, the girl was maybe 5 feet behind us, and she probably wasn't a prostitute. It's almost like Joe was drunk, but we hadn't been drinking.)