So I’m home, no travel plans in the immediate future – I’m not even entirely sure if I want to spend the money to go to PAX East if I don’t know anyone else going (although I’m sure I’d meet a ton of awesome people), but I have my feet up and I’m planning to work my way through the hands-on reviews and press contacts I made at CES while playing through my ever-growing backlog of games for that shiny new XBox 360 I got for my birthday and the variety of PC games I’ve installed but haven’t so much as opened. I have a lot of entertainment here at home I haven’t dived into lately – I’ve even neglected my poor Netflix movies: I took them with me to Vegas in case I had time to watch them (yeah, right) and they traveled back with me in the same place I packed them. There’s a lot to do back here, and it might be time to put my feet up for just a little bit before jetting off somewhere else.

Although, I can always hop on a train to New York City and stay up there with friends for a few days – the 3 hour trip up there gives plenty of time for a little single-player gaming on my MacBook Pro (I’ve been looking for a reason to Boot Camp it again) and watch a movie or two. I guess I want time to put my feet up, but I love the fast pace of traveling and seeing people and doing new things. That and all of the people I love so dearly are a ways away from me – I mean, even my family are about an hour and a half drive.

But no sooner than I get my feet up at home does my mother fall ill and take a trip to the hospital. She’s doing well, there’s no worry there, but she’s in for quite a recovery and I want to be there for her and my father as much as I possibly can right now. Watching my father around my mother, being her rock, her anchor – it’s amazing to see. My father uses me occasionally as a sounding board, especially in tough times, but if someday I could be half as strong and brave as he is, I would be honored, and I think I would honor him.

Regardless, that means I haven’t had a lot of time to spend at home even though I’ve been back in town. It’s kind of ironic, but as things smooth over, I’ll be able to get back to my routine, my resolutions, and my habits – I’ll get back to spinning on the weekends and working out every night, and I’ll get back to cooking more (I need to go to the grocery store first!) – especially now that I found out the wellness program at my office sets you up with a registered nurse who’ll call you to check up on your health every couple of weeks, make sure you’re doing well, offer advice working out or eating well, even send you recipes or refer you to doctors or specialists! And it’s all included with the insurance I get – I’m appalled I didn’t know about this sooner: if I had I would have been all over it.

I’ve been doing really well at keeping my blogs updated, and it looks like another gig is coming my way – I don’t want to jinx it quite yet, but I’ll say that it’s political blogging, and while my politicial blog, Not So Humble tends to be the least trafficked of my blogs (I don’t exactly make a huge effort to get it in front of people, I admit) this might serve as a bit of a boost for it and for my political writing. There’s been so much political news and I’ve been thinking about it so much that I think it’s time I let off a little bit of steam from that direction.

Speaking of my blogs, I’ve been on a weekly update schedule for my newest (and most popular) blogging project, The Classy Geek, and I’m considering a twice-a-week update schedule to get more eyes on the site. Sheesh, there just aren’t enough hours in the day or week to do all of this delicious writing. Thankfully all of the traveling and business hasn’t skewed my update schedule too much – I’ve still managed to keep updated, even if a few blogs slipped a day or two before getting back on schedule.

Talk about good problems to have.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to get all of my CES photos up on Lorelei Complex, after which I’ll organize them into galleries and put them up on PhotoWerks. My box of swag from CES arrived last week, and I just got around to opening it last night, that’s how hectic things have been. Now I have a stack of stuff to write about in addition to what I’ve written about already.

Sheesh – I need to stop thinking of new projects. The more I sit here and think, the more I come up with new things I need to do. I need new pictures of myself to share on the Web, I need to move my home office around a bit and tidy it up, make a little more room for my laptop, the list just grows the more I think about it. I certainly know how to keep myself busy.

I know, I know, good problems to have.

It’s getting colder. Not that I mind – I tried on my winter coat for the first time since last year’s cold – the one I had left at my parents’ because it was one of the many things in my arms when I fled there in the spring – and found myself swimming in it. It’s a pleasant surprise, but then again, Autumn has always brought me nice things, including the passing into Winter. I don’t mind either, as long as I can stay warm.

One the way back from my parents’ house for Thanksgiving, I was listening to The Blues Show on WXPN and thinking about the monumental truths that blues artists had to have been tapped into when they were singing, enjoying every note. It’s really remarkable how many people really think the blues are deep, down, depressed music, and to a certain extent they are – when you have the blues, it means something – but at the same time the blues often are some of the most inspirational music you could listen to. A number of songs tell you all about the deep, dark hole that the singer is in, but always there’s a glimmer of hope somewhere behind the music. It’s really remarkable how good I felt while listening to the blues, and I was feeling pretty good before I turned the radio on.

On the way home I was thinking about everything I needed to do when I got back to my pad. Reseat my computer’s processor, do the laundry, tidy up the place, get some writing done, book my travel plans, and I had something of a realization – it didn’t feel major, and I won’t characterize it as epiphanal even though it may be: I was looking forward to all of it. I was looking forward to all of the tough stuff, all of the fun stuff, I was even looking forward to going back into the office at werk on Monday. And as I told myself in my head that I was looking forward to it, the same voice in the back of my head piped up and said “I’m looking forward to all of it – I’m looking forward to life.” I think that’s the first time I’ve ever been really said that to myself, and it was an incredibly liberating thing to feel. That doesn’t mean there won’t be difficult things, that doesn’t mean there won’t be things I don’t feel like dealing with, but it’s a great feeling, even now when I say it to myself again, right now.

So speaking of my poor computer, Deneb, was sitting on my workbench with the side case door off because after pwning n00bs at the office LAN party on Wednesday (which was crazy fun, and we definitely need to do it more often – I learned that apparently I have mad latent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare multiplayer skills) I got her home and hooked her back up to discover that she would only stay on for a few minutes before shutting herself off. Granted, by the time I got home on Wednesday I really needed to decompress and get some sleep to head up to my parents’ place for Thanksgiving on Thursday, so I fiddled with her a bit, just long enough to realize that the auto-shut off was symptomatic of an overheating processor (the Core i7 is smart enough to shut down before temps get to dangerous levels) and upon checking the heat sink and fan I found it loose and not firmly fastened down – it must have wiggled loose while I was lugging her back and forth to and from the office.

Since I really needed to get to bed, I played a little Soul Calibur IV on the 360 and head to bed to get up for the holiday and head up north to see my parents. Thanksgiving itself was lovely as usual – my father brined a turkey and it was probably the best turkey I’ve ever eaten in my life: it was so good I wound up picking at it in the middle of the night and even wanted to eat the white meat – something I almost never do because it’s usually too dry when compared to the dark meat to me. Dad also made his legendary macaroni and cheese, Mom made stuffing and candied yams, you know – classic Thanksgiving eats, and it was all phenomenal.

My parents napped over the course of the night because they were headed up to their local Air Force base for a Black Friday sale in the wee hours of the AM (and they returned triumphant with a shiny new Sony Bravia HDTV and Sony blu-ray player for my parents’ living room that looks spectacular…I’m glad I helped them pick it out!) and I spent the evening writing a bit and catching up on sleep. it’s completely out of the norm to do Black Friday sales in our family, but I have to admit, it was a pretty good deal they caught. Now it’s on to Cyber Monday.

Friday and Saturday I spent the day with my parents, indulging in good advice, sharing some technology buying tips for them this holiday season, getting caught up with my weekly writing that I missed over the holiday, and helping out a bit around the house. Saturday night I finally got a chance to really test the GPS feature on my Morotola Droid, and I can honestly say it’s amazing enough that I don’t need to buy a car GPS anymore – now I just need to pick up the car dock so I can put it on something while I’m using it to navigate. It actually found a slightly different route to get me home that’s a little faster, so no complaints there.

And here I am at home. On the way out of my parents’ house watching a special on Motown music and groups like The Four Tops and The Temptations that kindled an old love of traditional R&B and Soul in my heart. On the way home, listening to the blues while I was in range of XPN out of Philidelphia, then over to The Shamrock and Thistle where I listened to protest songs, labor march chants, and civil rights protest spirituals penned by Pete Seeger (who is a literally amazing man in every sense of the word – the man who wrote “If I Had a Hammer” and the original writer of “Turn, Turn, Turn,” and one of the people responsible for making “We Shall Overcome” a popular anthem of the civil rights movement, and “Step by Step,” of which the video is above) and an interview with him, then listening to Hot Jazz Saturday Nights when I was in range of WAMU in Washington DC, thrilled to be in my own little world of beautiful old music. Even this morning I hit the iPod on the dock next to my bed, fired up Pandora and started my Miles Davis channel to listen to some Jazz.

When I was a child, there was always music in our house. Especially on Saturdays and Sundays – and really especially on Sundays. I would wake to the smell of food cooking in the kitchen and the sounds of Gospel in the morning and Jazz in the late morning and early afternoons. When my parents made the switch from Gospel to Jazz, I knew it was time to get up, get dressed, and head out to join them.

Speaking of music, I should tidy up my last 2 mixes for Plastic Bohemia and post them – I’ve been procrastinating because I know there are some mixing errors in them and I hesitate to post them publicly, but my friends at Plurk have been nagging me for them, so I’ll concede and chalk it up to practice. Between that, some writing, and booking my travel plans (more on that later), I have a lot to do, and I’m going to try and get a lot of it done today so I don’t get lured into the inertia of the werkweek and wind up not doing anything.

With that, I’m looking forward to all of it. Damn it’s liberating to say so.

Well, among other things, the election is over (with stupendously happy results), I had a nerve wracking but overall positive trip to the doctor, and now I’m looking forward to another major milestone: World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King comes out this coming Thursday!

I’m a dork, I know. I really need to get back in the WoW groove. Things kind of died in our guild for a long while there, and now that there’s some new content and more coming, people have started signing in again and things appear to be picking up.

Anyway while I tend to keep my political thoughts over on my political blog, I can’t understate my relief and happiness over the results. The wave of euphoria that swept over the country (and angst, for my conservative counterparts) was palpable, and I’m still enjoying it. Go there and read if you’re of like-mind.

I’ve also bothered to start a moblog which I’m appropriately calling Lorelei Complex. I need to find a nice way to re-pub the photos here. Oh, and even though I mentioned it before, I managed to fix PhotoWerks. I already have a bunch of photos to upload.

In other news, things at the office have improved overall, but I think it’s because I have new batteries in my noise-cancelling headphones. I still have my gripes, but considering NovaWerks is rising in the Google search results for my first and last name, I think I’ll be a bit more metered in my criticism. At least until I quit the damned job, after which I might be forced to let loose. Trust me, I have enough to talk about. Like Pastilla pointed out so graciously over at Plurk: when I leave, I’ll likely wonder what took me so long.

Now that Halloween’s over, I’m actually looking forward to the holidays. My birthday seemed to go by in a flash, and I didn’t get as much time to celebrate as I would have liked, but I’ll make up for it during the holidays. I have a confession to make though: I don’t really like Halloween. I have too many bad memories and not enough good ones. Even as a child, I didn’t do too much trick-or-treating, and while the times I remember were fun, ever since I stopped trick or treating (because I was too old), Halloween became more of an adult’s holiday than a child’s one. When that happened I was caught between worlds – too old to get away with trick or treating, but the holiday being now oriented to people much older than myself. As I got older, I wound up having less and less to do on Halloween nights.

I tried to do the Halloween party circuit, and in college I had a couple of horrible Halloweens – one where I went to a party with Tim and his girlfriend at the time where I wound up sick from drink by the end of the night and stayed the night rather than head home. Another Halloween in college I was goaded into romping around campus in a terrible Zorro costume (eg, a cloak and a floofy hat) by a semi-girlfriend I was seeing at the time. Since then, I’ve all but boycotted the holiday.

To add insult to injury, where we live now is a beautiful neighborhood, but we get home so late in the evening from work that we miss the kids who go trick-or-treating. By the time we get home, the only visitors we may get are the teenagers with plastic bags without costumes.

So maybe I need to throw a Halloween party to bring my faith back in the holiday. Really dress up and be around people who are also dressed up. Maybe go to someone else’s Halloween party, or go to New York City and see the Halloween parade. I really want to love the holiday, I really do!

Anyway – charging forward to Thanksgiving, we have a lot to be grateful for this year.

Elections aside, Raevyn and I are sticking to our money-saving plan for the holidays, and spending what money we would have spent on each other on new computers for ourselves. I’ve already started to assemble parts, and I’ve been waiting for the release of Intel’s new Core i7 processors so I can snag one of those. I’ve got all the components figured out, but I’m waiting for the post-Thanksgiving shopping season to begin to pick up the rest of my parts, including the Raeon 4870 x2 i want. Here’s hoping that by the holidays, Raevyn and I will have new rigs to play with. It might be expensive to built these state of the art rigs, but my current system is something like 5 years old, and I’m comfortable with spending a little more to futureproof myself as much as possible.

There might be some money tossed around over the holidays on video games to play on those shiny new rigs, but other than that, we promised not to spend a ton of cash on each other this holiday season in order to save some dough. I still might give her a few games for her new computer though.

40 years ago today, the US Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, struck down the remaining anti-miscegenation laws in 16 states, left over from the so-called “Racial Integrity Act of 1924.”

The case was Loving v. Virginia, and the decision from the court has been known thereafter as The Loving Decision, and June 12th has informally and quietly been referred to as Loving Day.

Happy Loving Day.

Things haven’t been quite as frenetic as they had been, but what has been going on has been sufficiently mind-encompassing that I’ve hardly had time to think, much less put those thoughts into anything remotely resembling a coherent sentence. Regardless, the thoughts have been swirling around in my head, waiting for the right time to come out. I’m not promising this is the “right time,” but it’s sometime.

The freelance gig is going swimmingly, and I’m still enjoying myself. It can definitely be hard work, but I didn’t expect anything else, and I don’t think I’ve ever worked on anything for this long without taking a day off. I could do this professionally, if I didn’t live in completely the wrong town for it.

Speaking of the town, sometimes I love this town. I love Washington DC. The place is electric all the time, alive with power and energy, and hums quietly, almost nervously, after dark. When the streets in the Capitol area go dark, the streets around town gain an eerie quiet, like the life is right there under the surface if you’re willing to peer a little deeper in order to find it. I used to be far more involved with that life than I am now, but what can I say; I just don’t have the free time and the free energy that I had when I was an undergrad with nothing to worry about except class the next day. That’s no total excuse though, I very much miss some of the evenings I spent downtown.

Part of what reminded me of all of this was a post by Veronica, writer of one of my favorite daily reads, about a moment that could have easily happened to me. While my spinning activities have languished for far too long, the last time I spun out, a scene nearly like this played out. It brought memories rushing back, the anger from the end of that night that wound up keeping me from the scene for a long long time, the pride at having the highlight set, and the sheer happiness of looking out over a dancefloor full of people. It was a great night, even if it ended more annoyingly than anything else with an abrupt stop and rapid departure, lest the club-hired “security” thugs demanding an early close but certainly no cut in pay lose their patience with us. Even so, I know what it’s like – to be tired of being “out there,” but to live for the thrill of being “in here.” It’s a strange concept to describe, being tired with something but being irrevocably tied to it, wanting to be the heart beating at the center of something that lives and breathe around you, but not wanting to define it. It’s funny, I didn’t (and likely still don’t) understand what its like for Veronica, but after her post today, I think I’m starting to get it. Or feel it at least. Perhaps that’s more important.

In other news, most of you know I’m a hideous Alton Brown fan, wishing I could waltz through the kitchen with his scientific skills, his geeky personality, and his culinary technique (have you seen his knifework?), so take it as no surprise that I don’t think I’d ever get tired of owning The Good Eats 27-DVD Pack. It’s a hefty $250, which is a bit much to drop on a DVD collection at the drop of a hat, but if anything else, it makes me glad that those DVDs are out there to buy when I’d like them. In the meantime, I need to finish Gear For Your Kitchen.

I admit, I ranted a bit after having to wade through a disastrous thread at Lifehacker about climate change, and being put in the position where I simply couldn’t stop myself from staring down a few people that I probably shouldn’t have – I despise getting into discussions like that on message boards and forums and things- it’s why I started my own blogs on my own interest topics, so I could say what I want to say and discuss what I feel without having to feel in my own space. Flame wars in comments never change minds, no one’s going to wake up after being rebutted on a message board and say “You know, you might be right – I’ll research the matter more, thank you for opening my eyes!” So rather than simply absorb other people’s content, I like to, when I can, create my own. Still, it’s maddening sometimes. I did rather enjoy the hybrid myths over at Yahoo! Green, nearly as much as I enjoy the entire site as a resource. I need to perfect my “Green Plan,” but there are a lot of good ideas there. Click “Count Me In” to develop yours, and get some energy (and money) saving tips. Yahoo! has kind of re-captured my attention with Yahoo! Tech, but that’s partially because they brought on one of my favorite people ever for their flagship technology show.

Speaking of politics, at the behest of Pastilla, I think I might have to pick up Lee Iacoca’s book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone. I read the first chapter after checking out this post from a blog I had never read before but will surely check back on now, and had the exact same reaction. I’m incredibly impressed.

Anyway. That’s enough politics.

On to sex. Seriously – I’ll warn you now, some of these following links aren’t going to be work safe. I’ll denote with [NWS] but tread lightly, okay?

So I love Digg, if only for the news that people submit. The comments and the Digg community are absolutely worthless, but the news that the site provides is usually interesting enough to click on and digg. So imagine my surprise when in the same day, Digg alerted me to the existence of my new favorite superheroine, Captain Schoolgirl. [NWS] Seriously – she’s my favorite. And it has nothing to do with the motorcycle (lies) and nothing to do with the shirt (nothing at all!), but I have to admit, I dig the idea. I don’t like to think of myself as one of those guys who has a thing for schoolgirls, I mean, I’m young enough to know a lot of women who wear uniforms like that for school. I think my fascination really grows out of the fact that I never knew anyone who did wear anything like that. And maybe too much anime. Moving on.

Perhaps the next best thing in the world that I couldn’t adequately examine at the office was when I discovered that Posh Suicide [NWS] is Macenstein’s “Mac Chick of the Month.” [NWS] I love Posh Suicide, even though I generally stay away from the whole Suicide Girls thing (more power to em, assuming the stories about them being performer-oriented, self-empowered ladies doin’ it for themselves are true…hell, more power to em even if they’re not). Still, Raevyn and I both have crazy crushes on her, and when we found out that she’s an avid World of Warcraft player as well as a Mac user and lover, it just made us love her more.

Seriously, I’m not normally into drooling over personalities like this, I can count on one hand the number of celebrities I lust after and still have fingers left to flip off the celebrities I don’t care for, but every now and again I’ll make an exception. The photos from the shoot with Posh’s Macbook Pro don’t hurt either. My poor Io never had it so good. What? Hey, I’m human too, you know.

Anyway, summer’s on its way, and the air conditioning is going on. If temperatures keep up, it might be time to start thinking about Mojitos, barbecue, and warm summer nights. Mojitos I can do, but I might need some help with the barbecue. This’ll fit on our tiny little porch quite nicely, I think, and accommodate some friends gathered on the steps at the same time.

I’ve been a pretty busy boy, like I’ve been saying. The trouble is when you wake up on a morning like today and really really wish you could work from home (which I could, I just don’t like calling in to say it, feels like I’m copping out on the day) or better yet could just take the day off. I need some time to recharge, and the weekends are never quite long enough to make that happen. I could take a few days off, I certainly have the leave, but I may as well work from home if I don’t have specific relaxation plans.

I did manage to find a hotel to stay in for Otakon this year, even though I wasn’t able to get the con rate – they did cut me a break, and combined with my AAA discount, it’s not too bad. Guess it pays to keep my membership there up to date. I don’t think, especially with my car being out of warranty now, that I’ll be canceling that membership to save a few bucks anytime soon. Either way, I’m looking forward to the con again.

So continuing my so-called “war on my checkbook,” I found The Prioritizer, which looks like a handy tool to help you prioritize all of your financial goals, and I’m planning on giving this a whirl in just a few minutes. Part of my problem is that I want to do so much, and I get overwhelmed with everything I’d like to do, figure I can’t possibly have enough money to spare to make it all happen, and wind up giving up entirely. Hopefully this will kick me into gear a little bit.

Speaking of extra cash, I got top billing on a story about Pi Day over at Gearlog. I’m pretty proud of myself. Not to mention yesterday I snagged a story about Viacom Suing YouTube over at AppScout – it’s a lot of fun to be on top of the news, and to get stories in and posted while they’re still hot. I could get used to this.

In other news, there are a ton of so-called “free to play” MMOs running around these days, but the art for Rappelz caught my eye. Sad part is that it might just be the art that’s interesting, and I’ll move on. Usually games like this wind up being free to download and you get to play in a fraction of the world for free, but you have to “upgrade” your account to get access to other zones, or pay extra per special item you’d like to have. Sony pioneered the idea – create an environment that was free to enter, but if you wanted armor or a cool new hat or something, you can buy it in-game with real money. I might check it out, or I might just look at the pretty pictures.

So everyone’s talking about that movie, you know, 300? Yeah, see, I saw the movie that was based on, the really old one set actually filmed in the Greek countryside, and as entertaining as it was, and as entertaining as the new one appears to be, I have a hard time with the story. You see, it’s not even remotely historically accurate. And no, I’m not just talking about the utter lack of armor. The Spartans were…let’s say, not a people worth idolizing, and their idea of “freedom” is nothing to hold dear. Then again, I have heard it’s a fun movie, for what it’s worth.

For those who don’t mind a gorier take on topics, I happened to stumble across this video of a Dave Chappelle v. Carlos Mencia celebrity deathmatch, in its bloody claymation glory, over at the site of a recent guest on an episode of Weezy and The Swish, which I keep up with for TechTV Forever, among other reasons (like the fact it’s hilarious), and well – I think this video does a lot of things for me. First, I get to see Carlos Mencia get beat up, called out on his stealing jokes, and in the end get called a hack while hiding behind the typical phrases like “I’m politically incorrect!” and “Take a joke, America!” Which about sums up his career to me. I can’t stand him, or anyone else who’s so bad at comedy that they wind up being “politically incorrect” and egotistically claiming that they’re “saying what we’re all thinking” when they obviously have no idea what anyone’s thinking much less themselves, and simply aren’t funny. Anyway, that’s my take on so-called “politically incorrect” comedy – usually boils down to people who can’t deal with heaven forbid, people calling them out on racial slurs, and claim that “pc has gone too far.” I usually find that the people whining about “PC” are the people who desperately need a dose of it. The rest of us get along just fine.

Anyway, there’s a small plastic lizard waiting at the post office under the duress of Homeland Security that I need to go pick up. Hopefully I’ll be taking a few days off soon to show him around town. More on that later.

Halloween came and went, and Raevyn surprised me with a Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney pumpkin, of which I’ll provide photos of shortly, I promise, and some treats and goodies from the Halloween party that she went to. I was a homebody that night, staying at werk late to bond with some of my new colleagues by talking about what else but World of Warcraft; something it seems that you can have in common nearly anywhere you go with someone. I like to think I’m fitting in pretty well at the new office, although I’m just now starting to get invited out to lunch and for a drink or two after hours, which is pretty cool-it’s a nice turning point. Even though I stayed late and didn’t have a chance to dress up really or anything, and by the time I got home there were no trick-or-treaters on the streets (although it wasn’t horribly late, I was curious where they all were!) the pumpkin and a few sweet treats pretty much made the day for me. Still, if I can find some candies on clearance now that the holiday is over, I’ll be happy.

Well, the holiday is over, and it’s November, and it’s remarkable. The weather is starting to get cold, and I’m coming back around this year to the realization that I need a new winter coat-my current coat’s lining is all torn up and the pockets are torn through-it’s an old, hand-me-down London Fog coat that my father gave me, but I think it’s time for a replacement, especially before it gets much colder.

In other news, it’s disturbing that every day I wind up hearing and reading more examples of how our idea of “homeland security” and protecting ourselves tends to do no such thing involving protecting people and instead winds up just shoveling power into the hands of the people who would oh so love to power trip on it. Here’s an example. In all honesty he should have just removed his sunglasses and there would have been no problems at all, but in equal honesty, the only reason he should have had to do that is out of fear from the TSA staffer, and that in itself is unacceptable. What really irritates me is that stories like these seem to be more and more common at airports and transit stations around the country-TSA staffers and other faux-officers making demands outside the bounds of their authority and relying on the power of fear to force people, usually innocent, into doing their bidding. It’s saddening, but well-you all know my political leanings. Speaking of which, I’m definitely looking forward to November 7th.

And speaking of “wars” against “nouns,” my War Against The Checkbook is going relatively well, but new income from a new job is a definite help. In the meantime, I’m keeping my eyes on this list for a few suggestions to help me out. I’m starting to get to the point where my traditional savings methods-mutual funds, my IRA, and my 401(k), aren’t really enough, and I should focus more on paying down my debt and making the most out of my investments. I really wish I had a financial advisor to turn to though, that could offer some real suggestions.

As a parting point though, this evening on the way home, I was listening to All Things Considered on NPR news, and heard this fabulous poem/commentary on virtual privacy in the connected age. Normally I bristle at the notion of privacy being “dead” in today’s constantly connected and constantly online world, namely because it’s followed often with the “why bother trying to revive it” argument. Regardless, Andrei Codrescu speaks a glorious piece, predicting the existance of the blog in not so many words long before it actually existed, and rekindling some of my own personal wonder about the electronic age, speaking nothing of letting privacy die and remarking simply that its dead when we choose to do things like blog and read blogs and comment on blogs, but he hardly ever actually uses the word “blog.” He also reflects interestingly on the past and the desire to “fall into” it, as it were. I can’t do him justice, so go ahead and listen.

So upon doing my civic duty on the 12th of September (which was primary day around these parts, so after werk Raevyn and I headed out to vote) I subsequently felt much much better about myself-it was nice being a part of the political process, and even nicer supporting the candidates that I had been reading about and wanting to vote for for a while now. I have to admit, I’m enough of a political junkie that I was pretty sure who I was planning on voting for, especially in the major races around here, long before election day.

But my euphoria was dented by a brass gentleman (well, not so gentle) who, upon finishing casting his ballot and going to claim his reward sticker, brazenly said aloud “Do you have any that don’t say yo vote on them?” As you might know-every sticker you get after voting says “I voted,” in both english and spanish. Apparently this young man thought he was too good to wear a sticker that bore the language of those heathen immigrants. I could hear the hatred all over his voice, and it was less depressing as it was incensing. Thankfully, they had no such stickers, and he went to sulk in the corner while waiting for his friend to cast his ballot.

When I found out later that it was a mixed-party primary, I rolled my eyes as if it all made sense. Not to say only Republicans are like that, but…they’re definitely in higher concentrations. Moving on.

Exciting news, as I promised: I have a new job! I’ve been interviewing for a while now, looking for opportunities that would put me to the test, give me something challenging and interesting to do, and make use of my MBA-and most importantly get up and out of desktop support. I have to admit, I’m a bit burned out on fixing printers and setting up email, plugging in network cables and crawling under peoples’ desks-I’ve been doing it for something like 8 and a half years, and I’d like to move into another area of IT. If I need or want to do desktop support again, I know I can always come back to it. I sadly handed in my resignation today after talking to my boss about it yesterday, and it’s always one of the hardest things I can ever do. I never really liked my job, namely because it’s desktop support, but I loved this company, from the CEO to my coworkers. The new company is no slouch either, and they’re planning to pay me very well for the work I’ll be doing. The people there seem very nice and friendly, the dress code is casual, and the work sounds exciting and project-based. The only thing though: no office. Yet.

In other news, I’ve been busy werking on Gears and Widgets and Not So Humble, as well as keeping up with TechTV Forever, since that dreaded project I was talking about earlier has finally come to a wrap and let me get back to my other duties, albeit reluctantly-as with any project, you’re annoyed going into it, but when it’s over you don’t want to stop. Okay, that’s probably just me. Still. I had let some of my blogs slip by the wayside a bit since I was so busy, but I’m back to keeping up on them. Head over if you haven’t been there in a while.

On that note, I should get ready to go home. It’s been a very full day, and an even fuller and longer couple of weeks. I think the fog, even though I’ve been posting during it, is really starting to clear.

Sadly, the chinese food isn’t mine, the ladies I share an office with ordered chinese. They did ask if I wanted to order with them, which was nice enough.

That’s okay, I’m planning on going out for lunch. Where, however, is the next-and natural-question. No clue, but I usually have no idea until I’m in the car.

Anyway. Today’s my Friday, since Raevyn’s birthday is on Saturday and we took tomorrow off to relax (and throw a party in the evening, so we’re off to the liquor grocery store this evening for provisions) and I couldn’t possibly be happier about that. For being a short week it’s been pretty rough, and next week isn’t shaping up to be much better, since a couple of folks are out of the office and it essentially leaves me in command. Good times.

In other news, I got a chance to hear this story again this morning from NPR’s “Driveway Moments” podcast, and it was just as good this time as it was the first time I heard it over a year ago while driving up on Friday night to Pennsylvania to see Raevyn. After I heard it, I was immediately obsessed with The Conet Project, and Raevyn even bought the 4-CD set for me for Christmas. Shamefully, I haven’t listened to it yet, but I think I’ll have to remedy that this evening. Speaking of which, those t-shirts look pretty cool, I might have to snag one at some point.

So. Only 15 days left until Otakon. Glorious, glorious vacation.

Raevyn and I were discussing this morning why more people haven’t been talking about The President’s groping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel during the G8 Summit in Russia. It’s been remarkably ignored by the mainstream media, and the last time I heard about it was on NPR by a caller calling in to a political show, a caller whom the political analyst quickly dismissed. Personally, I’m in complete agreement with the German commenter’s perspective in the linked post. It’s embarrassing as an American when your leader is so tactless, but according to reports, Bush didn’t exactly redeem himself Stateside when speaking to the NAACP today. Ah well. Stupid is as stupid does, as they say.

We had a lovely three day weekend, injuries aside. We took Friday off to sleep in and put together our new desks and tv stand for the computer room that we had purchased from Ikea earlier in the week, and after assembling our desks and tv stand and finding out that the desk drawers had the wrong size screws (which prompted an incredibly painless visit to Ikea on Saturday and a very nice-albeit swamped-customer service rep who helped us out immediately) we finally finished them both Saturday afternoon. Our computer room is much much nicer now, and we have a bit more space.

But those new desks will get their due; as we both purchased new monitors on Friday-both of us getting a Dell 20-inch flat panel, that makes two for me (dual monitors ftw!) and a new LCD to beat out Raevyn’s CRT. They’ve already shipped; I can’t wait to make room on my desk for it!

Todays’s Doonsbury is absolutely hilarious-the strip takes a good stab at the intelligent deisgn/situational science thing; where good science winds up getting trampled by people looking for a controversy and carrying a backpack of some bad science. Definitely good.

Also, apparently Thomas Kinkade, the “Painter of Light,” is more of a dark-side fellow, according to this article from the LA Times; from sexual assault to verbal abuse, seems like the guy isn’t quite as nice and gentle as his paintings would have us believe. But why doesn’t that really surprise me? Maybe I’m just jaded.

In other news, the very very lovely Narilka was kind enough to swing me into the Windows Vista beta testing process; now all I need to do is download and install it! I’m all kinds of excited I can’t even say.