fiddlersgreen

No news at all on the job; I'd guess the person at the place (wow, that's so descriptive) is still out sick. Hopefully will get word in a day or two.

Got a call from my uncle who's been trying to breathe life into the dead computer. Apparently the old hard drive is just as dead as the motherboard and the power supply. Fortunately, all of my music and stuff is on an external USB drive which, as far as I know, still works; the Win98 machine I'm on detected it fine (but had no drivers for it and I couldn't be bothered to hunt for any since I have no sound on this machine anyway). And the newer machine is still on track to be delivered tomorrw. Still, that's a mite upsetting, though I think very little of what was on the old drive is utterly irreplaceable.

It also leads me to believe that there was probably some kind of internal power surge that just killed everything in the machine, which doesn't thrill me.

The real truth about it is
No one gets it right
The real truth about it is
We're all supposed to try

DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE

And so forth.

No time for a proper update now, really. But the short version: still alive, still well, still working, still mostly liking it despite the heavy crazy workload some days.

Just a bit of Tennyson's Ulysses I ran across while reading Ilium by Dan Simmons. I've probably read it before, actually; I know bits and pieces of it are familiar. But I really like this last bit.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

I am, in all honesty, tempted not to get the car fixed.

As much of a pain as it is getting around, especially if I want to leave Harrisonburg? I have to compare it to all the madness that goes into owning a car that's constantly (it seems) on the verge of breakdown (which is the only sort of car I'm likely to own; besides, brand new cars need crazy maintenance too), not to mention the whole insurance and registration and layers upon layers of money and bureaucracy...

Don't get me wrong. The bus pisses me off sometimes. Okay, a lot. But I live within walking distance of my job, most of the good restaurants in town deliver, and I can get to and from most everywhere I need to get to with a combination of the bus, my feet, a little advance planning (and a lot of spare time), and the occasional cab. And most everything other than groceries, I'm better off mail-ordering anyway, as far as prices go.

(Plus, "I don't have a working car" is a great excuse for not doing all sorts of things that I don't actually want to do.)

So, we'll see.

Some people say the world's a strange and evil place
And all the shadows fall across your face
Because the world's a strange and evil place
Then others say because the sun shines every day
That we should live life come what may
Because the sun shines every day

But I gotta say
That I just can't put you down
And all the girls think I'm insane
You know I can't put you down
And my dad can't recall my name
But I just can't put you down
And my friends won't call back at all
But I just can't put you down

Some people say
If you feed a dog a bloody bone
He's your best friend for your life
If you feed a dog a bloody bone
Patch up your dreams
With all the gold that falls at your feet
Stick your finger in a dike
All the gold falls at your feet

And I want to say
You know I just can't put you down
And all the women think that I'm insane
You know I just can't put you down
And my Mom won't call back at all
You know I just can't put you down
I rub my wounds with alcohol
You know I just can't put you down
I just can't put you down
There ain't a pill that'll cure that pain
But I just can't put you down

Some people say
That money can buy anything
All the drugs to cure the pain
Money can buy anything
Then some people want
All the sin and pleasure in this world
They don't care about the price
They pay for all the sin and pleasure in this world

But I've gotta say
You know I just can't put you down
I don't care how far I fall
You know I just can't put you down
And I don't care if they call back at all
I just can't put you down
All the women can forget my name
You know I just can't put you down
You know I just can't put you down
You know I just can't put you down
You know I just can't put you down

My biggest news (well, okay, the only big news I really have) is that I was offered a full-time position at work today, which I accepted and so I am (or will be, starting next Monday) officially an employee of Fairfield Language Technologies a.k.a. Rosetta Stone.

This makes me very happy. For obvious reasons. Been far too long without real, stable work.

Work is going pretty well. :)

Dear Oracle:

Diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie
diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie
diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie
diediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediediedie.

Love,

Brennan.

P.S., Die.

(World's best database system my overlarge behind!)

Work's still going well, but that's not why I'm posting.

I'm posting pretty much solely because I like this passage from Raymond Chandler's The Simple Art Of Murder quite a lot:

In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor--by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.

He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks--that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

The story is this man's adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.

I start work tomorrow.

No idea how long term it will be (though they hinted that it could be pretty long-term), but it is definitely full-time. Which makes me happy.

Got a semi-hemi-demi interview for tomorrow. Another basically clerical position through the temp agency, place called Fairfield Language Technologies, right downtown.

Which is good, because I need money. You know how in old cartoons they'd illustrate that someone was broke by having them open their wallet and flies would come out? That'd be me, right about now.

Actually, the more I think of it, the more this idea of basically deciding you're a separate nation (or whatnot) is of interest to me. Not necessarily as something I'd do myself (without death rays), but just as a curiousity. I know it's been done before, to greater or lesser extents. (Hell, pretty much every country on Earth can probably be traced back to such a decision, at some point.)

But I'm thinking more of the ones that didn't involve independence movements or outright war, but...more curious things. Like the Amish, and similar communities, who effectively formed their own societies that are, by and large, tolerated by the people around them. (Exactly how independent of the larger culture the Amish actually are is probably open to debate, though.) Or the, uh, 'nation' of Sealand, where some guy took over an old floating weapons platform off the shores of Britain, and declared it an independent nation of which he was the king.

This stuff fascinates me. I'm sure there must be other examples.

Just when I think the internet can't *possibly* get more bizarre and interesting, I find things like:

http://www.embassyofheaven.com/catalog/licensby.htm

(They also apparently issue their own passports.)

The thing is, I actually kind of like the sentiment behind this (that of complete and utter independence from the world around us, as much as is possible). I'm just not sure that printing your own driver's licenses and shouting LA LA LA WE ARE FROM ANOTHER COUNTRY WE DON'T HAVE TO OBEY YOUR LAWS is really the right way to go about doing it.

Unless you have orbiting death rays. Someday I will have orbiting death rays.

Every time this lyrics meme thing comes up, I resolve to really and truly participate in it this time, and get bored/distracted by something shiny/whatever about a third of the way in.

Except this time I didn't. So here are some song lyrics. Try to guess the songs. (This may just be a not-very-subtle attempt to see who, if anyone, out there shares my crazy tastes in music.)

( The lyrics )

If there is someone on your friends list who makes your world a better place just because they exist and who you would not have met (in real life or not) without the internet, then post this same sentence in your journal.

Eh, it's been a while since I've done one of these silly livejournal survey things, so why not? (Also, I've been TAGGED, oh the horror, so ignoring it will probably result in my death by explosive porcupine, or something equally unpleasant.)

( All sorts of impersonal information about me. )

2005 wasn't a great year, but I've had worse ones.

And that's really all I've got to say about it.