It’s astounding, time is fleeting…

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Okay, so sure, I haven’t actually posted any real content since my site came back online…but I just stumbled across this, and am completely jazzed about how cool it is.

Google just added the ability to search through Usenet postings — 20 years of postings, actually, dating back to 1981! I’m afraid it would be all to easy for me to spend hours searching through this. I did take a couple minutes on lunch to do an ego search, and came up with a bunch of neat stuff from when I was active on Usenet. Discussions on whether the Borg might be related to V’Ger, nine inch nails fans in Alaska, good introductions to Taoism, introducing myself to the alt.music.nin newsgroup (and again), and my earliest returned post was apparently posted February 9, 1994 about live nine inch nails cd’s. Yikes. Anyway…really fun toy to play with.

Upcoming reading material

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I’ve been between books for a while now, and have been casting about for what to read next. My next book I’m now good for — I can’t think of the title right now, but Candice loaned me a book last night that explores many of the different religions and/or cults (depending on your point of view) in the world today, from Mormonism to Scientology, should be interesting reading.

Today I was reading this thread on the Home Theater Forum where they’re discussing some of the reviews that have been coming out for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. On [page two of the thread conversation turned to whether or not the film would capture that near-undefinable “magic” or “epic” feel of really good fantasy or science fiction. In the course of the discussion quite a few books and series were mentioned, and I thought I’d jot some of them down so I can pull from this list next time I need to find a book to dive into. Here’s what they’ve mentioned so far:

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Home again, home again, jiggety jig

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Rock on — looks like I’ll be heading home for Christmas! Just got done talking with dad…we don’t have the final details yet, but it looks like I’ll be taking a cab straight from work to the airport on the 21st, flying out of Seattle at about 7:45pm, be in Anchorage until Christmas day, and fly out of Anchorage to come back about 6:45pm on the 25th. Can’t stay any longer than that, unfortunately, because of my work schedule, but at least it’ll be better than missing out entirely. So, I’ll actually be back in Anchorage.

Hm.

Village Inn, here I come!

Privacy, shmivacy

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Wheee…more fun news from our dear friends in the FBI: “Magic Lantern”, a government developed ‘trojan horse’ style virus that appears as an e-mail attachment. Once on your machine, it can record keystrokes (in other words, anything typed on the keyboard — letters, e-mail, passwords, credit card numbers, etc.) and transmit them back to the FBI for analasys. As if that wasn’t bad enough, antivirus software makers are considering intentionally not scanning for this particular virus — in essence, selling crippled versions of their software. More info can be found at Wired and The Register. Just thought this deserved some mention.

Aaaah! I wanna see it! I wanna see it now!

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Reviews of the first Lord of the Rings film, Fellowship of the Ring, are starting to hit the net…

Here’s what I’ve found so far: Home Theater Forum Sneak Peaks, Sir Ian McKellan, The White Council Forums, Ain’t It Cool News, The White Council Forums (another one), Home Theater Forum. I may be back to update this list later on, but these are the first batch.

Paying bills is such fun

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Well, okay, so that’s a lie. It’s not much fun at all. But, it’s rather nice when I make it through a round of paying rent, bills, and balancing my checkbook, and still having $572.53 left in my Washington Mutual accounts. Plus whatever I’ve got in my Ak USA accounts, which I’m not touching except for paying my DSL bill once that starts coming in…I’m actually managing to get to a point where I really think I can survive down here on my own two feet. Pretty darn spiffy.

Last night after I got off work Candice picked me up and we headed out to her college so that I could meet some of her friends and see the college band play. Was a nice evening — I got to put faces to some of the names she’d been telling me about and take a look around the campus, which was neat. One really funny thing — one of the girls going to her school is someone I was in German class with back at Bartlett High School. I don’t think she ever recognised me, though….

So that was about it…home by 10:30 or so, in bed about midnight. Not the most exciting stuff in the world, I suppose, but that’s the way my life goes.