Please note that all blog posts before 8 April 2007 were automatically imported from LiveJournal. To see the comments and any LiveJournal-specific extras such as polls and user icons, please find the source posting at http://brianenigma.livejournal.com/2004/09/I have been in a building mood lately. “Building?” Yes–lots of cleanup, creation, and mind-building. On the work front, I have been hitting milestones quite consistently, even ahead of schedule, and making the routers do crazy things like play Snake, Tetris, and do screensaver-like things (like that old “xsnow” program). Maybe I will do a networked Battleship, in which you use the fiber optic transceivers as the “pins.” On the home front, I have been cleaning up the front room and fixing up the basement area–with lights, air, music, and the like. On the brain front, I have been reading and learning. I am about half-way through The Invisible Man and just started a book about common math-y puzzles that talks about each puzzle then details the theory and such behind it. It had the best description of the term puzzle: “a challenging problem that conceals a nonobvious answer.” I finished the Sphinx riddle and am moving on to The Towers of Hanoi. I am getting nice flashbacks to the old Combinatorics class I took (and rarely showed up to) in college a number of years back because of the close ties between math and spacial/object relations. Yes, I am a dork. Deal with it! The only things I did not get around to this week were calling about a massage and checking out Tai Chi schools. While I was originally looking for one on Hawthorne and something-ish, it seems that there might be one just up on Burnside.
I am really enjoying walking to get the groceries. It is not a bad walk at all, but forces me to set aside some time for some music or an audiobook. Plus, it encourages that whole exercise thing. Speaking of groceries, I picked up a rotary cheese grater today at Wild Oats. HOW did I live without this in the past??? The cheese is cheaper in block form, plus tastes so much more fresh better when it is sliced from the block mere seconds ago.
Last night, I had insomnia and took a walk while listening to H.G. Wells. I did not end up returning home until 1 or 2 in the morning. I walked past a number of bars on Belmont, wondering who was out drinking that late on a Wednesday, then realized that that could have easily been me when I was working from home and might still be me, depending on the venue and company. I did not see anything other than bars open that late, unfortunately. A coffee shop, for reading and tea, would have been great.
I have said it before and will say it again: I like radish sprouts. I also like how the ladies working at the Japanese place within walking distance of work have gotten to know me, such that the “chef's choice” variety of sashimi lunch special had a lot of stuff that I do not think the chef would ordinarily choose for most people. I also got to watch a rather large, whole octopus get filleted, which was interesting from a biological point of view and disturbing from most other viewpoints.
Well, that is about it for now. I am heading off to an early bedtime. Oh, and now that I think of it: support your favorite online web artists, dammit! My Foamy rant CD arrived yesterday and my Homestar stuff will arrive in a few days. Oh, and speaking of online stuff–it would seem that if you are logged into Amazon, then visit and use Amazon's A9 search engine, then return to Amazon, the Amazon logo changes. Clicking on it gives you a Pi-divided-by-2 percent discount on most everything you buy there. Why π/2 and not one-point-five-something? I think they are trying to be “nerdy-cool” like Google and their primes and “e” and all that. 1.5% is not even enough to cover taxes…unless, of course, you live in a place without sales tax! Anyway–off to bed, for real this time.
