Let's get the title reference, which is obligatory, out of the way.. Hmm. It really doesn't make sense, but that's standard faire.. As APM was starting to become common on desktops, there were all sorts of weird features that were being added to systems that were power-related, from scheduled wakeups and sleeps to automatic power-back-on after power loss and restoration. One of the more bizarre versions of this was a feature whereby an onboard modem, when recieving an incoming call, would cause the system to come back from suspend. In theory, this would be useful, but even a well-engineered system is going to take at least 6 seconds, at best, to come back from suspend, and often it's more like 20-30 seconds. Chances are that the calling modem wouldn't still be calling by then. Maybe there's some bizarre use for this, but if there is, I don't get it.. Anyhow, now that it looks like ACPI has replaced APM on most modern systems, I wonder if there's a new set of strange features... I do wonder what ACPI does that APM didn't..

So, on saturday, I went with R to the surplus store .. well, we tried, but there was some kind of sporting thing that made parking impossible, so we went to the McKnight area and walked around a mall instead. I don't think Debb and I had ever gone to this one -- there's a slummy mall in the area, but we somehow avoided the nice one (During those times, I became acquainted with almost all the malls and bookstores in the area). R got some clothes (there were some really good sales going on).. and I got the latest CDs from Bad Religion and Radiohead, as well as Pratchett's Pied Piper paperback. I haven't started on the latter, but the first two are good buys... I feel kind of silly buying into Bad Religion being so cliche for atheist/agnostic folks, but I really do like their music, and heck, I like Joseph and other religiously themed music too, so I think I can lay to rest any internal doubts that I just like listening to music that agrees with my worldview. Anyhow, naturally, I ripped it right after I got home, and ogg'd it, and as we speak, the last bits of the oggs are riding ssh onto my workstation here at work... I was mentioning to R that, had I not heard one of the Bad Religion songs as an MP3 beforehand, I probably wouldn't've bought the CD...

Later that evening, I had a date, with another R. I guess, for now, I'll attempt to just use pronouns. It seems I know a lot of R's though. Perhaps it's some kind of temporary rule in my life that all interesting people have names starting with R. Anyhow, we went out for very late night Indian food, and talked, and went back to her place, and talked... She's into morris dancing, is moderately geeky, at least somewhat liberal politically, and has a great sense of humor. She recently moved here from California, to get started on a MBA at CMU. Anyhow, we talked until it was very late and I was sleepy, and I don't remember (!!) all of the conversation. I do remember that she ended up reading from a humor book at one point.. and I had some good laugh out loud times.. I think I don't laugh enough in my life. So, everything was good. Two things we didn't talk about much were politics and religion, the two things that are likely to be the hardest, thorniest things in my relationship with anyone. Well, actually, we did talk a bit about politics... If we have another date, which would be a lot of fun, we probably will need to talk more about such things, as it really wouldn't be fair to either of us if we were to get attached but end up being fundamentally incompatible. But I think I worry too much. For some reason, I have an Italian lady in my head (which is odd, since neither this R nor anyone in my family is Italian) scolding me in a funny way, saying "Look what you've done, turning something fun into something to worry about!". Heh.

So, I made it home, and the next day, I really didn't do very much at all. I cleaned my place a bit, and handled other errands. Then, very late at night, I got hungry and so I IM'd Jeremy, and we met up with R (the original R) at her place to go eat.. but first, we hung out at her place for awhile and saw some really weird cartoon called "Hunger Force" or something like that. It struck me that one of the characters was actually something I had seen as one of my friends' IM icon -- a bucket of fries that could shoot lasers out of its eyes. It was strange, and kind of amusing. Then... EatNPark... unfortunately, I was so sleepy for that that I remember almost nothing. See a pattern here?

According to some spam, well, see for yourself: 1061213541: 301 lines from "The Magazine Rack" <TheMagazineRack@stop-the-presses.com> Subject: Martha's back and she's bringing cookies Hmm.

Anyhow, this week, I need to get books, force myself to get back into the school mindset, and perhaps get back into the habit of using the CMU gym before work. My laptop is now in the hands of FedEx, and hopefully will arrive at my office soon. I'll need to name it soon.

I've been thinking about something someone mentioned some time ago in a conversation about diabetes... They mentioned that there's an 'opposite' problem than diabetes, where the body produces insulin too rapidly after getting food, and so people get almost no sugar rush, and get very tired after eating. That really seems to describe me well -- I'm always at my best when I haven't eaten for a long time, at least until I get a hunger headache. Maybe the next time I have my regular checkup with my doctor, I'll ask him about it. As is now, I'm eating food with less and less sugar to avoid falling asleep at inopportune times.

Finally, in case you haven't read it, this might be interesting. It's part of Kucinich's campaign for the presidency. Interesting.