I've been grabbing music from all over the place, and surprisingly, for this most recent grabbing, it's all been legal. Here's what I've been getting: Another Brick in the Wall - Yup. It's a cover. A very silly one at that. Songs from Death Cab For Cutie. Up until now, I've just had one song from them. For some reason, their weird voice reminds me of the salty, grainy feel of a strong alkaline. My favorite song of the bunch actually is the one I had already, called "president of what?" Songs from Bad Religion. Lots of goodies. There's videos too -- see the video for "American Jesus" especially.

Oh, yeah, I obviously survived the race, as I'm writing to you. It's good to have made it, even if I didn't do that well. Doing well really wasn't the point anyhow -- it was really more about being social with fellow geeks, and having fun. I'll probably do the random distance run next spring (the other CMU CS running thing) and maybe get involved in more geeky things too. Anyhow, after making it back to my office, and getting changed, I went to hang out at the friday geek gathering, and chatted for a bit, but then spotted a certain someone who knows that I don't want to see her, who had the chutzpah to show up at a CMU event knowing that, right outside my bloody office, in the same building that she almost never visited me at during the many months we were dating because she claimed she had a hard time finding the building. Shithead. So I turned around, went back to my office to get my things, and left instead of being social. If I were childish, I'd start hanging around the Law School building in Duquesne, but, alas, I guess that point will simply remain unmade.

Anyhow, back from that digression, it was indeed fun. There were some people doing it on unicycles, and one guy did it backwards. There were people who looked the whole range from the extremely stereotypical geek to people who looked pretty athletic. For much of the way, I ran with or near Daniel Neill, who I might've mentioned was at Andrew's party and Kate's party. Cool. Hmm. Next time, I'll get some new shoes though -- I have bruises under some of my toenails, and that's no fun. I wonder how old both of my current sets of shoes are..

After I got home, I read for a bit, and then tried to make a late night trip to India Garden. Unfortunately, I went by car, and drove around for half an hour looking for parking before it closed, so I drove back home. Oakland is really a lousy place to try to park. Today, I cleaned my place a little bit more, did some reading to get ahead for Philosophy class, and walked around for awhile. I was kind of sore though, and I took a long nap in the middle of the day (which is why I'm still up (yes, I measure days by sleeps, not by midnight (or sunsets, for that matter))). I spent a long time at Coffee Tree, but I was frustrated by the wireless network not operating properly there. Fortunately, there was a really fascinating conversation happening at the next table that I listened in on and very lightly participated in. It was a guy I've seen there several times before, and might've mentioned on here -- a Jew who went through Yeshiva, and was on the path to become a Rabbi, but decided he didn't believe, and did more than that -- investigated his entire life, and the orthodox lifestyle, calls it brainwashing, and is now a strong atheist. He was talking with a moderate Orthodox, claiming that much of the tradition is ruining lives and creating prisons within peoples minds. It seems that Coffee Tree is *the* place to be if you want to hear people talk about a variety of interesting political and social problems, especially those related to jewishness. I note with amusement that the Orthodox thought that I was Jewish, and as I was mostly just entering the conversation when addressed, I didn't get the chance to disabuse him of the notion (although I was able to tell them I was Atheist when they asked me if I was religious). Sometime I'd love to get in a more interactive conversation with any of the participants in that one.

I eventually biked home, dropped off my laptop, and went to India Garden, this time by bike. Again, the same sequence of weird Daler Mehndi videos, and again I didn't mind. It reminds me of some more strange dreams I have. There's the usual one of my current life being a observational point from a scientific experiment by an ancient being that split into several beings to have several vantages, having been on Terra for millions of years. Recently, I've also had weird dreams about an evil military character from a webcomic I read. These generally involve a strange, scary blob slowly and very deliberately shaping itself into that character, while looking menacing. Hmm.. and finally, the most recent elaboration of the first one, my defending Terra against invading aliens. Yeah, corny, I know. Finally, a dream about sitting at a table with someone my dream mindset marked as 'the enemy', and eating dinner with them, watching their foreign practices and although we normally would be in murderous conflict over these things, they respected that I did not take part in their specific practices. We spent the dinner talking about a new common goal, and although I didn't see our differences going away, and in fact foresaw violence again afterwards, the idea of the temporary joined energy of the joined forces, and the tactical and other possibilities inherent in that, gave me a sense of intellectual excitement. No, I'm not being cagey or symbolic -- I really can't remember what the forces were, and it's very possible that the dream never actually had the detail I seek.

Recently, on a redhat beta list I'm subscribed to (running severn on my laptop), someone had a post in Japanese, and I was very happy to be able to understand exactly what it said without needing to use any reference. Hajimemashite to you too, Mr. Kajyuneko. I suspect not too many other people understood your Tesuto. :)

I need to do a bit of shopping tomorrow, I think. Exciting. Next weekend, there's a renfest that I likely will go to. I also will probably go camping alone sometime soon. I kind of like the idea of taking my tent, some books, my IKEA lamp (cheap little thing that it is), and my sleeping back out to some park and getting some serious reading and stuff done someplace far from anyone else.

And finally, I'd like to dedicate this entry to all those unsent letters, emails, and things we've never said. All those times when a communication, already prepared but never delivered, might've done who knows what to our lives...

Oh, and to all the stupid spam I get telling me how to increase my length. As far as I know, dedications don't always have to be positive, eh? Well, time for me to let Hypnos take me before Helios comes. :) Got Greek? Got Geek? .. Got Sleep. Zzzzzzzz