In Ojibwe, they separate We-inclusive from We-exclusive, grammatically. This division makes a lot of sense -- I don't understand why more languages don't do it. There does seem to be a certain intellectual appeal towards what is almost a fundamentalist view of points of view in grammar -- the I-plural suggests the group as an extension of the self, but perhaps this is left over from before I even thought that such grammatical separation was possible (lack of creativity, I guess). Wikipedia suggests that Ojibwe has a number of other interesting linguistic characteristics, from a European perspective.

The CD I ordered, Monsteroma from Plaid Tongued Devils, finally arrived. It's less "pop" than their earlier stuff, and has some pretty good stuff in it. I tossed tracks 11, 12, 14, and 15 into my do-not-play list, the last because it's not actually music, the others because they're less interesting than the CD versions I have of the same songs (the last half of the album is mostly live versions of stuff previously released).

I've also been (mostly) enjoying the soundtrack to Anastacia, the Disney movie speculating on an alternate history of Anastasia Romanov, daughter of Tsar Nikolai II. Much of the music is good, although the Dixie accent of Anastacia when she sings is kind of strange.

Happily, the amd64 box at work, with the replaced CPUs, passed burn-in, so I'll be returning it to function once I get all the software back onto it. Hurrah.

Some time ago, I had a dream of being in a house with a bunch of other people that at times seemed to be family, at times, other people I hardly knew. We were hiding from other people who also might've been family or others, and cutting through walls to do it. The walls were such that one could cut right through them with anything sharp, pull a chunk out, jump through, and put the chunk back almost seamlessly behind one. I got the feeling I was the only person who knew how to create new passages like this -- the other people were ambling around, and the people outside the current large discovered room were going to come in and find all of us, so I was cutting into a new room and preparing to jump through when the dream ended. It's interesting to me that I had no idea what was to happen if I were caught, just some kind of an imperative not to be caught. The urge to flee was a very primal thing. I recall that, occasionally when I go running in very dark areas late at night, it's not hard to bring back that feeling of primal panic, and it's always interesting to do so. It represents a certain kind of razorlike focus in the mind, not unlike programming, but quite different in some ways. In the dream, and in those circumstances, all the background things I'm thinking about stop completely, and I am entirely focused on two things -- first, how I feel, and second, what I'm doing about it. It's interesting to be in that state.

So far, having what I have of beard is a mixed bag -- it's interesting, but is a bit itchy when my head is against my chest for any reason. At one week old, I'm already thinking about getting rid of the thing.

For amusement, I put the bigger of my two cats, Tortfeasor, inside a backpack I had for awhile. He seemed to enjoy it, because when I put it down (open, na klar), he spent the next half hour playing inside it, eventually enticing the other cat to come inside and wrestle him inside the backpack. I teased him to get him outside it, but he ran right back in. A few friends who have seen me play with my cats sometimes misunderstand how cats play, and think I'm being mean, but in reality, cats are mischevious and active in playing with each other, and they don't have the sense of dignity that people do. The reason that my cats are so sweet and nice to people is that I play with them in ways that are fun for them, rather than keeping them on a pedistal. Amusingly, some people have suggested to me that I perhaps tend to treat significant others a bit too much like things for a pedistal, and this gets in the way of relationships working well. I'm not sure if I agree -- I've seen two types of ways couples relate to each other that seem at least partly related to this, and both appear to work. I think I have a natural inclination to being reserved and careful, but at least in some respects, it emotionally appeals more to a part of me when I see a well-working relationship that's not of the measured type than the other. One very small aspect of this is how members of a couple treat each other's bodies (outside of sexual contexts) when around each other -- a more relaxed form of relating to each other on this purpose would have couples use each other as pillows and otherwise touching, while a more formal form would have couples holding hands and making each bit of contact a very conscious thing. In some cases, as people get more comfortable, one could imagine the second migrating partly into the first, but a lot of the time, it doesn't look like it ever change for some people.

I recently heard about What the Hack, a giant gathering in the Niederlanden, but it's a bit late to arrange a trip there given that it's later this month. I wouldn't mind spending more time there, although I'd want to make much cheaper living arrangements. WTH is ever 4 years, so perhaps that'll be the start of my next adventures in Europe. I could start there, then head east through Germany, up into Polen, through Königsberg, and up to Leningrad and then Moscow.