It was my hope that, when I started wearing big-ass monitor-style over-the-ear headphones, cow orkers would stop wandering into my office and jabbering at me for several minutes without realizing I was listening to my iPod and couldn't hear them.

I just got my car back from the shop, all fixed up and having passed inspection. It's as much of a relief to get out of the apartment after two days as it is to have a functioning vehicle. Still, the Corolla seems to be running better than it has in a while. Now I just need to make an exepdition into deepest, darkest Clayton to deal with the usual personal property tax around, and then I can go to the license office and keep this beast street legal for another year or two. Here's hoping GM will still be in business when that rolls around, and it'll be a better time to get a new car then.

Just for the record, I've been stuck at home for the last couple of days with my car in the shop. I'm having a handful of relatively minor issues (though they do add up) fixed, in the hope of making it through state inspection and keeping this thing running for another year or so. Anyway, until I know when I'm getting the car back, I can't commit to actually being able to go anywhere this weekend.

As a native of Mississippi, I find the current Mark Sanford scandal amusing in that he appears to be on track to out-stupid-governor Mississippi's own Kirk Fordice.

I'm also enjoying how the story keeps on getting more and more ridiculous. I fully expect someone to make claims of alien abduction by the end of the week.

[via The Daily Otter]

Can anybody explain DHL's business model to me? I ordered some cheap extra RAM from Newegg, with free shipping. For some reason, this free shipping appears to be based on DHL transferring my package to Kansas City by a circuitous route, and then handing it over to the US Postal Service. Is there any part of this process that's supposed to be cheaper, faster, or safer than just sending it by USPS straight from Memphis to St. Louis? I know I could have gotten my order faster if I'd been in enough of a rush to spend a couple bux extra, but still, Hebron frickin' Kentucky?

As I planned to do a while back, I've skinned my netbook (called Sigil) for purposes of protection and personalization, and added some further decoration as well. ( A couple of photos below the cut. )
As far as protection goes, the skin works great. The original glossy black plastic exterior scratched easily and smudged if you breathed in its general direction. The vinyl skin has just enough texture to take care of both those problems.

I only made it out to the Greater St. Louis Renaissance Faire at Wentzville once this past weekend. On Saturday, I managed to Goblin up (see new userpic) and meet up with the Winter Court for a lovely day at the festival. Unfortunately, I had a nasty bout of insomnia (well, let's call it that for simplicity's sake) Saturday night, and just didn't feel up to making the trip out with the stleampunk time travelers on Sunday. Anyway, that leaves me with a second-day ticket left to use, and I know some folks are coming in from out of town this coming weekend, so I may try and make it out again on Saturday.

Update: Added a few pix on Flickr.

In light of the catastrophic events of the movie, can we conclude that Timefleet is completely fucking useless?