Blogger's having some problems at present, so I'm typing this post up in Notepad. I'll paste it over when things are back to normal. Who knows when that'll be. Rah. For the record, the time is presently 11:18 AM.

Anyway, I'm working today at 5 PM, so I've got some time to kill before I have to go in... I'll probably leave between 2:30 and 3 and do a bit of browsing around the area shops before I don the BAM apron and the nametag of the retail slave. Not in the best of moods right now -- I guess this is always the case, but right now it's wearing on me that everyone else around me seems to be doing so much better than I am. (more...)

I promised it yesterday, but A Random Lunch #4 is finally up now. By the way, here's how it works -- if I say an article is going up on a specific day (i.e. "today") and it's not up by say 3 or 4 PM, expect it the next day. I try to have new updates ready on the third or fourth (though sometimes it's not until the fifth) day following the last update, so to give me more time I'll try to get 'em out earlier in the day as opposed to later. I haven't done a whole lot of posting articles really early (like at 5 PM on "yesterday") yet, but I don't doubt that I'll do it at some point. Anyway, the latest offering in the Random Lunch series is the best yet in more ways than one. Among other things, it's actually remotely healthy! (more...)

If you haven't read the previous entry, scroll down (or click here) and do that first. And comment! A Random Lunch #4 is still scheduled for later today (I'm about to start writing it in a bit), so STAY TUNED.

I was going to leave this as a quick comment on Greg's latest post, but it got kinda long so I figured I'd make an entry of it -- some thoughts on his distinction between "brain candy" and "brain food". (more...)

Yesterday was my first day of (paid) work since 2001... I am now an employee of Books-A-Million. First day wasn't too bad, but it's still retail. Oh, and it's a bookstore, so I saw quite a few things that really irritated me, not the least of which was seeing Oprah's name stamped all over Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, since apparently it's the latest title in her book club. You might think that's a good thing, since tons of people are reading the book just because Oprah recommended it, but also take into account that most of these people will get nothing out of the book (assuming there's something to be gotten out of the book, given its classic status; I haven't read it myself) because they're already mindless Oprah zombie-slaves. I remember when Oprah was pitching Steinbeck's East of Eden and she dedicated an episode of the show to "discussing" the book. (more...)

Already had 'em, but I made a few changes to the way they're working. Unfortunately, I was working with an older version of the comments template (apparently the latest version wasn't the one on my hard drive), so I unwittingly overwrote some of my later changes and had to try and do my best to recreate them. I may not have done so as well as I'd like, so if you notice anything drop a comment or send an e-mail and let me know. And I kicked up the comment maxlength quite a bit (since once or twice people have had problems with that), so you should be able to post some pretty long comments now. If you want. (more...)