I've spent most of today finishing a data transfer; around 1330 it finally completed, so I wandered back to my desk and thought about reading news. Netcom, however, is peaking on lameness, so catching up on either Usenet or email is a lose. Instead I scheduled a bunch of appointments with my users, and then wandered around lists of ISPs, trying to find one in LA that'll give me a shell account. Not PPP, not SLIP, not nifty keen Internet Software. Just a nice little shell account to call my own. There are a few possibilities.

Meanwhile, I'm considering getting an idiom.com account so that I can do these things like reading news & email while at work. First, though, I must decide on a username. Do I keep diony, which has been my netcom login for nearly 3.5 years now? Do I use cjk, on the theory that my initials are straightforward and easily remembered? Do I use ayse, which has been my mudname for the last 4 years?

Decisions, decisions. I'm leaning towards keeping diony, but we'll see what the poll results look like -- I sent mail to a handsful of people asking for their opinion.

Yesterday afternoon was highly stressful -- problems with the external disk on an HP server, which eventually was resolved only to spawn a nightmareish 800+mb data transfer. Yes, the same one I spent all morning finishing. I was here until 1745, which means I missed my Statistics class -- by the time I got up to Mountain View it was past 1800, and Foothill is another fifteen minutes of driving. So instead I went to Jim&Czr's, where Jim already was, and peeled (and ate the seeds of) a pomegranate, ate leftover party food (crackers, cheese, fruit), and ended up listening to Rent at top volume. Some singing was involved. By the time Buffy, the Vampire Slayer came on I was in a fine mood indeed.

After Buffy I played Heroes some more, then went home and phoned Earl, and fell hard asleep pretty much immediately after we dephoned. Not bad.

While transferring data this morning I read Book of Moons by Rosemary Edgehill. Modern day pseudo-mystery (not very mysterious) set admist New York pagans. Quite enjoyable, a little rough in places, excellent descriptions of emotional trauma brought about by helplessness. I'm not sure who I'd reccomend it to -- Trip, probably, 'cause he likes Edgehill -- but I'm not sorry I read it.

I'm working my way through L.A. Confidential, having seen the movie on Sunday. Amazing amazing amazing movie. The book suffers in comparison, which isn't something I'd say lightly. Pretty slow going, though, especially since it's depressing.

OryCon this weekend! I'm supposed to meet up with Anita and Luke. Kirby and I are travelling together, sharing a room with Chuck and Emily. Hopefully much fun will be had.