I slept in this morning, and still didn't get enough sleep due to being up until 1:30 playing (you guessed it) Dungeon Keeper. Tsk. I'm now halfway through level 8, and am finding myself really challenged for the first time in the game. It's going to take some amount of cunning (or perhaps massive amounts of brute force) to win this level. Challenge means more addiction. I'm doomed.

Once at work I headed straight for the 10am meeting, which was fortunately short, and then to my desk, where many sysadmin tasks awaited me. We're moving development to a new spiffy fast machine, and turning the old development machine into QA. Much of this has happened in the last two days, but today everyone starts working on the new machine. This means chaos; directories aren't being exported, useful tools haven't been ported, nobody can find a working copy of emacs -- that sort of thing. I fixed the exporting problem and installed a version of netscape, then zoomed off to Millbrae for my weekly Normness. It was non-stop high-speed talking about my mother for pretty much the entire hour, with occasional breaks for me to mention that I knew I wasn't in my head but really didn't want to go there, thank you. My week is too good thus far to ruin it by thinking about what I'm saying. Norm was understanding.

Now back at work. There are more sysadmin problems for me to fix. I've sent out email to people telling them about the new Netscape. I also should be testing the architecture changes we've made in the last few days, but that's just not happening. Instead I write a little, go to test, run into another problem with the new machine. Fix latest problem, write a little more, repeat. Bleah. After several hours of being a sysadmin I remember why I switched to programming.

I don't seem to be reading much lately, due to Dungeon Keeper and tiredness and having to get ready for Friday, which is my birthday and thus my birthday party. I was really stressed about it -- so much to do! so little time! augh! -- but Rachel and Jim and Marith have all been conspiring and being cheerful, so by now I'm gleefully excited instead of fretful.

Tonight there will be much shopping! Rachel & Jeremy & Jim & I are going to buy party food at Trader Joe's, and then hopefully to Toys R Us, where I will buy party toys and Jim will wander the aisles in search of Lego Mindstorm sets. I've never had the chance to wander a big toystore before, but Rachel assures me it's an experience not to be missed. Toys are important, after all. I'm finally learning that.

Shopping with Rachel is always fun. Rachel is not shy about liking things. I am. I usually worry about what people will think. When I'm around Rachel I forget to worry and just enjoy myself instead. Which is, actually, true for everything, not just shopping.

But I was going to talk about reading. When I do have time to read I've been reading the third book of the immense Chinese novel. This volume is The Warning Voice, and is taking a darker tone than the first two. There's a nasty little subplot going on right now about someone's second wife being driven to despair and eventual suicide by the first wife. (Multi-wife marriages, not ghosts or divorce.) Fortunately it's all minor characters, so I'm not depressed. The writing/translating continues to delight me. I think I really will manage to read all five of these.

I finished the Michelle West. It was good. I now have the second book, which I'm uncertain about. It's set in the culture that only got minor screen time in the first book, which makes me less interested in it. It's focusing on a major athletic event occuring in this culture, but said event (the King's Games or something like that) was never mentioned in the first book, not even obliquely. Why should I care about it now? So I've gone back to my Chinese novel, and will probably pick up Michelle West again in the next week or two. My tastes are fickle.

Musically I'm still listening to lots of Eno, with some Siberry thrown in for balance. And Jon Hassell's The Surgeon of the NightSky Restores Dead Things by the Power of Sound, which is a wonderful album. I should look for more things by him.

Time to go work, so I can then go shop!