Throughout the week I've been listening to Bill DeSmedt's novel Singularity from Podiobooks. It's pretty keen, a technological thriller about the Tunguska event and a race to recover something from the site. n.b. the centennial of the event is June 30th, 2008. I bring it up because of the character Sascha. The way he's introduced in the novel during a flashback in a Moscow subway reminded me a lot of elmgrows. The way the novel's going I'm seeing and expecting a divergence considering the evil corporation that employs him in their research.
On New Year's Eve I plan on dragging my telescope up to the homestead to observe Mars. A few weeks ago Mars was at its closest to Earth. Don't worry this isn't a once in a lifetime thing. Every two years and change Mars is close enough to Earth to be one of the brightest objects in the sky. Last time I attempted to observe Mars through my humble refractor I was a bit disappointed because it was no more than a glint of red sand on a dark shore. I'm hoping to catch a little more detail even if it's just a dark patch or an ice cap.
Something old came back to me on Saturday night's grocery trip. A week ago I went to King Sooper's for groceries and I had accidentally scanned my PetSmart card. The self-check kiosk accepted it and acknowledged me by my full name of Valued Customer. Next time you go shopping, gentle reader, try scanning a card from a different store rather than using the appropriate card.
One last thing, I patched NetHack to include tinfoil hats. Only purpose of these items is to block inbound and outbound telepathy. From what I've gathered about the patch it protects the player from a mindflayer's psionic attack and from a mindflayer tracking the player. It's cute but I don't see it as doing anything to the game.
That's right, kids. Sometimes I brush my teeth while I'm on the toilet for the sake of expediency and multitasking.
