If you’re reading this, you are in my Secrets group. Please don’t discuss my secrets with others, even if they are listed on my Friends page, they are not likely to be secrets_ok. If you’re uncomfortable about keeping secrets, best not to read below the line. I’ve added a couple people to my Secrets group, so if this is your first secret, there are some previous entries now visible to you that weren’t before, so if you get bored, enjoy. :-) Things have become quite tense with C. C and I had a very long chat today, which was good in a lot of ways. I explained that when he refused to sign the written warning on Monday, that had made me quite angry. I probably should not have taken it personally, but I did. ...

I was up quite late working on a report for work. I am now incredibly tired. For some reason I thought it was Wednesday when I woke up, though it was clearly Thursday when I went to bed at 3:30. I got a huge coffee mug from 7-11 (20 oz) and everybody kind of chuckles when they see it, like I’m a huge caffeine freak or something. Never mind that I haven’t put coffee in it, it is usually hot chocolate or sometimes tea. I’ve gotten into the habit of stopping at 7-11 for a 79c hot chocolate in the morning, which is like 1.09 in a disposable cup, so I’m saving money and helping the environment. ...

I am thinking of running an RPG, and I’m gathering info to see who might be interested in playing. Please take the survey if you might be interested in playing at some point (and if you think you would actually come to a game run by me). (If you don’t know me, but we have some friends in common, feel free to answer, and you may be invited to a game if/when it materializes) ...

Created a script to back up my journal (current month) onto my shell account, in case Live Journal should tank at some future point. In its default state it downloads the current month, and is suitable for running every night. If you uncomment the foreach loops it will back up those months you plug in. The strategy is to back up the current month every night right before midnight. The risk here is that if I backdate some entries to before the current month, they wouldn’t be backed up, and I would need to run those months again manually. Hmm.

I added a couple of folks to my friends page, and color-coded my friends into a couple groups for easy skimming. I also added a couple of communities to the friends list, so I can read them easily, but more importantly, to give the appearance of having a lot more friends :) The community entries will show up in salmon-pink, and have two names, the community name first, and the actual user’s name in square brackets below that.

Sourcery by Terry Pratchett It’s a pretty good book, though I didn’t enjoy it as much as Mort. It was pretty Action-Packed™ but it seemed a bit more scattered, probably because the action was scattered around various locations, and also because there were multiple “point of view” characters, so I didn’t really identify fully with all of them. I heard some feedback from a friend of a friend that the Discworld books get tired and rehashed after about 10 of them. I’m starting to see some of that, though I am still thrilled with them, it’s not new and unexplored territory all the time. I think the expectation that they might be read out of order leads to the author repeating himself sometimes, because whenever we see a familiar element, he takes time to explain it rather than assuming we know it from the previous books. ...

Medieval fantasy (typical D&D setting) Modern fantasy, light (Magic, think Harry Potter) Modern fantasy, mixed (superheroes, psychic powers) Modern fantasy, dark (vampires, etc) Modern spy story (think Mission Impossible, etc) 70’s spy story (think Bond, Avengers, etc) Older spy story (mob, gumshoe, etc) Victorian, Western, etc Future, space colony/exploration Future, dark/cyberpunk Future, light (Paranoia) Made-up fantasy worlds (Pern, etc) Fariy tales (Grimm, Prince Charming, etc) Anything I’m missing? What types of settings can you think of from your favorite stories?

Dentist appointment: Went and got dented. Taxes: Prepared the paperwork I will need to take to the preparer. Cars: Made appointment to take both cars in for services. Doctor: Made doctor appointment for next week. Gave C a ride downtown. Went with M and C to dinner at Red Lobster.

Mort by Terry Pratchett Read this book over a two-day period. I have read about 5 others in the Discworld series, a bit out of order, but we have most of them now, so I will read the rest in order. Mort is a young boy who finds himself hired as Death’s apprentice. Hilarity ensues when he fumbles a job his first day out, and then tries to cover his slip-up. Meanwhile, Death has some time on his hands while Mort is making the rounds, and tries his hand at some more human pursuits. ...

Thida and Castor had their wedding on February 23, and I was privileged to attend.