Nilknarf News

I didn't get up until about 10:30, so I slept eleven hours, straight through. Didn't even get up to go to the bathroom. I did dream about smoking, though. I finally got that damned cigarette lit... but I don't know what happened after that.

Ooooo! I just looked at the Seti Team Stats and we've moved up a notch, out of thirteen and up to twelve! Kokopelli must've dropped out for some reason or another.

This internet is really weird. I have been trying to overtake Kokopelli for months, and I have no idea who he (if it's a he) is, and no way of finding out. No way of figgering out why he decided to quit participating... did he die, or have some bad luck and have to hock his computer? Is he in jail because of his participation in our mutual pastime?

Anyway, we will now be stuck in twelfth place for quite a while... the guy in 11th (nother_one) has 3620 compared to our 3245. And there's nobody racing to overtake us very soon, either, the closest, not counting Kokopelli, who seems to be at a standstill, is Tazman with 2628... can't see him for the dust.

I went out to Sams' with Karen and Kim and Patrick and Lacee. Bought the socks and pants that I mentioned yesterday, and a shirt that I just liked the way it looked, and we also got a lot of staples, things that we won't have to buy again for the next six months. Between what we had and what Kim had, we pretty much filled the trunk up.

After Sams, which was pretty much a madhouse, we went to eat at the Golden Corral. I hadn't been in the one here for ages, and I was pretty impressed with their food... we got the buffet, and everything that I tried was really good. Karen told me that it was the same as the place that Mom likes to go to down in Enid. but the arrangement is a lot different.

Anyway, that was pleasant until the kids started getting bored and acting up... unfortunately, it was a half-hour after that started before we left.

Karen hasn't been able to get ahold of Brian in Lawrence since we went up there on his birthday, so she found a number for Jacinda's mother and found out that their phone had been disconnected again. Karen is going to go down there tomorrow morning and pick him up and bring him home for a coupla days.

Which kinda blows any plans that I might have had for new years... or maybe not, we might take him back Monday.

I just had to shoot a picture of the full moon through the trees... as usual, the picture didn't come out nearly as good as the scene itself was... I had steadied the camera on a post, but it still looks blurry... no, I haven't read the book on it yet, but I did just look at the lens thinking that there might be something on it... nope. Maybe something is wrong with the focusing... no, it's a point-n-shoot jobbie, no focusing knob or setting.

Well, OK, I did spend some time reading the camera manual. It told me a lot of stuff that I already knew and damned little that I didn't... pretty much what I expected. What I really want, in a situation like this, is simply access to someone who has already read the documentation and who could simply answer my question. Unfortunately, I don't have anyone like this available. And, if there were a help group for users of this camera and I asked this question, people would jump all over me with "RTFM, you dumbass."

Anyhoo, I have read parts of the manual and now I can rest easy: the camera was not made to do what I wish it to do because of the clumsy automatic focussing mechanism. O'well, when I have an extra grand laying around I'll get me a good digital camera... and if that's more than a year away, it'll probably be one with ten-gig resolution besides all of the other bells and whistles.

I really wonder when this will all be super-cheap and easy, so that everyone in the world will have everything, including food? I wonder if it'll happen before we all get bombed back into the stone age?

Ah, I came close to getting all philosophical again, I can't do that too often or I'll lose my credibility...

Anyway, before I could read my manual, I had to download Adobe's newest version of their reader. Which, incidentally, sucks. Both the fact that I had to download it, and that it's stupid. Why in the world would someone want to write stuff that can only be read in a proprietary format? An instruction manual? Get real! I could understand if it was maybe something that someone wanted to steal... no, that wouldn't make any sense... none of it makes sense.

Maybe 'cause it makes it look like a "real" printed manual? But it is so damned clumsily! OK, rant mode off...

In fact, *ALL* modes off. I think that I'll go veg out in front of the TV for a while, watch some news... I need a good laugh, maybe baby Bush will be on saying something stupid like we're gonna catch ben laden...