Under anesthetic, subdivided and synthetic

When doing some research with a colleague on the ethics of putting police scanners live and streaming on the Internet (me: "I'm all for transparency, but isn't that just asking for a catastrophe?"), I showed her how we can track down an address and see it using Google Street View. My colleague was familiar with Google Maps, but hadn't seen Google Street View before.

There needs to be a term for that moment when you realize what Street View is capable of showing (say sunbathing girls and crimes in progress), and it just blows your mind and causes you to shout "Oh my God!" The Germans probably have a word for it already, but it's probably fifty thousand letters and two vowels long.

And unlike what I managed to convince another cow-orker of, Street View is not updated live. Imagining the bandwidth that would require cowered me.

Am currently sick with Death. Can't cough or it feels like the top o'mah head coming off. Worked from home today, fixing more issues than I usually do while well. Not working tomorrow. At all. No e-mail, no nothing. I'm going to get some mileage out of my sick day. Do not want to shower work anymore with my germs. Well, actually, I could handle the guilt, but...but that's bad, I understand. Or have been told.

Finished Y: The Last Man today. Not what I expected. I think I'm pleasantly surprised. (I'm still a little disgruntled by the turns of the last storyline, but that's me for you. Disgruntled.)

Waiting for the Robitussin to kick in. It had a moon and stars on it. That's an unwritten promise of peace I want to cash in. Hrnm. HArd to tyiep nao. Iatjhink whatt my hands are a;like bdig floppy hams noow and maybeloishouldlie donw

So, a few weeks and $3K later, we've got the new server, name of Molly. Not that the DNS is set up for her, though, because to do that, I'd need to e-mail the campus DNS people, and to do that, I'd need to be able to login to my campus e-mail, which I haven't been able to do for the better part of a year now. (The "reset password" function allows me to set a new password, but I can't seem to login with it. The IT Halp Desk warns me that they're also upgrading the server today, so it'll probably be 5 pm before my manually-reset password takes.)

To make matters worse...no, not worse, just...annoying, the server rack back in the deep dark closet is a Belkin, which...is fine, I guess. Except that the rails that came with the server won't fit inside it. I disassembled a few of the Belkin rack's rails and tried to get the server to play nice with them, but that has met with profound abject failure so far. And I seem to shock myself every time I touch the server. That's not good.

So I think I'll just amuse myself by setting up the server, adding the staff directory, configuring blogs and wikis. Hee. I like wikis.

Sorry, no pics. By the time I'd wolfed down breakfast and made it to the lab where Mr. Fuzzy was hanging out, he'd already been netted by the Bat Police. Pity.

Also: golfers stalked by emu. Not lasagna.

Never again am I eating an entire Pizza Shuttle pizza in one sitting. Was up for most of the night, doing very little constructive. I did some fonts done (more on that later), but my mind was too fried to do any real work on the one project that needs doing ASAP. Gah.

Worse, just when I'm getting to bed at 3 am, I hear the distinctive tinkle of the birds' swing-perch, which is big enough to not ring unless it's being significantly moved, which means the birds were freakin' out and having a night-fright. Just when I think Moosie's done bouncing around the cage, I open it to take him out and comfort him when Moosie decides to freak out! yet again (I'm not very bright, you see) and there's two birds circling the room, one landing in the halogen lamp and another completely missing and silent. Takes me a few seconds to fish Muffin out of the lamp before he gets burnt and find Biscuit who's landed behind the kitchen computer and is baffled and panicked. I was worried most about poor Moosie, who seemed kinda dazed afterward, but checking on him now he's on his perch and moving around, so he's okay. Actually, they're all pretty kinetic this morning. Unlike me.

Got a phone call from one of the faculty this morning who wanted to know what the symptoms were of having a virus and I swear to God it took me thirty entire seconds before I realized that he didn't mean a biological virus. But he's worried that he does have a virus on his home computer. Difficulty: it's a Mac. Hey, it's not impossible.

Watched Much Ado About Nothing for the first time since seeing it in the theater. ( Ruminations on the interim.... )

Tonight: 300, I think. Though the "dining in hell" bit was obviously more apropos last night.

Via AA: CJOnline - Thousands of bees flee KU museum

LAWRENCE — A swarm of about 3,000 bees left The University of Kansas Natural History Museum this week and found a new home on campus.

The last time such a large group of bees left the exhibit at the museum through a tube, designed to allow the bees exit, was 14 months ago, said Jen Humphrey, communications director for the museum.

Humphrey said there were about 1,000 bees left in the museum’s artificial tree after the others followed the queen bee to a new home.

When a hive reaches a certain size, the queen bee will leave with other bees in search of a new location. Meanwhile, the bees left behind will produce a new queen bee, said Danny Najera, a University of Kansas graduate who studies bee cognition.

In other news, following the substation fire and the notice at 3 pm that everything was fine, apparently something else died at the power station and the power went out at about 3:30, so everybody drives home.

What this means for the Flint Hills Publication Workshop...I have no idea, but I'm glad it's not my problem.

The icon adequately reflects my state of mind and body today. I've had a full mug'o coffee, and for the first time in recent memory, I'm not the slightest hearty. I'm occasionally tired from running up and down stairs, and I'm occasionally breathing hard, but my heart is right back on track. Haven't felt this good in a long, long time.

beeform reminded me last night, though, that this is the first time I've had a really kinetic job, instead of being purely desk-bound. None of my other jobs -- well, all the way back to my DJing days -- required much travelling. Now I'm up, about, bouncing around...feels weird. Fantastic, yet weird.

EKG TBA OMG LOL.

Everything proceeds apace and on schedule, if not ahead. Life = güd.

"You don't want a crying Mormon!"

And, you know, she's right. In reference to coworkers, iPods and the ever-looming spectre of Trent Reznor. Which sounds like the name of a great novel....