>sigh/< Well, I was gonna type this rambling into m14, but its http auth entry box has apparently regressed into an unusable state again. Bummer. Looks like it's coming along in other ways. I just don't understand how a browser built by programmers who can do all this amazing stuff like a super-duper rendering engine, xml compliance, and all those other good things, can't seem to get a simple text entry box to work right, and not max out the CPU completely. (Granted, it is a pretty old slow CPU in my case, but still...) Oh well. I'm sure they'll figure it out one of these days.

Well, tonight's Voyager was an interesting one. Got me thinging. (<quip level="minor">Couldn't the universal translator handle the language switch? The crew can understand tons of other aliens who barely speak more than two lines, so why not now?</quip>)

Ensign Ballard returns, albeit in a slightly altered form. It probably would have been slightly more exciting if I had seen the episode in which she apparently died, although I didn't feel too bad, having talked to someone at lunch today didn't remember seeing her before either.

So... philosophical tangent. Ashes to Ashes. Everything dies. Disintegrates. Returns to the ether of matter and energy. Death gives birth to new life. People die, animals die, plants die, to eventually disperse and recombine in a billion different combinations. Bits of the matter which once composed many creatures, perhaps even humans, now is this body, in which I bear some sense or illusion resembling an identity. A reincarnation of sorts, except no one entity can be directly associated with any one previous life.

Why not short circut the process? Interesting where that can lead. Well, anyway... (Oh, one other observeration... Is Voyager trying to get on the whole subtext bandwagon now? Maybe I've been spending too much time lurking on Netforum lately, and it's colored my perceptions, but Ballard's reply after Harry asked her about going ice skating sounded, well, very subtext-ish.)

Ok, that wraps up that bit of pondering. I shall now do some minor revamping of my room's network, and install the hub I today purchased during the little joy ride bouncing and I had to CompUSA. After that, another rambling. Eat it up.