Well, today marked the first day I was the last one to leave the office. I'm not sure whether to be excited or worried by this. Whatever the case, I did have good reason.

You see, even some of the world's best institutions have been infected with the curse of word processor file formats created by one evil empire. Infected badly. Very badly.

So, being the free thinking geek that I am, when I see something that I think seriously needs help, I try to do something, provided that it is within my ability. Now, trying to aid a patient who wants to get better would be challenge enough. Trying to cure those who apparently have no desire to rid themselves of an illness is certainly an exercise in futility. Besides that, one of my basic principles is that you never force others to do anything against their will. Hence, even if someone is dying, and they refuse medication, the ethical decision would be to let them have their way.

When the illness starts affecting oneself, it's a little different. Ok, let me put it this way: This morning, I knew that if I had to make it through one more day of sitting and listening to the hard drive churn while I waited for StarOffice to perform some trivial task like change the font size, I was going to give myself an ulcer from holding in all the urges to scream and smash the monitor. Something simply had to be done. Soon.

(Oh, and if anyone thinks I might be on the verge of violating a certain ramblings policy I made earlier, don't worry. I'm not. Remember how I amended it. And also, I ain't even near disclosing any super duper secrets or other people's personal info. Unless of course, the sad fact that Microsoft has so well managed to brainwash even the best of them into conformity is a secret. I don't think it is. Everyone already knows that. Even I once rushed home -- under the gleeful spell of marketing propaganda -- to install Windows after I purchased it on midnight of August 24, 1995.)

Well, anyway, sitting around and complaining without coming up with a better solution -- something I had done on a couple of occassions before today -- is just stupid. It also doesn't work to just shut the fuck up, live with (what I see as) a needlessly inferior situation, and pretend everything's alright.

<tangent>
Going on a little bit of a tangent, the latter is pretty much what I did while at ucollege.edu. See something stupid? Something that isn't right? Doesn't make sense? Something that you hate, and suspect everybody else might hate too, but nobody ever says anything, so why should I?

Here's why: Cause after a while (two years in my particular case), you get this nagging feeling from the back of your brain that tells you something is seriously fucked. You don't know what it is. You can't define it. You try the best you can to make an excuse, rationalize what's going on, but no matter what words you use to try to synthesize and describe this state, it can't quite be classified. It is not one thing it particular. You've stopped noticing the "one thing"'s because you tried to ignore them for so long. Eventually, it worked. And now, you are blind. Don't open your eyes, you won't like what you see. The blind have been blessed with security.

Ultimately, shoving it down to the bottom of your gut just don't work. It will spill out somewhere. Either that, or it will suck your motivation dry until you become practically debilitated, mentally able to little more than sit in a dark room, read Xena fanfic, and wonder what it is that makes the real world such a fucked up place. If you're lucky, you might run across a few empathetic souls in virtual space who you can relate to.

Eventually, you might even figure out that you need not be a mind-numbed zombie in order to be a part of the world. A part of society. You need not just take whatever the God point mongers want to shove down your throat. Each person has a voice. Or even if that voice doesn't always work so well, at least there's a keyboard. When put to good use, the power can be found again.
</tangent>

So anyway, where was I? When I see an area drastically in need of improvement, I try to suggest something better! :)

Long story short (and without treading any closer to the policy line that I have to, while still getting something resembling a message across): Patient: no desire to be cured. But, patient consents in what seems to be a sort of half-hearted manner to allowing free thinker to take different path, as long as resulting destination is vaguely similar. (<voice style="whisper">Hint: DocBook can be exported to RTF format.</voice>)

So anyway, afternoon, rather than spend five hours with the pig, by the end of which I probably would have been ready to tear my hair out in agony, I spent nearly seven hours on an impromptu, somewhat frantic "do it while you learn it" session. I was proud of what I had accomplished, but knew I had a lot more to learn in order to really shine.

Luckily, bouncing was also working late too. Luckily, when he came to pick me up at 1830, he was quite amenable to the idea of stopping at Barnes and Noble to peruse the O'Reilly section. A few minutes later, I walked out happy, with duck book in hand. He also managed to find an Oracle O'Reilly book he thought would be highly useful, so we were both happy for having taken the trip.

I based my purchase on the premise that if one is going to attempt to buck the system, in order to have any chance of success whatsoever, one better know one's shit, and know it well. Those who go along with the crowd can get away with mediocrity. A rebel must be ever conscientious, ever alert. In high school, I had one teacher (actually, I had two) who did not take (and thereby pass on to students) the constant stream of garbage that the administration tried to dump on them. They were the best. They had to be. Now I have to be.

Do I have a tendancy to get melodramatic? :) Oh well. Life's more fun that way. :) :)

So anyway, after my late arrival home, I hadn't gotten five minutes into my rounds of web surfing (which lately, increasingly consists mostly of visiting friends' personal pages) when the rest of the family announced that they were going to Quizno's. I wasn't feeling particularly hungry, even though I knew I should have been. It was past normal meal time. So, knowing this would be the best opportunity for food, I reluctantly agreed to go along. Damn was I irritable though!

It was like all I wanted to do was go home, sit by myself, read a little, ramble a little, and hit the sack. I didn't want anyone to talk to me. I didn't want to hear anyone talk to each other. I just wanted peace. Makes me wonder if I'm really ready for that new year's resolution I rambled about for far too long (you know the one). Oh well. I'll just keep living, and take things as they come. That's really the best anyone can do, right?

Ok, that's enough of this for tonight. Now it's time for a little input, and then down for the subliminal co-processor to do its dirty work.