In about another 16 hours, it will be my 1-week anniversary of being DSL-less. Covad and US Pest (or whatever they're calling themselves now) had better get their act together very soon. Otherwise, I might just give up and move to another place, and let them -- along with their broken lines -- go screw themselves. I mean, a few days to get a repair done, I can understand, but this.... this is getting ridiculous.

But anyhow... On with Bitscape's daily tales of adventure and heroism! (Yeah, whatever.)

Went to work today. (Well, duh.) Hmmmm.... Luke, use the Source. Or something like that.

Something I've been pondering about lately: There's this concept known as "professional detachment". The idea that you go to work and do your job without investing your own emotional energies into what's going on. If something goes wrong, or is being done in a way that you know is inferior, it doesn't phase you, because you haven't thrown yourself into it.

Historically, this idea seems to be a foriegn concept in my mind. Like at my preschool job... nonexistant. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that I loved many of those kids. When they were having fun, I became joyful. If they were hurting, I felt it too, and would often take the pain home and lay awake at night. And, on some occassions, when I thought other employees there were screwing things up in a way that was detrimental to the little ones, I would get pissed. Yes, I stepped out of line a time or two at that job too. :)

And just where am I going with this, as I babble into the night? Just thinking about... Do I need to learn this concept? This "professional detachment"? Maybe doing so would lower my stress level. Allow me to just let go. Perhaps I should ask my mentor about it sometime. I dunno.

OTOH, what I don't want to become is a drone who really doesn't care whether things succeed, or have it all go to shit. Someone who Just Follows Orders, works 8-5 every, collects the paycheck, and doesn't give a damn about anything else. Maybe there has to be some of that though. Like I said, I dunno.

Enough on that.

Upon arriving home from work today, I was just feeling incredibly tired. So much so, that I went straight down for sleep. Had some bizarre dreams. I don't remember exactly what, but I do know that I woke up with a very wierd feeling. I also know for certain who one of the people in the dreams was. That's all though. None of the events ever made it back into my conscious mind. (A few readers might try to guess who the character was. They could be wrong, but I doubt it.)

I arose at 1900, knowing that something was going to have to be done about Argo's situation. An ancient distro, running on the 2.0.33 kernel, with no support for my network card or video hardware just wasn't going to do. Not for the weekend. Not even for a single day.

Today, I received word that my Linux Mall order was being delayed unless I gave instructions otherwise. (Did I mention this before? After giving up on the local retail outlets, I ordered a couple of Loki games from them: Quake 3 and Railroad Tycoon 2.) Quake 3 is on backorder, and I had elected to have them wait if necessary and ship the whole order together. I decided not to change that policy upon hearing the news. So it might be a bit before it ships.

As a side note: /me wonders if Loki is pulling a Nintendo, given the utter scarcity of their products at the stores around here, plus the news that Linux Mall is back ordered. ("Pulling a Nintendo" is defined as intentionally distributing a quantity of product which is significantly beneath the market demand. This is done in an attempt to keep prices high, and hype far above what it would otherwise be.)

Aw hell, this rambling is going way to long. I've got other things to do, dammit! :)

(/me just went out of the room for a second to go the the bathroom, and discovered the first bill for my DSL line waiting. Lovely, guys. I just have to wonder though: What are they going to do if I don't pay? Disconnect me? [smirk] Goofballs. Methinks if the recent idiocy continues much longer, I'll send a note back saying, "I'll pay when you actually get the f-ing line working again!" I am normally not that arrogant, but this is getting insane. In the mean time, I have NO net access from home whatsoever. Not even POTS. And I don't want to go sign up with an ISP, only to have to cancel in another week. Grrrrrr.)

(I suppose it complicates things somewhat when the bill is coming from a wholly owned subsidiary of one's own employer. So such attempts at strongarm tactics of "I don't pay until I get service" might backfire when payday comes. lol. But that assumes the right hand knows what the left is doing. A dubious proposition. On the plus side, I might be able to use this to my advantage. If worse comes to worse, perhaps I could persuade people inside the company to go get the ball rolling, since they might have more leverage. The discount doesn't hurt either.)

Alright. On with the rambling that just won't end...

After waking up, I decided it was time to do something about Argo's situation. I took Tobias and headed out to Barnes and Noble. Since bouncing gave me a gift certificate, I figured a little browsing the books never hurts, and maybe I would get lucky and find a cd with a modern distro at a reasonable price.

I did my usual round of looking at the fun books... mostly the computer section and scifi/fantasy. Anne Rice novels. I've wanted to read them for some time. There was a four pack of paperbacks. The Vampire Chronicles. The first four. I bit. More to pile onto the queue. But I'm really going to read these. :) (Actually, I'm not sure the word "queue" is really accurate. It seems to behave more like a stack. Except that when things get popped, they get popped in fractional increments. So if I only read the first 25% of a book, it's a quarter pop. Oh, nevermind.)

I also spotted on the discount table a box with Linux Mandrake 7.0. 20% off. Not bad. 2.2.14 kernel, so it's fairly recent. I've heard good things about this distro. Now I don't see how in the world it could ever hope to beat Debian. No distro is that good. But certainly worth trying. However the box had nothing to indicate what the original retail price had been.

I took it to the information desk, waited an eternity in line as the lone clerk waited on people, answered the phone, took orders... and I finally got it scanned. $30 was the regular price. So it would cost me about $24. Normally, I wouldn't pay that much for a single distro, but I was desperate, and I figured I wasn't going to get a better deal in the short term. I bought the books and the Mandrake box with my gift card, which totalled out at a balance slightly higher than the card had, as expected. I paid the difference in cash, and left happy.

On the way home, I grabbed McDonalds. Mmmmm.

Then I decided to write a quick rambling, catching up on recent events. Boy was that a mistake! :)

Each time I unplug my keyboard, monitor, and mouse to switch between Dagobah and Argo, I think more and more that it would be a good idea to get myself one of those neat little switches. I really don't need a second monitor, at least not for a while. And my current keyboard is perfectly suited to my needs. I have been thinking about getting a nicer Logitech mouse, since these cheap ones do have a tendancy to become jumpy and unresponsive after a while, even if you clean them. Perhaps I'll look into a switch in the near future. Hmmm...

Well, this little act of lingual self indulgance has gone on quite long enough. I've got a distro to install, and some reading to do, goddammit! Here goes...