I have come to believe that one truly becomes less inspired to write web content when one knows it will not be published immediately. Tis odd, that.

I was on the phone twice again with RMI today. Covad did their tests. The loop is open. And of course, aren't we all surprised to find out that the problem now lies in U.S. Pest's less than competent hands? Translation: It'll probably be down for who-knows-how-long again.

Given that this is the second time in a month that this has happened, I asked the RMI guy if they would (a) re-imburse me for the appropriate fraction of the monthly bill for the days it is down, and/or (b) give me a temporary dial-up account. One outage might be understandable, but this is getting insane! Unfortunately, he could do neither. How stupid.

What really should happen: U.S. Pest should be fined up the wazoo every time something like this happens, and the money returned to the customer, plus some given to all the organizations that have to go through grief every time one of their idiot minions fucks up somebody's line. Of course, we know if that happened, they would be bankrupt. But maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. If those fools went out of business, maybe we could actually hire somebody with some minimal degree of competence to administer the phone system. Not likely to happen anytime soon.

Oh well. One pissed off customer here.

In other news today, I slept in very late this morning, and spent the waking hours before noon playing Q3 and Railroad Tycoon. Last night, I made it to Uriel, the Tier 5 "boss" enemy, who I was unsuccessful in defeating. Tough. And that thick, orange mist. Quite the level.

Realroad Tycoon is definitely the type of game you want to play when there are a few hours to spare. Just sit back, take your time building the lines, figure out optimal routes to get the stuff where it needs to go, and get those trains rolling! We love our railroads.

In between calls to the tech support this afternoon, I went to Taco Bell, took Tobias for a bath, and watched the director and son's commentary on Illuminata. (Originally, the director's commentary was intended to act as a background process as I straightend all the junk in my room, but as soon as there was sufficient room on the floor to lie down, its nice value magically lowered.)

I think the Illuminata commentary sets a record for the number of times a director says, "And this shot was inspired by a painting from..." lol. No wonder I liked the cinematography.

The former resident currently known as bouncing dropped by for a while. When the topic became tonight's fest, and mom asked whether Jaeger knew that the DSL was down, my reply: "How could could I possibly know whether or not he knows? Given that the connection is down, I can't exactly send him a message. Maybe if he tried to ping Dagobah (terminology not strictly accurate, but abiding by Rage's current DNS setup), he might have some suspicion, but I can't really find out, now can I?"

I balked at the suggestion to use some archaic form of communication involving full duplex audio. That's only for use in dire emergencies. So bouncing used his new pager to send Jaeger an email, then departed to gather his own equipment to bring to the fest.

And now, I think I'll get on (and over with?) the ritual. It does seem to be losing inspiration as of late. Perhaps my mentor had the right idea.

• This year, I shall find a real job.

  I'm tired of repeating myself. Next.

• This year, I shall buy a new desktop PC.

  Although it could be argued that the monitor isn't new, I'm calling it good. 100%

• This year, I shall find a girlfriend.

  Quite frankly, I am sick of this one. I'm sick of babbling about it. Sick of coming up with rationalizations. Why it's good or isn't good. Whether it's worthwhile or not worthwhile. Sick of thinking about it at all. So overanalyzed, I think it's become somewhat moot.

  Therefore, I have decided to follow my mentor's advice, and see what comes of it. From this point onward, I am replacing this one with:

  For the remainder of this year, I will take the necessary steps to expand my social circle, meet new and interesting people, and see where life takes me.

  I hope that my upcoming class will be something of a start.

• This year, I shall find more avenues other than the Internet to channel my self expression.

  Well, I did sign up, didn't I? Getting into the class was August's step. Given that the month of September looks like it will be pretty busy career-wise, and I find myself with plenty of ways to spend my spare time (perhaps a disproportionate amount being spent engaged in a program from a certain software house or two), I think I'll just say that I commit to attending every session of my upcoming class. Yeah, it's kind of a "well duh" commitment. But I'll leave it there for now.

• This year, I shall obtain lodging of my own.

  Ok, now this is one where I have most certainly fallen down lately. Especially, given my August sub-step: "tour/look through at least one potential place of residence." Didn't do it at all. Why?

  Maybe I'm actually finding it quite comfortable here. Maybe I like my DSL line. (At least when it's up.) Maybe I'm apprehensive. Maybe the familiar is somehow comforting. Maybe, in the classic coward sense, I'm just plain scared. Maybe the thought of coming home to absolutely no human contact whatsoever at any time is freakin me out slightly more than I realized. Or maybe it's just the cheap rent around here.

  Whatever the case, I need to question whether this is really something I want to do before the end of the year. If not, should I revoke the resolution? If so, then maybe it's time I face the music and get cracking?

  I'm not ready to rush to a conclusion right here at this moment. I will be thinking about it. A background process, if you will.

• Be true, honest to myself.

  Ah yes, the ever elusive final one. This time, no comment.

Alrighty. I think I will begin preparations. Even though there is no line, I, for one, do not intend to let that keep me from festing. This time, the situation is less dire, because at least Argo isn't starving for software. Between Argo and Dagobah, there should be sufficient tools to take many adventures in programming, plus a variety of other activities pertaining to festing.

I think I heard bouncing arrive back here a few minutes ago. What say I wander upstairs and see what's happening?