Alas, I am no librarian. However, I do have books. I love books. Here are my bookshelves and my living room reading area:

(Yes, those are Christmas lights. They stay up year round. Yes, that’s crappy wallpaper and border that came with the house. Never mind them. Stay focused.)

I don’t have a card catalog, but my books are arranged alphabetically by author. My wife’s books, on the other hand…some are alphabetically by author. The state books are alphabetically by state (or, more accurately, by the name of the book). The collections are alphabetically by the name of the book. And the Christmas ones are arranged by height.

Are we strange?

I started because some people from work were talking about it and made it sound interesting. They generally gave a good impression. Then they flaked out.

I was invited to join a little text-based game and started spending more time on FB. If you befriend me, expect a request to join the game with me.

I have reconnected with old friends that I didn’t know how to get in touch with, so overall I consider FB to be a success even if I don’t ever find another productive use for it. But maybe I’ll see you around.

The Thought Exhibit

Why spreading myself thinner doesn’t help me lose weight, I’ll never understand.

You’re saying, “Roger, you don’t even play an instrument.” You are correct. Neither do I play an literal musical instrument, to fit with the theme, nor do I play a figurative programming instrument. I guess when I started the Monkey Exhibit way back when, I had to…manipulate my own HTML code, but that’s not quite the same. As you can imagine, it was way over my head.

I saw something that could be really cool for website building, but I can’t even tell you the name of it. For some reason my brain wants to say Expressions 2008, but a search for that term didn’t come up with anything familiar. Maybe if I had seen the physical box of the product then I would remember.

After that cool product, my brain rejected any more new information and I am left with a half hour blank spot in my memory. What did I do? What did I hear? Did the government erase some top secret information from my memory that was relayed to us? I think I might have been drooling.

Anyway, plans for the near future are to 1) search for the free Visual Basic (VB) tutorial, 2) bookmark the VB tutorial, 3) watch the 6 hour VB tour so that I can pretend, in a pinch, that I understand something about VB. Maybe, just maybe I can move up in the world from a respectable, if lower paying, position to a geek desk job where I’m not responsible for the employment well-being of multiple other people and I can say what I want when I want.

Long live run-on sentences.

If not, you should smarten up already. Start acting your age. Man, you embarrass me sometimes. No, don’t be all apologetic now and pretend you were just kidding. Can’t you ever be serious? Ever?

C’mon! Stop crying! I’m not falling for that…

I’m leaving.

The passport made me nervous. Yeah, Eric had hacked into the Homeland Security database and associated my retinal scan with the ID I was carrying, but what if I froze and forgot the answer to a simple question? I know my first dog’s name, but I couldn’t give that answer when prompted by Border Patrol. I just had to play it cool and let the information flow freely from my brain to my mouth. Sometimes I wish I had opted for the memory enhancement chip that Eric had offered me…

The auditorium was filled with human stench. Despiration was the main culprit, and everyone had a sheen of sweat visible. Guards armed with laser rifles and nausea flashlights lined the roped off aisle, infrared goggles on their eyes to help see through projected illusions. Everyone in here must be glowing in their enhanced vision. Not only are well all nervous, but the sheer amount of bodies packed into one room has increased the temperature at least 10 degrees.

From up ahead, a familiar odor caught my attention and forcefully dragged it from my internal mantra, “George Peters. Thirty Five years old. Originally from Philly. My first pet was my cat Clarice.” What was Alyssa doing here, and why was she dressed like a congresswoman trying to make a good impression in her first session? Her clothes may be different, but her perfume was the same. I wasn’t the only one putting on a performance this day, it seemed.

Putting on a show of enthusiasm, I walked up to Alyssa and tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me. Hello. I’m not sure you remember me? George Peters? We met once in Philly, when you passed through a couple years ago.” It was imperative that I gave her my assumed name before she called out my given name. None of the skin-tight body armor that I wore under this baggy get-up would help at that point.