put on my pressure suit…because it suits me

i think i had an electrical spike at my house today due to the bad weather that came through. it appears to have scrambled the brain of my 24-port kingston 10Mhz hub, as well as the nic it was attached to in my freebsd firewall/nat box. so i’ve had to move some components around and reconfigure some stuff to get back online.
today i had to go to jury duty. it was for civil court. unfortunately, i didn’t get to do anything. they told us the case was settled and we got to leave. so i still have yet to serve on any kind of jury.
friday night was the monthly geek gathering for the radio show, this one celebrating the 11th anniversary of technology bytes being on the air. it was at dean’s credit clothing downtown. i showed up late, coming from byzantio (sp?), and it didn’t take me long to take up residence on a stool outside in the entrance so i could smoke a cigar and talk with the various people that showed up. hopefully everyone didn’t think i was too much of a recluse or snob. i just sort of have an aversion to crowds, and prefer to “find a darkened corner” where i can be mostly immobile and deal with people in smaller numbers in a quieter, more controlled environment. after the gathering i headed over to frank’s with jack and sam for a slice of pizza, then i headed to river oaks to catch the midnight showing of fight club.
saturday evening, after a few hours at work for some maintenance/upgrades, i had the opportunity to go to the poison girl on westheimer. it’s near agora and brazil. i’d never heard of the place, but evidently it’s sort of a hip dive bar for indie rockers and alt folk. i thought it seemed pretty cool. a bit pretentious, and a bit of the beautiful people (as alt/indie rockers, of course), but overall it seemed cool. i might have to add it to my rotation of possible places i’d hang out. it gets bonus points for the name. (unlike the proletariat, which loses points.)
i’ve spent some amount of time trying to help a friend with some computer stuff. without going into any details, i’ll just say that having backups of important data can really come in handy. not having backups, on the other hand…
i also started getting sick on sunday and have spent the last two days feeling tired and pretty blah. man, being somewhat sick is annoying. it sucks sitting at home being bored, but going to work is mostly pointless because i can’t accomplish much because i feel tired and can’t focus. of course, feeling really sick isn’t so fun either. especially when you’re by yourself and you know no one is checking on you or going to provide emotional comfort. so why isn’t it that i could just not get sick at all? that’d be nice.
i did get my mail-order from ersatz audio today, which is like healing medicine. here’s the haul:

• various – misery loves company (ersatz audio)
• n.o.i.a. – n.o.i.a. (unreleased tracks) (ersatz audio)
• adult. – resuscitation (ersatz audio)
• adult. – d.u.m.e (thrill jockey)

they also threw in a few free stickers and 1 inch buttons.
the only one i’ve listened through much so far is resuscitation. it’s an early adult. release, appearing to be a collection of a lot of their earlier work from various sources. it’s really nice. it may be my favorite adult. album at this point.
some people will be happy to know that i am finally returning one of the three netflix films i’ve had sitting around for a couple of months. i rewatched me and you and everyone we know this evening and will be dropping it in the mail tomorrow. it really is a very good film with a very unique perspective on things, and there are some great lines and observations about relationships in our modern times. none of that is surprising, coming from miranda july.