Crazy stuff...
Apr. 30th, 2008 11:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpMy new passport arrived today, via Priority Mail. This is the new RFID-equipped number, the model that apparently is outsourced to China (if you believe everything you read) and turns a profit for TPTB in processing fees. No matter. I am now officially Loaded For Baikonur, should the need arise. (Given my client's enthusiastic "GREAT!" upon hearing the news, I get the feeling the need will start to levitate any time, now.)
Don't ask me how I ended up at James Randi's web site a few minutes ago, but one thing I found there of curious interest was a link to an eBay auction where the winner (and, if memory serves, some number of other people) get to spend some part of a day and evening in Las Vegas with Penn Jillette, the talking half of Penn & Teller. The latest winner won the auction I looked at for something like $3,300, and the price of another auction is up around $1,700 right now, with 6+ days left.
The plate is weighed down again, with an Excel file due Friday morning and a fairly large rework due next week.
Galina says she needs to drag me out of the house more often, since calls from clients invariably come when I'm away from my computer. Both assignments came in while we were out looking at countertops.
One of the places was in Mineola, a stone's throw from the headquarters of Dover, a publisher who has always held a special place in my heart as a result of having (re)published a number of (relatively) inexpensive books on chess, back when I was learning how to play. They also publish scads of music, as the many books of piano music my mother bought over the years will attest.
I browsed for a bit while Galina checked out granite slabs, and came away disappointed. The shelves in the company's "bookstore" were mostly empty, and many of the volumes on display seemed sort of slumped over. That, combined with the fact that the paper in the books has gotten cheaper (turning yellow with age faster) and the books themselves have, generally speaking, gotten more expensive, didn't make a really good impression.
On the other hand, there's not many places you can buy a new, paperback copy of The Iliad for $2.50 and many other classics for about the same price.
Time to hit the sack.
Cheers...
Don't ask me how I ended up at James Randi's web site a few minutes ago, but one thing I found there of curious interest was a link to an eBay auction where the winner (and, if memory serves, some number of other people) get to spend some part of a day and evening in Las Vegas with Penn Jillette, the talking half of Penn & Teller. The latest winner won the auction I looked at for something like $3,300, and the price of another auction is up around $1,700 right now, with 6+ days left.
The plate is weighed down again, with an Excel file due Friday morning and a fairly large rework due next week.
Galina says she needs to drag me out of the house more often, since calls from clients invariably come when I'm away from my computer. Both assignments came in while we were out looking at countertops.
One of the places was in Mineola, a stone's throw from the headquarters of Dover, a publisher who has always held a special place in my heart as a result of having (re)published a number of (relatively) inexpensive books on chess, back when I was learning how to play. They also publish scads of music, as the many books of piano music my mother bought over the years will attest.
I browsed for a bit while Galina checked out granite slabs, and came away disappointed. The shelves in the company's "bookstore" were mostly empty, and many of the volumes on display seemed sort of slumped over. That, combined with the fact that the paper in the books has gotten cheaper (turning yellow with age faster) and the books themselves have, generally speaking, gotten more expensive, didn't make a really good impression.
On the other hand, there's not many places you can buy a new, paperback copy of The Iliad for $2.50 and many other classics for about the same price.
Time to hit the sack.
Cheers...
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 05:34 pm (UTC)The more you know. . .
no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 06:32 pm (UTC)I'm not planning on implementing such a "modification."
At least not yet. :^)
Cheers...