Last night did not go as planned, but I'm happy with the results. I was supposed to finish cleaning off the hard drive in the laptop, but instead I got caught up in house-cleaning mode. By the time Nestina came home from work, I was done with the basement and was doing a white tornado number on the main floor (free cookie to the first person that can Name That Product). She changed clothes and jumped in to help, and we kept at it until around midnight. Nestina curled up on one of the living room couches, and I did the same on the other. We were just talking and watching some random movie from Nestina's work. At some point we must have fallen asleep; luckily, a friend of Nestina's called on her cell phone around 2am so we both headed off to bed for the night.

Nothing really on tap for tonight. Nestina has plans with some friends, so I will do the pathetic loser thing and go eat out by myself, then head home for some serious book-reading, then bed. Please don't be jealous. Not everyone can live the high life.

I've added another "work" blog. This one is a lawyer. Funny stuff. I remember my days as a wage slave in an accounting firm. The quest for billable hours was the same, but it was a far more low-key environment than what she describes. I do remember tax season all-nighters. I often wonder how much penalty and interest my clients got nailed for because of the routine sleep deprivation.

I love Wiley Miller. I have no idea how close to real life his strip is, but Danae is a hoot. If he really has a daughter that is half as much fun as the cartoon version, he has my sympathy. One of the girls from my soccer team is just like her, except the cloths: my version of Danae dresses slightly preppy. I love her to death, but it can be frustrating to try to explain why something is just plain wrong when our "leaders" are such shining examples of post-modern amorality.

Jerry Pournelle has a short essay on the place tax-funded prizes can play in our country's technological development. This idea has always had a place in the aerospace industry, but Jerry asks, why should it be limited to one industry? I can think of a dozen prizes in the automotive, computer, telcom, construction, and health care industries without even working up a sweat. And it sure beats spending hundreds of billions of dollars and leaving our young men's bones to "bleach in these desert sands" trying to impose "democracy" on people who provably don't know what it is and wouldn't want it if they did. Assignment: name five goals you think a National Technology Goals Foundation should fund prizes for.

And that is all I have for today. With nothing really planned this weekend, I am hoping to get the place ready for winter. Ugh.