After an intensely frustrating day of just trying to accomplish simple errands, foiled repeatedly by everything from citywide bicycle marathons to sunday hours to citywide bicycle marathons to sunday drivers to, oh, did I mention citywide bicycle marathons?

I crashed midday to escape the insanity and was awaken by my roommate wanting to know if it was a good time to go buy the new Conan MMO. I should have stayed in bed, because the correct answer was: NO, it is NOT a good time to go buy it.

Disregarding my own personal dilemma at having either waited too long of the game vendor somehow not thinking that digital distribution at launch was a good idea. I mean, seriously, WTF? No digital distribution in the season's premier game?

And so, since my roommate was able to acquire the last available copy of the game in South Austin, it will be another day that I am able to saunter forth as a Stygian Demonologist on a quest to establish my own city...

During a lenghty career periodically marked by exposure to those desktop systems which are plagued by antivirus software, I have realized the periodic (tho infrequent) benefit of keeping some type of antivirus software running. I more often realize the added inherent sluggishness that antivirus can give a system. Each time there is a desktop computer I have to work on that is running slower than snails balls, it seems that either Norton or (less frequently) McAfee, the two premier antivirus suites available. Neither offers anything for free.

For several years now, I have been making use of Grisoft's AVG antivirus package. It represents the "good enough" pricepoint of being free. Free as in beer, not free as in speech. It isn't open source and it isn't licensed under the GPL, but it isn't trialware either. The software is mature and only leaves a footprint on your CPU when it does it's (periodic daily) systems check.

All it took was one good week of acute paranoia over finding a keylogger on my unprotected system several years ago, and I've made sure to run AVG ever since. Now, instead of worrying, I spend my time trying to figure out the best time to schedule system checks. Wouldn't be a problem if I slept normal hours and/or kept normal-length days. The secret to the 36-hour-day is inconsistency, I'm afraid.

Years in the protractedly procrastinated making, here it is, philistines.

The SITE, so to speak, is UP.

We dropped out of the comm channels for a while until there was less delta between what we practice and what we preach.

So, again, here it is. Ivory Tower is on Xaraya now.

Fuckers thot I was dangerous before...

You should have a wishlist. You really should. It's a perfect example of beginner waveform collapsing that you can't afford NOT to keep one. Who cares if you have a blog or a myspace page or a vlog or any of that crap. What's on your wishlist? The only thing more fun than getting something that's on it is when you get to cross it OFF your list. Unless you already have EVERY "toy" or gadget that you'll ever want or need, you should keep a wishlist.

Saint Ego's Wishlist

Recently illuminated writer, Hal Duncan, author of the books Vellum and Ink, has begun an online venue for continuing the Book of All Hours. If you haven't read the books, I couldn't possibly give them a high enough review. I would be equally challenged to describe them in such a way as to do proper justice. The man is a literary god as far as I'm concerned. These are the only books I've ever enjoyed more than Frank Herbert's Dune series.