The last few days here have been unrelentingly wet, and so I’ve been oscillating between work and the apartment without getting up to much else. Among the minor stuff:
I received and assembled the penultimate bit of furniture, the TV stand. I was able to go from:
to 
The 19″ Samsung monitor looks rather lost in all that space…. The sound is great, though. I finally wired up all the speakers and tested the 5.1 audio with a wonderful new DVD, Arriving Somewhere by Porcupine Tree. Highly recommended.
Other things I’ve been watching, reading and listening:
- Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq by Thomas Ricks (A relentless, devastating account of “pounding the square peg of the U.S. Army into the round hole of Iraq”.)
- The Tragic Treasury: Songs from a Series of Unfortunate Events by The Gothic Archies (Stephin Merrit and Lemony Snicket) (My first Stephin Merrit recording: I have a feeling that in time I’m going to acquire quite a few, including 69 Love Songs.)
- BEEP: The Definitive Guide by Marshall Rose (A geek’s book about a networking technology that, like Jini, is sadly underused.)
- Learning the World: a Scientific Romance by Ken MacLeod (A thought-provoking first-encounter science fiction story.)
- Woman of the Year with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy (Purchased as part of this collection. (Their first joint venture, and a wonderful, sparkling, and brave film. Even though the revised ending lets it down it’s still a powerful statement. In the original, which Louis B. Mayer objected to, Spencer Tracy’s character tells Hepburn to “just be yourself”; the revised version has her cooking her husband’s breakfast…)
And finally my Washington State driver’s license has arrived. The photo is classic “deer in the headlights”, but I wasn’t looking for a work of art.