I loves me some MP3.

For $40 I bought a slightly crappy little MP3 player. It's not a skipfree device - this is a portable CD player that can also read MP3 files from CD. I'd rather have one of these, 'cos not everything in my CD collection has been ripped to MP3 and I don't feel that everying in my collection should be ripped. Even my favourite CDs have songs I'm just not interested in enough to want on my computer's play list. This CD player will run for something like seven or ten hours on a set of AA batteries; the 'crappy' part comes in the form of total inability to plug it into a wall, and in the fact that the car adapter doesn't seem to like my cigarette lighter. (Which has never been used to light a cigarette, and is probably more accurately called my 'device runner' since that's all it ever does.) I plan on getting some rechargeable batteries and a recharger from Best Buy since ordinary alkalines are going to be roughly equivalent to Tic-Tacs with this doodad.

But hey, 160 songs on a CD and no need to tie up the computer's processor at the office for background music? I'm there, man. Yes, this is an utterly frivolous entry. I've got a midterm in bio-informatics tonight. I don't want to think about it right now and I've got a full day of work in front of me. I can frivv if I want to.

Although the current song playing has some definite implications for VicMage.Asia.China. I wonder if the stars sign / the life that is to be mine? / And do they let their light shine / in hopes for me to follow? / I look up to the heavens / The night is clouded over... / To leave the trail of all time / And let it make a dark line / in hopes that I can still find / the way back to the moment / I took a turn and turned to / begin a new beginning / Still looking for the answer / I cannot find the finish...

Today's pulp survival tip is #140. "Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!" - Arthur Weasley

Quizfoo.

( Stolen from Silverkun. Say, what would we ever do if UNIX hadn't popularized the use of 'foo', huh? )

Kilt!

I have a character at Mediterranean Nights, a MUSH set in Monaco. Alec Fitch began his life on the game as a Kinain character who made musical instruments - he's a luthier who left the schools at sixteen to apprentice to a carpenter. Last year he Chrysalized as a type of Gallain I created and got approval for, a Silene. (Like satyrs, but based on horses rather than goats, a little more focussed in their passions, and with slightly different Birthright and Frailty.) Alec had some trouble with the initial aspects of his change-over, most of which had to do with anatomy - he simply couldn't convince himself that his pants fit any more, since he had the anatomy of a Friesian stallion from the waist down. So after about three days of trying to compromise he said 'screw it' and became the only man in Monaco to routinely wear a kilt*.

I was combing through BBC News Online today and saw this. Immediately thought of Alec.

Dress protest worker wears kilt

A civil servant in Birmingham who was banned from wearing jeans in the office is coming to work in a kilt instead. Dennis Fitzpatrick, who works at a Jobcentre Plus, claims a new dress code imposed by managers, requiring men to wear trousers, shirt and tie is discriminatory.

The 45-year-old has used his Scottish ancestry to take advantage of a rule which allows workers to wear national dress. He received a written warning from the Employment Service after wearing black jeans in the office while his kilt was being cleaned...

Alec actually puts some effort into assembling a proper, formal outfit when he's not spending most of his work time doing sawdusty, varnishy things, but it's always the kilt. It's simpler to kick people who ask why he's wearing a dress than it is to try and get his damn trousers over his bloody hocks and his bloody tail through the bloody hole**.


*With baggy boxers under it, it gets drafty around the workshop
**He really did try more than a few times but it finally got to be more than he could take