I was supposed to work today. It’s about time for the monthly tape backup of the Traffic system, a seven-hour-or-so procedure that mostly involves me being bored out of my mind, but also involves me getting to the office fairly early in the morning if I want to be able to bus home again afterward.

Yesterday, however, came the surprise of hanging with the supercool rugrats while Wendi did another DJ gig. (She swears this one’s her last… it just about ruined her.) So I didn’t get home until nearly 1am. Add to that a drunken revel going on nearby that kept me up well past 3am, and you can understand why I didn’t peel out of bed until half past 9am, right?

What did I do today? A lot of that leveling I wrote about yesterday. Yes, Woodsie’s at level 18 now. Two more levels and he can add a costume and cape. (I’m still not sure about the cape thing, though. It doesn’t seem to be his style, ya know?) The best part of getting to 18 was adding what’s referred to as “mez protection.” Woodsie now has a skill that helps keep him from being stunned, put to sleep or otherwise mentally messed about with. Considering the sorts of foes he’ll be facing from here on out, this is a very good thing.

Mind you, on the downside was the matter of being disconnected every fifteen minutes or so during the last hour of play. Argh. They’d better get that resolved post-haste, or they’re going to start losing subscribers in droves. Double-argh.

Anyway. All I wanted to do was let you know that yes, I wasted another perfectly good Sunday playing games and goofing off. Sucks to be me, huh?

Wait, I did do one semi-practical thing: I created some mp3-format ringtones for my Treo. I’m hoping these are more reliable than the MIDI tones I created earlier. (The phone has a nasty habit of either not playing the MIDI at all, or only playing a few notes and then going silent. Argh.) Let’s hear it for making progress on minor geek projects…

Are you in Portland? Are you a “blogger”? Do you have a couple of hours free this evening? Then you should come to Backspace, downtown at 5th and Couch, between 6pm and 8pm.

For that matter, you should also be part of Portland Bloggers. I mean, why the heck not, eh?

See you there, I hope!

I’ll grant you that I’m not exactly the most well-versed person on the topics of religion, symbology, the occult or any of that mystic mumbo-jumbo. Even so, I’m pretty sure that what Dawn and I saw this afternoon is just plain sick and wrong on at least one level.

On the back window of a little old station wagon I spotted a sticker much like some I’ve seen before, just your average simple line-drawing pentagram.

In pink.

And then I noticed that the upper two points of the star were instead curves… which turned part of the star into a heart shape.

So, can someone enlighten me? Is this just plain absurd fluffy-bunny nonsense, or is that odd bit of symbology supposed to mean something? I’m completely bewildered, I don’t mind telling you. Who thinks up this stuff, huh?

2004 was a better year than 2003, in most respects. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see it go, though.

I hope that ‘05 sees all of you happier, healthier, and successful in achieving your personal goals.

So the boss took his department out to lunch today. Well, three quarters of his department. Lunch was good. Tried a place I hadn’t been before. Had lots of ribs on the company dime.

Cut to five hours later, and I’m getting ready to leave work. Backpack, check. Jacket, check. Wait, where the hell’s my liner?

Oh, crap. I must’ve left it at the restaurant.

Called the place. Got transferred a couple of times, only to (eventually) find out that nobody’s seen my fleece liner. Great. But they took my name and number and if the day shift happens to know where it went, they’ll call me. Hopefully.

Otherwise, someone made off with a well-worn, well-loved two-year-old Columbia Sportswear fleece liner. And my trip home from work was quite a bit colder for the loss of it.

Argh. I’d say “I can’t believe I did that,” but the problem is that I can. I’d literally forget my head if it wasn’t attached. Again I say, argh.

It took three buses to get me to work this morning.

What happened to the first bus, the #9, you ask? I noticed as I boarded that it looked a bit off-kilter, but didn’t actually worry about it. A few blocks down, we hit a couple of mild bumps. Normally when a bus hits a bumpy stretch there’s some gentle bouncing and mild creaking of suspension, and that’s all she wrote.

Not today.

Bump! Bang! Bump! Bounce! Bang! Bounce! Bang!

Whoah. It didn’t take long to realize that the suspension for the back half of the bus was completely shot. We bounced and banged along until we reached the Rose Quarter transit center, at which point the driver asked us all to exit the vehicle. Nobody really had a problem with that.

I, however, was the only one other than the driver to really take a good look at the outside of the bus afterward. The body was dramatically slouched, practically sitting directly on the right rear wheels… if I knew more about such things I’d say that the suspension there had completely given way. I didn’t have time to snap a picture, though, as a #8 arrived just then and I wanted to get downtown quickly for a spot of breakfast.

Turns out I was too late for that, but oh well…