:TESTO:Assembling the BILLY corner bookcase without instructions is like solving a puzzle in Myst - you start by observing the scene, gaining an intuition for the form and function of each piece, and how they might work together. Many of them connect using methods you've encountered while completing other tasks, although sometimes they're put to a novel application. Understanding the mechanism isn't the end of the challenge, of course -- the correct approach and timing must be determined, often by experiment, by interacting with the scene and seeing what happens. You may not succeed the first few times, and you have to start the job over nearly from scratch. Finally, there comes a moment where you suddenly *see* the engineer's masterful plan, the elegant combination of unwieldy factors, you smack your head knowingly and put the pieces together. After which you realize you had undone an early step, and have to start over yet again, but this time with understanding and an appreciation for artful design.

Then the finished piece rises majestically into place, fitting snugly into its corner of the world. You reach out your hand and take a book from the shelf... :ENDTESTO:

:TESTO:I tried to stop the Comcast guy from running their foolish installer, but because Comcast is stupid, ass-backwards, and inefficient, I had to call the Comcast office to arrange for payment for the installation, and he ran the installer before I could clarify my "I don't think you'll need to run the installer" statement more vociferously.

That said, I'm somewhat glad that the installer failed to detect any of my installed web browsers, and so instead installed its own copy of Internet Frickin' Explorer 5.2, and loaded it (and it alone, as far as I can tell) with useless bookmarks.

It's gone now, but none the less, ick. It seems that when IE ran it also shat all over com.apple.internetconfig.plist, but it remains to be seen whether this will affect anything important.

Back to the kitchen, now. :ENDTESTO:

:TESTO:

Poison oak is a widespread deciduous shrub throughout mountains and valleys of California, generally below 5,000 feet elevation. In shady canyons and riparian habitats it commonly grows as a climbing vine with aerial (adventitious) roots that adhere to the trunks of oaks and sycamores. Poison oak also forms dense thickets in chaparral and coastal sage scrub, particularly in central and northern California.
(from http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ww0802.htm)

It was a lovely hike, in any case. Now, it's Tecnu time.

:ENDTESTO:

:TESTO:It's been a lovely afternoon in San Francisco - I oriented myself utilizing a hill-climbing approach to find a local maximum from which I could not detect other higher maxima. This ended me atop a hill in LaFayette Park, with a nice view of Alcatraz and surprisingly thick WiFi coverage.
The trees here seem lighter, perhaps more bouyant than the ones in the real world. Perhaps they're made of paper? Some of them are spiky.

It's definitely a Thursday night in the hostel - most folks have been staying for longer than I will be staying, so every night is not an adventure for them anymore. Most folks are in their own mini-worlds. Some girls are making sweet potato latkes in the kitchen, the Brazilian sitting next to me is cruising MySpace and YouTube (her Vista TCP/IP stack recently reset by me). The Brits are playing cards, the couples who haven't gone to bed are planning their tours for tomorrow, or eating a sandwich. I'm writing a web log entry.

In Baltimore, it's 1:20 AM Friday, but it's only 10:20 PM Thursday here. I feel like I shouldn't be ready to turn in and shut down, but I certainly am. My room is just off the common space, though, so while things aren't exactly jumping out here, I know my sleep would not be uninterrupted.

I'm rambling too much. I should stop, and talk more to the Brazilian. :ENDTESTO:

:TESTO:http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick.php?site=mtr&smap=1&textField1=37.775&textField2=-122.41833

The climatological monotony might drive me into a hip and easygoing stupor. :ENDTESTO: