Meanwhile, back at the ranch:

1. So help me, I signed up (and subscribed) to eHarmony. It started out just as an experiment to see what, exactly, they asked about you, and how they catagorized you. But in order to see the results of the experiment (as in: get further details beyond the first page of information, and/or actually talk to your "matches") you have to pay, so...
   So far, it's like filling out a meme quiz, but to the tenth degree. This may be a great big swallower of time.
   
   The first time I filled out my profile, I said I was "Spiritual, but not religious" (I'm actually Atheist, according to most definitions of "god," but believe the whole of the universe is greater than the sum of its parts), but that I was willing to have a relationship with people of any religion, and that it was "somewhat important" to me that they matched. And I got a lot of matches from guys who said the first thing they were most greatful for was their relationship with God and their churches. So I think "Spiritual but not religious" might be code for "Go-it-alone Evangelicalism." So I switched my choice to "neither spiritual nor religious," and upped its importance level from 4 to 5 (out of 7).
   
   Now, I'm getting more scientists and mathematicians answering. This is of the good. I'm a great fan of science.
   
   Still, there seems to be a large proportion of otherwise intelligent and well-educated men in their forties who place very little importance on proper spelling and/or grammar. And while eHarmony gives you a bunch of multiple choice reasons for declining a match (I did mention this was Memetastic, didn't I?), "Careless use of the English language" was not on the list.



2. Back on February 23rd, I posted the beginnings of my song, "The Man in the Moon Went Walking (and lost his punctuation)", but I never posted the finished song.
   
   Well here are all the verses I wrote (The code for the tune, should you want it, can be found through the link above):
   
   ( Read more... )



3. The last time I tried to scan anything, I failed because my hard drive was so fragmented. So I defragmented. Then I tried again, and discovered that all possible drivers for the scanner had vanished from the hard drive, and even opening the "Scanner and Digital Camera Wizard" showed that there were no scanner drivers to choose from on the disk. This is frustrating and woe-full. Woe.