Oh, doctor. What a tumultuous world of ups and downs we live in. Wouldn't you agree?

First things first, I suppose. I moving early next month, into an apartment complex in Nashville proper, at almost the exact point between the junctions of Interstate 65 and Interstate 24. This means, apparently, that I am mentally and financially rehabilitated enough to once again depart the bourgeois splendour of my parents' house, and into a place I can trash without feeling guilty about it. I'm scheduled to move in July 1, but given as that's a work day/night for me, I won't begin moving in until July 3. Because my regular workdays span two actual calendar days apiece, July 3 is my July 4, and thus it's a bank holiday for me, negating the time-eater that work has become. So, I figure I'll wake up on July 3, sometime in the mid-afternoon, then shower, have my tea and crumpets, and a cigarette or two, and then begin moving all my shit from here to my new residence.

After hauling around boxes for a few hours, I'll drive over to the skate rink designated by the soon-to-be-marrieds for their pre-wedding party, strap on my Rollerblades, and skate with reckless abandon for a few hours, no doubt with a cadre of other noders whizzing to and fro as I whiz back and forth. Then the moving will recommence the following day, July 4, and by the time the the wedding venue starts to fill, I'll be moved completely. I only hope that BellSouth has, by then, completed the wholly arduous task of dragging their workbooted feet over to the CO nearest my apartment complex and thrown the switch that will enable ADSL on my new phone line.

Since I'll be moving into a new place soon, I'll probably announce a low-key noder gathering to help warm the place up, probably before the end of the summer, but possibly to coincide with Thanksgiving, if I can. Whatever the case, I'll have ample crash space for wayward noders attending any nearby gatherings.

Taking a step back, for a moment, you may have noticed that I mentioned Rollerblades in a previous paragraph; that's correct, I've taken up Rollerblading. I get to wear the dorky knee/elbow pads and the gigantically huge rollerblades themselves, all while feeling like a total pillock because I'm also wearing shorts. (Otherwise the kneepads look really, really goofy. Moreso than with shorts, anyway. Aside: I never wear shorts.) I think I'm learning it fairly quickly; thus far I've skated exactly four miles on three seperate days, and I've only had one fall. Granted, that one fall was while I was going on a not-too-steep downgrade, while I was probably rolling at about twenty miles per hour. I managed to steer myself onto a patch of grass, which I promptly landed on with a thump upon leaving the pavement. Based on that experience, here's a helpful hint for novice Rollerbladers: get a good pair of gloves. On a whim, I picked up a pair of batting gloves, which I wear while skating. Had I not been wearing them during my fall, I'd have grass-stained my hands! The horror!

Anyway, I've been skating at Pinkerton Park in Franklin, if anyone cares to join me during any downtime near the nuptual celebrations.

In other news of which I'm sure you're quite apathetic, the BIOS in my Soyo Dragon Plus motherboard somehow managed to corrupt itself last night, so it was off to the retail purgatory that is CompUSA this morning for a replacement (as I didn't want to wait a week for some online retailer in California ship it via UPS Ground), which ended up being a MicroStar KT4V. Basically they're the same model, except the KT4V uses the VIA KT400 chipset and the Soyo Dragon Plus uses the KT333CF chipset. Not a big difference. Once I teach myself how to replace an EEPROM, I can fix the Soyo board and upgrade my Linux box with it.

I guess that means I have to get a soldering iron at some point. Hmm. Yep, we'll do that. Never.