Not much weighty pondering going on these days. This is a few bits of randomness.

Went with Beanie to see _Spirited Away_ last night. If you haven't seen it you really should. It's an incredibly neat movie. The art is fantastic! The story is fun and interesting. It's heavily steeped in Japanese folklore (at least, I think so. I'm no expert on such things) and very very rich. It's one of the best movies I've seen this year.

I guess, simply put, it's a story about love, faith, and courage. If Disney had had any creative influence in the film it would have been sappy or cheesy but, rest assured, as it stands, it is neither.

As an aside, I thought the English dub was quite well done. This is a big departure from my normal sentiments about the whole dubbing versus subbing question.

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For some reason I've been playing Diablo 2 again. It seems like every time I play for a while and get sick of it I inadvertently delete all my characters. I've played the first three acts on "normal" difficulty more than anyone else I know. I'm playing another assassin this round. I enjoyed the class a lot the last time I played. I play single-player with 'players 8' set which makes the normal difficulty a lot more interesting.

I guess the reason I keep coming back to Diablo when I get sick of the other games I typically play (most notably EQ) is it's simplicity... well, that and the fact that I can play for an hour and actually finish a quest and advance the plot. EQ can't touch that.

Anyway, my little assassin is about half way through act II at 23rd level. She is starting to have a reasonably decent set of gear. My only real frustration is that since they added charms with Lord of Destruction expansion inventory space is at a premium. Ah well.

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I spent some time in a Gap Body store this weekend. I still, after all these years of shopping with or for my girlfriends, feel a little awkward standing around in a lingerie shop. It's a long, odd wait while Beanie tries something on. I dunno, gals... what do you think when you see some guy standing around by himself for ten minutes in the frilly unmentionables shop? I feel a little bit incongruous, like a gargoyle on a pre-school.

I have a new-found sypathy for women that wear bras. I understand the whole theory behind bra sizing. Increasingly, however, I find the practice to be a whole different beast. Apparently not only is it possible to get a bra "your size" that doesn't fit, it seems to be the norm. I'm sure there are some devoted boob fetishists out there who have come up with names for each of myriad ways a bra might not fit... I'm just astounded there are so many. On the whole it strikes me as silliness. Ladies, you have my sympathies for whatever that might be worth.

Oh. And god help you if you deviate much from some kind of standard ribcage to bust ratio. You're gonna have a bitch of a time... as you are probably already painfully aware

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I'm starting on Janna Levin's _How the Universe Got its Spots_. I'll let you know what I think. The few times I've heard her speak on NPR it's been fascinating. She has a way with words. I have a feeling that her ability to express complicated issues simply will make her very popular in the next few years. We'll see.

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I guess that's all I have to ramble about for right now. Until next time.

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Oooooh.... I almost forgot. Everquest runs in linux now. (Screenshot) Not only does it run, it runs beautifully. To be honest, EQ was the only reason I still had a windows partition. Not anymore. Between the wine hacks from the Transgaming people (these are the folks that make games work. Give them money. I did.) and the hacks from the Codeweavers folks (they make browser plugins work... I gave them money too) I now have no more need for windows.

If you play EQ and like linux things look good for you right now. Have a look at my little eq-in-linux micro howto for a starting point.

Hat's off to Transgaming for all their hard work.