(no subject)

Hmmm. On the 80s channel of radioio.com they have just played a cover of "99 Red Balloons," recorded live, by someone who at least tried very hard to sound like Robert Smith, but the music didn't otherwise sound much like The Cure. But I'll likely never know who it was, as at some point since last week they've changed the website so that the "now playing" information is available only through some applet plugin that I don't have on any of the numerous browsers loaded on here, and given my perennial bad luck with software upgrades, I'm not about to risk messing up my ability to do unrelated tasks just so I can see who's singing what. (Or, rather, who sang what a decade or two ago.)

I have not solved the database software problem mentioned yesterday; in that case an attempt to upgrade has resulted in nothing whatsoever beyond a few forced restarts -- certainly not an actual upgrade -- but that at least is better than disaster.

In other news, I'm rereading The Diamond Age and, entirely unrelatedly, am getting heartily tired of graduate student income, which is not comparing favorably to necessary outlay. But then that sort of disgruntlement comes up pretty much at the beginning of every month, when rent, credit card bills, and the necessity of renewing a prescription and buying a new Zone 3 Commuter Rail Pass all rear their ugly heads and tower menacingly above my paltry stipend.

You'd *think* that would help motivate me to finish grad school or something...


Anyway.
I see that it is amberspyglass's birthday today, and that the past few days saw birthdays for frederic and adagiogray. Felicitations!