Quite the Day

This has been an interesting day.

I read in CNN where there is an alert happening in Boston because of fears that six people bringing a nuclear device into the city. Doesn't 'nuclear device' sound neat and sanitary? Like when we say IED (Improvised Explosive Device), because Roadside Bomb doesn't sound appropriately cool, appropriately professional. Sometimes I think that when we encapsulate the horror of something like that by making up these coy phrases, we lose something crucial, some essential in our understanding of the world. In making it something we can think about, we make it something that doesn't scare us at a visceral level. But it should.

Then I read that there are no-kidding pirates attacking freighters in mid-ocean, with a one hundred thousand dollar bounty for letting the ship leave. How long before freighters start emulating the old merchant clippers and begin to carry heavy armament?

Today is the inaugural. Freezing cold. Why can't they do this indoors? I know that all those folks want to celebrate their victory (excuse me: Par-TAY!), and its perfectly reasonable that they like the idea of gathering for that purpose, but in the cold? And the snow? Where's the sense in that?

And then there's Darth Tater.

At least my morning meter read was decent. Its been on the bad side, last couple of days, the result of some indulgence on my part, and I've been trying hard to get it back to the golden plateau. The top of which is, apparently, a lot narrower than I thought, with a crumbly ridge, and a slippery, fast ride down to the bottom.

Also, I learned today how IM works (but not how to make Lotus SameTime do the magic I want), and also where the phrase 'beyond the pale' came from. Plus, we got some financial statements in the mail with the year-end totals, and to our flabbergasted astonishment, we earned a significant amount on an account that we'd given up on as ever earning anything.

So, overall -- a good day. Kinda.