Today is the first day of fishing season. Usually there's been no activity on the lake before the season begins, however this year due to the unusual weather there have been weeks of boating, planes, wakeboards, jetskis, etc. I don't know how it affects the fishing, but there was a jetski towing something (probably an inner tube) last night in the dark. I could tell by the lights and noise. It's hard cheese for the poor nesting birds.

I was talking to an English programmer the other day -- a member of a computer nut group that he says is mainly German and Dutch. The group is called "Shadow Force," which he said was not his responsibility -- stupid name. They all have the same hair/hat. I noticed that right away after seeing two of them and asked if he was part of a gang or cult. The other hat... uh... fellow came over and started talking about Second Life, which I'd try if I had broadband, as I believe I could be a giant duck. (Daz: "Quack.") I asked him which he liked best -- he said as a programmer SL is more interesting, but There has some good things. I said well, you can be on There even if you are poor and have cheesy dial-up like me. They told me I should get bb. Well, chance would be a fine thing, my lads.

I just saw Rocket, the ever-barking dog next door, go zooming past in the prow of a little boat rowed extremely quickly by the son of next door. Oh, here they come again... I like Rocket, who I usually call Rockette (she's a girl) except having a Rottweiler barking next door for hours at a time is perhaps not ideal. She doesn't bark all the time -- just when she's placed in her pen after the next-doors go to work, or when she's excited.

I was on a quest last night and ran into my friend society, who offered to come along and provide another pair of eyes. I'd reached a perfectly stupid clue that could've caused me to drive around for the rest of my life looking for the damn thing. We wound up going around together, and I was surprised (I knew this theoretically but never really in practise) to find out that because she has no "explorer pack" her "There" is significantly truncated. And no compass, etc. So she'd been laboring under the rather extreme delusion that in aerial view the top was always north. Good way to get completely lost. She was very helpful in finding clues (my usual way of operating is that alone I can do anything in about two minutes, but with another person I get distracted and can't function at all) but I cared very little for the quest and instead it was just an excuse to talk.

The son has now put Rocket on the shore and is whipping around wildly using an outboard. Maybe the idea is to keep fishermen away? Maybe there is no idea.

Yesterday at jin shin Frank told me he expected me to be in a rather bad place today, then said, "Are you going anywhere tomorrow?" I said, "Apparently not." I called E this morning, and she told me about her strong muscles she's developing at power lifting. She has everyone confused because she'll tell you, in answer to "How much can you lift," the size of the weight on the right, and the size of the weight on the left. So it sounds less than it is. She was telling me something about 85 lbs and 85 lbs. Not bad. She overslept and was phoned by her work yesterday. She rang them right back and went straight in. I said, "Good girl," then, "AAAwwwk! What am I saying???" She laughed. Good girl, indeed. She's 37! Occasionally she'll say, "Get with it, girl," to me. Alas, my days of being with it are not numerous at this particular time, and I'm sure I quite deserve to be told to "Get with it," by someone with Down's Syndrome. I wonder, in fact, if during the entire course of human existence, anyone else has ever been told to "get with it" by a Down's Syndrome adult. Once when I was married I told my husband that since a woman is born with her eggs, and since his mother and my mother were born in the same year, it followed that we were born from eggs created in the same year and were the same age. He gasped and told me no one had ever had that thought before. I don't know, I'm sure -- although I think if I'd, say, sprinkled salt on an egg he might've gasped and said no one had ever done that before. Perhaps.

I suppose I should ask people to sign my guest map, which has been on this blog for years and has 6 signers -- one being the map company, and one me trying it out. Then I made Tiff sign it, and so the only "real" signers are Karan, Rayne, and Joel -- good on you, mates. And thanks. I think I discouraged you, Looper, so now I am reversing my position. And Mrs. Monster. Jim -- you are perhaps a lost cause. But you could put a flag somewhere where you are not. Rayne can sign again after she moves!! Yay!! I could ask Anj to sign but in Oz (at least last time I looked) a surfer is charged by the amount of download -- which is everything -- so she doesn't read my blog. I'll have to ask her about that...

After ignoring the link for a while, I've wound up signing up for Google mail, as maybe I can eventually ditch Hotmail as it is semi-non-friendly although reliable at least mostly. I already have about 5000 email addresses -- so that can have been my only reason, I'd reckon. Unnaccountably "osprey" was taken, so I fell back on "firemistred." I seem to be always either osprey or firemist red. Sometimes I make up email addresses (for the domain) and so now I receive viruses exclusively through "monkeypoxvirus @ atomic-raygun.com" and I get spam occasionally addressed to weaponsofmassdestruction @ a-r.com.