Why is it that every time someone goes to run a routine format they panic for a second when they realise the things they forgo to back up? Why can’t these little things get remembered before the format? Is it ever worth it to abort the format and try to recover the files that were lost? I guess I’m getting a little existential (har har) here. Now, I suddenly feel the need to play the theme for Final Fantasy 6 on my guitar. It sort of sets the mood for a time like this; melancholy, with an air of looking toward better days. Days without lost files.

It’s also become apparent to me that I never updated the webserver’s time for the last time change.

My first issue is this: “Anime” style emoticons. They’re not cute. They’re not edgy. They’re not funny. They’re not more expressive. They’re stupid, obnoxious, and more often than now, indecipherable. Try these ones on for size:
1. u_u
2. h_h
3. >_<#
Now, according to an article I just read which comes complete with its own decryption key for these vile things, the first one expresses solemness, the second expresses perverted thoughts, and the third uses a pound sign as a modifier to add a "popping vein," expressing anger. Now, I can almost see how the letter u can express a downtrodden sort of emotion, since one may examine the letter u as a downturned eye. H for dirty thoughts, though? I certainly don't get a line through the center of my eye when I'm getting a little randy. The third one looks to me like someone talking in a phone while crossing their eyes. Of course, I understand some of the regular emoticons are hardly easy to follow, either, but those are far easier to ignore. Finally, here's a bonus Anime-style, which will lead me into my next point:

=^_^=

That is a cat. I have never known more people in my life who adore cats as I do now as a result of the Internet. I can understand loving animals. They're great. I have rats, myself, and I love them, but you never see me typing something like ">^..^<" to mimic a rat to people I'm communicating with. But it's not just emoticons, either. People constantly express felinity over Internet-based communications media. Phrases such as "right meow" have found their way into my chat logs literally thousands of times. I realize this particular line came from a movie, but other cat-related messages are just as common. I know a number of people who open a conversation by saying "mew" or "meow," or restart a conversation with the same. It certainly raises the question, "does this person want to be a cat? Well, if he or she does, that’s fine, but I don’t want to talk about it. One rarely sees a pre-op transsexual popping online and saying, “hey old buddy, just reminding you, I want to become a girl!” This is an exaggeration, I realize, but the point remains. Felinity on the Internet, or anywhere, really, is… well, it’s been done, and now it’s time to stop doing it.

One final thing: I really, really hate cats.

Yes, I’m technically a geek.

Here are some miscellaneous clips of the bank charge being dumped into various objects.

“Mass launcher:” This device consists simply of a coil of wire wrapped about 12 times, causing a rather large amount of inductance when charged. Upon discharging the bank into this thick-gauge coil, ferrous metals will be attracted toward the center of the coil. More interestingly, however, non-ferrous metals are violently repelled.

“Compression wave” gun: We fire a projectile out of a cannon of sorts made fro PVC pipe. The propulsion method is energy captured from the explosion of a small wire within the chamber, which displaces a fair amount of air due to a compression wave.

Credit where credit is due: Thanks, John W. Paine, for your excellent photography today.

Mac, our youngest male rat, died yesterday after trying to fight off a severe ear infection. We lost Rascal, our eldest male, a few months ago. It’s terrible how short these creatures’ lives are. However, we’ll never stop keeping rats and other little critters.

I don’t really have a lot more to say, so here’s some funny pictures to lighten the mood.