Generic Update #2,964

Still dog-tired from Bataan Death March home for Easter, fraught family stuff therein, and extreme lack of sleep on subsequent nights. On the other hand, 16 hours in the car with your best pal definitely counts as quality time. (When friendship can weather enormous delays caused by a 30-car pileup that closes down I-80, you know it is a beautiful and lasting thing.) We each had a nice long airing-out of the psyche and resultant perspective. I haven't come to any Grand Revelations, but I've got some things to think about and nibble away at.

I don't have a single free night for the next two weeks. And none of those commitments involve me getting to do my own thing, unless one counts the Pastoureau lecture next Tuesday. How in the hell do I keep doing this?

A quick burst of duh

[Via email.]

Long-time but often-annoying customer (who some might recall from an earlier rant): I ran [random speed test found on the internets] on all my computers, and my other house which is on Verizon DSL gives a 5 figure download speed, or high 4 figure one. The connection I have from you doesn't reach 2000 kps - why?

YHC: Perhaps because the service you purchased has a maximum download speed of 1.5M, or in other words, 1536K.

Instant Wine Review; also music

(I need a snobbery icon. This will have to do for the moment.)

Screaming Jack syrah (California, 2004): Big damn whatevers. I mean, it's not bad; but as Leslie Howard/Sir Percy Blakeney tells us, "nothing in the world is quite so bad as something that is 'not so bad'." There's not much there there. Not that I expect grand things from wine I pick up for the novelty value (in this case because sweh has been schooling me in cribbage, and the wine's logo is card-oriented).

ObMusic: The only things I hear from this guy are covers! What's up with that?