Hi there. You might have noticed me not blogging. Well, work’s been busy, and I’ve been uninspired by the post-Halloween lull. Mostly I’ve been retreating into messing around with videogames and technology in an unproductive way (though I have leveled up quite a bit).

Some things that happened:

• Charles put on a classical guitar concert! It was pretty great: those in attendance were unanimous in their affection for Charles’ guitar playing and their horror at my turn as a page-turner. “Creepy” and “cadaverous” were adjectives that may have been applied. Oh well. The bigger problem was the audience’s unwillingness to travel through the rain to our apartment after the show, which led me to consume considerably more cheese and red wine than could be strictly justified within the evening’s sophisticated sensibility.
• WEP-cracking: as easy as the nerds have warned you. Well, if there’s a client associated. I’m still figuring out how to efficiently manage it when it’s just me versus the access point. But though it took a little work, running Backtrack 4 off a bootable USB drive lets weaponize my eeePC 1005HA pretty efficiently. Airoscript-ng is giving me some MAC address-related guff, but I’ll sort it out eventually. Next up: tackling the considerably-more-formidable WPA.
• I’m pretty sure that I have tendonitis from trying to play “Feel the Pain” on hard in Rock Band 2.
• Borderlands is really fun. Or if not fun, then compelling. Or if not compelling, then addictive. And if addictive, then debilitating. An FPS where you collect experience points: dear lord someone save me from this waking nightmare but not until I get just a little more (I can use this new fire revolver at level 26) and oh god what have I become
• I’m working on a neat electronics project for the new office at work, though it’s driving me slightly insane as I try to get python running on a WRT54GL. Turns out it’s harder than getting it to run on a Fonera! Which is unexpected and therefore dumb. More on this when it’s actually finished.
• It looks like I’ll probably be heading to Tbilisi in early December to help an NGO get their mobile and web infrastructure up and running. It’s exciting! But the whirlwind nature of the trip is making me dread travel involved. I get a day in London on the way over, but heading back involves a 19 hour itinerary of flights. Ugh.

I just got back from a trip to Staples where I bought a USB thumbdrive that — it could be argued — I didn’t really need.  People were out, the sun was shining, some folks were drumming on plastic buckets to protest something — it was great.  I missed the bucket drumming, though, as I was busy listening to some indie rock guitar heroism.  Here, maybe you’d enjoy some, too:

Built to Spill – Good Ol’ Boredom

Stephen Malkmus – Jo Jo’s Jacket

Halloween’s over, and I’ve finally started to reassemble the pieces of my shattered life.  It’s amazing how one little coffin-and-spider-construction project can derail gym attendance, laundry completion and sleep.

But man, it was a good party.  People danced all night; the booze held out; no one got sick; no one’s costume was ignited by a candle; and even the many, many people who fell down the stairs all emerged miraculously unhurt. Then, at the end, Blelvis showed up.  Thanks to everyone who came, and especially those of you who elected not to steal anything.  You can find photos here that prove the whole thing happened (and if you have photos of your own, please consider uploading them to Flickr with the tag “fickeween”).

Now! As you might know, this was the third installment of this particular party in this particular house.  Unfortunately, it might be the last: the house is on the market, and although the asking price seems to reflect the owners’ relative prioritization of, say, fake Tiffany lamps versus, say, non-leaking roofs, it’s possible that we’ll need a new venue for next October. Please get in touch if you or someone you know has access to a network of abandoned steam tunnels, or parents who are using their retirement to renovate abandoned mental hospitals, or even just knowledge of a cave that stretches deep — deeper than human feet should tread — toward the eldritch horrors at the Earth’s core.