Spot the rubber duckie, win a prize.

My Threadless order arrived today! I'm actually surprised at the quick turnaround. Given the volume of traffic to the site for the sale, I would've thought that it would have taken 'til the end of the week at least to process my order, let alone ship it. But now I've got four new t-shirts to wear to the office that will take my couture to the next, snarky level.

Also. Is it a coincidence that my iPod has started to fail just when Apple has announced the latest upgrade? The other night it started making these unsettling clicking noises, which from personal experience, means that the hard drive is probably failing. This is the fourth iPod I've had that's gone on the blink after six months or less. Maybe the upgrade will be better managed. Still. I'm sucking all the life out of Little Lisa that I can before she flatlines. Here's hoping.

I finished Wheel Of Darkness the other night and I was, as predicted, unimpressed. I don't think anything can match the effect that Cabinet had on me. And I was surprised by the flap at the back of the book: usually they say that the authors are "working on their next Pendergast novel" when the latest one debuts. Not so this time. Could it be that we've seen the last of A.X.L. Pendergast? Somehow I doubt it. But now I've moved on to High Fidelity (I seriously just typoed Hugh Fidelity) and I'm really enjoying it. I haven't read any other Hornby, but the book is essentially just lifted from the screenplay for the movie. Except in London. With lots of Britslang. Which I'm totally okay with.

After I finish that, I'm moving on to Sailing Alone Around The World, which is about the first solo circumnavigation of the globe (for those of you who don't pay attention to titular context clues). As a bonus? It turns out that it was written by my ancestor -- a very recent ancestor, at that -- on my mother's side. I think that propensity toward solitude is genetic; I could really see myself striking off on a transcontinental or trans-Atlantic trek like that, with just myself for company. On my father's side of the family, we're all astrophysicists and doctors of philosophy. I come from good stock: a mix of adventurer and scientist. (Although I'm hopeless at algorhythms and being outside for anything more physically arduous than a picnic.)

I also filed for "personal days" for the 25th and 26th. I get paid to indulge in my fandom. Rock. I've been going through the S3 DVDs over the past couple of days and I have to say that, as much as I was disappointed with the third season overall, it's been fun to go back and rehash things. The Tritter arc is still random and unnecessary to me, but I like knowing where things are going in the end. It was also worth struggling through again if only to see this again. (And again, and again.)

The last two minutes and eight seconds of this song are the only reason that anyone should ever listen to it.