It's National Write A Novel In A Month Month! How's yours coming? I guess the goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in a single month. There are no prizes, outside of the thrilling pride of boasting about the novel you just wrote. I was going to get started but... I need to rearrange my sock drawers.

Actually, 50,000 words is not that much. About 175 pages. That's about 1600 words a day. My blog entry yesterday was 900 words. I could spend an extra ten minutes a day and have War and Peace by Christmas, but who would read it? (Who could?) I'll put it on the list for next year's goals.

Been working on the house this week, and that with two kids! (Thank you, Mrs. Ditchman.) I do a little bit here, a little bit there, paint this and that, patch this and that, nail those over there, dig some here, dig some there, and it seems to go on forever. But then one day you turn around and -hey!- I'm going to sprint to the finish line! That's how it's been around here for years now and we're down to the last couple rooms. I'm sure they'll be beautiful when we're done and then, as a result of the wintry economic climate, the bank will take the house. Oh well. (They're gonna love it!)

My computer is beginning to show me artifacts again. Yes, it sounds like a nice archaeological diversion, but it's really the video card going south for the winter. Same thing happened a while back, you'll remember, and the Apple Geniuses did what they could. I just looked up my warranty and it expires TODAY! It's funny, because I got a phone call last week from the nice people at Apple wanting to know if I'd like to extend my warranty for another couple years and a couple hundred bucks. No thanks! I said. Works great! A couple days later: artifacts. Mighty suspicious. I can see the ad now: "I'm a Mac." "And I'm a PC. Tell me Mac, how do you stay in business?" "Oh PC, we build our obsolescence right into the operating system! The computer then knows exactly when to break down, forcing the user to turn to us directly, since there are so few authorized retailers." "Genius!"

So I better get on that this afternoon, but the thing breaks down only intermittently at this point, so I'm not optimistic. At least this didn't happen. (Yet.) I don't believe Apple would let something like this go, actually, because killing off your base of customers is not a sound business policy. Anyway, come on Apple, you're losing me!

I want to welcome my sister to the blogosphere! Hey sis! Can't wait for the next post! It was cold here in Oceanside last night and we were all complaining about it, so those visions of sunny Hawaii are an inspiration to us all. Glad to hear they get the Internet out there!

Check out: Life In Kailua.


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