The triumphant return

I've been away a while. Now it's late and I'm feeling self-aggrandizing. New songs!

Passer

Yawp (finished)

Tabula Rasa (finished)

And finally...

Snow madness + sexy links

It's snowing sideways outside: big tasty flakes. Little kidlings are frolicking around on the steps, all bundled up, and all classes have been canceled. The snow is still accumulating, but I think it's almost time to whip out the big boots and do a little frolicking myself. This is exciting!

In honor of the snow day, I am sledding the intertubes instead of working. Some tidbits:

• Neil Gaiman is not - I repeat - definitely not writing an upcoming episode of Doctor Who. This nonexistent episode, originally titled "The House of Nothing", will fail to air in approximately 14 months. 
• In botnet news, a new Russian Trojan has started trying to kill its password-stealing rivals. This has happened before, but it's still slightly alarming. The internet is beginning to look more and more like a petri dish, squirming with dumb-but-elegant, cannibalistic, increasingly autonomous entities, programmed to reproduce at every opportunity. If you've ever played Spore, you should be getting nervous. Still, this could be fun -  Russell Munroe tells me they they make great pets (click image to embiggen):

A curious constitution

Back at the old place of employment, with wonderful big beasties frolicking around, biting each other, doing flips and trying to mate with the pool toys.

Now it's back to a schedule, with bedtimes and alarm clocks and such. Real life, in other words. What a relief.

I am not tired. I have a curious constitution. I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.

Sherlock Holmes, from "The Sign of the Four"

Dogma (and to all a good night)

Merry Christmas!

I love Christmas. I really do. Lights in snowy darkness, and music and parties and a tree (a tree!) inside your house, just dripping with baubles. Oh, and presents. I love giving presents. Receiving them is nice too, but there's a very ingratiating part of my personality that makes me warm and fuzzy when someone reacts happily to something I've given them.

As secular as Christmas has become (thank goodness), it becomes impossible to escape the presence of tradition around this time of year. We take comfort in ritual as we try to assess what's going on, and how another year could have possibly passed so quickly.

At the dark end of the year, we try to sum up what's past into a coherent package and charge it with meaning. Maybe you'll use it to inform how we live the next year. Or maybe this is the sort of package you can't wait to get rid of.

More packages (and modules!) after the jump.

Sweet freedom

I'm done with finals! And I'm on the internet! On a bus!

This is magical.

Winter blooms (foliage is love)

I want growing things everywhere. I want vines climbing my walls and I want chloroplasts pumping out oxygen, the better to set things on fire. I want that fragile, green scent in the air and I want to see little buds coming out when everything outside is dead and frozen.

Picspam after the jump.