Earthlink costs about $22 per month. For that, I get several e-mail addresses that I actually use, pretty effective spam blocking that I actually use, and nationwide local access dial-up numbers that I almost never use. Problem is, I get those same services "free" with other stuff now. My domain hostingcompany gives me e-mail, and the Mac OS gives me spam filtering.

I'm happy to give up the e-mail addresses and the spam-blocking. Amusingly enough, the part I worry about ditching is the nationwide local access. What if we're on vacation and we need a local number? What if we're on a business trip and want to check e-mail? I think Tiffany's actually used this once or twice while we were on vacation in Florida. But she says she can probably get along without it, and so many hotels now offer Internet access in the room anyway.

It has been a good run, I think I've been an Earthlink member for at least five or six years now. That's a long time on the Internet. Will I regret it? Maybe. But change is good.

Tonight, George W. Bush gave a speech that, in a rare show of good taste, the networks did not deign to cover. However, NPR did cover it, and we listened to a little of the thing. Our President spent much of the time associating Iraq, both past and present, with terrorism.

What I don't get, is why people still believe him. Just because he's the President doesn't mean he's not lying to you! His own Administration has admitted that Saddam Hussein's government had nothing to do with 9/11. If Iraq has anything to do with global terrorism now, it's because of Bush's war and other policies regarding Arab nations. He started the war for his own reasons, and that war has served to inflame sentiment against the United States, thus fostering an increase in terrorism. Bush has made the world less safe for us.

But because he says Iraq and terrorism are the same, we must continue to fight this war, and actually, we were justified in starting this war in the first place! Yeah, that's it!

It just makes me so angry.

Well, Creighton has called me back for a third (!) interview. The first time i met with the director of the group I would be working within. The second time, I met with my potential co-workers, the VP in charge of Academic Computing, and a management consultant working with the CIO regarding new hires. This time, I am to meet with the CIO himself.

And there is one, all important problem I must overcome. No, not Aidan's illness, we'll trade him off on my way to the interview. And not my own budding illness, I'll just soldier through and politely not shake hands. And not my shaggy mien, as I'm sure I'll find some time somewhere to shave and shower. No, the problem is this: I don't have a third interview outfit. Actually, I barely had a second interview outfit.

I expect I'll cobble together something I've already worn once. And then, if I get the job, I'll go shopping.

This is a test install of Movable Type's new version 3 blogging software. I plan to use it for all my blogs, but this one gets first crack. You all be sure to let me know what you think of it.

Update: Ghaaaa! I just looked at this thing in a web browser, and it is hideous. Oh, the blue, oh the humanity! I'll be changing all of that forthwith.

It took us two nights, we were so sleepy, but we did manage to watch Calendar Girls this weekend. It was pretty cute, though I have a soft spot for British film (or American film with British accents, I guess). There's a lot of amateur T'ai Chi in it, and I kept thinking that our old teacher would love the movie, but might hate the T'ai Chi... she used to go on so about those Celebrex commercials. (Though what I found least believable about those commercials was the calm Border Collie.)

Anyway, it wasn't much of a movie, but surely worth $3 to rent. Helen Mirren was fun, as was Julie Walters (Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, and the ballet teacher in Billy Elliot). Perhaps the best part was watching the featurette on the real Calendar Girls (this was the DVD version). Watch it after the movie, so you know who everyone is.

Walking into the grocery store today, holding Aidan in one arm, I was intercepted by a pickup truck with some youths inside. The driver leaned out and said, "Hey buddy, you want some speakers?"

My response was, "Been there, done that. Thanks anyway."

It has to have been ten or eleven years ago now, living in New York City, when I did, in fact, buy some speakers off the back of a truck. I was young, foolish, and pretty broke. Oh, and I didn't have a stereo system. And yet, the guy was persuasive. He'd ordered some speakers for a nightclub he was setting up, and they'd sent him twice as many. He couldn't use them all, and they wouldn't take them back (at this point I should have started getting curious), and he'd sell me a pair cheap.

I don't remember what I paid, but they were cheap, big black things covered in that low-rent pilled fabric that nightclubby speakers are covered in. Serviceable, they would have been better in a college dorm room where volume is more important than timbre.

I endured a little ribbing about those, but they lasted a long time, and served me well. When Tiffany and I moved in together, we splurged and bought some really nice speakers (Mirage bipolars) and these were consigned to... well now I can't remember what happened to them.

Anyway, how often can I expect to be approached in the street to buy hot speakers? I'm not sure which is more suspicious, in the parking lot of a grocery store in Nebraska, or outside my apartment on the East Side of Manhattan.

Life is strange.