Things have been pretty non-stop, lately. After a great weekend in Nova Scotia with one sister, I returned home on the same day as my other sister, who has been camping out at my place ever since. Madness! But fun madness, even if it has kept me away from my darling computer of late.

Speaking of computers, I ordered myself a used netbook from eBay last week. I'm not quite sure whether this is reckless self-indulgence or actual responsible need-filling, but I'm really looking forward to getting to use it all the same. My desktop computer is great and powerful and useful, but it's not a very... cosy computer. And it's definitely not portable. I think I'm going to enjoy having a tiny notebook I can curl up with or take with me to exciting new locales like maybe the library. Who knows, maybe it'll even help me get some writing done! That would definitely be a positive thing.

(Also, have I mentioned how much I love the new 'netbook' category of computer, yet? It seems like kind of a scary business for the people selling them -- the margins have got to be razor thin -- but as a consumer it's absolutely delightful to get so much computer for so little money. It's especially thrilling since I've been a computer geek for long enough to remember when the sort of specs you'd get on a typical $200 netbook would have been revolutionary on the highest-end desktop computer.)

(Second parenthetical remark: diamondbark, I think it might be the same kind you've got, or at least it's also an HP device. A 1035nr, to be precise.)

Other things... ooh, I'm going to be going to Boston! For work! At some point! I still have to get my passport in order, which will take another couple weeks, but after that... Boston! I will be helping out the dev team there with their documentation, as I do, since they haven't got any technical writers of their own there. I am pretty psyched, obviously, both because travel is fun and because Boston is a city I'm quite fond of. Back when I was looking for work, I seriously considered just choosing a city to live in for the foreseeable future, and then looking for jobs only in that city. The rationale was that while jobs may be transitory, once you're settled in a city it can be very hard to leave, so it's more important to choose a good city than a good job. Anyhow, it pretty much came down to a competition between Toronto, Seattle, and Boston... which KW somehow won despite not even being a contender. Anyhow, this is just a really dull and roundabout way of saying that I think Boston is a pretty cool city and a place I wouldn't mind living in at all.

(Though, for the record, now I'm settled in KW, that's where I'd most like to stay. It may be kind of ugly, as cities go, but the people are great, and besides I have to stick around and see whether the city's attempts to revitalize downtown Kitchener are going to work. It's like a slow-motion urban planning soap opera! Or maybe a reality TV show -- Which businesses will survive, and which will go bankrupt, leaving behind nothing but ugly, boarded up windows and commerce-suppressing empty buildings? It's up to you, the consumer, to decide!)