Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Today I ripped open two mice and played with the insides. I learnt many things, not least of which was that the difference, internally, between an intellimouse 1.1a and 1.3a is astonishingly huge. The problems I had with my mouse appear to have been addressed with nikki’s newer revision. However, I think the toll of UT2004 has finally left its terrible mark on my mouse, since it mow tends to double click things when I only press the button once. It’s not the first mouse I’ve worn out in this way either, actually, the old Packard Bell one that immediately preceded it died in an identical manner. Still, as the wheels on the intellimouse turn, so do the wheels of time and I’ll trade it in for a nice new optical mouse soon enough, I guess. A cursory glance at eBuyer promised a 4-button model that would “take mousing to the next level” for only £25, but I’m not so sure I want to get that far in over my head. Would I really be using such an implement, this Excalibur of mice, to its full potential? Better to go with a budget model, if you ask me.

Despite destroying the mouse in the process, I completed UT2004 today. I’ll buy it once I get the money, it’s earnt that at least. I plan to have a bit more fun with Onslaught mode before giving the game up entirely, and after all, we do have a LAN-fest scheduled for some time in the future, but I may have finally run out of excuses not to be doing my project. We’ll see.

Yesterday Nikki and I went to the library to return some books (I had taken Watchmen out; it was good; I will buy it at some inspecific future point.) and she had a strange conversation with an old guy manning the door who was being slightly superior about the fact her books set off the alarm as she was going in. He seemed to think that “We’ll see.” whether it was accident that her books weren’t properly demagnetised before leaving the library last time we were there. I’m not entirely sure what was supposed to happen, were they going to realise she hadn’t checked some book out and accost her for returning it? I wasn’t really sure. Later on, in the same library, a mentally impaired person checked out her books supervised by a capable human, and I was still unable to find any copies of books relating to scientology.

Which brings me to a rant, of sorts. When I was younger, I’m not sure how I knew the term, but I somehow thought Scientology was based around science rather than religion. The truth is that it’s based much more around Science-Fiction than either of the above. Bad science-fiction. As Ian pointed out to me, “Scientology”, as we all know, means “Study of Scient.” It also involves a whole load of stuff about alien Thetans posessing you, clams, volcanoes, and giving away all your money. Now, all I wanted to do was get some of L. Ron Hubbard’s books and read first hand what a nutcase he is, but it turns out that’s pretty impossible to do at Oxford library for whatever reason. Oh well. Luckily, Ian has a bunch of documentaries on his PC about scientology and this gave us all the laughs we needed. At least, it’d be funny if it wasn’t all happenning…