Back in Business

My laptop has been restored to me! And thank God, I must say. After spending a mostly frustrating hour on the phone with Verizon DSL tech support in India, trying to reactivate my wireless network, I gave up on the wireless and resorted to the trusty yellow Ethernet cord. Since then I've reinstalled Word and the DVD program; downloaded iTunes, Avast, and Trillian (Skype and Firefox to come, though really I've never used Firefox very much -- is it so much superior to IE?); and ripped all the photos from the past month off my camera. What's harder is reconstructing all my personal settings -- I always have a Desktop icon on the taskbar; how do I get that back? What was my quote in the screensaver scroll? -- and Favorites -- beyond Bloglines, what sites do I visit every day, and what are their addresses again? And this weekend will be the enormous fun of recopying all my CDs to iTunes. . . . Still, after nearly three weeks of forced absence, I'm putting my digital life back together, bit by bit. (Literally, if you'll pardon the pun.)

This computer's original name was Dellawhere -- a combination of its brand name and then-miraculous-to-me wi-fi capabilities -- but, as its new brain/hard drive was installed while I was at Lumos, I feel it only right that version 2.0 should be known as Dellatrix.

Other notes:

• My brilliant friend Jeff is making a documentary called "Crossed Lines" about the Texas redistricting scandal a few years back, to be Please check out the trailer on YouTube.
• Speaking of YouTube, you can see John Noe singing my filk of "New York, New York" here (also some great Melissa dancing there), and John, Melissa and the audience performing "It's Voldemort Outside" here.
• I haven't played Scrabble in, I think, two and a half months, and I'm suffering serious tile withdrawal. Anyone up for an Internet game? Please?
• My SCBWI website interview from earlier this year is now permanently archived here.
• An AWESOME article about the Ministry of Magic from the Michigan Law Review (really!): "Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy." "Part II argues that Half-Blood Prince presents a government that fits perfectly into the public-choice model of self-interested bureaucrats running roughshod over the public interest. . . . Part V concludes that Rowling may do more for libertarianism than anyone since John Stuart Mill."
• Recent things I've loved: Bing cherries; "Little Miss Sunshine"; the "Absinthe" circus at South Street Seaport (check it out, New Yorkers! I command you); the song "Save Ginny Weasley from Dean Thomas," by Harry and the Potters; running; Brooklyn; being home after all my traveling.

Someday I will write a thoughtful, useful blog post on intellectual/literary/editorial matters rather than all this personal and Harry Potter babbling. In the meantime, thanks for sticking around!