I was going to post about my life, but I forget what was happening.

My life has many parts, and one part is free software work.  Most of that is Metacity.  There are three main parts to my work on Metacity: fixing bugs, writing tests, and “oo, shiny!”  Fixing bugs is the most important, at least critical or blocker bugs.  Writing tests is important for the long term.  (I’m including fixing up commenting in that, otherwise I can’t know what the tests are supposed to do.)  “Oo, shiny!” is rarer, but keeps people happy when it’s something they asked for.  Sometimes real life takes over and I can’t do any Metacity work for a while.  Other times I do work on one at the expense of the others.  People sometimes get impatient when their bugs aren’t fixed, but there’s mostly just me working on it (there are others, but they’re busier on other projects).

The other day we went to the all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant in a thunderstorm late at night and discussed Java, and because it was late and there was a storm, there was hardly anyone else there.  The staff were sitting at another table having an apparently very amusing conversation in Chinese.  They came over to apologise in case they were disturbing us, and I said they weren’t, and they said that there wasn’t much food out because of the paucity of customers at that point, but that if there was anything we wanted they’d cook it specially.  There was tons of food.  I should write a guide to local restaurants and put it up on the web.

We went to buy a wheelbarrow the other day, as you do, and they had to get a manager to come and unlock one because they were all chained together at the front of the shop.  The sales clerk said, “Yes, we have to get the manager because these are locked with a lock I can’t possibly open for you.  You see, it can’t be picked, it can’t even be shot off.”  I can’t believe he was expecting me to whip a revolver out of my pocket, shout “Hi ho, Silver, away!” and ride off with a wheelbarrow, so I was a little puzzled to note that this wonderful lock was attached to an ordinary length of steel cable which an ordinary pair of bolt cutters would have made short work of.  Maybe living in Cambridge makes you look out for these things.

Speaking of Cambridge, it seems I’m going to miss my college’s Commemoration of Benefactors this decade.  Oh well.

And now the politics: here is what a South Carolina senator believes is a funny picture.