I've spent the last two days at work redoing an analysis I did. My boss said that something was off in my methodology, and I told him I'd already checked it, but to reassure him I said I'd go over everything again. Sure enough, I think he was right although my program was still running when I left work and I won't find out till tomorrow.

I was dealing with a file with 2 million rows, and it was hard to work with because of its size. I decided to filter the data earlier instead of later, so my table would be smaller. The early filter skewed the results. I could have sworn though that I took the early filter off and reran the data last week, and the results were the same, but I got a different result today. I won't find out for sure till tomorrow though.

Because of the new computer, I'm two days behind in my word count. I'm current as of Monday, and to be two days behind is not that bad.

I have a ring of elfin power in the story, and it's turning out to quite interesting. Here's a taste of it. Please excuse the shitty first draftiness of what you're going to read below.

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Mother was lying. I knew it and I attributed the ring's heat as an indication that told me Mother was not telling the truth. But would she lie to me? To this day, I do not know what possessed Mother to lie to me like that. When I was able to question her before her death, she just smiled and said she didn't want to worry me with her fears.

The days for me are long for now. I am alone as everyone I know is dead. Mother's reluctance to tell me what her fears her is an issue that I cannot help but ponder over and over. The only conclusion that I have come to which makes the most sense, and which scares me still, is the strange blue ring was already starting to influence the people around me, without me or anyone else knowing it.

I still wear the ring. Now that everyone is dead, I do not see harm in wearing it since it can longer influence anyone nor can I use my powers for anything other than taking care of tired and broken body.

Mother was right to be afraid of the power of the ring. In her wisdom as a healer, she saw intuitively that the incredible power the ring offered would not just stop at herself, but would exert its power and influence over other people as well. I wish I had Mother's wisdom when I was her age.

But I was foolish, and the ring fed into my desire for power, and to avenge the family honour. The ring also fed into my hatred of Cashani, and used it against me.

That such a beautiful thing could be so deadly still amazes me. But what is still amazing is that there are no family legends about the absolute power of the ring. As Mother reminded me on her death bed, the family histories and legends were often written by the head priestesses in our family. I am sure that the power of the ring would not allow its wearer to disclose its power. So I went blindly into my destiny, and I cannot help but think how different things would have come out were it not for my ambition, my lust for power, and strange blue stone elfin ring.
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I saw Gerhard Richter's painting retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Saturday. Gerhard is a german painter, and the exhibit showed thirty years of his paintings. Richter was an interesting painter. The man can definitely paint, and there two portraits, one of his wife and his daugher, that looked like photographs. His brushstroke work was amazing and very, very fine. When I looked closely at these paintings, I was amazed at how Richter achieved such fineness in his strokes. The rest of the Richter's paintings are abstract, and I could see how Richter was trying to explore the medium of paint. There was even a set of painting sthat was commissioned by the Vatican to depict St Francis of Assisi, that was on exhibit because the Vatican thought the five paintings were too abstract.

Richter often painted over canvases first, and then repainted them over and over again, and sometimes scraping off the paint. There was set of paintings from 1999 which exemplified this technique of Richter's. It was my favorite part of the exhibit, only because I did that witih my collages. I used to make collages, and sometmes I would take either a knife or scissors and just slash the collage up. It was a violent act, but I just felt the urge to do it especially for the more disturbing of my collages.

As a side note, there was guy walking around SFMOMA who looked exactly like Weird Al Yankovic. I didn't think it was him, but I kept seeing him. When I went into the SFMOMA store, I heard the clerks talking about meeting him and how he was here in San Francisco for some animation festival. I was right, it was him, and I was sort of tempted to go up to him and say "you're that guy who does all the songs spoofs aren't you?" But I didn't. That's so rude. Weird Al is very thin in person, and really does have longish very curly brown hair, and he really does look like he does in his videos.

I finished updating everything on my PC last night, except for a free printing program that came with my printer and a free graphics software program an Aussie coworker gave me in 1999. I decided to name my PC, just to give it a name. I named my care Siegfreid or Sieggy for short, because my VW Golf reminds me of german husky boy.

I've named my PC, Clive Lord PerCy, because my computer is my lord and master. Wasn't Percy the name of the Scarlet Pimpernel? I loved the Scarlet Pimpernel movies on A&E.

I found my screenplay last night, but it was bittersweet. I'm glad that I was able to retrieve it, but the last three critical scenes that I was working on right before my PC crashed weren't saved. I'll have to check if the program has ten minutes saves.

I still have to upgrade the virus software. I installed my old one, even though a message keeps popping that it might not work properly. I think I'm okay for awhile as long as I don't upload any files from a disk into my computer. My ISP screens my mail for viruses, so thankfully I'm protected from email viruses at least.

I'm listening to Amadeus, the soundtrack from the movie. I loved this movie, especially the music. I loved how Tom Hulce potrayed Mozart as hearing complete finished musical pieces in his head, and how he never made corrections on his music. I wish my writing could be like that. I also have Immortal Beloved, a movie about Beethoven's life, which I also love.

I love the character of Salieri. I think that every writer, composer, any kind of artist runs into many Salieris in their life. Art is a weird thing. It's sort of like money and food. One either has it and then some, or one does not, and there doesn't seem to be very few inbetweens. And what's sad is, the ones who don't have it often have the unfortunate gift of recognizing when others really do have "it". I think what is also the case, is the artist who has it, doesn't know they have it, and are constantly plagued by doubts and insecurities no matter how much money or fame may come their way.

I think everyone has talents, some definitely more than others, and then others, it's like it's their destiny or something that they are going to reach the pinnacles of their profession. Mozart definitely was one of those who was born with it, and seemed destined for greatness. I think of the Beatles in the same way. Musical Genuises.