So I had this thing in my head that since I will be working at home, I didn't want my home computer in the same room as my work computer. My home computer would be in my bedroom, because after all I don't need the distraction of TV when I write, and my work computer would be in the corner of my living room.

Now that I'm getting DSL though, it's all become complicated. The easiest thing to do would be to have my home and work computer in the same room, so I could share my DSL modem/router/hub. I could connect my home computer via a USB port to the hub and connect my work computer via ethernet connection to the hub. But I wasn't planning on this configuration.

I wanted to buy one of those computer desks where you can close the door, so at 5 pm at home I could literally close up my office and be at home. I wouldn't have to look at my work stuff or my work computer or even my work phone.

I don't know. I think having two computers side by side just doesn't look that good. How geeky is that?

One alternative is to keep the home computer in the bedroom, and either drill a hole in the wall and run an ethernet cable along the wall and under the rug in the living room to the work computer.

The other alternative is to buy an HPNA adapter, which costs about $50, to plug into the laptop's USB Port and then plug the laptop in the phone line. The home portal device I'm buying from SBC Pacific Bell turns your existing phone jacks into a home based LAN network. The only drawback with this method according to other users, is a loss in a download speed. Like I would even notice, since I've been accessing the Net with my 56K modem for years now.

I have no idea what I'm going to do. The cable under the rug solution is starting to look really attractive, and probably cheaper. All I'd have to do is buy a very long ethernet cable. How much can an ethernet cable cost? I might be able to even take one from work.

I'm very intrigued by the HPNA solution and being able to use an existing phone line as a home LAN idea though, but I'm not in the mood to spend the money to get the HPNA adapter.

It's just one more thing to think about.

A friend called today and wants to go to IKEA tomorrow night. God, I love IKEA but so does everyone else in the SF Bay Area. On the weekends, it's like everyone is there. The parking is horrendous, and it's wall to wall people. IKEA had to build more parking structures to accomodate the hordes of people who shop there. Like who knew people had to buy so much cheap scandanavian furniture. I think I even read once that the IKEA store in Emeryville is one of the best performing stores in the chain. I believe it.

My friend thinks Friday nights are the best night to go, since Ikea won't be so crowded. It's an idea, but then I'd have to drive over the Bay Bridge on a Friday night during the evening commute and I hate doing that. It's not a bad commute if there are no accidents, and I even drove from San Bruno to Vine Street in Berkeley in an hour once starting at 5 pm. But I think that trip time was an exception. There are always accidents during the evening commute.

There's a scene from the movie "Fight Club", one of my favorite scenes from a movie, where Edward Norton's character talks about decorating his apartment. He decorate his apartment with what looks like IKEA furniture, which he said he orderd all through a catalog. That scene makes me laugh everytime.

It's like the time I went to a baby shower at a friend's brother's house. The brother's wife was a Pottery Barn fiend, and the whole place looked like it came out of a Pottery Barn catalog. What looked great in the Pottery Barn catalog, looked sadly stark and unimaginative in someone's home. The house was in a good part of Berkeley as well, which was even more ironic, since I think Pottery Barn to so antithetical to the stereotypical left wing Berkeley life style. Pottery Barn? How consumer nation can you get?

Now IKEA, that's a different story.

Who is the Elfman that keeps commenting? Are you really an elf? There are no elves left. They were all imprisoned during the time of Atlantis, and made into slaves. We were a slave people, and when we died we were cursed and could no longer reincarnate (our light body template was destroyed) as elves but only as humans. We lost our 12-strand DNA, and all our powers since humans only have 2-strand DNA.

But in 2002, elfen souls who were banned from heaven for centuries were allowed to move into the light and rest in peace and be with god. If there are any of us left, we are now humans with health problems related to being elfen first. But we remember, we remember our elfen life when we had our own land, our own culture, our own society, before the great wars, before we were betrayed, destroyed, systemically hunted down and killed. Those who survived were enslaved, cursed for centuries, cursed for all time, with no hope until 2002 when a liberator by the grace of the god freed the elfen people, freed them from centuries of not being able to move into the light and be with the one who created us all.

So I ordered the SBC Yahoo DSL. My local phone company, Pacific Bell is now SBC, so the dsl bill will be part of my phone bill. I also ordered the home portal device. It's a combination dsl modem and router/hub. You can hook up 10 computers to it. Since I'm a new customer, I'm getting a $99 rebate, so it's only costing $60, which is the price someone at the office paid for their router/hub last week.

The order person on the phone said the best thing about the home portal device, is I can get a dsl connection at any phone line and I don't have to worry about physically cabling the other computers to my main computer. Now I'm going to pay Pacific Bell a ton of money to put a phone jack in every room in my new apartment so I can get a dsl connection no matter what room I'm in. Oh boy!

This is a strange experience. I have an office with a window on the second floor of a building, and there are trees outside. I heard a thump on the window, and when I looked over I saw a robin bird sitting in the tree. About a minute later, the robin bird flies into my window. I've been in this office for a long time, and robin bird or any bird for that matter has never done that before.

Then, another robin bird came over and sat next to the first robin bird. The first robin bird takes off and flies into my window again. The other robin bird just watches. The first robin bird does this a couple more times, then they both fly off.

What is going on? It's a cold foggy day here, so it's not like this is spring weather. Why would a robin bird try to fly into my window over and over again?