So today I went to show my apartments to a prospective tenant. The appointment was for 7pm, so it was already dark. Come to find out, the electric company turned off the electricity for two of the three vacant units. I called the electric company a month ago and asked them to put the meters in my name. I told them the tenants had been evicted and I didn't want them to turn the electricity off because I would be doing renovations. So I called them again today and asked why the hell they were off. Apparently, they had no record of me calling in and asking to have the meters put in my name. Grrr, I hate incompetence, especially in companies or those who provide a service.
I had coffee with my boss today and due to uncontrollable circumstances, I'm probably not going to be hired full-time in January 2007, which means I won't be moving to Cambridge in January. I'm still moving, it just won't be when I expected. Instead, it might be sometime early February or even March of 2007. We'll see.
While searching the web for something today, I came across The Original new.gif Tribute Page. It's pretty simple: Back when the web was just getting started, Matt Libby decided to create a tiny GIF image, about the same height as a line of text, which he could use to mark things on a web page that were new. The tiny GIF took off and is probably the most used image in the history of the web. Pretty cool stuff. I almost felt like an Internet archaeologist, discovering a lost piece of Internet history. It reminds me of how quickly sites like Google, Yahoo, Flickr, MySpace, etc., have become common-place names for todays generation of Internet users and how only 8 years ago, most of those sites didn't even exist.
In the opposite direction, towards the future, I read on Slashdot about how Windows Vista is apparently going to use IPv6 to create unique domain names for each Windows Vista computer, to make it easier for computers to share files. I can only imagine the number of viruses that will crop up to utilize this feature. The good thing is that Microsoft may very well be the company that helps kick-start the push towards the whole Internet using IPv6 over IPv4. I'm just happy that I'm moving away from regular computer support and more towards software engineering. I have a bad feeling that Windows Vista is going to be a huge headache when it comes to support.
Also on Slashdot, I read about a guide to camping out on console launch day. I thought it was funny how the author of the guide mentions that he's not crazy compared to the fans who lined up a year in advance for the Star Wars prequels. I'm a Star Wars fan and I'll admit, I lined up to watch Star Wars 1 when it first came to the theater. The line to get into the movie theater started inside the theater in the hallway, and backed out the theater entrance and halfway around the building outside. 🙂