I Have Magic Fingers

That's thrice today that we've had a hardware malfunction and, upon opening it up, or unplugging and replugging the network cable, or cycling the power, said hardware worked. Now, machines being uppity as they are this in itself isn't a great surprise, except that several people had done the same thing before me.

It almost makes a little intern feel useful.
Now, to lunch with me.

I Am Become Jack

Well, as is rather obvious, I am now JackOfAllGeeks. The poll I set up didn't last very long; when I decided to change, there were equal numbers voting for AndrewInDigital, JackOfAllGeeks, and RoliasNoom. And one for JoeShmoeAtWork, but I decided Joe's going to stay at Work. Anyways, I got anxious about 'losing' the name to someone else (though maybe I shouldn't have been), and I renamed myself last night. I've since registered corresponding AIM, Yahoo, and MSN accounts to use with Trillian, and potentially to replace my school email address when I graduate in the Spring.

I chose JackOfAllGeeks over my other Preference, AndrewInDigital, because it says something about me -- Anyone online can be digital, but only I am the Jack of All Geeks, apprentice to many but master of none. Or something. I didn't think WhfflingJaberwocky (WhufflingJabberwocky wouldn't fit) was nice, but not the tone I was looking for; it didn't feel right.

Which is why I decided to shed RoliasNoom in the first place; it didn't feel right. As I said, Rolias feels like he's from a chapter in my life which is closing -- though I think it's more like a scene from a movie, fading out as another fades in, rather than a clean cut-off. I think college changes a person, which is notable because I've long been an adherent to the idea that people really don't ever change. And maybe that idea still holds, but I know that recently I've been feeling subtly but profoundly different. I've been through quite a number of different things since I left home nearly four years ago. Much as I still hold the same (or at least very similar) values and opinions and convictions, I don't know that I even think on the same lines as I did when I was 18. Certainly not before then.

Rolias is from that time. An alias designed for game-playing, who then grew into something of a character during online roleplaying in AOL Chatrooms, and grew again into the Protagonist of a story I wanted to tell, and finally to an entity nigh-synonymous with myself. His time has past, though; no more aliased-game playing, no more online roleplaying, his story has shifted and morphed until it no longer even contains him, and I feel I have outgrown him.

aiglet, who has always been Aiglet and likely always will be Aiglet, asked if he didn't grow with me. And for a time, I think, he did. After all, he and I were one-and-the-same, for most intents and purposes, for quite some time. But from my current perspective he seems a bit juvenile; his inextricable connection to certain girl-type anime series doesn't help him much, either. Plus, 'roliasnoom' says nothing about me, Andrew, in any real sense. I'm not even interested in Anime anymore, really.

So, that's that. I think Jack signifies me better, and says something about who I am -- in more ways than one, if you really sit to think about it, but I only say that because I have sat and thought about it. In the coming, er, months, I'll probably revamp my layout, and soon RoliasNoom will be retired from AIM, as well.