I

It's a curious thing, but after 18 days of uptime my iBook's wireless decided to go bonkers.

Which is to say, claim it could not maintain a nice steady connection. It failed to recognize available access points. Why 18 days this time? I don't know. I've had similar issues after medium uptimes before.

I also need to get a new battery.

II

1756, Salzburg, January 27, Wolfgang Amadeus is born
1761, at the age of five Amadeus begins composing
1773, he writes his first piano concerto
1782, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart marries Constance Weber
1784, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart becomes a free mason
1791, Mozart composes "The Magic Flute"
On December 5th of that same year, Mozart dies
1985, Austrian rock singer Falco records
... Rock Me Amadeus!

I'm not sure that I have a "favorite" Mozart piece. The following come to mind as possibilities:

• Piano Concert no. 20 in d minor, K. 466: I'm particularly fond of the 1st movement (allegro), which has a rather long lead-in before the piano begins.
• Symphony No. 35 in D, K. 385 ("Haffner"): Again, it's the 1st movement (allegro con spirito) that grips me the most, though it begins a bit pompously, but I think I prefer (of these two) ...
• Symphony No. 38 in D, K. 504 ("Prague"): It's the playful 1st again (adagio — allegro), this time after an atypically slow (but not quite ponderous) introduction that is the combination of something swirling and something haunting.
• Violin Concert No. 3 in G, K. 216: It begins delightfully but a bit more than a third through the first movement there are some darker and more melancholy moments.
• Requiem in d minor, KV 626: Where to begin? There's the Kyrie, which establishes a wonderful momentum; the up-tempo and forceful Dies Irae (not to be confused with the even more furious one by Verdi [Karl Jenkins' is curiously appealing]); or even the schizophrenic Confutatis.
• The Magic Flute: "Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" ("The vengeance of hell boils in my heart") is in d minor, enough for me to like it, but I also like it as an example of what can be done with the human voice.

The 1st movement of the No. 25 makes me think of Amadeus. I'm also leaving out the solo piano music, which is the stuff I actually have experience playing.

My undergrad adviser once commented and claimed that young people enjoy Beethoven, but it takes age to appreciate Mozart.

III

Days Without:

• Alcohol: 27
• Ice Cream: 27
• Finishing a book: 5
• Finishing a comic: 0
• Watching a movie: 0
• ...?

The Order 5, 6, and 7 were "decent" but the series seems to have lost its formal focus (on character development, dialogue and humor) as it has developed a series of plot-arcs. It's gone from form to formula, though at the moment it's still better written than most of the Marvel team books (faint praise?)—some of the plotting, while now getting past the introduce-the-characters into the big-stuff phase, seems ... stretched thin, a dab here and there.

Also, a few links: In the Heart of the Heart of Conspiracy (a review of and essay on a new book about ol' Joe McCarthy, the Wisconsin politician the rest of us like to forget about); The Story of Stuff (I believe devtrash provided the link earlier); reviews of Astonishing X-Men 24 and X-Men 207 at The X-Axis; Gordon B. Hinckley dead.