Anyone else feel it?

Just had a mild quake here in the East Bay (that is, I don't know yet where it was located, but I was feeling it in the East Bay). Happened ca. 8:08 pm. If it was local, I'd say a 3-4 on the scale.

Update: the earthquake reporting site has it up now -- Santa Rosa area, 4.4. I guess I need to recalibrate a little.

Falling for the random book meme

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5.Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag five people. (omitted)

Ok, so I know that it's not ok to search for a "cool" book rather than taking the nearest one. But is it ok to resist this particular meme until the day it crosses my screen when the nearest book is ...

Ac atteb a orvc y dat ydaw y rodei ef ydaw yn dreul vgeinpunt peunyd o vwnei y wlat honno.
Ar mab pan gigleu hynny adyuot nachigleu ef eiryoet vot brenhin yn gyflocwas na mynnei ynteu vot.
Ac wrth hynny y mab wedy kymrut kyngor ohonaw agerdawd y dinas twrys y geissyaw aryan yn echwyn ygan y bwrdeissyeit.

As penance, I shall now attempt to translate without any reference books.

"And his father made an answer to him [that] he would give to him as ??? a penance of twenty pounds of the money of that land.
"And the son, when he heard that and came [???], he had never heard that the king would be a ???-boy, nor that he wished to be.
"And with that, the son -- having taken counsel -- travelled to Dinas Twrys to obtain silver as a ??? from the burgesses."

An odd sort of satisfaction

"Dear Mr. H. In view of the lack of response from you to my letters of 5/14/06 and 7/11/06, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that it is advisable for me to register a complaint with the State Bar of California."

We'll see if that gets some action out of my erstwhile lawyer. Of course, the Bar doesn't actually have the power to make him do anything, but I'm hoping that perhaps his attention will finally be engaged. The sad thing is, I really don't think he's a crook -- I just think he's incompetent at office paperwork. I could even have overlooked the questionable line-items on the bill if he hadn't tried to charge me a higher rate than the one on the contract. And he really does need to return my retainer.

But there's something oddly satisfying about composing a detailed description of the events, complete with executive summary, attachments, and time-lines that nails the facts to the wall with excruciating precision. If I could have managed an excuse for 8x10 glossies with circles and arrows ... but, no. (And my co-workers were disappointed that I hadn't manged to squeeze in a spreadsheet and a graph or two. I'm infamous for my spreadsheets and graphs.)