peace, Linux and happiness?

The Ubuntu logo stood there innocently over an orange bar that indicated the completion rate of the project. Meanwhile, inside my desktop computer, files and programs vaporized into thin air. Nothing was left in its wake except empty storage spaces on my hard drive. Then slowly, the Ubuntu Linux operating system began to establish itself in the barren wasteland that had once been a Windows environment. Step by step, a new operating system and new programs made their home on my computer.

eve of something, hopefully good

I have always found New Year's Eve to be a slightly surreal experience.  Not necessarily in a bad way.  Time sort of stands still and goes through a transition and at the same time it doesn't.  The divide that establishes the new year, established in the Gregorian calendar (that's the one we all use, in case you didn't know) is, after all, an artificial marker.  The year is very real--it's the time that it takes to go around the sun, but deciding where to mark a complete year is a human decision.  So, in essence, we draw a line, we cross it, and then we celebrate crossing it.