strange news day

Some damned strange entertainment headlines this afternoon.

Portuguese transsexual Nadia wins UK Big Brother

Funk star Rick James found dead

and finally,

Actor Dillon 'in new Herbie film'.

I think the gods are telling me to get back to work before I discover something even more frightening out there...

update: On the bright side, I never thought I'd hear CNN playing "Super Freak". Particularly not during business hours.

timing is everything

I just read the ingredients on the wrapper of a "NEW! PowerBar(R) ProteinPlus CARB Select(tm) High Protein Bar" (jeeze! what do this thing's friends call it?!)... AFTER eating the thing. Now I really wish I hadn't. (Hadn't eaten it, or hadn't read the label? One or the other...take your pick...)

Two thoughts spring immediately to mind. First: Great googly moogly, that's a lot of maltitol. And second: Never before have I seen the phrase "Chocolatey Coating" in an ingredients list. One assumes certain standards must be met before the word "chocolate" can be used...

The taste is actually kind of nice. But then, I like Reese's peanut butter cups, so what do I know?

Networks are evil...

Evil, I tell you! Evil evil evil!!!

Can anyone remember the exact wording of that quote about networking, something about "when a computer you don't even know about keeps you from getting work done"?

For flip's sake, I even know which computer it is. I find myself shouting at the dev kit: "Dude! It's in IRVINE! I could DRIVE there faster than this!" I know, in my heart of hearts, that I am officially Too Tired To Work when I start addressing inanimate hardware as "Dude".

Late night musings

This started out with a complaint, as so many of my musings do. Two complaints, really, that just happened to collide in interesting ways.

I am fat. I am in the process of getting less fat, but have been stuck at a certain point for three or four months now. Tonight it occurred to me, and hit home for the first time for no good reason, the obvious fact that I didn't get this way overnight, so it's no good expecting it to all get better overnight either.

Then I thought about work sucking, as you do when you're in the office at 10 PM on a Friday. And it dawned on me that work didn't get this bad overnight either; that my life didn't get this weird overnight; and that, in fact, I'm blessed with a hard deadline: by the end of Monday, the game will be in whatever shape it's in, it will be in pre-submission, and so in less than 72 hours this particular hell will be over.

I think the key cause of my suffering is that I pay attention very selectively. I don't see the bad stuff coming because I'm so good at denying it. Then when things suck, I want them fixed right away.

I am in the middle of my life. It's not even half over. When I think of the 38, nearly 39, years I've been on this earth, a couple of days of hard work and frustration pales to insignificance. (And when I think about the kind of day Rick James just had, I am suddenly quite happy to be in these circumstances, alive and still fighting.)

I am bummed there's no "current mood" icon for Serene. And now, I am going home to get some well-earned sleep. I hope these thoughts still make sense to me in the morning. Good night, everyone!