happy new year.

2008. still no flying cars, world peace, lunar vacations, or autonomous house-cleaning robots. geez, humanity, what do you have to say for yourself?

resource follow-up.

i didn't get a single thing i asked for.

unless you count Super Mario Galaxy, which i specifically told my sister to get us.

(it's a hell of a lot of fun, btw. and significantly easier in the 2-player co-op mode than in single-player. although there are levels that are fucked up enough, it brings his skill almost all the way down to mine. miyamoto-san, i bow to you)

after i announced that i didn't get anything i asked for on christmas evening, my sister braved the boxing day crowds to go get me a utensil/gadget holder, in stainless steel. you can't really call a container made out of steel a "crock." just doesn't sound right, for some reason. now i have an extra drawer in my kitchen, yay.

still no sign of a septuagint.

rainy boxing day.

there's something very sad about christmas lights in the cold rain the day after christmas.

holidays.

happy, merry, and so forth.

for my christmas gift, discover card emailed me my bill.

i think we need to invent some kind of major holiday for, like, february or something, so that after new year's, we're not all depressed waiting for the sun to return and weather to get better.

although at my new job now, i get MLK Jr day and president's day off this year, so there will be some little breaks in the drudgery.

food w/ family in an hour. i hope everyone is having a happy holiday today, and best wishes in the new year.

more ice.

so we did lose power yesterday. luckily, the bakery didn't, so we went there for breakfast. then down to the mall so i could do some christmas shopping (ugh!) and he could park himself in barnes&noble and study for his calculus final tonight (more ugh!).

luckily the power came back because now my car's battery is dead and i'm working from home again. a little hard to RDC into your work computer if there's no power to your router/cable modem/etc. and also computer, although i would at least get a couple hours on the laptop.

stupid car.

he's got the AAA card, so i have to wait for him to get home so i can call them and get someone to come out and give me a jump. we don't even have jumper cables. blerg.

hooray for tea.

survival lessons.

the office closed at 1pm today because the school district closed at 12:45pm because everything is covered in ice.

watch the trees get iced over and the branches slowly sink...

ooo, the lights are flickering. and i hear sirens.

didn't i do this 10 years ago? yeah. the jan 1998 ice storm. shut down the city of montreal for a solid week because the power to the city's resevoir went out and there was no drinkable water. i later heard it took some people in the outlying areas 9 days to get electricity back and they were building tents of blankets around fireplaces until the mounties came by distributing generators.

that time, i was playing a videogame on my computer and didn't even notice the power went out because the laptop switched over seamlessly to battery power.

darn. no games for the mac.

well, if i survived that one, i ought to have no trouble with this little bit of ice. we even have wood for the fireplace.

resources.

why does every quickly-preparable and convenient food have to be eaten in a bowl? cereal (hot or cold), soup... well, ok, mostly just cereal and soup. but i eat a lot of both of those.

i am in possession of only 6 bowls. these are used at a frightening rate, especially when we are both sick (like now, for instance).

my revised christmas list:
a gadget crock
a septuagint
more bowls

fail.

no novel for me this year.

why? i'm not sure. i certainly had more going on this year than the previous 3, and also i started the month pretty creatively dry and in the grip of a pretty major depression.

the depression, i'm glad to say, has started to lift a bit. it will probably come back in a month or so.

as strange as it sounds, probably beginning the month on vacation damaged any novel-writing ability as well. while i was pretty relaxed, i was concentrating on other things, and i only wrote one day's worth while on vacation for four days. not an insurmountable obstacle (i started over the third day of the month last year), but a daunting one, nonetheless.

oh well. there's always next year.

and of course, there's three other rough drafts to edit and/or finish *grin*

apologies.

this is rapidly becoming my food photo blog apparently.

i didn't manage to write a novel this november. instead, i appear to have channeled most of my creative urges into cooking things.

i'm not sure if this is good or bad.

turkey update, day 2.

the turkey, i think is a success. here is a picture of it just after it came out of the oven yesterday. the pan, as you can see, is too small. those strange dark/red dots on the skin are dried cranberries that simmered in the pan drippings, since i didn't have any dry sherry or madeira to flavour the gravy with. the green clumps are herbs that i mixed with melted butter to pour over the turkey while the skin was browning, since i was not about to stick my hands under the skin of a raw turkey and smear butter over the flesh. ew.

the orange thing is the pop-up thermometer that was included with the turkey, which, although counsidered by many to be cheating worked just as well for me since i don't have a meat thermometer. since i am still here and not suffering food poisoning, i think we did ok. the breast meat is possibly a little dry, even. i overcooked it just a tad. if i ever do this for real people, i will have to invest in a meat thermometer. this was totally unplanned; i had already given away my free turkey certificates from the supermarket to a local food cupboard when he came home with... a free turkey. it was a gift from one of his clients, and it seemed a shame to waste a fresh turkey by putting it in the freezer. so i did the best with what i had in the house *grin*

the bird has since been carved up and is wrapped in foil packets in the fridge. for those of delicate constitution, i will here omit a description of carving the turkey, but let it suffice to say that it is a singularily primeval act.

what is left of the carcase is currently in the stockpot being simmered. i don't get to make a homemade stock that often, so i wasn't going to pass this opportunity up. it will be good when i inevitably come down with the flu this winter.

turkey update.

the little built-in thermometer thingy has popped. as i do not have a meat thermometer myself, and i do not want to get salmonella poisoning, i am leaving the turkey in the oven a little while longer, although i have removed the foil.

i do not have a turkey baster, so i am doing the best i can with a metal spoon and a measuring cup.

also, the pan is too small. i will have to clean my oven after this.

i'm not sure about the stuffing either, but i figure since the pan juices are boiling, it can hurt to spoon them over the stuffing.

i got up this morning to make cornbread for stuffing. i only used half of the cornbread because i ran out of carrots. so the turkey is i guess about 2/3 stuffed.

i will go baste it again.

slight delay.

i'm cooking a turkey!

more updates to follow.

eeeeeeek.

happy thanksgiving.

yes, it's slightly early. but i'm not a dedicated enough blogger to work a post into my schedule tomorrow, which will involve waking up, taking a shower, and then driving to my aunt's in northern new jersey for turkey and so forth.

this is also the weekend where i have mostly finished my nano in past years. yeah. that's not going to happen this year. i'm stuck just past 13,000 words and i haven't written for days :( too much shit going on this year.

he also got a turkey from one of his clients this year. we have a 14lb turkey in a box in our fridge. i am thinking i might actually try to cook it. then it will feed us for weeks and weeks. such a benevolent turkey.

i got off work early today and spent most of the afternoon looking up thanksgiving recipes. luckily, i don't have to actually bring anything tomorrow. ha.

i should probably bring a book. he'll disappear to play whatever latest 360 game my cousin bought, and i will probably feel pretty anti-social after a few hours tomorrow. what book goes with turkey?

mmm... fooooood.

waah.

guess what's coming out of the sky!

i'll give you a hint: it's cold, white, and frozen.

this sucks.

also, i am so far behind in my nano, it's not even funny. this may be the first year i don't finish.

this also sucks.

i think i need more tea.

documentation.

if i'm not careful, this photoblogging thing is going to become a habit.

anyway. i have made apple pie.

i have now fulfilled my quota of patriotic activities for the quarter. or something. but i had apples, and i had to use them up before they went bad. it is no longer sizzling. i believe i shall have to taste it. mmm... pie.

very scary.

i am once again home alone on halloween, hiding upstairs in the office with all the other lights in the house turned off.

this year no one has rung my doorbell.

i was considering dumping candy in a bucket and putting it on my patio with a sign that said, "take the candy and GO AWAY."

it's not, you see, that i have any real objections to halloween qua halloween. i just don't like people.

culinary inclinations.

in general, i don't like beans. they're starchy, and they have a weird texture and not really much taste. if i have to eat them in soup or something, i swallow them whole, like a pill.

but for the last couple of weeks, i've been having the urge to cook something with black beans. i don't even know why. maybe because it's something i've never done before. except, as stated above, i don't like beans, and i don't think he does either, so it would probably be cooked, tasted, and then thrown out, which seems like a waste.

i wonder if there's a way to make beans taste... i don't know. less like beans?

mmm...panic.

so here i am, sitting at panera bread, ostensibly prepping for my fourth nano. as usual, i don't have a single idea.

but hey, after three years in a row, this ought to be easy, right?

right. i'll just keep telling myself that.

gnrrrrr.

wish me luck!

*cough* *hack* *wheeze* *gurgle*

note to self: do not try to go for a run when you've been suffering allergies all day.

*coughs a little more*

hospitality.

just in time for halloween, i do believe my watering can is inhabited. as well as my basil plant apparently.

in order to avoid a mess, not to mention a houseguest, i have taken to watering my plants with my iced tea pitcher.

oh well. it's october; the spider can't last that long in this weather.

hi! how are you?

oh, i'm not too bad thanks.

that... doesn't sound good?

yeah, well, i've got the feeling that it's not really socially acceptable to say to complete strangers, "oh, i'm crushingly depressed today," so what the fuck do you expect me to say?

i feel like i've blogged on this before. have i? i guess i haven't found a satisfactory answer yet.

another year.

people like to know for some reason.

happy birthday to me.

one day late.

more adventures in the kitchen.

so i decided to make chicken fried rice for dinner tonight because he was having a bad day (allerigies + calculus test). and i end up taking a detour and cleaning out my produce drawer where i discovered some truly revolting green beans that i had forgotten about a couple weeks ago. i also discovered some red peppers my mom had given me which were still in edible condition.

now, the thing you have to understand here is that my parents are sort of ex-hippies, and my dad has turned a large portion of their backyard into an organic garden. he also likes to experiment with this garden, and in the past couple years has started growing several different kinds of peppers.

i had no idea if these peppers were hot or sweet.

so i washed one anyway and started cutting it up. as i'm scraping the seeds out, i think to myself, "oh, my hands aren't burning. this is probably a sweet pepper."

yes, one year, he grew peppers so hot, they had to be picked while wearing rubber gloves.

this is only one of the many, many reasons my kitchen is not entirely safe.

i haven't cut myself in a while, however.

unintended significance.

as we all know, a sign has a signified. on my commute to work, i occasionally see signs that don't quite communicate what they mean.

i don't, unfortunately, have pictures.

seen in front of a bar:

Lunch Specials
Sat - Indecision

and in front of a car dealership:

GIANT ENT SALE

5768.

l'shanah tovah.

i'm home from work today because it's rosh hashona, and i'm going to NYC tomorrow to see underworld at central park because i worked all last weekend. i know i was just on vacation, but as predicted, i returned to an office in chaos, and i need a break again.

on rosh hashona, it is a tradition to eat apples with honey to signify a wish for a sweet year. i'm not sure i would call this past year a sweet one. not that it was bad, exactly, it was just... crazy.

i wonder what will happen in this new year?

current reading.

The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way

by Bill Bryson

yes, i am reading linguistics for fun. although this probably doesn't surprise anyone who knows me, and anyone who knows bill bryson knows that if anyone can make linguistics fun, he can. the fact that i think it's fun to begin with should probably not be admitted as valid evidence.

it's also reassuring to me as someone who jumped wholeheartedly into sociolinguistics that bryson doesn't restrict himself to chomsky (who is mentioned a few times), but also puts great stock in the work of william labov from upenn and often quotes the very book that my sociolinguistics prof used as our textbook, even if bryson was writing about 10 years before i would take that course.

the one downside to the book is that while bryson is aware of personal computers, his book does pre-date the explosion of the internet into mainstream global culture, and so some of his predictions about the english language have already been disproven.

it's still a fun book to read. i recommend it to anyone who likes words and wordplay, and even more so if you've seen the word prosperipromenon before.

accident.

i didn't actually notice that i had scheduled my vacation so that it buts up against the labor day weekend, but hey, i'll take the extra day off from work.

vacation is so weird. it's like a week out of time. a very relaxing week.

not really looking forward to heading back to the office tomorrow. oh well.

fweedom.

vacation started at 5pm yesterday. whee!

nevermind that i had to send 2 emails this morning because i forgot to in the rush to get everything done before i disappeared for a week.

i wonder if i can set up an "out of office" auto-reply on owa.

in the meantime, people are here, food is being planned, and things are generally going not at all relaxed, but hey. it's still vacation. i do think, in general, we allow our vocations to encroach too much on our personal space. "so, what do you do?" is always a question i've hated being asked, mostly because i've never had a job i liked, and i hated being identified with it. but then, i don't like being identified with much concrete. i prefer to not have to be nailed down that way. i'm never really understood why what one does to support oneself ought to carry so much weight on one's identity, especially in our post-industrial-revolution existence, where we only spend 1/3 of our waking hours doing that and 2/3 doing other things. usually more interesting things, unless you get really lucky.

i don't know.

i will get more coffee.

true story.

"i just don't get it."

"get what?"

"myspace."

"well, duh! you don't have any friends!"

"oh, right."

it doesn't work.

i have a macbook. i have a mini-DVI to DVI adapter. he has a DVI to VGA adaptor. the projector has a VGA port.

the made-by-apple mini-DVI to DVI and made-by-apple DVI to VGA adaptors are incompatible.

come on, people. where's all this i hear about the ease of the user experience?

hmf.

making space.

i am not a very spontaneous person. i don't like surprises or snap decisions. in fact, react very badly to surprises. i tend to freeze up and panic. this causes me to attempt to plan my days out, often by the minute, so i have a nice, predictable schedule that keeps squishyness and unpredictable event to a minimum.

this also means i tend to schedule myself tightly, and, because life is life, i end up running late a lot. but lately i've also noticed it's costing me opportunities. this is probably because it's summer, but when i'm, say, driving to work, because i have the commute planned down to the minute (hello, OCD!), i don't have the time to, say, stop by a farmer's stand and pick up some juicy ripe tomatoes.

but more bothering, i don't have the mental space to do it. i may drive past the stand, see the tomatoes (or corn or peaches or whatever), and think, "wow, they look yum," but i won't stop to buy some. not necessarily because i'm running late or because i don't have the money, but because often i'm not, but because it wasn't in my plan when i walked out of the house. i miss hitting the bakery a lot too.

i don't know if there's anything i can actually do about this; it seems an intrinsic part of my personality.

maybe i just need to start planning to be more spontaneous.

happy birthday?

the kitty is 4 years old. somewhere around this time of year. or something. i'm not sure he knows any better anyway. but at least he's finally found a scratching post that he likes. he is, however, still dumb. cute, but dumb. he seems happy, though, and i suppose that's all that really counts.

everyone together now: awwwwwwww.

reductio ad absurdam.

it's even coming to science. one of the things i've been pondering recently is what post-modern science will look like. science is the ultimate enlightenment discipline, with its emphasis on reduction, and its power granted by the liberation from the medieval insistence that questioning was an inherent sign of a lack of Faith.

mushy genetics.

i think one of the reasons i'm so intrigued by astrophysicis is probably because it doesn't really require as much reductionism as, say, biology. it looks for answers, yes, but in many cases, it has to be comfortable with ambiguity. perhaps with the infusion of post-modernism into the scientific world, people will become more interested in answering those questions and less concerned with, say, the GUT.

i dunno, somehow this excites me. i'm more than ready to throw off the linear, structural restrictions of the enlightenment world.

this will probably get me into trouble someday.

sand, sun, and so forth.

we are going to the shore tomorrow. yay!

it's not quite the week we used to spend there when i was a little kid, but at least we're going this year. i really miss it. summer just doesn't seem summer without a trip to the shore.

summer drinks.

note to self: earl grey tea makes a really nice iced tea.

i will have to make more.

holiday.

whee, independence day.

i don't think many people really give any thought to what that really means. most of the countries/nationalities in the world don't have a specific date they can point to and say, "there. that's when our identity fundamentally changed." because that's really what we're taking time to observe here. a fundamental change in how we identify ourselves.

it's very trendy right now to downplay any significance of the united states of america at all, but if nothing else, i think this country has done that much. it proved that you can create your own identity. you don't have to be stuck with the one everyone else gave you.

even though it was wrapped in the very center of enlightenment values, the creation of this country as an independent country was sort of the first blow towards the end of the enlightenment and its rigid structure of authority of knowledge.

or i could just be thinking way too much for my day off work. enjoy the fireworks.

surrender.

so. i have acquired a mac.

a white macbook, in fact. core 2 duo, 2.16 ghz, 1gb ram, 120gb hdd.

i've been doing some coding in my spare time, while he's at class or at work, and i'm finding it difficult to concentrate in the very hot, computer-filled office. having a laptop i can use to earn a little money (always one of my favourite choices in Darklands) actually became something of a necessity. and since i can run windows on the macbook, it became the obvious choice

parallels is kind of crashy, though. i might have to just go with boot camp, in the end.

we bought it on the same deal we bought his two years ago... student discount, free ipod. now i have a blue 4gb ipod nano. it feels much less sturdy than my old ipod mini. i'm half convinced it'll snap in half if i put it in my jeans pocket.

i'm still getting used to the whole mac way of doing things, but at least my mouse works.

also, happy summer. the solstice was at 2:06 pm EDT yesterday. and today was just absolutely gorgeous weather.

off the bell curve.

i went out looking for a new cellphone yesterday. i've had a nokia 6820 for a cuople years now, but technology keeps moving on, and i had the urge to see if it was worth it to try and take advantage of the upgrades cingular keeps offering me.

it isn't.

oddly enough, the 6820 is perfect for me: it makes calls, it's relatively small, and it's easy to text-message on (all hail the full QWERTY keyboard! hail!) i checked out a fancy walkman phone from sony-ericsson and another high-end s60 symbian phone from nokia. with neither of them could i figure out text-messaging. and i neither need nor want a blackberry/treo/pocketpc phone. i don't need a phone that can sync with an exchange server and track my calendar and my gas mileage and when the next krakatoa eruption will happen.

apparently, someone has decided that mashing 26 characters onto 8 keys is a good idea. the 6820 has a shitty camera and it scratches up my ipod, but for what i use a phone for, i can't find a better one. "aha," you say, "why not wait for the iphone?" i'm not even going to consider the iphone. for that kind of money, i'd rather have a PS3. honestly. even if there aren't any games for it. unless someone else is paying, i guess ;)

this is what i get for not using a phone like everyone else, apparently. very sigh.

blogger is on crack.

why is my blog archive suddenly in spanish? there doesn't even seem to be an option to change the language.

wtf?

just for posterity's sake... picture

happy memorial day.

note to self: finger vs bread knife = bread knife victory.

owie.

a concatenation of death.

so, about a month ago, a co-worker's father-in-law died of stomach cancer. then the grandmother of a good friend died in a car crash. yesterday, i come back from my lunch break to find out that another person i know has died in a motorcycle accident. he was 24.

could you people please stop dying? my nerves would appreciate it.

edumacation.

for everyone i forgot to tell, he got into villanova university. yay :) he will be starting in january 2008 working towards a bachelor's of science in business.

this means calculus starts in two weeks. run away!

decisions.

we are now the proud(?) owners of a 2007 royal blue honda civic (4-door sedan, EX). it is still at the dealer getting the bass kit installed. this should not surprise anyone.

what this really means is that hopefully this thursday, i get to give back to dad his crappy little chevy which needs a new clutch, and i get to drive the golf. the golf is going to need a new timing belt in 10,000 miles, but at least it goes. and it's fun to drive. and i'm keeping the crazy ipod-and-phone multi-charger setup, except i don't think i'm putting the ez-pass plastic velcro on the back of my ipod so i can have it mounted vertically behind the steering wheel (unlike some people i could mention).

car. sigh.

oh, you stupid cat.

after 3 years, he finally fucking threw up on my bed.

*grumble*

*goes to put the comforter in the wash*

poor finances to the rescue.

there shall be no SUV. so it was, so it forever shall be.

actually, we can't afford the one we (he) wanted. so it's looking more like a honda civic sedan, because apparently there are only 2 manufacturers who can make a telescoping steering wheel, which is remarkably important when you're not the same physical dimensions as your average crash test dummy. w00t little car.

respite.

new job starts tomorrow. i am, of course, uncontainably nervous. moving from a very, one might say excessively casual, effectively all-male engineering firm to a church office is a professional shift of titanic proportions.

wow, that was a cool sentence.

anyway. i've never been one to take uncertainty quietly. i don't like surprises. i like to have things planned out beforehand. i adore routine. this probably has something to do with OCD and the like, but hey. it's how i am. the problem here is that i have absolutely no idea what is going to happen tomorrow. i'm not even sure when i'm supposed to be there. i think i'll shoot for 8:30.

rrrr.

i guess i'll try to enjoy the rest of my vacation.

cravings.

i think passover is getting to me. i dreamt of eating cake all last night. and i don't even like cake.

and it's only halfway through. i think i shall go forth in search of bagels tuesday night. bagels are much preferable to cake.

small-minded, petty bourgeois.

so we are doing something i never thought i would have to admit to: we are considering buying an SUV.

a small one. a small, comparatively fuel-efficient (compared to other SUVs, that is... after getting 45MPG, nothing else really seems to warrant the label "fuel-efficient"), japanese one, of the "grocery-getter" variety. but an SUV nonetheless.

the logic is as follows: we need a second car. he needs one in which he can haul computers and their accoutrements around. it would be more logical to give me the car that is practically costing more to keep on the road than it's worth at this point (yet another timing belt change coming up), and let him start putting the 25,000 miles a year on a new car. and three years from now, when he's done getting his degree, will be the best time, if any, to spawn.

and at that point, a car with several thousand miles on it, but one that was explicitly designed to handle spawn, would sort of be practical. and it seems silly, not to say financially unwise, to buy another small, fuel-efficient car now, and then have to get another, bigger one anyway in only 3 years.

we are... disenchanted with volkswagen. not only is the rabbitgolf no longer offered with the TDI engine, we have had significantly bad experiences with VW's dealers and so-called trained mechanics. especially when it comes to servicing TDIs. hence the consideration of a small, sort-of-fuel-efficient SUV.

wibble.

and also, whoever names the quote gets a carrot.

seasonal existences.

so apparently, i missed the equinox. spring has sprung, etc. passover and easter fast approacheth.

i would also like to point out, that it is only now, a week after the change of the seasons, that the benefits of daylight savings time are apparent. idiots.

acquisitions.

i need a new messenger bag. well. i guess i don't need one, i just want one. the one i have falls down on one major feature (no pocked in the flap) and one minor feature (no pocket for my ipod).

unfortunately, my real problem is that i have a pretty strict feature list when i look for a bag, and i don't think anyone makes one that i want *sniffle* the ideal bag would have/be the following:

- just big enough to carry an 8 1/2 x 11 notebook
- a cellphone pocket
- an ipod pocket
- a pocket in the flap
- a detachable key clip
- clip fasteners... no magnets. and definitely no velcro!
- a zippered pocket for holding pocketknife/zippo
- pockets for pens

i think that's it.

*sigh* still searching...

deep breath.

so they called me yesterday morning and tendered a formal offer. full-time position, not much money, but benefits, which, insofar as we have them now, we are paying for entirely out-of-pocket.

it is a job in the church office; they need someone who is more qualified, although possibly less convenient. the position is a little bit of everything (partly because they rolled 2 part-time positions into one, so they could offer me benefits): DBA, content creation, project management, phones, email... fwoomp.

it'll mean buying a second car, which could suck. but it will also mean getting rid of a job that sucks my will to live and offers me no respect or advancement potential at all. we're going to run some numbers, but in the end, i feel pretty good about the change.

of course, the timing is working out such that i'll be thrown into a church office full in the throes of its post-easter chaos. whee!

fwee.

second interview tomorrow, 10am. i've never had a second interview. this is weird.

and nervewracking. i shall now commence to run around screaming for a little while.

also, if anyone could tell me why the OpenSSL people have four RSA ciphering functions instead of the usual two, i'd appreciate it. it's bothering me.

odd traditions.

after walking home in a sleet storm, i can't not have a cup of earl grey tea. specifically twinings earl grey. it just makes me feel warm and comfortable somehow.

i am not sure this is a tradition anyone should really have to develop. that i have says... something about me, but i'm not sure what.

progress.

so yeah. i had that job interview on tuesday. i have absolutely no idea how it went. she was very friendly, but equally non-committal. it was left at, "we'll be in touch, and there are other people you need to talk to."

so, um...i guess it went well? i dunno.

posturing.

it's 7:30am. it's grey outside. i am sitting at my computer with lights turned on that didn't have to be turned on friday morning at 7:30am. how, exactly, is switching to DST 2 weeks earlier supposed to save energy?

look, i don't know what romantic nostalgia holds sway in the halls of the capitol, but the 21st century american life does not, in fact, follow the solar day. our workdays and schooldays aren't starting later so that we don't have to turn on the lights this morning that we were turning on in the evening last week. there is no valid argument for the industrial world. and as for the agricultural world, cows don't care what human clocks say. my cat is quite confused this morning.

i'd say i hope they pass a law this week and change DST back to what it was, but having gone through the mess the last couple weeks with computer patching, it seems a pity to waste it.

more winter.

snow today. having started late, it appears winter is going to hang on, and nevermind what the damn groundhog said.

although, i always wondered: if he sees his shadow and that means 6 more weeks of winter, is that the upper bound? if he doesn't see his shadow, could it be anywhere from 24 hours left of winter all the way to the realm of the white witch?

i hate march. fucking schizophrenic month. it was nearly 60(F) on saturday.

job interview on tuesday. 4pm. eeeeeeeeeee.

cookies.

happy purim. i have made hamentaschen.

does anyone know any other use for poppyseed filling?

in like a lion.

or something.

march is, without a doubt, my least favourite month of the year. still no breaks from work, no major holidays, just the last grey, wet slog of winter. even the equinox doesn't help much; it's still wet. every year i become more and more convinced that march will be the month in which i will someday kill myself.

on the other hand, this march may not be so bad. i may be getting a new job. at least, i have an interview in 2 weeks(ish). more news as it happens.

Hotel Dusk Room 215.

i first heard about this game by reading penny arcade. tycho's original comment on the game was as follows:

It's basically a videogame for people who like books. I'm trying to figure out if that's like a ballet for people who like masonry, but there's definitely something here.

now this, of course, piqued my interest immediately. what can i say? i am a nerd, yes. however, he also linked to this extremely slow-loading but gorgeous video of the japanese version of the game (simply called "Wish Room"). watching the video, you become aware that these hand-drawn sketches are in fact visions of in-game play. the interest became an obsession.

when the opportunity to acquire the game for $5 off at toys'r'us presented itself, i was, of course, overwhelmed. in a rare feat for me, i completed the game in what it tells me was 35 hours and change (about two weeks in calendar time). the amount of video games i have completed in the past 15 years or so of playing video games can be counted on one hand.

the game is, on the surface, a noir-esque point-and-click adventure game of the old style, similar to, for example, the Monkey Island franchise, except your main character is a depressed ex-cop named Kyle Hyde instead of a goofy pirate. however, Hotel Dusk has much more film/novel influence. the game's attention is almost entirely based on the narrative and character development with the puzzle-solving coming in almost as an afterthought. it is basically like playing your way through a mildly interactive novel illustrated with pencil-and-watercolor sketches. i will confess to, on occasion, consulting a walkthrough on occasion when a puzzle took an odd or, in one case, an entirely unexpected technique to solve.

one of the things about nintendo's DS handheld that makes it attractive is that if you have to drop the game now, you can just close the lid and it suspends itself in its current state. this also has the advantage of allowing you to shove the thing into your pocket or bag while not losing the state of your game. it was, therefore, not at all anticipated that the makers of Hotel Dusk would use this mechanism to solve puzzles. there are two puzzles in the game which can only be solved by closing and then opening the handheld. while most of the puzzles to follow the adventure genre standard technique of choosing the right item in your inventory and applying it correctly or combining it with the other item, Hotel Dusk really uses the DS hardware in some neat ways.

the other thing i really liked about the game was the way it forced you to play the character. more often than not, the story is progressed by conversations with the other characters than solving puzzles. but the conversation threads are in themselves puzzles, because when you come to a major plot point, the game gives you a choice of which way you want to direct the conversation. choose the wrong one, and you lose the game. as the story progresses, it becomes easier to choose the right conversation path. your main character is an ex-NYPD detective. so all you really have to do is be able to think like a cop *grin* you can tell he's used to getting people to talk; the writers of the game give you the classic open-ended, yet subtly hinted questions to ask your fellow guests at the hotel. it's your job to think like a cop and decide which one will get them to spill their guts.

while the end of the game ties up most of the plot points, the story doesn't really have a happy ending, which is another thing that sets Hotel Dusk apart. i really enjoyed it still. and it's just a beautiful game. i give it 4.5 carrots out of 5. i only wish it had been longer :) i'd also love to add my voice to tycho's expressed desire for a sequel. more Kyle Hyde would always be welcome.

partial retraction.

ok, so it is kind of nice to be able to change fonts and colours without having to read o'reilly's Big Book of HTML or whatever.

snow day.

got my snow day. well, more like ice day. it's been sleeting for over 12 hours now. something tells me he's not going to get any flowers this year.

however, unlike the last ice storm i was in, i have power this time, which means i can make hot cocoa and play zelda. whee!

[edit] actually, that's wrong. when the power went out that time, it was the middle of the afternoon, and i was playing dungeon keeper on my laptop so i didn't even notice the power switched over to the battery. 20 minutes later, someone finally found me and told me the power was out. i suppose i couldn't've made hot cocoa, though.

change of plans.

this was going to be a review of Hotel Dusk, but instead google made me switch over to "new blogger."

I DO NOT WANT TO USE NEW BLOGGER. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOUR ADVERTISING REVENUE OR ANY OTHER BULLSHIT. LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.

also, your new interface sucks. and i refuse to use tags. you offer me nothing of worth and a whole lot of aggravation.

assholes.

end rant.

stupid brain.

i'm depressed again. argh.

one of the things i hate about depression is how relentlessly inward-focused it is. it makes you so stupid and selfish. all you can think about is yourself. i mean, really, suicide is probably one of the most selfish and arrogant acts there is. you have somehow convinced yourself that ending your pain is more important than the pain you'll cause everyone else by killing yourself. or you've convinced yourself that there's somehow something so utterly wrong with you that the world will actually be better off without you. that's an insane (pun intended) amount of arrogance, if you ask me.

that doesn't mean that i don't stand there with a bottle of percocets in my hand seriously considering taking every last one of them. it just means that when i manage to pull my stupid brain out of its depressed fog, i feel disgust at myself. which leads to more depression and so on.

stupid brain chemicals. behave for once :P

Children of Men.

we went to see Children of Men last friday. for those who don't know, it's a dystopian vision of britian in 2027 after 18 years of unexplained human infertility and the effective collapse of civilization as we know it. clive owen plays the main character, a rumpled cynic who ends up trying to save a young woman who is "miracuously" pregnant from anyone and everyone who wants to use her pregnancy for their own personal gain.

i thought it was a really great movie. i'm really disappointed neither of the two lead actors has gotten any recognition this awards season, because they both definitely deserve it. do, however, ignore any other reviews of this movie that talk about clive owen's character's "transformation." he never really transforms. he basically has pretty strong principles, and he doesn't have any time for bullshit. that's not to say there's no character development, but you ust get the feeling that he goes about his life doing what he has to do. in the beginning, that's working a shit job, trying to avoid terrorist bombings, and getting stoned. when he meets the pregnant claire-hope ashitey (who really deserves at least a nomination), that means keeping her and her unborn baby safe. basically, the whole movie is him doing what he feels he has to do and not putting up with bullshit, no matter how crazy and disgusting and violent it gets.

and it does get violent. as we were walking out of the theatre, he commented to me, "this is the type of movie you'd study in film class." and he's right. alfonso cuarón has done an excellent job with this movie. except for two really glaring continuity errors, you get the feeling like this is a movie where nothing is onscreen by accident. even when blood gets splashed on the camera lense and stays there for the whole take, it doesn't look like a mistake. neither does it look like a self-concious breaking of the fourth wall; it's more, in my mind at least, almost like a sign of intimacy.

some parts of the movie are funny, and ultimately it ends on a note of hope, but it's not a happy movie. and it's never going to be a mainstream smash hit. it reminds me a little bit of Gattaca, in a way. like gattaca, it's a dystopic vision of the not-too-far-awayfuture. in 5 years, it'll be mentioned in cautionary postings by slashdotters. but i would definitely recommend seeing it. am i still using carrots? 3 1/2 carrots.

delayed arrival.

global warming, el nino, whatever. this has been a very warm winter. but now it seems as though the cold has finally arrived: we have had our first real snowfall. a light coating, less than an inch. but still, everything is white and quiet. perfect for christmas, really.

and i get to walk to work in it.

modern living.

for the first time in 5 years, we now have health insurance. this is very weird. and expensive.

also, for the first time ever, i have to administer my own insurance. this means apparently calling numbers and tracking down things like prescription drug coverage, and pointing out to people that 10/10 and 10/01 are two different dates.

i have the feeling i will spend the next week or so in a state of mild confusion. although looking at the so-called health insurance industry, if i only spend a week in a state of mild confusion, i'll have gotten off lightly.

working thoughts.

this came to me this morning. the office of our "business development manager" (read: salesman) is just around the corner from mine, and i can hear most of his phone conversations.

reason #527 that i will never be able to be in sales: i am incapable of using the word "synergies" in an unironical fashion.

ringing in the new year.

and i'm sick. dammit. woke up this morning with a wonderful sore, swollen throat and a sinus headache. so maybe the new work year will get off to a later start.

probably going out without a coat in the cold drizzle to watch the fireworks last night didn't help matters. but, you know, it's new year's eve, your coat is buried somewhere with everyone else's and it's not your apartment, so after watching the ball drop in times square on tv, we all rushed outside to catch the fireworks at penn's landing. and now the virus is happy.

happy new year, indeed. hope no one else is sick.