The Universe is Freakin' Amazing

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Photo Phriday

#29 in a series of benches.
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Because Everyone Wants To...

Thank you, Geoff Johns, Shane Davis, and Sandra Hope, for creating the cutest evil in the galaxy!

Photo Phursday

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APE 2008

I've been planning on NOT going to APE this year. I've been to the last five and enjoyed myself, but I knew that a few of my favorite booth people aren't going to be there and there's the whole it's-hard-to-enjoy-life-when-everything-suck thing that's going on with me and work and my general down-ness.

However, now that I know that Jeph Jacques and Jennie Breeden are going to be there, the thought of staying in my apartment all weekend has become less palatable.

Reinforcement

It really sucks how little things can reinforce the bad things you believe about yourself.

Photo Phednesday

#28 in a series of benches.
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Truth

Me, too.

Photo Phuesday

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$17.36

That's the price of my phone bill and I am aware that it's pretty good deal.

Still, as I was writing a check to pay it last night I figured that I made one call over the last month.

A Question

How does one tell a guy that, no, his cousin didn't just say "kite" while talking about Jewish people, in a polite way in a work environment?

Photo Phonday

#27 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phunday

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Photo Phaturday

#26 in a series of benches.
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HOORAY!

To quote me about work from something I writ last week, "Nothing's gotten harder. Nothing's gotten easier."

Well, guess what? They found a way to make it harder!

HOORAY! Hip-hip HOORAY!

Just when I thought I couldn't hate my job any more, the good people in charge figure out how to ruin the two good things about this new system: 1. I didn't have to pull files. 2. I didn't have to drop papers in files.

Now, I do.

Earlier this week I was offered overtime. For a couple of days I actually thought the mental anguish would be worth the extra money. Don't think that no more.

Photo Phriday

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Photo Phursday

#25 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phednesday

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Photo Phuesday

#24 in a series of benches.
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Third

I plan to do as well as I did last year.

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Photo Phunday

#23 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phaturday

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Work (or Why So Light on the Posts?)

To the astute observer, which would be anyone who takes the time to skim this blog, I haven't exactly been putting much substance into this here blog.

Oh, sure, I have the photos to keep my post count going up and up, but unless I go out somewhere interesting and remember my camera and then remember to take pictures, I'ma gonna run out of them photos in 'bout two weeks. Then what?

The problem is my job. (Christ, I can already hear the eyeballs rolling and the see the people sighing.) I'm at a point in the hatred of my job where it's what I mostly think about and it's what I want to talk about.

Jeez, did I find out how much I wanted to talk about it last weekend when I went to Cowtown. Nearly everyone I visited asked me how work was going (Thank you, Heels, for not.) and I'd start talking. And I had to try real hard not to just let it all go at once. It's like when you have diarrhea. Sure, you could just loosen up your sphincter, push, and let everything rush out at 65 MPH, but if you do you risk ass-plosions on the seat and severe splash back on your butt. The smart way to handle the diarrhea is to use your sphincter and let it come out in short, controlled bursts. I had to exercise that kind of control while talking to people about work. If I hadn't I could have, easily, talked about how much worse this job has become and how it's effected me for thirty minutes, and the other person wouldn't have had to ask a question during that time because questions would have just kept me going even longer.

I don't think I went on and on about my job while visiting family and friends. I hope I kept things short and to the point and never sounded like I wanted to crawl into a deep, dark hole, cover my head, and just wait until it's over.

In the end, work is all I really want to write about, too. Well, I don't really want to write about work, but it's the only thing that's going through my head. If a bomb went off in the park killing twenty kindergarteners and fifty homeless puppies and kitties, I'd still only be able to write about the crappiness of work.

Because it's always there.

Always.

I don't enjoy reading or watching TV/movies/plays like I used to.
Music isn't as fun to sing along with.
Things still make me laugh, but they aren't as funny as they used to be and I never seem to laugh as long or hard as I used to.
I have trouble falling asleep -- sometimes my brain races, sometimes I have a hard time getting comfortable, sometimes I'm comfortable and my brain's quiet but I still have to lay there and just wait for sleep to come.
I sleep through the night, with a pee break sometimes, but I don't feel as though I've slept much.
My neck aches.
I always feel tired.
Conversations are harder. Thinking is harder. Doing is harder.
My insides feel heavy.
My fingers look fat.
I don't feel cheerful anymore.

The general solution, I know, is to get another job. And I want a new job. Unfortunately, in the past two-ish years there have been nearly twenty interviews. I think I got called three times to be told I didn't get the job (and I only know of three times that my supervisor was called and asked about me). There were only five or six letters sent to me saying I didn't get the job. The rest I never heard from again, but since I haven't interviewed since July it's pretty safe to assume I didn't get those positions, either.

Now, I'm just to worn out to try. If I didn't make a good impression while I was feeling good and feeling good about myself, what kind of an impression would I make feeling the way I feel now?

There are people out there who would read that and want to tell me to hold on, to keep trying, because something good is coming. It's unhelpful to hear that, though, because I'm not even asking for something good, just something better. "Better" doesn't mean good, either. "Better" would be my job the way it used to be -- boring and thoughtless. Plus, I'm not a big fan of fate; it makes me uncomfortable.

(An aside, Geewits did this post basically describing her idea of life in a picture. All I could see was a tangle. Don't know if I would have seen it that way three months ago.)

All this is to explain, to those few of you, why I don't write as much here as I used to, but I'm not sure if I have, so I'm just going to say it:

Work is all that I want to write about, but I'm tired of writing about it. All I do is repeat myself because the problems haven't changed. Nothing's gotten harder. Nothing's gotten easier. Communication is still non-existent from the way higher-ups. The more I think about it, the more confusing work gets. If I don't think about it, though, I can't do anything that's expected of me.

I'm tired of writing about work and I'm tired of thinking about work and I think that you few are tired of reading about my job. But work is all that seems to be in me right now.

Photo Phriday

#22 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phursday

#3 in a series of 3 signs.
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Photo Phednesday

#21 in a series of benches.
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Thorough

I think my soul has been thoroughly crushed for the day.
Still, I have 25 minutes before I can leave, without getting dinged.
Unfair.

Photo Phuesday

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Photo Phonday

#20 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phunday

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Photo Phaturday

#19 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phriday

#2 in a series of 3 signs.Click for embiggening.

Soon... s-OOOOOOOO-n

I will leave work.
I will walk to the JC to watch a play.
I will sleep.
I will get in my car and drive to Cowtown.
I will be glad to be away from here and this.

Casting

Mailed off my absentee ballot this morning.

Sort of felt dirty after filling in the bubbles.

No matter who gets into office, their first year, or more, will be defined by the bailout passed last week unless there's a disaster of 9-11 or the 2008 Sichuan earthquake proportions.

I find myself missing the idealism of my youth and I'm not even 30.

Photo Phursday

#18 in a series of benches.
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Trekkie, and What That Entails

I addressed many of my concerns about the new Star Trek movie a while ago.

Then I came across this:

And it's controversial to even mention Star Wars and Star Trek in the same sentence, but Alex said, "We have to bring more Star Wars into Star Trek." Original Star Wars. I want to feel the space, I want to feel speed and I want to feel all the things that can become a little bit lost when Star Trek becomes very stately -- which I love about it , but....

(All quotes from this article.)

So tell me, what is Star Wars? The good ones, I mean. What are those movies and what about them do the writers of the new Trek movie want in Star Trek?

Is it the action? There's no denying that there tends to be more action in Star Wars and it's hard to deny that it was the action in Star Trek: First Contact that led it to be the highest grossing TNG cast movie because it's not the most non-fan friendly story.

Is it the look and worn/used feel of the Star Wars universe? (Although I'd argue that none of the Imperial ships nor the big rebel ships look "worn." If you want a used future watch Alien; that's future tech that's getting worn out.) Star Trek isn't about being worn out, at least Starfleet isn't. For more worn and lived in future in the Trek universe there are the Klingons. Star Trek tends to be about looking to the future more than hanging on to things of the past, especially when it comes to technology.

Is it the fantasy elements and the lack of "technobabble"? One thing that's always been certain to me is the Star Trek is a harder form of science fiction than Star Wars. Trek likes to take the time to explain the science (and "science") behind everything, Wars just shows that it works and doesn't care why. (And then when it does *cough*midichlorians*cough* the explanation makes little or no sense.) Star Wars is more of a fantasy with its swords and the magical ability to crush throats from across the room and duels and such.

Is it the focus on a small main cast rather than an ensemble? The original Star Wars movies really only had three main character: Luke, Han, and Leia. In a 90- or 120-minute film a small group of main characters makes for a tighter film. One of the reasons I had a hard time watching the TNG movies was because they tried to shift the focus of a seven character ensemble TV show onto only two characters while giving the other five characters a "moment" in the films.

This choice seems the most logical to me because TOS focused on three main characters pretty exclusively.

Still, I want to know, what is Star Wars and what about it needs to be infused into Star Trek?

It's about how the original crew came together, which was never covered in its entirety by either the show or any of the movies. No one has ever told the story of how the Enterprise set sail.

Of course if it's a twenty-something Kirk newly an officer, then how is he building a crew for the ship he captains approximately ten years later?

I think that sometimes some stories never need to be told. When they told the origin story of Wolverine in the comics it only made me sad because I had built up my own ideas about his past based on many of the things he'd done and the memories that had surface. Star Wars's most recent trilogy was a huge disappointment to me, partly because they were just bad movies, but also because, again, I'd developed my own back story for Vadar that I liked better.

Now comes this movie. Is it so bad for me to picture that James T. Kirk inherited the Enterprise from Christopher Pike. The ship already had a crew, including Spock, and a few new people came aboard with Kirk and over the five year mission they became a team and friends.

Sure, my origin isn't as exciting as a time traveling Spock and Klingons and Romulans, but it's an origin that smacks of realism and for a show so full of the fantastic the few moments of realism make the fantastical elements more acceptable.

There's going to be a debate when this movie comes out whether or not it's consistent with canon. We argue that it is.

And that's sort of the end of it, really. If it's a good movie, most fans will agree that it is. If it sucks and tanks Paramount will do what Warner Bros is doing to Superman Returns, pretend it never existed and most fans will go along with that.

Me? Even if it sucks I'll accept it as cannon, but I'll always remember my simple origin and continue to think it was a better storytelling choice.

Still, I hope it's good. I hope I see the ship on screen and am in awe. I hope that Uhura is more than just eye-candy and that the guy who plays Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy is a worthy successor of the subtle brilliance that DeForest Kelly brought to the roll for nearly thirty years.

God, I so very much hope.

Photo Phednesday

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Photo Phuesday

#17 in a series of benches.Click for embiggening.

"Nationalize"

Heard that word a lot this weekend while listening to the radio. It was all about the US nationalizing debt and banks (Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae) and Cricket Christ knows what else. I got bad shivers every time I heard it.

Never thought that word -- nationalize -- would effect me like that.

I guess it's true what they say, profit is privatized, but loss is socialized.

The more I pay attention to the outside world, the more disturbed I get. Too bad focusing on work won't work to distract me.

Photo Phonday

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Photo Phunday

#16 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phaturday

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VP Debate

Christ, I wish Biden had made Palin cry. That would have been worth watching.

Photo Phriday

#15 in a series of benches.
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Photo Phursday

#1 in a series of 3 signs.
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42 Things That Are Good

1. "Under Pressure" by Davide Bowie and Queen
2. Peanut Butter
3. The first frost of fall. (Although we don't get ours here until the last week or so of November.)
4. This xkcd comic.
5. Methyl Salicylate, in safe amounts.
6. How the hat is involved with the Golden Plates.
7. Brothers
8. Scott Pilgrim comics
9. Barenaked Ladies, the band or the naked ladies.
10. $5 night at the movie theater.
11. Thinking about a comic my brother and I came up with, but will probably never make. And if it does get made, it'll never be published.
12. Daria, the TV show
13. "Daria," the Cake song
14. Raccoon faces
15. Fainting goats
16. Republican blocking the bailout plan on Monday.
17. The freshly cut ends from a stick of salami.
18. Thunder and lightning
19. Warm rains where the drops are the size of bees.
20. The extra fuzzy part of carpets under couches.
21. Aquaman, the best superhero
22. Stargate: Atlantis
23. New comic day
24. Tina Fey as Sarah Palin
25. Tina Fey, in general
26. Pen and paper RPGs with friends
27. The upside down question mark. (¿)
28. Fables
29. Jack of Fables
30. ANSI Art
31. Cheese
32. Star Trek and most of what's followed.
33. Low clouds pressed into flat discs.
34. Wood stoves
35. Prime numbers
36. Why stars twinkle.
37. The Muppet Show
38. Blogs devoted to critically thinking about comics.
39. The smell of new, pink erasers.
40. Plurals that end in -ices.
41. Math jokes
42. 5:00 PM

Photo Phednesday

#14 in a series of benches.
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