So, it’s 4am, and here I sit instead of sleeping. I tried to give sleep a whirl, more or less, but after about the 5th or 6th elbow to the ribs from a tossing and turning partner, I gave it up. It’s getting to be that time of year when the declining temperatures serve to remind you what your true purpose is around the house: to provide warmth. And I mean this literally. One cat on top of you, snugged into the crook of your knee, preventing you from turning, and the other, well… she figured out how to get underneath blankets on her own a few years back, and now I can be assured that on cold nights I will discover the critter nestled up against me. Careful not to move too fast, unless you like to wake with a full set of claws embedded in your arm. One would suppose that critters covered in soft fur would manage to stay warm on their own, but I am convinced that all that fur is strictly ornamental.
You ever feel you have a great idea in your head, just bouncing around, but all you are pulling at is little bits of it that make no sense? I’m feeling very creative right now, but also very scatterbrained. I was writing some C++ code earlier, chasing my tail down some blind alleys, not at all helped by the fact that this little laptop is too slow to run a proper IDE, the display is too small to have more than one terminal open at a time, and couple the fact that vi is linked to elvis, which insists that instead of toggling command/insert mode on pressing ‘escape’ what you really meant was that you wanted to two a two stroke escape sequence, well… it led to frustration. My commit message after all this mucking around said something to the effect of, ‘it’s a stub, but it is probably totally wrong and you would be better served to back up one rev and try again’. Why I feel the need to have cute commit messages to a repo no one but myself has access to, I have no idea.
I just finished watching the TV series ‘JPOD’, based on a book by Douglas Coupland of the same name. The series took a few eps to get its legs, but I thought it was trucking along pretty well, at least up to the cliffhanger of the first season. Well, only season; they didn’t bring it back for more. Which is fitting in a way, as Coupland can’t seem to wrap up an ending to save his soul. I get pissy reading his work; on one hand, it inspires me in that he has this way of wrapping up into neat little packages just what it is that I feel or am going through, but on the other, his writing is too pretentious, the characters are too witty for their own good, and each and every word requires pondering on the raft of meanings in order to ‘get’ what it is he is on about. That said, I have this awful urge to go buy more of his books.
I feel like I should be creating some content instead of just sitting here consuming it, blindly clicking refresh on slashdot as I surf the same small series of web sites hoping for something new to consume my thoughts for a few minutes. I guess I need to get out more or something, let my mind rattle some thoughts around. The snow has started falling here, which mostly precludes actually going hiking. I’ve somewhat felt the need to do some stop-motion videos. My first and only one seemed to turn out pretty OK, and after watching a number of them on youtube I feel somewhat inspired. However, we are going to be moving soon, so anything requiring a commitment of space is therefore on hold.
Speaking of moving, I hate trying to find a new place. It has all the qualitites of trying to win an eBay auction with little of the payoff. You scramble to find a deal before someone else snaps it up, with no real time to research and feel confident that you are picking a good place. I found one place that seemed decent, emailed, and it turned out to be some west African scammer. Sheeesh. I’m told the scammers are even getting into the dating sites now. It doesn’t seem that long ago that the internet lacked a lot of this seedy underbelly. How annoying.
I finally found time to get everything fixed on the motorcycle. New chain and sprockets, rebuilt forks, parts for the Pro-Oiler, the whole package. Of course, now it is starting to snow, which means more time spent in the pickup after all. Ah well. I still plan to ride as long as it is not snowing this winter, but I have this feeling that is going to be hard to do. Winter is coming in hard and fast, it didn’t even give fall time to get going good.
Ugh. Creativeness is waning again. Guess I should try the sleep thing again.
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