An idea for a book: Cursing the Darkness in Broad Daylight: Middle America's Obsession with Negative News and it's Impact on Prosperity.
I'm still very tired from my most recent cold; time to start going to bed at a decent hour again instead of staying up working on Toybox. If I do that, I can also begin to get up early and exercise before work.
My car is in the shop. Poor little car, it's been leaking coolant and oil and making strange, eerily non-mechanical noises. I get the feeling the beast was much happier driving 40 miles a day in two 20-mile bursts, not 16 miles a day in 3 or 4-mile bursts. Too bad, I'm MUCH happier this way.
Going to Culver City tonight to buy some Porter ingredients. The first Lizard Sweat brew of the year is this Sunday.
OK, time to look at my projects from last year. Where have I succeeded, where am I behind, and does it really matter?
Project Briar Patch: A success! Every job I've had since March has been local. It looks like I can successfully stay in the South Bay if I'm willing to be a bit more flexible about what kind of job I'll take (for example, looking outside the games industry). I haven't turned my free time toward anything useful yet; that's this year's project.
Project Ellington: No progress. I still know about 2.5 songs on the piano. I'm continuing this project for 2003; I will learn two jazz standards on the piano by 2004.
Project Labyrinth: No progress. I probably could have done better on these two projects this year, were it not for the fact that I felt like I should be looking for jobs rather than juggling and playing music. Oh well. Continuing for 2003: Learn the basic moves of contact juggling.
Project Green Thumb, Part II: I kept everything alive during the summer -- but now most of it is dead from lack of water. I did get some tasty boysenberries this year, and the cats enjoyed the catnip. Project Green Thumb, Part III: Install a drip irrigation system on the balcony in 2003.
I think this project is funny and cool, and will probably yield interesting results. Having said that, I want to make a deal with the artists, critics, and spiritualists of the world. I won't pretend to understand postmodernism, modern critical theory, advanced existentialist philosophy, linguistics, or semantics. You, in turn, can stop pretending to understand quantum mechanics.