not falling down

The images I wanted to use have since been withdrawn from CC license and weren’t working out right anyway; this one is from this lovely composite shot by DimSumDarren and it’s a lot subtler, I think. Possibly too subtle. Maria pointed out that those are not technically ommatidia, but she also pointed out that “eww,” which is a better reaction than anything I managed with the bug-eye attempts.

So close, guys, we are so close to a finished book. Quick poll (and yes, COMMENTS ARE ACTUALLY OPEN): how long did it take you to notice that something in the picture was a little off?

Sometimes when you ask your brain for an idea it has nothing, and you ask your pocket notebook for an idea and it just shrugs its little moleskin shoulders, and then you ask Internet for an idea and it makes you put Youtube videos that you’ve already seen on your iPod for two hours, and you run out of buffered stories and it sucks.

Other times, you click the random article link and it tells you about nonexistent Popes on the very first try.

I love you, Wikipedia.

The quarterly investing magazinelet I get from my IRA holder has, as its latest cover line, “The Best-Laid Plans.” Like Anse Bundren, I don’t think they know the rest.

Plans are worthless. I had half an evening free from work tonight and it confused me: I had kind of forgotten what else to do with myself. I haven’t billed a mere 40 hours since the (four-day) week in which I flew back from London; last week–of which I theoretically spent half vacationing–I billed 60. It’s all for the same hideous, endless project, the kind you hear spook stories about from people who have spent too long working with computers. It was supposed to finally launch tonight, and I–as the project lead–hit every target that was required by 6:00. At 6:02 the client decided that two more problems were worth delaying launch for. By 8:30 (with my Tuesday friends waiting in the living room) I’d fixed those too. Guess whether the launch happened!

I need a vacation; the last one I had was nice, but it amounted to what most people would call a “weekend.” I’m running bufferless in all my endeavors and I obviously haven’t had time to write anything here. I also haven’t had time to get a haircut, pick up my new glasses or practice for a fairly important test.

Boo hoo, I get paid well to work on my couch. Pretend there’s a good segue here about writing, buffers, responsibility and personal milestones.

I miss MC Masala and I’m sad to see its archives disappearing from the Inside Bay Area site. Obviously, Sumana’s still blogging, but her column was different: the early ones had a conspiratory enthusiasm, as if the author was sneaking you in to see how columns work and wasn’t supposed to be there herself; the later ones displayed an enjoyable assurance and a growing set of tools for telling stories.

I hope she posts her own digital archive soon. Or (he murmured hypocritically) perhaps a book-on-demand?