Archive for March, 2006
Next Entries »Beat up the perk up!
Wednesday, March 8th, 2006Today I am perky, excitable, and simply revved with energy. I blame part of this on a good nights sleep, part of this on a few too many coffees this morning, and part of this on a delightfully rough little romp I had last night.
Today is turning out to be a pretty good day in general - I have a lot of work to do which is making the day fly by, and tonight I have another Bleeding Edge shoot which always makes the evening end quickly.
On a more dour note Brien won’t be back for over two weeks still. I’m really missing him and wish he was back here already. Six weeks is too long - he really should have just told his boss “no” when asked to go to Ireland for so long!
One-Eighty
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006The last 24 hours have brought about a full 180 in my mood. Yesterday I was feeling sick and was kind of bitchy as a result. Unfortunately the timing sucked and we had a rather nasty meeting at work were we were all told we really need to “take it to the next level”.
Barf.
Seriously people - don’t tell your overworked team to take it to the next level. Don’t tell them they need passion. Whatever you do don’t tell them this on the day that they are sick, in nicotine withdrawal, and in a meeting where you want people to be “cheerful”.
Needless to say I went home pissed, and spent much of the evening grumping around the house with Skype. A few episodes of Voyager, and some good old fashioned couch time seemed to help. I also talked with some friends and came up with some strategies to make the problem better and get my attitude back on track.
Luckily this morning (aside from worse than average traffic) I felt and acted much better. For some reason that full nights sleep (and perhaps an extra nicotine-free day) made me feel much better and about ten times healthier.
This combined with the fact that we are finally coming out of the dark ages at work and implementing an intranet with a decent CMS system (Sharepoint if anyone cares) and I’m getting closer to having a few deals fall into my hat have left me positively bouncy!
In sickness and health
Monday, March 6th, 2006That bastard Jason got me sick on Saturday! Not that I can really blame him though: I knew he was sick and still decided to go out to the movies with him. For a while on Sunday I thought I was just feeling badly because of nicotine withdrawals but finally came to the conclusion that I was just plain sick.
I really should not have gone out to the Oscar’s with the gay contingent but did anyway (big surprise there). Luckily there was Dayquil there so I got to experience cold medicine and wine mixing together in my system for that extra fluffy kind of afternoon. Once the Dayquil wore off I felt crappy again and had to go home and rest.
Today I’m here at work. I’m feeling better than I was yesterday, but still wish I could get home. I’m in a rather foul mood and it’s not helping me get motivated to get any of the positions I am working on filled. If I don’t start to feel better soon I might go home and cuddle with puppy early today and hope that makes me feel better.
The good news I am pleased to announce today is that I’ve officially made it through an entire week of quitting smoking! From here on out I’ll slap an “easy” sticker on the whole affair and stop posting about it!
Ultra-dissapointment
Saturday, March 4th, 2006Mr. Jason joined me today for a cinema experience: Ultraviolet. With Milla Jovovich in it I was expecting an action thriller, and unfortunately I got not merely an ultra-colorful and fun action flick: I got a horrible movie.
The action was beautiful and creative, the color palette was bright and happy, the visual effects were unique and very well done. Where the movie fell down was where they tried to make it touching, tried to make it a love story. About an hour into it there is a scene that takes place on a merry-go-round that is simply ridiculous. Milla and her on screen pre-pubescent counterpart talk, and it gets all mushy. It was so bad that people were loudly laughing in the theater.
It’s really sad because any editor with an ounce of talent could have taken the raw footage from the movie and made a pretty kick-ass 4/5 stars movie - but instead they used all the wrong non-action footage and got it a mere 1/5 stars. Sadly William Yeh (the editor) needs to be shot to make me feel better now.
Oh well - at least Jason and I had fun shopping for his new computer (to replace the one that was stolen by the corporate spies) and at least we got a good meal out of the evening if not a good movie.
I passed the test!
Saturday, March 4th, 2006Last night was fun as usual! I escaped work a bit early (I had an off-site meeting that got over at a little after 4:00 and I slipped out after) and went home to chill with Skype. After spending some time decompressing my friend Haven came to pick me up for dinner.
We ended up at the Twilight Exit after and Indian dinner. The Twilight Exit was certainly a new experience for me. Part dive bar, part geek hangout (with wifi and the works), part pool hall, and a tinsy dash of the smell of something horrible and frightening. The bar had a faint oder of cat piss, and although the smoking ban prevented people from smoking inside it still managed to have a murky atmosphere rich with impurities.
As most people could tell from even a cursory inspection of my life I’m not much for bars so I was not in a mood to stay that long. We left after about two hours and after a bit I made it home to relax.
The test I referred to in this posts title is a simple one: I made it through the entire night without smoking! I was a little worried about going out drinking, and it was indeed a bit of a challenge, but I figure that if I can make it through a couple of hours out at a bar five days into quitting cold turkey I can make it through anything.
As far as not smoking is going I’m completely happy with the results. I’m completely over the sick part of the withdrawals, and aside from a few triggers it’s pretty damn easy to just not even think about smoking. My lungs have better capacity already, and I don’t get winded nearly as easily.
My lungs quiver with delight!
Thursday, March 2nd, 2006It’s getting easier and easier not to smoke. I’m now going on nearly 5 days and I no longer feel on edge nor the urge to kill random strangers who walk by smoking.
The lungs are starting to clear up: I’m at that “sick” stage where I’m coughing a lot, and my throat is sore. Luckily that should clear up within a few more days thus leaving me minty fresh and tar free.
One more week to go and I will truly feel like I’ve quit!
Breathing fatty free
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
So last night Jason came over and brought with him the Pizza of Yore (at least the leftovers from Sunday) so that we could dine and watch a Harry Potter movie. The evening was fun, and we even had some really interesting conversations about careers and technology.
The big news however is how well I’m doing at quitting smoking - and the impact that will have on my waistline. Normally when I quit smoking I get hungry and tired. Last night was no exception! After Jason left at about 11:00 I was feeling a little hungry and a lot tired. No big deal - I’ll just eat another piece of pizza (my 4th for the evening) and go to bed right?
Wrong! I made it to bed all right, but then woke up in the middle of the night coughing up all the glorious black tar that had been leasing my lungs. No biggie - I’m used to coughing up black nastiness when I quit smoking. Then the hunger struck - it’s 2am, I’m coughing a lung up, and I have the munchies worse than most stoners can dream.
So what do I do? I eat another piece of pizza. No big deal - it’s only my fifth one in a six hour period right? Well that would all be good and fine if I didn’t wake from my coma yet again at 4am, and then again at 7am to repeat the process: cough, pizza, sputter, TAR!
So yeah - I guess I’m getting healthier. I’m on day three of not smoking, my lungs are clearing up, and I’ve eaten nearly an entire pizza in the last 8 hours and I’m still starving. Here come healthy lungs, and a voluptuous waistline!
MoRU: Smarter Searching for Smarter Searchers
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006Wow - I love Apple’s Spotlight technology. It’s simple, deeply integrated into the operating system, and has changed the way I work with files and store information. As much as I love Spotlight I now love MoRU more! MoRU stands for Most Recently Used, but does so much more than that.
MoRU is an advanced searching technology that builds upon Spotlight to add more powerful searching options, and makes it easier to work with saved searches, perform sub-searches, and fine-tune searches by any available meta-data within Spotlight.
I’m seriously quite impressed - MoRU is making recruiting a breeze, and it’s let me set up all sorts of sorting for my mail for a few projects and GTD like things I’ve been experimenting with. At only $10 it’s a highly recommended buy for anyone who would consider themselves a Mac Power-User.
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