Well, howdy.
It's been almost a week since I've written anything, that's no good. (I just wrote "doog" three times before I finally go it in the right order, I swear my brain is turning to oatmeal.) Now I feel obligated to write something, as much to myself as to any of you, but I'm not really in the mood. It's a genuine Sunday.
I've never been a huge Sunday person. You can't really enjoy it completely, and often you're on your way back from somewhere. I was in Baltimore this weekend, came back up this morning.
Irritation #1: Traffic.
I can't stand it. Really, I don't think I could manage another daylight trip up or down the I-95 corridor between New York and D.C. It's absurd. The volume of cars is so high, it's a terrifyingly delicate balance. If everything, everything, goes well, you can roll along, but as soon as one person does as much as tap their brakes for longer than a second or so, it's over. Backed up for miles, no end in sight. And then of course the problems multiply, people start changing lanes, driving on the shoulder, riding along in lanes that are going to end until just when they end and then trying to squeeze in despite the signs for miles allerting them that the lane was ending. As you can tell, this is slightly more than a pet peeve with me. It's another thing on that list, getting longer all the time, of seemingly minor problems with our society that I'm convinced are actually harbingers of real actual doom for our civilization. It might not be in the next 50 or 100 years, but it's coming. We're fucking up pretty badly. Evidence: 60 Minutes tonight. First story was about the turmoil in Zimbabwe, rigged elections, state-sposored murder and intimidation, lots of good stuff. The second was based largely on Fast Food Nation and the Fast Food Industry's aggressive marketing to children, which is likely responsible for the fact that 25% of the kids in this country are now considered obese. Read that again. The third story was about the death penalty. The couple of bright spots were that some states have now banned fast food and soda machines in schools, and since Illinois put a moratorium on all excecutions after 13 men on death row were proved to be innocent and released, some other states have followed suit.
That's just it. There often seems to be hope for some of the big issues, but what I think is getting completely ignored is that people just aren't very nice anymore. Selfish, greedy, money-grubbing, rude, inconsiderate. Driving up and down 95 really drives it home. So does going into most retail establishments. People just don't seem to care. They don't look you in the eye, don't say hello, please, thank you, goodbye.
Oh yeah, also my computer almost died this eveing, making me worried about all the data on here. I need to start backing things up regularly and completely. It might be time to think about moving the web sites to a hosting company, let them be responsible for redundancy and security. I'm sure I'd have to agree that they're not liable for my data, though.
One more thing: Layoffs seem be in the offing. The rumor mill is in high gear at work, and while there's really no confirmation of anything, there have been so many different things from so many different sources that it's hard not to think that some part of it is true. Every other time this has happened, I've remained relatively sure that I would keep my job, but this time I don't feel that way. That could be because I basically asked to be layed off if possible. When it starts to look like reality, though, it's quite a confliction. I feel like it's time to move on, and I think it would be good for me ultimately, but money money money. That's what it pretty much comes down to. And of course, that only adds to the conflict since I'm loathe to admit that it's true.
Liz comes back tomorrow, that's the good news. But it's not tomorrow yet.
