All work and no play

Sometimes it's hard to remember that reality is thermoplastic, not thermosetic. Not for long, though, as reality will inevitably remind me.

If I say the phrase "Vinny quit", it will mean nothing to 99.9+%of the world. To the few dozen (perhaps more) who understand the implications of those two words, it is heard as if spoken by 3-foot-tall men in odd clothes dancing around an old farmhouse that has inexplicably fallen from the sky (I suppose, to clarify, it is inexplicable how it got into the sky in the first place - one there, the falling was pretty much expected). Without going into too much detail, I will state that this particular individual is personally responsible for a large portion of my workload, not because he actively sought to dump it on me but because he was so incompetent as to drive his management to seek alternates. Quite literally, I have had to take over functions or business for this person 3 times because clients were on the verge of cancelling contracts. Of course, he got promoted to management (the Dilbert principle is alive and well) while I got sacked with more work.

I've got a potential contract position coming up, in which I'll help a company set up their Kronos Time&Attendance system. It's a 3-month project at 10 hours a week; if it works out correctly, that'll be a nice bit of extra money on the side (I suspect somewhere between $50 and $100 an hour, so after taxes I'll be getting $350-700 dollars a week). Nice pocket money, if nothing else.

(Random note: I have two pairs of black jeans, one that fits and one that's too big for me. They're identical other than size. For some reason, I always grab the ones that are too big. I'm walking around to day pulling my pants up because they keep slipping down.)

Still looking for more permanent positions outside the company, though I haven't been digging as much as I should. I'm excused last week, as it was Blizzcon and, frankly, that's just go-out-and-play time.

Speaking of, Blizzcon was fun, though not as exciting as it's been in the past. No real major announcement this year, and many of the panels felt as if the teams more "punted" than anything. Of course, they just released SC2 a few months ago, and Cataclysm is about to come out, so I imagine they're a bit busy. Still, Metzen's always great, and there were some interesting tidbits and such. Plus, you know, geeking out with friends is always good.

I may have to go back to WoW for Cataclysm. I just read through "The Shattering", which is a kind of prequel novel to the expansion pack, and it teased with a few storylines that could be very interesting. I've always been a lore geek - I actually walked around and read the in-game books *before* there was an achievement for it, and I'm always looking up stories outside the game to find out what's going on. This is obviously a major change for the game world, but it's also got a few major storyline changes. It may be with reluctance and while holding my nose, but I'll probably re-subscribe some time next month. I think I'll stick to game cards, though, rather than simply giving them my credit card info. We'll have to see.

Hallowe'en is coming up this weekend (and, yes, I use the contraction since that's the correct form). I've never really been into the holiday - I don't like dressing up in costumes, and I'm not big on candy. My mother will make me carve a pumpkin for her; that's tolerable. She buys these carving kits that have patterns and such you cut out. Some are pretty complex, but they generally end up looking pretty cool. Certainly more interesting than the standard face.

Might be going out tonight - was originally planning on it tomorrow, but tonight might be better. At least I slept well last night, after reading all evening. Just as a bit of trivia, I read about 100 pages an hour for most fiction. So, "The Shattering", which is about 330 pages, got dropped off by UPS at around 6 pm and I had it done before 9:30. It's a handy ability when you have a friend who regularly gives you 500+ page manuscripts to edit.