things i am happy about:
jelly donut cupcakes frosted with confectioners powdered sugar,
learning to play the drums in rock band,
watching episodes of buffy the vampire slayer with my girlfriend on the phone watching the same thing a few hundred miles away.
(i thought i hated this show after the first season, but i've really enjoyed season two and beyond)

things i am unhappy about:
my laptop giving up the ghost today,
the feeling that no matter what happens in the primary tomorrow our politics will still suck,
waiting for my current employer to approve my contract while i'm still putting in hours.
(i really like my colleagues and the project, but i have growing resentment about the organization)

things i am neutral about (or just don't care):
microsoft/yahoo acquisition talk of any kind,
my inner curmudgeon growing stronger every day,
the super bowl now that it's over.
(watching with friends and making micro-bets while cheering against the patriots (just for the sake of spoiling the record season) was amusing though)

10:31 PM - When I searched for "Get Smart" on Amazon to see when or if they were going to start releasing the seasons, why, why, why, why, why, why, why, why did this turn up in the results? Just as a semi-warning, the link is probably work-safe, but you'll have a damn hard time explaining to your co-workers why that was on your screen.

2:43 AM - Going back to a topic from a previous post, there was a time when I did have a career path laid out in front of me like, well, a path.

It started in fourth grade when the class had a creative writing assignment that everyone had to read out loud. Teachers and students alike told said, "You should be a writer." A writer? You mean I can be rich and famous just by sitting around all day making shit up? I love making shit up! Also, I had a crippling fear back then of working in an office environment, with suits and ties, and cubicles, and asshole bosses, and office politics, and 9-5 five days a week, and commuting, and watercooler conversations, and other people, so much so that I vowed I would never sit in a cube (if there's one thing my time as an English major prepared me for, it's irony).

I should also mention that I went to school in Mechanicsville (jr. high: Stonewall Jackson, sr. high: Lee-Davis), and standards of writing there are little lower than they are for, say, a Shoney's Menu, or Christian X-Files fan fiction, or the latest Ann Coulter screed.

The point is, and should have been much sooner, that that particular dream died a slow death from a terminal, wasting disease, and was laid to rest in a pauper's grave without even a clergyman in attendance.

But tonight, I found that someone had exhumed the coffin just to hammer one last nail in the lid. I was at my local Barnes and Noble when I came across this: Sex in the Hood 2, by White Chocolate. Yes, this is a novel. Yes, it's a sequel - see the 2? And yes, it was filed by author under C for Chocolate. How can I compete with that?