'do it all over again'

on the train. my weekend was marred by a nice case of some kind of stomach flu/food poisoning. this was offset by the purchase of a new tv, scant hours before i was struck down. so i was miserable for 36 hours or so, but got to bask in the glow of new hd tv set.

the new tv is fah-bu-lous. it isn't huge, it isn't super nice. but considering we had been watching tv on a 17″ crt with the tube going (transforming everyone on the screen into wimpier versions of the incredible hulk), seeing colors again is a nice change.

so perhaps this explains my absence in posting the last couple of days.

i wish there were other, more exciting things to discuss. conversations on here i tried to spark have not sparked…no one wants to discuss parents' responsibilities in influencing their childrens beliefs? fine, let's talk about britney spears recent behavior. did you see the dress she wore to her mom's party? class-ee. (see? i can roll from high brow to low brow in the same paragraph.)

work, for me, has become a time-bomb. remember that feeling in college, in that one class, where you had a final that was 50% of your grade? the one where you knew you could study for weeks and still get thrown curveballs on the test? (i think, for me, the easiest example here is art history. though i can also think of several computer science classes that felt this way as well.)

anyway, work has become like that. i see the deadline looming. i see the work. but no matter how much work i do, the work does not decrease. but the deadline does.

i believe, now, this is normal with any type of software product launch. this is how projects turn out. this is also bad and what i have been trying to avoid for months. but things happen — scope changes, focus changes, people change their minds, bad decisions are made. this is natural; i'm cool with all of this. i just wish that deadlines were as flexible as everything else seems to be.

that or i wish that i didn't get so stressed out. i take my work, my product, very seriously. very personally. and when faced with a decision of missing a deadline and turning out inferior code, well, it's a decision i can't make easily. it's like having to decide which of two people you pull from a burning wreck. yuck.

so i am alternating now between stressing and thinking, all about work.

so let's move on.

i've been trying to catch up on music i missed out on the last couple of years. stuff like the walkmen, the shins, the killers…and really, none of it does anything for me. a pity. so i'm back to digging through the crates — and wanting to hear the ti album. and the new clipse album. so if britney spears isn't your bag — what have you listened to recently that really got you going? i'm not asking about year-end lists (though those are fine too)…i'm asking about recent stuff, the last month or two…

i've been wearing out the game's 'its ok' (both the original (sorry, this one is a youtube, i couldn't find an mp3…but its still dope — the rest are actual mp3s. whee!) and the epic 11 minute remix), mia's 'xr 2′, nas' 'hip hop is dead' and green velvet's 'genedefekt' (an oldie but goodie that i somehow missed out on the first time).