E3's getting rather ho-hum.

To sum up the biggest
news from E3 this year:

Microsoft announced the already-announced $50 cut to the Xbox 360 price,
bringing it to $300 for 20GBs and introducing a 60GB version at $350.
Sony back-peddled and offered a price cut they said they had no plans for,
offering their 80GB PS3 for $400 and discontinuing their 40GB version.
Nintendo is changing nothing, keeping the Wii at $250; they did however have
Miyamoto demonstrate playing music with a Wiimote.

I'll admit, I was born and bred a Nintendo fanatic, but it really seems that
Microsoft and Sony keep missing the mark. Especially Sony.

Baaad Timing

So here at work we consultant-types get thrown around on different projects
as we become available and work comes in and stuff. A while back, maybe a
month or two now, I got put onto a 'new' project as my other one settled
into an idle state -- the 'new' project had been around for a while, but it
was new to me. I got put on it because of my academic background, but after
getting brought up to speed it was aparent that it was not really right for
me -- it was very much "in the weeds" technical, and I do better at a higher
level than that sort of hands-on building work. Luckily me 'idle' project
proved to be less-so, and so I got 'switched' back, and a new guy took over
the second project.

Now, I'll admit that back when there were only rumblings that I'd be right
for the project, before I was assigned, others in the office who'd been here
longer gave me advice that basically reduced to: "Run. Run now, and don't
look back." So I was quite happy that it wasn't my cup of tea, and that I
had reason to get off of it.

Today I was talking with someone and the project came up, and they told me
that it'd been rough sailing lately. In fact, apparently the client just
recently wrote in complaining how turn-over on the project was too frequent,
there was no continuity in effort, and nothing had been accomplished. To
which our program manager said, "I can see what I can do, but that's not
really something I have control over," which is true: the way the office
works is that those who assign resources (our supervisors) are not the same
as those who use resources (program managers), in part so that a manager
can't hold onto us without having a real need. Then the program manager had
to finish her email with, "Oh, and Andrew is no longer on the project,"
because apparently she hadn't let them know. Baaaad timing...