do_While(True)

I like how the internet is full of trolls and gnolls,
and other such fantasy staples.

I should know better by now. If you don't hope you can't be disappointed.
I'd be better off if I just didn't care about anything.

Nothing happened, I was just reminded why nothing's likely to happen.

Feeling a bit cruddy today: long weekend, plus I didn't sleep well
last night. It was warm and humid and still (warm and humid isn't as much a
problem if there's airflow) so I couldn't get comfortable in my bedroom, so
I went down to sleep in the basement. Unfortunately, it wasn't terribly
cooler down there and the bed's a lot less comfortable. After tossing and
turning until 2am or 3am I think I probably would have been better off just
toughing it out upstairs. Especially as, this morning, it was a lot cooler
upstairs than it was downstairs. Of course, none of this would be an
issue if the AC repairman had actually come back to finish his job, but
that's another story...

Anyways. I luckily have a 'short' day today. That is, I'll still be in the
office the regular amount of time, but there's a talk this afternoon that
deals with some of the things I worked with in my Master's degree, and I got
permission to attend so I "stay current" in the feild. Which means that
this afternoon I get to go listen about some cool things people are doing
elsewhere in the security field, rather than answering emails and sorting
out issues with clients. And that's several shades more interesting for
me. And I get to go home right afterwards, so yay.

An hour until I get out of work. A few hours before my plane takes off. I
need to park my car, check in, get to the gate. Lay over and dinner in
georgia at about 7:30, off the ground again at about 9:00. Landing in
Jacksonville at about 10:00, need to rent a car and drive two hours to
Gainesville, then find a hotel. Nifer's wedding is tomorrow. I fly back
Saturday evening.

I'm kind of nervous and stressed. this is the time when Bad Things can
happen and ruin my plans.

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...

You know in those teen movies where they're showing some big party or
something and then the nerdy protagonist says or does something that throws
everyone off, and they have that record-scratch sound and everyone just
stops and stares? That's kind of how I felt when, while reading about
Nintendo's bit at E3, I saw this:

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars will debut exclusively on Nintendo
DS.

Grand Theft Auto on a Nintendo system? I think something in my brain
just broke. I mean, how much more un-Nintendo can
you get besides GTA?

So, apparently, they've quietly removed
550 metric tons of uranium
from a site in Iraq -- so queitly, in fact, that the media burried the AP
article that was released over a week ago. Now, granted, the material they
removed isn't actual weapons-grade uranium, but it's a mediary step in the
process. I don't know, but I think something like this adds a little
credence to the original reasoning for the war, that Saddam was working to
manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

I thought this was kind of cool.

Sony says that PS3 is not
in
competition with Nintendo's Wii, dismissing the Wii as "an expensive
niche game device." Which is a convenient stance to take seeing as Nintendo
sold more than double the number of Wii's this year as Sony has sold PS3s --
2.8 million Wiis to 1.2 million PS3s. The 'race' still looks like a race if
you only count PS3 and the XBox 360, which only sold 1.12 million units this
year. I guess when the other guy is beating you so much it's better to just
pretend he's not your competition.

Now, I will admit there's a little truth in the claim that Sony isn't
competing with the Wii -- they have DRASTICALLY different game sets and
audiences. Nintendo has always had a reputation as a family console with
kids' games, where as Sony's bread and butter are the "more adult" RPGs and
FPSs like Final Fantasy and Metal Gear. The XBox, with flagships like
Halo3, it much more directly competing with Sony than the Wii is. Still,
with Nintendo putting out bits like Super Smash Brothers and Metroid Prime,
maybe they're fighting for the same market more than Sony is willing to
admit.

This is
something that's bugged me from time to time, whenever I read about
International relations. To put a name to it, the fact that there seems to
be relatively few ways to actually enforce international 'rules.' The
article is talking about how the head of Sudan has been accused of war
crimes, but Sudan doesn't recognize the court that's making the
accusations. I believe it was Locke's view that international relations was
as close as modern man got to "the state of nature," which rather cynically
holds that brute force is the only true rule (might makes right, mostly
because who's going to stand up to you?).