I choose to consider this afternoon an afternoon well spent. Specifically, I had a drink and watched some firefly (btw, way, way underrated series). Then, I had a drink and a cigar outside while reading The Fountainhead, which is like Atlas Shrugged, except I think I like Howard Roark even more than I liked Hank Rearden. Yeah, I know John Galt blah blah Dagny blah blah... Hank Rearden is MY hero for Atlas Shrugged, and y'all can shove that in your cram-hole.
Now I interrupt for the sake of the drink on my desk - I've always liked hot sake, and I've always liked sake + cranberry/grape/otherberry juice, but I never combined the two. Well, NOW I HAVE. It's so sweet. Not that the drink itself is sweet, but it's as if, as it flows past your tastebuds, it encourages them to report a subtle sweetness, so you're left with a sweet taste in your mouth, and a memory of the berry that was.
Ok, so I had more than 1 drink. Anyway, after coming back inside, I reported to what I like to call my sensory deprivation chamber. It's a lot like a bathtub, except you lie on your back, with your legs in the air, so that your torso is underwater, and your head is floating, with your ears underwater. The only thing you can hear in that state is your own hearbeat, and it's very soothing. So was more Fountainhead.
Which brings us to now. The only downside of my day is that I'm out of sake, as soon as this glass is empty.
Oh, and more experiments in bad literature:
The car lunged forward through the darkness, its headlights not so much illuminating a path before it, but sweeping that path clear of some unknown debris. The driver held the wheel loosely, feeling himself pulled forward more by the light than by the action of the car's engine. His car gripped the road through each turn, and he felt less aware of the turn he was in than of the next turn ahead, feeling himself projected forward in time, as if the speed of the car was not an expression of his will, but an embodiment of it. He thought of all the times he had heard others speak of the union of man and machine, of the point at which the machine becomes an extension of man's body, and laughed out loud. The machine was unimportant, it was just him, alone with his will and that all-illuminating light, following a path of his own choosing through the countryside.
He looked up from his menu and caught her eye across the table. In that glance, he felt a contentment welling up inside him. More than that, he felt the force of his life growing, rising in his chest, threatening to escape as the laughter of a young man in love. He looked down again and smiled, not an expression of the joy he felt, but a smile of satisfaction, of pride that he had mastered the emotions before they could be revealed to the world. Now they were his own private posession, to be shared with no one, not even the girl who had forced them upon him.
She kept watching him through all this, and also smiled, but for the opposite reason.
And now, a review of movies I've seen recently. Instead of a lengthy review on the strong and weak points of each one, I'm going to provide "alternate titles", and let them stand as my review.
I will say this - I liked the first one better than the second.
Hero - otherwise known as "Rashomon 2: Little Trouble in Big China"
Sky Captain and the World of Tommorow - otherwise known as "Cave Captain and the Anglo Aquanauts"
From Cynan, and Paul, and Bryan, whoever had it first...
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Side note, if you get the title/excerpt reference, you win a prize.
1993 Dodge Intrepid ES, 85k miles. New fuel pump, good tires and brakes, runs great, interior and exterior in great shape considering that the car is 11 years old.
Buy it!
So I have 1 job offer on my desk. I have a second offer that I'm 99% sure that I'll be getting sometime early/mid next week. I have an interview coming up next week at which I may or may not (but will probably) have an offer on the spot.
So, here's the 3 jobs.
1) Doing the same kind of programming I've been doing for the last few years, but in a language called "progress". To imagine what progress is like, imagine if VB and SQL had a son, and appointed Pascal as the Godfather. So, I can do that job. The company sounds very nice, but I'm not sure about the people... I met one of the 2 programmers they have now, and he was very shy, to say the least. They're offering me X dollars, and have good healthcare and the best 401k. The cost of living here is very, very low.
2) Doing programming in DC. This is neat programming with neat people, and gets me into a "career" more than job 1, I think. They're also offering X dollars, and they have very good healthcare and a decent 401k. The cost of living here is very, very high.
3) Programming, possibly from home more often than not. Low cost of living, probably something slightly less than X dollars, and crap benefits. But I get to work from home, and if they come through with more than X dollars, you never know.
So, since I may not have an offer from 3 in time, let's assume I get the offer from 1 in time to compete with the offer from 2 that's on my desk right now. Here's the reasons why I'm not taking 2:
On the other hand, I'm more sure I'll like the work with 2 than with 1, and the people seem a little more like my kind of people. I guess, I should just jump on 2, but the money and the move are big considerations. Plus the one person I know in DC may be moving away from there soon anyway, then I'd be all alone in a big big city, and would have to fight crime by night or something to keep myself entertained.
We'll see, I have at least 3 days to think about it.