[Begin self indulgent whining…]
Gak… what a crappy week I had. Work absolutely sucks these days. I hate what I do, I don’t take any pride in the product and, oh yeah, I hate what I do. Which is really odd since a year ago today, I absolutely LOVED what I do, and what I do hasn’t changed. I think I’m just not cut out for staying in one job very long.

Anyway, this week was a series of ‘task force’ meetings, each about a different segment of the business. They cumulated in a 9:30-4:00 ‘summit meeting.’ So I spent like 20 hours in meetings this week, and y’know what came out of that? Not a damned thing! Only thing I hate worse than my work is sitting in pointless meetings all day.

Then, on the home front, there’s been this ugly squabble going on in the forum of my other site. I hate flame wars with a passion. I especially hate them when I can’t just walk away. This forum has been running just shy of 5 years, and we’ve had 4 flame wars. Two in the last month or so.

The place is rotting from the inside out, but I seem to be the only one who sees that. From a tight-knit group of friends having a good old jawing session about games or books or movies or whatever, it’s turned into this tense room full of people who’ve woken up to realize they don’t know who their friends are. Why?

I’m not sure, but I think we hit this level of comfort in the ‘old days’ that folks opened up more than they usually would. And when they did, they found that their pals were “The Enemy.” Right-wing conservatives found out the guy they’d been playing Everquest with for 2 years is a left-wing ultra-liberal. The Israeli fellow with the passion for flight sims found out his wing man is a Palestinian. (These are, of course, made up examples, and more extreme than the reality.)

I don’t think we can ever get things back to the way they used to be… “you can’t go home again” and all that rot… time will tell, I suppose.

Today was a gorgeous day and I had a list of chores as long as my arm. I managed about 2 of them. Otherwise I kept checking the forum to see if it’d blown up in a conflagration (spelling?) or putzing around playing some pointless game or another.

I really need to come up with some activity that gets me outdoors. I’ve been thinking seriously of moving out to the ‘burbs. I bet I could find a little cottage somewhere for what I pay for a crappy studio in Cambridge. I really miss having a garden. I miss having a grill outdoors. I just miss having a yard.

Christ, I think I’m homesick…