journal for 2002-09-24
dreams
I worked in a movie theatre for a few years, when I was in high school, and I had a friend there named Audrey. I haven’t seen her in about six years, I guess. Google suggests that she’s working as a trainer or sports med person at a school in Philly.
Anyway, last night, I dreamed that Gloria and I ran into her at some kind of banquet or something. She (Audrey) was really depressed and moody, and very weepy. She didn’t want to say why, but I somehow learned that she was very very ill, and didn’t really expect to live much longer. I asked Audrey about this, and didn’t want to say much about it. She wouldn’t say what was wrong with her.
Gloria suggested that it was an effect of too much time travel.
After some sneaky following-around of Audrey, this turned out to be the case. (Gloria has good instincts!) She had enrolled in some kind of government program as a time traveller. This program was being run by a mad scientist who always wore shorts, much to the disgust of his more professional lab-coat-wearing colleagues. In fact, he looked a little like Doctor Robotnik (aka Eggman) from Sonic. Also in the program was my old friend Jon, who seemed to have been driven somewhat mad by the strain of time travel. If I recall correctly, he was dressed like a ninja of some sort.
I think there was more to it than that, involving blimps and parachutes. I think the government was airdropping flags to help spread patriotism in light of our attack on Yet Another Country.
It was pretty weird. I guess the moral is, “Time travel is bad for you.”
work
I ended up working late again, today, but not as late and not as hard. My laptop is working well, and I’m just doing some kernel tweaking. I’m not sure I’ll get sound working under Linux, but I’ll live if I can’t.
One of my counterparts from the UK invited me to stay at his place for the second two thirds of my stay. I can’t think of any reason not to, and it sounds like it’ll be more enjoyable than staying at the hotel, so I imagine that I’ll send him a happy acceptance, tomorrow. Maybe he plays chess.
Apart from that, nothing major was going on today; there were a lot of little things, but it was mostly just trivia and small (but annoying) headaches. There are a few initiatives at work that are just driving me batty, because it seems like they’re designed to make my life needlessly unpleasant while helping no one else. I ranted about this to my boss, nodded along; he’s part of the choir on this one.
I spent some time pondering book(s) to take with me, and I think I might order Tot in Venedig. It’s short, by an author I like, and German. Maybe this will help immerse me a little more in the language. I also might ask my mom for one of her German novels, since she said she’s got some in the basement.
animal crossing
Tom is closed today, redecorating again! I’m interested to see what the new shop is. I didn’t play much because I didn’t feel like writing letters or fishing. Tomorrow, I might try selling off lots of my things and decorating my room with a single style of stuff.