6 May 1998: Kick Me Again, Huh?

Wednesday, 6 May 1998:

Kick Me Again, Huh?

A rough week, with some ups and some big downs.

Monday I went to the dentist for a checkup, and, like last time, was told that my teeth look fine. For some reason I'm finding it tough to go through the cleaning process these days; my body seizes up as if it's thinking, "You're scraping off bits of my teeth!" Of course, she's only scraping off hardened plaque, and I know that, but it's hard to internalize. Yeeg!

I finished reading John Cramer's novel Einstein's Bridge, which was pretty good, but a kind of confused novel. It didn't seem sure whether it wanted to be hard science (the first third was heavy with technical discussions of how the Superconducting Super Collider would have worked), a first contact story, a horror novel, or a time travel story, with bits of Groundhog Day-like romantic comedy (or was it drama?) thrown in. Some parts are very entertaining, some are very satisfying, and some are very dull. The whole thing peaks about 4/5ths of the way through and then sort of limps to a close after that. It was fun, but I'm not hugely enthusiastic about it.

I started reading Steven Gould's new novel, Helm, which is quite good so far. After a brief prologue for context, it immediately throws us into his world where humans have settled after escaping the apparent destruction of Earth. The protagonist does something clearly very dumb (although not so clear to him, since he hasn't read the prologue) in the first three pages, and the book gets moving pretty quickly after that. Gould's earlier novels had simple premises explored in great depth (much like the work of Vernor Vinge's Realtime novels in that regard). This one's a little more complex, so we'll see how it works out.

Yesterday I had another run-in with a cow-orker who I've in the past had very strong disagreements, from diametrically opposed positions, and without any apparent way to reach a compromise. It's very frustrating, especially since we get along very well on levels other than the professional level (which I guess is the opposite of what you'd prefer).

I talked with my friend Karen about it and she counseled me to try to deal with the specific, limited problem that arose rather than trying to deal with the pattern of problems that have been going on. So I did that today, but it's still frustrating. Karen I think also felt that this particular problem was rather frivolous (though she didn't say so in so many words), and maybe it was, but it's one of those things that just brings up frustrations from the past both large and small.

I hate not getting along with someone like this. It ruins my whole day and leaves me stewing for days afterwards.

After work yesterday, though, I decided to work some of it off by biking, and when I got to my recent stopping point around Lake Monona I decided I didn't feel all that tired, so I ended up making the whole circuit (12 miles? Something that that. I should get a tachometer for my bike). It was a good feeling, and makes me feel like I'm getting in better shape. I hope I hope it's nice this weekend so I can make a trial run into work.

Today I picked up my stack of comics from the shop. Are you reading Chronos from DC? It's a pretty neat time travel series, a little more controlled than most such series, and clearly has some interesting stuff going on in the background. Good book. The current Mage series is also very entertaining. The shine is going off the JLA: Year One series, for me, though.

I went down to the weekly SF group gathering, which was fun. I think I've finally gotten over having a crush on one of the people in the group (the feeling having reduced to "only" an interest and idle hope), but I've thought that before. It would be best if I could be over it, since she clearly doesn't have any serious interest in me. Sigh!

Oh, we've been playing a game of Diplomacy by e-mail at work. I'm Russia, and I've basically had my head handed to me in just the first two years of the game; I have three supply centers left, and one of those to be easily taken next year. So I'm basically going to abandon the game. If we were playing it real-time I'd stick it out, but it's hard to stay enthused when we only do a turn a week.

But I do plan to get together with folks after work next Monday to play some rail games.

Have you seen the announcement of Apple's new iMac computer? It looks pretty nice, but since I already have a monitor, and don't want to wait until August to replace the one I have now that's giving me so much trouble, I'll probably look into getting a G3 this weekend.

I'm always kind of underwhelmed by hardware announcements. They rarely seem all that exciting. Okay, the announcement that someone (IBM?) has created a gigahertz chip prototype was pretty neat, but the iMac just seems like a weird-looking Mac with a terrific price/performance ratio. The Pentium chip is certainly nothing special, and I don't see how MMX technology is any more exciting than a floating point coprocessor. I mean, who cares? It all just adds up to more, and until and unless someone's more is either a big enough leap, or a genuine technological innovation, I can't get excited about it.

Except that more for less is always a nice thing. I hope the iMac helps Apple regain some market share and visibility. A friend of mine says that apparently this $1200 Mac outperforms some high-end Wintel machines. Which doesn't surprise me a bit.

On the plus side this week, I'm planning a vacation next week to the Bay Area to visit a friend of mine. I've never been out there, and this friend was one of my best friends when he lived in Madison and it'll be great to see him. I can really use a vacation, and I think this will be a good one. I'm trying to hook up to see some other folks I know out there, too (including some I only know over the net!).

Ah, grand adventures...

Speaking of which, it's time to tackle the great sleep adventure for the night.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)