Random Acts of Violence

It was one of those sore throat, constantly-feeling-parched illnesses, and I was drinking glass after glass of water without much effect that I could feel (though it beats getting dehydrated and passing out, like I did last year). I didn't sleep well Thursday night, which probably exacerbated it.

I slept better last night, but today I still have a sore throat and I feel more congested. Bleah.

The worst part is definitely the sore throat, which at its worst really hurts, especially when swallowing solid food. The second worst part (paradoxically) is that my appetite has been down because of this. I can eat, I just don't particularly want to.

Well, on the bright side, I don't really have any plans today, and Mom and I sat around with a nice fire in the fireplace last night. Plus, although Spies, my Internet host, was down most of yesterday, it came up in the evening so I could check my mail.

And before I really started feeling sick I managed to get out to a good comic book store in Wakefield where I filled in some more holes in my collection, and also - in a whim - picked up some old (circa 1980) issues of Dragon magazine, once the premiere magazine of the gaming (especially role-playing gaming) industry. They were very cheap, barely more than cover price, and I picked them up for nostalgia's sake. I'm not sure it was worth it, but I've made worse impulse purchases.

(I dearly wish someday to read every published episode of David Trampier's strip Wormy comic strip from Dragon, which is arguably the most sophisticated and best-drawn satire of gaming ever done. Apparently there's a CD-ROM with every issue of Dragon on it, but I want to have nice print copies which I can save for good. A strange little goal, I admit. But sometimes the real gems you have to work to experience. At least twice I've heard rumors of Wormy collections in the works, but they've never materialized, and although I don't know for sure, I've heard that Trampier passed away some years ago. If anyone knows anything about any of this, I'd certainly be curious to hear any news or background of the strip.)

That city of Wakefield, you might have heard, is the city where Michael McDermott, an employee at a small software company, allegedly flipped out and shot and killed seven of his co-workers on Monday. Apparently he was a recluse who was having money problems: His paycheck was about to be garnisheed by the IRS for back taxes, and minutes before his killing spree he got a phone call that his car was about to be repossessed.

I don't think this event is a red flag for software companies in general. There are lots of reclusive employees out there, and many who have money problems as well. What it is that set this guy off, I don't know. But considering that after the Oklahoma City bombing I'd expected nuts with rental trucks full of fertilizer to start coming out of the woodwork - which hasn't happened - I don't think that this shooting illustrates a principle that us software workers have to worry about.

If nothing else, the fact that it happened in Massachusetts rather than Silicon Valley, where the rat race is much tougher than tighter and higher-pressure, suggests that this is an isolated incident.

Nonetheless, I can't help but wonder what I'd do if someone in my workplace flipped out like this. I don't own a gun, and have never fired anything more potent than a BB gun. If someone were walking down the hall firing at people, then I work near the corner of two long hallways, on the fourth floor, with only one stairway which is entirely exposed to the hall, so escape would be pretty difficult, especially if the shooter had good aim, as the Wakefield shooter reportedly did. It's sobering.

As I said, I'm not concerned. But I do have a sometimes-too-vivid imagination.

That's the really scary thing about shootings like this: They're nearly impossible to predict, and even though the odds of them happening are extremely small, I don't think the human mind can easily grasp the concept of odds that tiny without treating them as nil. (What exactly does "one in a hundred million" mean to you?) Thanks to the TV news, I think we blow the concern out of realistic proportion. It's probably more useful to worry about someone rear-ending your car one night.

Still, odds are that it will happen to someone again somewhere in this country. So taking precautions probably aren't the worst thing.

But what can we do, really?

On a lighter note, we're getting a nor'easter storm here today. Around noon we started getting a good patch of snow, and it came down thick during the afternoon. I went out in late afternoon to sit around at the nearby Starbuck's and read. The snow had turned to sleet, and it looks like we won't be getting much more than an inch or two of accumulation (central Massachusetts was harder hit). Pity. I like snow and haven't seen a good snowfall since the day I moved to California (it was snowing in Madison and Chicago that day). But at least I got to see something!

This evening I've been alternately reading and watching TV. A surreal TV moment: Watching bloopers from a soap opera... on a Spanish language channel. Seeing actors crack up laughing on screen is very bizarre when you don't have the faintest idea what they're saying. (Someday perhaps I'll try to learn Spanish or another language again. In the past I haven't had a lot of patience to spend memorizing words, though, nor a particular aptitude for languages, so who knows.)

I also watched the New Orleans Saints play the St. Louis Rams in the first round of the NFL playoffs. I'm sort of rooting for the Saints because I lived there for college, and because they've continued to win despite losing their starting quarterback and star running back to injuries. That's admirable. I'm also rooting for the Oakland Raiders, since I live out there now, and for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, since their quarterback - Shaun King - was the quarterback for my alma mater Tulane's undefeated season a few years ago.

It's a lot more fun in some ways to watch football when I don't have much invested in a specific team. I can enjoy pretty much any game, to the limits of football's ability to be enjoyed (remember, I'm first and foremost a baseball fan!).

Anyway, although the Saints did their darndest to give away the game to the defending champion Rams in the fourth quarter, they hung on by the skin of their teeth - plus a timely interception and fumble - to win the game by 3 points. They fought hard and their defense nearly collapsed, but they did - just barely - earn their first postseason win in their 34 years. New Orleans sportswriters must be awfully happy tonight.

Vacation is a wonderful thing, isn't it?