Overwhelmed

I've been feeling pretty overwhelmed for the last few weeks. Work actually doesn't have a lot to do with it, as it's been a bit stressful but mostly pretty reasonable since getting back from Vegas. Mostly it's been a struggle to find time to do everything I want to do at home. And so I know that this overload is partly (mostly?) of my own doing. Still, I'm feeling a lot of pressure, if only from myself.

Things I've been working on in the last few weeks:

• Ultimate frisbee once a week.
• Gaming at Subrata's.
• Ripping music and scanning cover art for my iTunes music library.
• Finishing the book I was reading so I can start the book for next week's book discussion.
• Working on my new financial database, which is moving from Microsoft Excel to FileMaker.
• Working on a baseball study, and learning some new things about Excel along the way.
• Playing with my new iPod Shuffle.
• Assembling my Las Vegas journal entry.
• Paying bills.
• Baking cookies and cat treats.
• Coordinating rules changes for my fantasy baseball league.
• Helping some friends look for jobs.

• Buying my Dad a birthday present.
• Assembling my tax info to send to my CPA.
• Figuring out whether I can and should sell enough stock to pay off my second mortgage.
• Putting games and comics up for sale on eBay.
• Looking into flowers I can plant at this point in the California season.
• Writing.

Still, I'm having fun and that's worth something. And Debbi hasn't clobbered me for spending so much time on my projects, and that's worth something! And I've been spending some time with the cats, and that's definitely worth something:

Yes, we watched the Super Bowl today. My friend Syd hosted a party and we all had a great time. I think our favorite commercials were the Kinko's/FedEx "10 Steps to Making a Super Bowl Commercial" ad, and the insurance company "Don't judge too quickly" ad with the pasta sauce, cat, knife, and girlfriend.

In a twisted fashion, my favorite ad was Napster's commercial for their new subscription music download service, contrasting it with Apple's iTunes Music Store. For the low, low cost of - well, for free - Apple got both its logo and a picture of its premier product - the iPod - into the Super Bowl advertising. (Napster's Web site has a picture of the key image from their ad, so they're still advertising for Apple on-line.) What was Napster thinking? (Oh, the iTMS also had a couple of spots in Pepsi ads.)

The game was a good one, between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots. The Eagles were trying to win their first championship since 1960, while the Pats were trying to win their third in four years. The game was tied 0-0 after the first quarter, and 7-7 at halftime, and then 14-14 after the third quarter. But the Pats were gradually gaining the upper hand, sacking Donovan McNabb and forcing turnovers. They scored 10 points in the fourth quarter, and held the Eagles to just 7, winning 24-21. Are they a dynasty? Depends on who you ask. But it seems clear that Pats coach Bill Belichick is the best coach of his generation, if not for winning three titles than for having done so while being acknowledged as the coach who assembled, motivates and coordinates the team. He's the man.

Has anyone noticed how the New England Patriots logo looks like John Kerry? The sad eyes, the downturned mouth... coincidence, or separated at birth?