His Terrible Temper
6 November 1999
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His Terrible Temper
6 November 1999
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3:37 PM: Yesterday was another one of those Stress Days that are getting to be way too common. I've been trying to wake up without using my alarm this week, hoping that maybe I'd end up more rested and relaxed that way. Doesn't seem to be working, my body just thinks it's the weekend or something and wants to spend all day in bed. So instead of bouncing in all chipper and fresh around 11, I end up dragging my surly tired butt in by 1 or 2.
That particularly wasn't so smart on Friday, because I had made a date with Penny to go see Three Kings that evening around 7. Naturally, the one day in weeks & weeks I truncate my workday a bit, All Hell gets out and messes up the place. The role of All Hell in this day's performance being played, appropriately enough, by Microsoft.
We do technology news among other things, you see, and Friday afternoon, the judge in the MS antitrust case released his findings of fact. Was this an earth-shattering suprise? No. Did we prepare in advance in the least? Of course not. So from the minute I walked in until I finally snuck away, one crisis after another. Nothing that I was solely qualified to deal with - it's just easier to "solve" a problem by blaming The Late Guy.
I don't mind working under pressure, but that particular kind of behavior brings out the ubergrouch in me - not exactly a long dive down to find him, I grant you. I was snarling and sarcastic and bitter and just, oh, making friends left and right. Good job, good job.
Everything did finally get worked out OK, more or less, so I was able to flee in time to make it up to the Metreon for the movie. Three Kings was much better than I expected. It uses the physical power of a loud THX soundtrack a lot. That works because that's how we saw it (though the sound system did keep dropping down in volume for brief periods, more Professional Movie Theater crap). But how well it'll play in, say, 10 years at the UC, I don't know.
Still, it wasn't only about loud noises and groovy stock-shifting camera play. There was real emotional intensity about it too. The interrogation/torture of the captured American soldier amazed me, because in a setup so custom-made for demonstrating the Evil Face of The Enemy, it instead let the Iraqi soldier doing the questioning put his case so well, you end up feeling very ambiguous about who the bad guys really were - or if there were any at all, besides Saddam and Bush.
Well, now in theory it's time to do laundry. Guess I'd better go back to sleep.
Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.
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All names are fake, most places are real, the
author is definitely
unreliable but it's all in good fun. Yep.
© 1998-1999 Lighthouse for the Deaf. All rights reserved and stuff. The motto at the top of the page is a graffito I saw on Brunswick Street in Melbourne. | ||||
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