A Nitrous Crouton

I haven’t felt much like writing in recent weeks, but then I haven’t felt much like reading either. I’ve hit a stage where scanning through blogs feels more like a slog, and even casual web browsing holds no particular allure.

It wasn’t until partway through last week that I realized I was going through a spell of depression. It never ceases to amuse me when I take a couple days to figure it out despite plainly obvious symptoms.

To dig out the childbirth analogy one last time, after having shipped a title, I’m going through a little postpartum depression. This too shall pass, although at the moment the thought of shipping another big title I don’t particularly feel enthused about makes me want to find the covers. I have downtime, and another small project to knock out though, which keeps me from brooding.

When I’m in a mode like this, it’s easy to pick up something to briefly obsess over. I think I set a new record yesterday with watching then dropping intensive hurricane coverage. Not that I glue myself to the tv with talking expe, er idiots mind you, constantly refreshing various internet forums with hands-on reports is truly the way of the future!

The fact that I no longer have any sort of group to play with prevents me from logging back into WoW for the first time in close to six months. This is probably a good thing.

Just forcing some words out onto the screen feels good, as will a nice hot shower.

I hear this internet thing has some kind of video with dancing badgers on it, I’ll have to check that out.

86% exhaled. The last breath could be in a day, week, month, or heaven forbid, a year. Definitely hoping towards the former end of the scale.

The wrap party was this week. It was nice to have a wrap party for a project that is actually complete (no, PAL doesn’t count). However, doing a wrap party in the middle of the day in the middle of the week when there is much to be done makes it a bit hard to really unwind and enjoy it. Dave & Busters cuisine leaves something to be desired.

But there was Skee-Ball. So it was all worthwhile.

I rewatched “Rushmore” last night. I hadn’t seen it in years. The strange emotional resonance I felt with my current state while watching the film felt both good and rather scary at the same time.

I am filled both with pride and shame for having worked on something that is getting an in-aisle promotional palette display in Wal-Mart.

Stalled for the want of a PAL TV and waiting for the summons regarding a visiting EP. Almost poetic.

Not yet down to 3 cans. Close though.

I am attempting to regain my own strategic vision. I have a tough road ahead of me. If there is one thing I've learned in recent years, it's that aggressive cognitive control is a must if you're wired like me. Getting the faith and determination mixture right can be almost like rocket science, a blend of fuel and oxidizer.

I'm using liquid ozone baby.

It's tough to be chafing at the bit when you know where you want to be but just can't get there. I'm constantly having visions of Calvin's dad expounding on the virtues of character building. I must say, I'm looking forward to the the Complete Calvin and Hobbes even more than I did the the Complete Far Side. I'm going to take my hard-won experience, but I'm going to regress and be young again. I'm going to choose happiness and joy. I'm going exploring.

Even if I have to ship another stupid game in the interim.

That deep breath I’ve been holding? It’s really composed of seven distinct deep breaths. Currently 42.9% exhaled, just a little bit longer to go!

Tonight’s Motivational Programming exercise:

1) Open iTunes
2) Play “Land of Confusion” by Genesis
3) Flail arms and dance around in home studio

Being the avid consumer of books, movies and games that I am, I might as well start reviewing them! Eventually I’ll topple Metacritic, get bought out by Google, retire to a research lab and leave the world to wonder how it ever lived without spinach.google.com.

But I digress, I can’t aspire to Homer Simpson food critic levels of excellence overnight, so lets start off with some mediocre reviews of mediocre books in my favoritestest genre of all, sci-fi!

Hammered and Scardown by Elizabeth Bear
Rating: 2.5 Croutons (out of 5.0)

This was an entirely impulse purchase at Barnes & Noble during a lunch break. I felt the immediate craving for some paperback pulp sci-fi to go with the Uptown Turkey sandwich I was about to consume.

When I’m in a hurry, I tend to take chances and grew new books from unread authors, as long as it doesn’t seem the book will completely suck. With sci-fi, you definitely can’t judge the book by its cover.

Hammered, and its continuation, Scardown are not visionary breakthrough books. Neither are they wretched. Unfortunately, they aren’t terribly memorable either. Seeing genre pieces executed well can be a real pleasure. There is a reason (well, several) why The Bourne Identity is one of my favorite movies. Hammered/Scardown don’t stay within a easy categorization of noir-cyberpunk/future-espionage or big-epic-space-with-aliens, but rather attempts some fusion of the two. This works, but only just. The world of the books isn’t overly involved or interesting. Sadly, the same can be said for most of the characters, although the author did do a commendable job with the female protagonist, it’s the supporting cast that really suffer.

That said, it was a fairly pleasant easy read, and the story was interesting enough that I will end up acquiring the third book in the series when it is released in the fall. And I will keep an eye on the author.

Now I must dance again. Slowly my sanity returns.

Oh yes, that first soda of the morning. Mmm. A nice cold Coke Classic fresh out of the fridge consumed straight from the can. The day can be faced.

My name is Nathaniel Trost, and I’m a sugared carbonated caffeinated beverage addict. When crunch time flares up, I go off the wagon. Way off the wagon. My poor pancreas.

Now that the crisis is over (can three months of ship crunch still be titled a crisis?), I need to detox. Desperately. Madly alternating between Coke Classic and Mountain Dew, piles of 12oz cans and 44oz AM/PM refills has got to stop.

Going cold turkey would probably kill me. Starting this weekend, however, I am going down to three cans a day. 36oz. That’s it. Really. I mean it. We’ll see how long it takes me to get down to two.

My will is going to be tested today. Three cans, yet I have a little project I’m behind on that is going to require twelve hours of dedicated attention today. Or else.

Well, after a cold pizza brunch and perhaps Battlestar Galactica. Can’t rush into these things headlong you know. Oy, I’m a glutton for punishment…

Holy crap, I didn’t even realize I blew right past the one year anniversary of this silly little number. The things you learn with a bout of insomnia!

On one hand, it’s rather pathetic that I’ve managed about 6,000 words in a year of blogging. On the other hand, when the hell did I write 6,000 words? On the gripping hand, have I written anything worthwhile yet?

Ear-splitting “Frankie Goes To Hollywood” for all!

I have a poor sense of smell. I also have a poor memory for events. Interestingly enough, when certain smells do manage to drift into the old snozz, they trigger powerful memories.

Today I blame urinal cakes. Yes, urinal cakes. Fresh ones all pink and new sitting pretty in the urinal. I know, ew. But, as I stood answering the call of nature, I couldn’t help but think…

It smells like Big League Chew in here?!?

This took me back, way back to an earlier time and an earlier place. I did indeed play Little League, although as I best recall, only for a couple years. I don’t even remember which years, or how many, but I suspect it was when I was 10-12. I switched to soccer after that and played in park district leagues through high school. The high school leagues were co-ed, which was pretty darn cool. But I digress.

Big League Chew was when I was still a kid. Computers were still fun and interesting; I had never burned out or struggled with depression. I still vividly recall the issue of A+ Magazine arriving in September 1986 with “It’s Here!” and being unable to do any schoolwork for the rest of the day as I drooled over the new Apple IIGS. My family traded in the IIe for a IIGS in May of 1987, what a happy day that was. The IIGS will forever be my favorite computer of all time. One of these days I’ll get around to reflecting on my computer nostalgia as I alluded to months ago. The historical mood left me as I became buried under an avalanche of work, but it will return again.

Thirteen was when it all changed, of course. I was already in the throes of puberty by that time, but thirteen was the critical mass. I made friends I still have, I made friends I later lost in devastating fashion (some still alive, some not), I made friends that have drifted away into distant memory. I faced difficulties; rejection, not fitting in, depression, and seeds of things that were planted unbeknownst in my childhood were sprouted and set to grow. I tried to be an adult, I was an adult, but it was too fast and I couldn’t handle it. The memories of Big League Chew were long gone.

The scent of a certain kind of campfire smoke, the taste of certain blends of instant hot cocoa mix bring back the memories of Boy’s Brigade, camp-outs and retreats at Timber-Lee. Yes, I grew up in Midwestern Evangelical Protestant culture, and I’m still trying to recover from it.

Zero to twelve was my first era. Thirteen to twenty-one my second. Twenty-two to the present my third. I’m on the cusp of beginning my fourth, starting at thirty.

I can’t use the Star Trek movie formula on the life, but I’m still going to think positive. Here’s hoping. I wonder if they still have Big League Chew at 7-11…

I am still alive. I am also still trying to recover. As might be expected, the project did not want to go quietly into the night. Saturday the 30th I was a vegetable. On Sunday, I got ‘the call’ and proceeded to spend 15 hours at the office spinning builds for our poor network programmer, returning home at 4 in the morning. Needless to say, I was a barely functioning zombie for the rest of the week. My gas tank was truly on empty. By Friday afternoon I was finally at my end, went home mid-afternoon and crashed for an actual weekend. The weekend was filled with drama, but at least no work! It was something vaguely approaching relaxing.

Now I have a gigantic backlog of stuff to finish that I’d been too busy to touch in recent weeks and months. I’m at a stage in my life where I feel akin to a shuttle reentering the atmosphere. While I hope I’m Discovery, I’m fearing I’m Columbia. All I can do is try to hold together another seven to thirteen months, depending on how life sorts out.

Back on the writing treadmill I go. The absence feels akin to getting back into an exercise routine again after a long break. But the keyboard still feels wonderful with its tasty clacky keys! One of these days I will write something of value.

In the meantime I will point out that Cleopatra 2525 is available on DVD. At this point, the story of an exotic danger waking up in a 500 years in a mech-life plagued future after a boob job gone wrong has made more of a contribution to humanity than this site.

Well, almost. If you threw in “Jack of All Trades” (which strangely isn’t on DVD yet), then definitely yes.

I have made my peace with not making this site look pretty. There are so many things I would love to do in life, but the older I get, the more I realize how little time I have. In theory, I could put my graphic design books to good use with a lot of spit and elbow polish. Learning the now ancient art of CSS is easily within my capabilities. My HTML knowledge stagnated in 1996. Writing actual text has been difficult enough. Writing worthwhile text is a goal yet to come. I will continue to jealously ogle other blogs, wish I didn't need sleep, had time to tinker with Drupal, PHP, and DHTML yo' mamma back to the stone age. However, making this blog look spiffy and intimate and customized to my charming unique personality will happen probably as soon as I develop sentient software to do it for me.

Although with my luck, the AI will be much more interested in actually finishing GNU Hurd.

Ohhhhhhhhh. My blog, Slashdot meets Family Guy, all this week on Nitrous Crouton!