Kind of Depressing

Lately I've been thinking about what I do with myself. A couple of months ago I was unexcited about my new job but I was confident about myself and working out nearly every day; I'll be a little egotistical and say I looked good. Lately I'm much happier with my newish job but I'm also kind of bored. As work has picked up my social life has declined. I don't really go out.. at all, ever. I'm also not working out, and I realized this evening I'm getting a bit fat again.

On top of my declining self-confidence I realized I'm somewhat depressed about my life and where it's headed. I'm not seeing anyone, in fact I haven't been emotionally involved with anyone for over two years or physically involved with anyone for almost six months. I'm 25 years old and I've had sex with three people. All of my 'relationships' have either been one night 'things' or serious long term relationships. Not to say long-term relationships aren't good but sometimes I feel like I'm really missing out. Maybe this realization is because my best friends through high school and college were something of male sluts, more and more though I think it's simply because I'm lonely as hell.

I live in one of the biggest cities in the world and yet I can't meet people. I don't know why.. I have no good reason but I seem to be completely socially inept; at least as far as meeting new people is concered. When I'm out with people I know I'm fine, but when it comes to treading new and unfamiliar ground or attempting to converse with people I don't know I'm pretty useless.

Drinkin' Time

So my brother had to work this evening, me I stayed home and watched this TBS show called 'My Boys'. The previews/commercials for this show made it look a lot like a stupid romantic comedy. Maybe it is, but regardless I watched the whole first season and really enjoyed it.

Regardless, my brother gets home from work around 11 PM and says to me, I want to get fucking drunk tonight. At this point I've finished my six pack for the night and I'm doing just fine thanks for asking, but I say to myself 'fuck it' and say to him 'alright'.

A couple weeks ago he brought home some '10 cane' rum which I wasn't too enthused about when I saw it because I already had some pretty frieking good rum in the apartment. Well tonight I decided to drink one of the three mini-bottles he brought home a couple weeks ago, and wow; just WOW. This shit was GOOD.

So we both have a couple more drinks while the first season marathon of 'My Boys' finishes up. The season ends and Jer puts on South Park, it's a hilarious episode (of course) so we finish watching then he says 'Ok, lets go get some more beer'.

At this point I have a choice to make; stay up and drink or go the hell to bed. Personally I say 'fuck it' and we go get some more beer. We come back and the drinking commences. I tell him to pick a movie and when I get back in the room the opening credits of Aladdin are playing. Now, I love this movie. As a matter of fact I still know the dialogue from years back when I used to watch Aladdin daily.

Cutting to the chase, I'm on my second drunk movie (Inside Man) and he's passed out in his room. Who's worse off? I've no idea but he's drunk asleep in his room and I'm awake watching and movies TV; you be the judge.

Dude, There's Your Car

So for a while now I've thought my car stolen. When I called the police they took my information and were unable to locate my vehicle and so filed the report. The police report was filed on December 17th. Much later (like weeks) I finally reported it stolen to my insurance company. I have no good excuse for waiting to report it, its just how things went down. Just a couple of hours ago someone from the insurance company had found my car, it had in fact been towed.

I'm really irritated about this because I jumped through hoops a couple of times to try and find out from the police department if my car had been towed. Once they assured me it hadn't I filed the report. Now the insurance company finds it with the tow company claiming they've sent me several certified letters asking me to claim the car, of which I've received none. This is almost certainly my fault for not having registered the vehicle in either of my last two places of residence. Coming to the point, I need to find about $800 in order to claim my vehicle, which I don't even want.

Loneliness

Have you ever had it happen that you just feel an overwhelming sadness, a sense of alone-ness. No matter how many people I surround myself with, how many people I talk to or chat with sometimes it just won't go away.

I never understood how I could be so distinctly not alone and yet be so incredibly lonely. It just seems odd to have people around you and know they care about you and yet feel as though you are completely isolated and insulated from the rest of the world.

Maybe it's the alcohol, maybe it's the realization that I haven't really been with anyone for two years; whatever it is it's damned depressing.

Warcraft

I started playing again, though so far my adventures in wonderland have been brief. As far as I can tell thats a good thing, its just been for fun and thats the way I like it. I like it much better as a happy little hobby rather than an obligation.

The Burning Crusade

I went and bought the expansion pack for World of Warcraft today. The consideration of doing which likely played a fairly significant part in my contemplations of addiction early this morning.

Hopefully this time I can keep it under control so I don't have to abandon the game so completely again.

The Moral Animal

I finished this book a couple of weeks ago and it was probably the most thought provoking thing I've read in years.

Its a book by Robert Wright about evolutionary psychology. The general gist of it was that all of the emotions and a large number of our moral feelings are just as much the cause of evolution as they are the effect of our society and its norms.

There was more I wanted to say about this book but unfortunately I've waited to long to write this and so do not remember what else it was I wanted to say.

Addiction

Recently, probably because of this show called Huff I've been watching with my brother, I've been thinking a lot about addiction. Actually, maybe its not so much the show as it is the behavior of my brother and myself... Regardless, addiction... It seemed strange to me the body can become so dependent on some substance that it can not function normally without it. Then strangely enough I got to think about how much the body needs other things. Now I realize these other things are pretty necessary to, well you know, living but it seems as though its largely the same principle. Sleep, nutrients, water all of these things are things we as human beings require in order for our bodies to function normally. So I suppose in some twisted way human beings are addicted to sleep.

I suppose its odd to think about things in these terms, but I can't help but think the phrase 'addictive personality' is a complete misnomer because we all have it in us to quickly and easily become addicted to all sorts of things. Games, television, computers, anything it seems can be addictive at least psychologically. I suppose addiction is really just habit taken to an extreme.

Stupid IE

For the last two weeks or so I've been wildly busy creating some HTML pages which need to match nearly exactly the designs set by our creative team. On the surface this hasn't been too much of a problem given the good practices I learned with my last job. I started by creating the structure of the page and then applying style sheets as needed to lay the page out the way it was supposed to be laid out. I did all of my initial page testing in Firefox 2.0 as it is my browser of choice.

Once I had the pages working in Firefox I would move on to the next page. This strategy came back to bite my ass once I learned the HTML needed to be compliant and look correct not just in Firefox but in IE 5.5 and up as well as in Safari. Now from what I've seen Safari isn't a big problem, it renders things more or less correctly. Internet Explorer on the other hand is a nightmare. Each version (IE5.5, IE6, IE7) renders the page quite dissimilarly from each other version.

As a result I've had some extremely long nights over the past two weeks. Fortunately though, the deadline for the HTML pages has now passed and I've got the whole weekend to relax.

Learning

Let me preface this by saying, I really enjoy learning new things. In fact its a rather large part of the reason I took the job I did, I knew I'd be exposed to a number of new things.

So far I was right, I have been looking at a number of new things. However, I've become increasingly aware of how much easier it is to learn something when I have a specific reason to do so. Barring a reason to learn it, being able to actually involve myself in it is a fantastic thing. For the last couple of days I've been looking at .NET, JavaScript, Flash, and various other online tutorials in order to attempt to learn something about them.

I think I've learned a decent bit about the technologies, but as far as being able to apply them and do something functional with them I'm considerably less sure. Its really an interesting thing.

Strange Times

It has been kind of odd since I've been at the office; possibly a little more so since last Friday.

Since I started my new job I've been waiting for something 'down my alley,' as it were, to come along but it just hasn't happened. However, looking at what is going on at the office I'm not to terribly surprised. Most of what is going on right now is either wrapping up existing work or working on pitches for new work which leaves remarkably few technical tasks requiring attention, at least from my perspective.

Adding to this is my illusion that while drinking this past Friday night one of the (remarkably attractive) women from my office was interested in me. Judging from behavior the past two days I'm pretty sure it was the alcohol making me think so. Se la vie.

Wii Released in Japan

So, I read this funny article about the Wii being released in Japan. The reason I thought it was funny is this quote..

Some early reviewers in the US have complained that the vigorous action demanded by the Wii controller has left them feeling stiff after a long game session.

I think this is funny because it attests to American laziness. Reviewers didn't like the console because it required to much physical activity. To me this is simply hilarious.

Minor Advice

A little piece of advice, possibly with later elaboration...

When you go out with co-workers you don't just have to be careful with what you say; for fuck's sake be careful with what you think too.

Second Life

I signed up for Second Life this evening just to kind of check it out.

So far all I can say is 'huh?'. By that I mean, I don't get it. Maybe its the gamer in me, but if I'm going to be playing something like that I'd rather play something like EvE Online where I could feel a definite sense of accomplishment. I suppose the sense of accomplishment comes from having goals set by the game engine, which it didn't seem to me existed in Second Life.

Maybe it will grow on me.

Second Work Out

For the second day in a row I was in the gym bright and early (well, to me). Still being a little sore from yesterday and not wanting to overdo it I decided to take it a little easy on myself. Easy on myself consisted of twenty-five minutes doing cardio on a seated bike and then doing about twenty minutes of core exercises; not a terribly difficult workout. However, as I was headed down to the shower I was feeling definitive tightness in my abdominal muscles.

In doing the core exercises I learned some new exercises, and some new ways to do old exercises. The first new exercise I learned is called a plank. Basically you lay out as though you were going to do a push-up except with your forearms flat on the floor/mat. Once in that position you squeeze your core muscles tight and hold the position. It sounds relatively simple and not terribly taxing, I certainly felt it though. The second I learned is called a canoodle (at least thats what the guy told me it was called). In order to do this sit and lean back on your palms with your arms straight, then lift your legs off the ground against one another at about a thirty degree angle. Once in position you pull your knees up to your chin while tightening your abdominal muscles and rocking your upper body towards your knees without lifting your palms. I found this exercise to be difficult because I felt off-balance for much of the change in position.

As an aside, while looking for confirmation on the name canoodle (I didn't find it) I found an article by Paige Waehner which contains the ten 'best' abdominal exercises with the bicycle exercise coming in at number one.

Can't Sleep

This morning I woke up at 6:30. Given my recent lifestyle this is a fairly absurd hour to be awake, so why did I do it?

I'm glad I asked; I woke up in order to go to the gym I just joined NYSC. All went as planned, I woke up went and rode a bike for fifteen minutes or so and then did their XPressline total body workout. It wasn't really a total body workout but it did hit eight major muscle groups and it wasn't terribly taxing. Basically it was a great way for me to get started again. Afterwards I went to work and put in a boring day of researching SharePoint.

So the thing I'm trying to figure out now is, how can my body be so tired and my mind refuse to wind down enough for me to fall asleep? I mean, the circles under my eyes are so dark it looks like I was in a fight but I can't sleep. Bah!

New Job

Recently I decided to leave my job because I found living in New York City while being paid a D.C. salary (amongst other reasons) to be difficult. As a result I posted my resume on Dice which is site like Monster except it specializes in technical positions. Within 24 hours of posting I had 3 phone calls from recruiters and a number of e-mails. Regardless of the details, I ended up taking a position with AKQA in SoHo.

Since starting it hasn't been quite what I expected. I was hired as a developer and so far I haven't really done anything technical. Granted I've only been there about five business days, but still I'd think there would at least be a sense of what projects or languages I'd be working on or in.

I'm hopeful things will pick up soon.