It's been some time since I updated the blog. Let's have a brief recap, shall we?

My new niece is growing up.

My new girlfriend continues to stick around and lick my skull (see above-right). She kicks ass like a dual-Thunderfury ninja on energy drinks.

My unemployment is over. I now know many more central Asian parables than before, thanks to Dr. Boris Krakov, my Uzbeki spirit guide.

Sketch comedy continues, and I should be performing at the LA Comedy Fest if nothing explodes.

And a great big WTF to the writers of BSG. How dare you do what you did when you did that thing that you did? I'm trying to avoid spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen it, but doods--you halved the female eye candy in about 4 minutes. How dare you? And without any Summer Glau or Jewel Staite for me to fall back on. Cruel.

Posted by at 5:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I still don't have one.

This is not all bad. First, it allows me plenty of time to go to the gym, drive down to see the gal, and post blog updates that only my mom will read. Second, it frees me from the shackles of at least one defining attribute, allowing me to return to that unkinetic, Lloyd Dobbleresque state in which I am full of potential and kickboxing is the 'sport of the future.'

Two irons in the fire at the moment. One iron required me to write a sample that took 3 days, then add an additional section that took another 2. I'm no math whiz these days (see 'potential,' above), but I think that adds up to a work week, sans pay. I'll keep you posted on that. The other is a telecommuting gig working for an alternative (non-credit card) payment processing company in Europe. Let's hope for business trips to the home office, shall we?

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I'm not much for superstition, but I'm all for bragging, and bragging is easier when you can prove you've exceeded expectations. Even when they're your own. I'm also a big fan of guilt, shame, and fear as motivational tools. So for all these reasons and more, welcome to this year's edition of Cormac's New Year's Resolutions for a 12-Month Span Roughly Equivalent to 2008!

First up, this year(ish): fitness.

I've let things slide a bit in the last 12 months. Quite a bit, actually, so just getting back to where I was will do.

1. Weight: 165 or less
2. Bench Press: 210+
3. Mile: 5:45

Here's the trick: I have to hit all three targets in the same week. The mile, actually, will be the toughest one for me. I am just not a fast runner at all. And yeah, I know 5:45 isn't exactly speedy, but "baby steps," people. Baby steps.

While I'm at it, let's throw in:

4. Hand stand

Just because.

Moving on, a very conservative target:

5. 6 open chords on the guitar

That should be enough to establish a baseline so I can get interested enough to keep playing. Also on the creative tip, but somewhat less conservative:

6a. One full-length play, submitted to a festival or workshop

or

6b. One pilot, submitted to the person to whom you submit pilots

plus

7a. Three short stories, submitted to journals / magazines

or

7b. One novel, submitted to a publisher of some sort

That's it for now. We'll see how that goes. Updates coming in a month or so.

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...how much more work you can get done when you turn off Outlook and shut down your browser. Around 4:00 this morning I decided that might be a good idea, since I hadn't slept yet. Of course, here I am blogging about it. Oops. Alt-F4 in 3, 2, 1....

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I am bored. Mind-numbingly bored. I am also at work. These things are related.

I'm working on a piece for a very large, very boring ERP company right now. I understand that ERP is important. I do. I mean, I like to know that the Homestar Runner Yahoo store has a full supply of Strongbad action figures and Trogdor posters when I shop as much as the next guy, so I'm all about the Vendor Managed Inventory and all. I understand that creating a $4 million software megalith that even turns on is an impressive engineering feat. I understand that selling said $4 million software package is even more impressive, particularly when you toss in the $6 million in consulting it takes to get the software to work. But man--I feel tainted with drabness by touching ERP's periphery for an instant. People actually work with this shit every day. What kind of toll must that take? A couple examples of just the marketing. Golf clap with me:

Businesses that stand still are already being left behind.
If you're not integrating, you're disintegrating.

Yeah. And that's the stuff that won. Someone, somewhere at a meeting slammed his (it's ERP--it's a him, and probably a Teutonic him, at that) fist on the table and shouted "THIS IS IT! DISINTEGRATING! NOW THEY'LL BUY IT FOR SURE!" I dunno if that's better or worse than the "leveraging the new paradigm of synergistic dominance for a win-win" 1998 crap we all used to hawk, but it's bad, nonetheless.

I was going to go to the gym tonight. I still might. But after having my brain washed with this garbage, I need to fill it up with something naughty and vile and whiny and perverse again so I can get back to normal. So I'm headed to The Improv to see my pal Jessica rant about penises or farts or boobs or something.

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It's 1:37 AM, and I'm a-workin', thanks in no small part to a potent mix of nonfat milk, protein powder, and ice. Plus craptons of caffeine and as much water as I can drink. Liquid nutrition is much like kickboxing--it's "the future." But man, this Diet Rockstar stuff tastes like crap. Discriminating hypoglycemic night owls prefer Monster Lo-Carb.

So obviously, I'm working hard right now. No surprise, but after a day of writing, my brain can focus on anything but the task at hand. Hell. I already have half of a film noir set in a Brentwood gym written: "And then she walked in. She was only 18, with a BMI to match...." Yeah. It's one of those nights. I'm waiting for the caffeine to kick in and provide some magic perspective that will lend that special something to my factually dead-on but zing-less case study. Until then, I'm feeling a bit like a worn-out, paranoid corporate tool, much like our young pal Ender right before he uncorked a big bottle of xenocidal whupass on the Buggers. Just started reading that yesterday, after all these years. Finished it today--not exactly a tough read. But a good one, and well worth buying for yourself or your kids.

So back to the work situation. It's almost over. And I've learned a few things, courtesy of my diverse client base:

• If I ever get prostate cancer, I'm going to LLUMC for proton therapy.
• Sarbanes-Oxley compliance is everyone's business. Especially if your portion of "everyone" happens to be the Chief Executive with his head on the block if you screw up.
• KVM-over-IP can be sexy. In a not-in-the-sense-of-actually-making-me-want-to-have-sex sort of way.

Oh yeah. I bought a can of Diet Coke Plus on the way home, thinking it might be just the liquid superfood I needed to get me through the night. I'm holding it in reserve at the moment, but I'll let you know.

The buzz has arrived. Back to work. Buggers.

UPDATE: Niacin and B6 do not belong in Diet Coke. I swear I can taste the difference, and it's not good.

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It's 10:40 PM on a Sunday and I'm working. Waa. Cry for me, people. I mention this for a few reasons:

• The pity. I loves me some pity.
• So I have a post to assign to the "Work" category.
• Because despite this, the weekend really hasn't been so bad.

In fact, it's been pretty good. Shopping for cheap clothes at H&M, watching shitty movies about demonic children and the Apocalypse at the Arclight while drinking big plastic cups of wine, eating yet more cheese at the best brunch spot in LA County, and a bevy of other recreational activities that left me completely drained and not-at-all ready to work (why do you think I'm writing this instead?), but pretty darned content.

Other good news: With a little luck, Doc and I will be going to The Playboy Jazz Festival to see Etta James. Oh yeah--there's a San Fran trip in there, too. Possibly the old fave, The Hotel Boheme.

Now if someone will just write this piece on Sarbanes-Oxley for me, I can get back to planning my developing social life and everything will be right with the world.

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