Today is May 5th.  Most people remember it as Cinco de Mayo.  I remember it because in 2006, my brother passed away.

Seven years.  At times it seems like only yesterday or maybe the day before.  Other times it seems like an entire lifetime ago.  A lot has changed since then.  And a lot hasn't.

I'm not doing much of anything today.  Just sit back and drink a couple beers, in honor of Mike.

- Jim

Several years ago, I attended UW-Whitewater.  One thing led to another and I applied for a Summer RA position.  I didn't get it.  So, I made plans to work at the pizza place I'd worked at before I went to college.

And... the college called me and offered me the Summer RA position.  I'd cancelled all my plans when I didn't get the job, so it was basically me getting paid a small amount of money to live on campus.  I didn't have much to do.  The work was generally easy and I spent my time working on early versions of the books I'm writing and playing StarCraft.  I have to admit, I spent most of the time on StarCraft.

During that time, I made a few friends with the students coming in for the summer programs.  There was one in particular that I'd wished I'd spent more time getting to know.  It was a weird time for me, a weird circumstance, and I didn't know what I was doing.  Opportunities, if that's what it was, they never repeat themselves.  Not like that.  I know.  I tried.  And I failed. 

Too much time passed in me trying to track her down.  Too bad.  The more I found out about her, the more alike I found we were.

Dammit.

- Jim

Not much has happened over the last week.  Trust me, I will still be trying to catch up when rapture comes.  And essentially, that's what I've been doing.  Oh and allergies, but you didn't want to hear that.

I've set a goal to get a big specific chunk of my backlog done by the end of the summer.  It'll be close, but I think it's doable.  Barely.  That means two things - One, that I'll be working for a while on just a part of the backlog.  And two, that the backlog is greater than what I could conceivably finish in four months.  Eh, I've been letting it slip and my efforts at getting it under control have been inconsistent.

Anyway, I figured I'd post before people got worried about me.

- Jim

Nothing much over the last week.  A cold, allergies, reading, and more reading.  A little bit of writing, but the reading has taken over at this point.

I finished reading The Lost Realm of Cardolan, from the MERP collection. 

And I started reading Rangers of the North, from the same collection.

I've also been trying to work on the huge backlog of back magazines I have piled around here.  Sometimes I get interested in other projects and those weekly or monthly editions get pushed aside for a later, more convenient time.  Well, it's later now. 

That's about it.  Will post again soon,

- Jim

Oh, and for the record, here's some of what I've done over the past couple days:

I watched half of the episodes of the National Geographic channel's The 80's:  The Decade That Made Us.  It's six hours long.  I finished a DISCOVER magazine from May 2013.  I started a TIME magazine, April 22nd, 2013.  I also worked on a bunch of archives that I've neglected for too long.  That's another hole that will never be filled entirely, but it's smaller than it was before.

As I said, it's normally not anything I would write a regular post for and I won't be doing it regularly now.  It would have been more convenient if GetGlue would have been more convenient, or at least more stable, but that's life on the internet.

- Jim

If you checked this page for just the few right (or wrong) moments over the last few days, you would have seen that I was experimenting with a couple changes.  No big deal - they didn't work out.  I suspected they wouldn't.

Over the past few months, I've been using GetGlue to keep track of the things I do - reading, watching movies, television shows, video games.  Stuff like that.  I wanted an easy way to post to the blog about the everyday sort of things I do without the obnoxiousness (is that a word) of posting and of reading an entire post of whatever length about the fact that I'm watching Fraggle Rock or something.  For the people who get notified about every post I make, it would be doubly annoying.

Well, GetGlue failed.  As I was experimenting over the past um.. while, those wise folks at GetGlue discovered that not only are people not using computers any longer, but they're also not reading books or playing video games.  I could post that I was, for example, watching a video about MineCraft on Youtube, but I surely couldn't post that I was playing it.  Then the widget for the blog posting failed because they didn't believe people used blogs and the whole thing became meaningless.  I march to my own drum and GetGlue apparently doesn't.

Ah well.  Anyway, this post is just to say that an easier way to determine I wasn't dead when I failed to post regularly wasn't going to happen.  I am alive and I'm buried deep into projects of my own making - projects I'm desperately behind in.  I *think* I'm catching up, but it's sometimes hard to tell.  Catching up in one area invariable leads to falling behind in another.  I'm working on these things for longer periods of time, but the sea can sometimes appear to be endless at times.

These late night knee pains are getting worse though.  Bad for sleep, but plenty good for getting work done.

- Jim

This isn't going to be a Game of Thrones blog either - but that's mostly what I'm doing at the moment, even when I'm not doing it.  Anyway, I'm about halfway through the second episode of the new season and I have a complaint. 

No, I'm not going to complain about the books being different, I haven't read this far yet.  Nor will I complain that they cut out action scenes.  They could double the budget, but action scenes are expensive.  No, this complaint is all my fault - As I said earlier, I bought the first two seasons on blu-ray.  1080 looks a lot lot better than 720.  HBO HD just isn't HD enough for me, I guess.

All the other complaints will probably wait until after the season.  If then.  I haven't found much to complain about so far, except for the books' (and the show's) penchant for having such a large cast.  Hell, I don't remember my family half the time and there's only a handful of them.  I'm horrible with names anyway.

Ah well,  back to the show.

- Jim

It took a while, but I watched all the episodes, commentaries, and special features on the Season 1 and 2 blu-ray discs for Game of Thrones.  I ended up watching the first episode of the new season about five days late.  Thank goodness for DVRs, I guess.

Now I'm on to other things.  Mostly getting all that stuff off of that DVR.

- Jim

Happy Easter!

I know I said I would write less on this blog.  This isn't what I meant.  I try to write more but I just can't seem to find time.

I got the blu-ray discs for the first two seasons of Game of Thrones.  I have to admit, it's kind of weird to like something so popular.  The things I like usually get cancelled before they get this far.  Weird.

Anyway, my life recently, has been all about trying to catch up with this mountain of stuff I've set before me over the past... decade or more.  Things don't even get close to being finished before I pile more ideas and interests on top.  I suppose we never finish everything we'd like to finish in life, but this is pretty ridiculous. 

Anyway, it keeps me busy.

- Jim

I'm slowly catching up on my unread NEWSWEEK magazines.  I got very behind while doing other things.  Now that I'm taking the time to notice things, I can't believe how much it seems like they tried to kill the magazine.

As a matter of fact, I can't remember an issue I haven't shaken my head at, wondering the same thing.  This is not the magazine you remembered reading just ten years ago.  This is a whole new level of incompetence.

But it gets worse.  I was reading the last print issue, from the end of December.  (I said I was very behind in my reading) when I noticed five pages missing.  It's probably four, but the page numbers jumped from 38 to 43.  Crazy!  I contacted customer service and... well, you know how to tell if a company knows it's going under from the inside.

It's where the employees hide from complaints.  No response, no messages, no nothing.  Seriously, it's been almost a week. 

I canceled the remainder of my subscription.  Even if they couldn't fix it (being so far out of print), they could have at least acknowledged me.  I paid for a print subscription, they changed to digital.  It was annoying me anyway.

Good riddance NEWSWEEK,

- Jim

I'm awake because I am sick.  Don't worry, nothing serious - A bad cold or a mild flu.  Surprisingly, it hasn't slowed me down much.  I'm sleeping more, or trying to, but I've been using the remaining waking hours more efficiently. 

I've made such statements before, I know.

The truth is that work is what I make of it.  It's structured activities rather than the random stuff I would otherwise do.  Reading becomes work when I feel I have to do it, for whatever reason.  The reading in between those sessions is still considered free time however.

I feel like I've explained this before.

Anyway, because I'm interested in a lot of things and because I'm a human who can't prioritize to save my life, I am perpetually behind.  Reading more merely means I want to read more. 

Hmm... scratch that analogy - watching enough television only makes me want to gouge my eyes out.  It's true that I can watch television for a while.  I watched Game of Thrones in a little more than two weeks.  However, when combined with the stuff I record on my DVR, it often meant three or more hours of television a day for quite a while.  I'm sure that it sounds like fun for most people, but for me, it really began to be like work.  Since I finished watching the series a week ago, I think I've watched one show on my own and my nephew and nieces and I watched a couple cartoons the other days.  Seriously.

Anyway, I've been looking at the growing piles of stuff I've meant to do for years with growing disgust.  I've finally started working on those nearly exclusively.  It took years to get like this and it will take years to fix it, but this is how it's going to be for a while.  Mostly. 

Truth be told, as I've said before, I will never truly catch up.  There will always be something I want to do, just around the corner, over the hill, or beyond my reach.  There will always be something to read, something to watch, something to learn.  Still, I'd like to get that list a little more current than it is now.

- Jim

It's been longer than I thought it would be.  My Nephews and Nieces are still staying with us and because they're kids, I spend less time on my computer than I used to.  Don't worry, there's nothing wrong, except perhaps that they play too many computer games.

I continue to work on the whole concept of "catching up", which is flawed from the very conception.  Still, it keeps me busy.  My knee has been giving me more trouble of late, so I have more time to watch shows I haven't watched, movies I haven't seen, and read books I haven't read. 

Aside from that, everything is pretty good. 

- Jim

This is probably painfully obvious, but I can manage to fill my days with whatever I have at hand.  I haven't been bored in a long time, unless I'm specifically waiting for something, like a doctor's appointment, and am unable to do the things I normally do.  As a result, I can suddenly metaphorically look up and realize that six months have passed or six years.  Time doesn't mean much when I'm in my own world doing my own thing.

It's been even more like that over the past few years.  After the so-called "Year of Hell", life stopped.  Work, such as it was, was little more than a collection of tasks I set for myself.  Yeah, I distantly noted the passing of days and months and years, but only in relation to those tasks I've previously mentioned.  I could keep going like this until I died - the list of movies, books, writings, ideas, thoughts, magazines, blah blah blah are growing exponentially.  I suppose that in some way that growing list is something to be proud of. 

But it's not.

I'm not going to pretend that I have suddenly become much more industrious.  I am busy in my own way, doing my own thing.  That's different though, and may be related to OCD.  It certainly feels that way.  Still, there have been marked improvements in the way I handle new tasks and the way I prioritize.  Some of this began a few months ago.  Some of it began over the last few days.

Life is too short.  There is so much I want to do, so much I've missed while being in my own world.  Tomorrow may not come, so it's up to today to do what I can.

But life is also painful.  In some ways, I suppose it might be another way of procrastinating.  I don't have to deal with those thoughts if I'm buried in mindless work.  But I do dwell on those thoughts because many of the tasks I set for myself are mindless.  It's a trap I've made for myself. 

I don't know.  I probably not making any sense right now.

- Jim

One of the advantages of my position here is that if things get out of hand for me, life can stop.  No, not in that way, but seriously - I have all the time in the world to dwell on anything I so desire.  Of course, that leaves the obvious disadvantage - I have all the time in the world to dwell on anything I so desire.  It can be both a comfort and a blessing to deal with things at one's own pace.

Well, it is what it is.  I have to make do with what I have.  It's not as bad as it could be, but the process is not yet entirely complete.  Still, things are going back to normal.  Such as normal is. 

- Jim

This is probably completely obvious, but I don't deal well with death, especially the death of my peers.  Lately however, it seems as if people I'm distantly connected with, more or less, are dying all the time.  I'm sure there's a lesson there, but my mood is too dark to grasp it.

Ah well.  I'll be fine in a few days.  This just seemed more random than most.  Life may be like that, but I don't have to like it.

- Jim

Sorry about that last post.  My nephew came in to talk to me and I don't want to worry anyone.  The problems I have are serious, but not serious enough to worry a little kid. 

Anyway, I've been keeping busy with research and writing.  The research, of course, isn't wholly relevant to the writing itself, but I find ideas in the weirdest of places.  I'm still technically doing some catchup from the internet thing from last month as well.  It's a process that will technically never be finished, but the pile should shrink over time.  I hope.

Anyway, I've got to go.

- Jim

I took a big break from everything for a couple days.  Suddenly, my health became a big issue.  I don't know the whole story, but that's sometimes the way things are.  Honestly, I have no particular fear of death, but I have no wish to begin dying.  Too often, the process is protracted and painful.

Will write more soon,

- Jim

Yeah, I know I haven't written in a couple days.  I seem to have picked up one of the bugs that have floating around lately.  However, as far as being sick goes, this is pretty good.  A headache that comes and goes and body aches.  My stomach isn't right either, but could be worse.  So, I guess I'm lucky.

I finished watching my Transformers:  Complete Series DVD collection.  Yeah, I know.  It's been three years.  But it was bugging me, so I've been working on it lately.  The fact that my nephew has been staying at the house helped too.

Aside from that, there isn't much to talk about. 

- Jim

So I'm back, more or less.  As I said before, I was never really as away as I could have been, though I was never really online as much as I usually am or needed to be.  There's a period of catching up to do and I'm doing it as best I can.

It'll take time.  I'm interested in all sorts of things and there never really is any end to it.  "Catching up" is technically impossible, but being current probably is a bit more realistic.

- Jim

Truth be told, I was never really away.  Due to circumstances mostly out of my control, my internet presence became unreliable.  In my opinion, it became easier to just assume I couldn't post than to post during the random occasions when I could.  The internet was both more and less reliable than I'd planned, but neither was enough to change my plans for what I could do. 

But that's over.  I'm back and everything is working normally, or as normally as such things work in my world. 

While I was gone, work continued.  I'd like to think that I did more work in the last two months than I did for the previous twelve, but it's hard to tell.  Like writing, you can write a hundred pages and then save only two.  I played less games than I usually did and actually did things I'd been planning to do for years.  That's pretty good for me.

Anyway, I look forward to posting more.

- Jim