Random Musings From a White Cubical

Got another showing of the Dark Knight to attend this evening, and suffice it to say that I'm quite excited. Even better is the fact that it's on the IMAX screen, and almost everybody (everybody save one person, that is) tells me it's far superior on the IMAX screen.

Can. Not. Wait.

It's been a very draining week. Mostly because of Monday, which saw me at the bar until 2am Tuesday morning. Just a quick note: it's not the brightest thing to do, being at the bar until 2 on a work night. No bueno.

It was the going away party for Steve and Mark, who are, sadly, moving to Wisconsin. The two of them have been good friends of mine going on about 2 years now, and it saddens me greatly that after nearly 2 years of friendship, some distance is going to end it. Mark and Steve are not good at keeping in touch through means other than face-to-face contact. Meaning no emails, phone calls, IMs, text messaging, MySpace messages... no anything really.

Sigh.

Life moves on, I suppose. I'm reminded of a book called The Rule of Four, which was written by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and the reason for that is it's got some of the best meditations about friendships in the history of popular fiction. I don't use the word "meditations" lightly either. This book goes far beyond the standard discussion of friendships found in many books that deal with the subject. this book digs, and it exposes some very interesting truths (and does it very artfully with many impressive metaphors).

I am in the process of editing a 53 page training document, and let me tell you all how much fun THAT is. It's a very, very long process. Ordinarily, it would take me about 30 minutes to read a document of that length, but actually having to edit it... whole 'nother story. So much writing is involved, and editing documents online at the same time.

I'm motivating myself with thoughts of Batmen tonight. Well, it's more the thought of spending another couple of hours with the Joker that keeps me going today. Now I can't wait.

Tomorrow is the company summer event, and by event I mean lets go watch a baseball game. Whoop-dee-doo. Baseball is easily one of the most boring sports ever. Right up there with golf and synchronized grass growing.

Cool story time. This is totally true.

My old, old, old room mate was very much into the Colorado Rockies... the team, not the mountains. He was always trying to convince me to watch with him, even though I was so adamant about how boring it was. He was convinced that if I watched it, I'd lvoe it as much as he did. In an effort to get him to shut up, I agreed to watch one game with him.

That might have been one of the longet 3 hours of my life... flushed away never to be recovered. Sometime during the game, the announcers appeared to get really bored announcing the game, so they started doing a comparison between the flavors of cotton candy. The interviewed people from the (sparse) crowd, taste-tested, joked around about it, etc. They completely ignored the game. The camera would cut to a pitch here and there, but eventaully even that stopped and I felt like I'd been transported to the Food Channel instead of whatever local channel we were watching the game on.

I've often been told that baseball is far more interesting when you are there... to which i say BAH! because I've been to way more than my fair share of baseball games and know better. About the most interesting thing about being there live is waiting to hear if they call my ticket number so I can go collect some cheap prize. I mean, come on, if the announcers can't even pretend to be interested any more...

I'm going tomorrow only because
a) it's free
b) there's an all you can eat BBQ buffet-type thing
c) there's cool people there
d) I don't actually have to watch the game
e) I might be going from there to see TDK again with Randy
f) did I mention free food?

Friday has become a toss-up between going to Denver and playing Magic (doubtful, as there will most likely be clubs involved) or jsut sitting at home and ripping 105 booster packs. That could take a while. A looooooooooooooooong while, but it's not a very social activity.

I hung out with a friend who I only see once every 6-8 months or so. We saw The Dark Knight on Saturday. It's kind of scary, a little saddening even, but when we were talking, it dawned on me that even though we used to have so much in common, we've both changed a lot. Out paths diverged somewhere along the way, and now there is very little we have in common. Our philosophies, world views, interests, personalities, everything has changed. It was a very interesting conversation, but it was different than what I've been used to, less synergy, fewer "on the same page" moments.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about our conversation was the fact that he seemed completely miserable in his life. Now, it's possible I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. Since the last time I talked to him, he's fallen further into the realm of alcoholism. Seriously, hardcore, bad shit. We're not talking like a few drinks a couple of times a week... we're talking about every night on the couch until he passes out. That's my idea of being happy with life...

There were many occasions where "my job sucks" came up in the conversation too. It was quite obvious that he hates his job, which happens to involve repairing vehicles for the Army. the pay is apparently good, though.

I'm saddened a little by this stuff, but, there's very little (as I've learned lately) that I can do about it, so moving on....

3 hours until Dark Knight!

As The Rule of Four gets at, we are all beings that, like matter at the center of an explosion, are propelled outwards for the duration of our lives. We start out with people who are close to us, but as time goes on, we move farther and farther out, which drives us farther from those around us. In the end, we are left floating, miles from those who are closest to us.