Life in a Day is going to Kill Me

Oh, my.

I've just received an interesting task. I am to watch a movie, then write a blog post on it.

For pay.

2008 LA Auto Show

Back from covering the 2008 Los Angeles Auto Show. General atmosphere/impression? One word:

Subdued.

More to follow.
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Catching Up

Boy, it's been a busy last few weeks, hasn't it?

Besides the election, I've been focusing on the Chrysler/GM merger; possible government bailout/loan (you say tomato, I say...) for Detroit; and SEMA. Blogging here at Words, Weights, Whatever is the last thing on my mind when I get home and log on.

More stuff to follow. Next up: role-playing games (and how!)

Peeking In

Yes, I'm still alive. Too much work, too much gaming, spouse time, and too little sleep. More posts coming
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Feeling Fake

I like my job as an automotive blogger. There are days, though, that I feel like a fake.

Today was one of those days. One of my colleagues from Motor Trend brought one of the all-new Dodge Challengers to our office. While admiring its lines, both inside and out, I couldn't help but notice it was a stick shift.

I can't drive stick. Neither of my parents drove stick and it wasn't part of the driver's ed. Most folks in the U.S., in fact, can't drive stick.

But the auto industry is different. Just like how doctors can brag about being able to stay up three days/nights in a row without sleep, auto journalists and enthusiasts puff up their chests (and breasts) when they proudly declare they can drive a stick, prefer stick shift, and the only "real" driver is a stick driver. One journalist/exec, whom I admired, really brought that point home when he asked a tableful of journalists if they'd consider anyone in the industry who drove an automatic to be a true auto journalists. You can guess their answer.

Don't pity me. They have a point. I've already taken a few lessons from some of my colleagues and have researched driving schools. I will one day master the stick. Er, the one in a car, that is.

Fifteenth Hour

My eyeballs feel like boiled eggs.

That's a problem when you work in front of a computer all day. Information --specifically, written information -- is your "product" day in and day out. All my blog posts, my team's posts, blog images, and communication are always in front of an Alt-tab away.

There's no letup, especially in this day and age. "Information overload" is a real issue for many of us in media. I spent a good half-hour to sometimes an hour each working day both in email and the Internet culling the so-called wheat from the chaff(?) to find my diamonds in the rough auto news. I post between 15 to 26 new posts a day during the week. That's a lot of diamonds to find. Then there all these images....

But here's the "sad" thing. You know what I do when I get home? Yup, that's right. After a brief nap, I boot up my laptop and start the process all over again but with new topics (e.g., personal blog posts, rpgs, news, etc.) I hope that, one day, we'll have artificial eyes, for I can see (get it?) that I'm going to need them.
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Thirteen Hundred

Don't you hate it when technology fails you and you don't know why?

That just happened to me. Here I am, doing my work, copying and pasting some text from a Microsoft Word document to Notepad. Why? Let's just say Microsoft likes to hide code which doesn't like non-Microsoft products (and even some other MS products).

Anyway, I select Ctrl and V keys to paste the selected text. What do I see? Well, I see text but it's the wrong one. What the frak? I think. Instead, I see the text from the prior copy/paste job.

A bit of explanation. MS Word apparently has a feature that records a certain number of copy/paste jobs in the Paste functionality. Normally it defaults to the most recent copy when pasting text. However, one can open this job list to paste in earlier material. I never use the feature, since I copy/paste what I want to paste the first time.

Anyway, I try again, copying the right text, then paste again. Still old stuff. Argh! This time I cut the material from the Word document, confident I could restore it using the Undo feature. Nope. Argh! (I'm beginning to sound like a pirate, eh?) I undo the Cut, then give up. I've dealt with this admittedly rare issue in the past and know of only one way to stop it. Yup. That's right. Reboot.

Grrr....
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Twelve Hours

One of my "faults" is that I, once I figure I like something, I can be quite obsessive about the new interest. The Spouse has seen it over and over: books, comic books, religion, cars, and role-playing games.

Now I'm interested in personal blogging as opposed to my blogger job. Today I'm going to generate one post per hour from noon until midnight. And these won't be half-arsed posts like a couple of sentences each. No, each will be at least four meaningful sentences.

So what will I be covering? Originally, I was going to cover what I did during my job. I decided finally that blogging about blogging was, well, kinda boring. Instead, I'll figure a topic at the spur of the moment. The Spouse always said I'm chockfull of ideas. Let's put that to the test, shall we?

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Carpe Diem (seize the day)

Seven Months

As you can see below, my last post was back in February. I'd like to say there have been big changes in my life since then (e.g., winning the lotto, six figure advance for my first book, etc.) but life's been more sedate than that (thank the gawds).

Instead, I'm still employed, still partnered, and still healthy. For those catching up, I started working for the present company back in February 2006. The full-time temp position turned permanent around September that year. Having benefits again...are good!

The Spouse and I will be celebrating our 15th year together this December. 15 years. Damn. That's five times longer than my first major relationship. But don't look for posts about any future weddings. Though same-sex marriages are legal here in the Golden state, we've decided against it -- and even domestic partnership -- for the foreseeable future. That can all change, though, if we win the lotto.

I'm still healthy, abeit with a few more wrinkles. The spare tire, though, is definitely growing. I'm schedule to get a physical this month but am already planning to drop below 200 pounds in the near future. I can see the holidays, though, putting a major crimp in my goal. Oh, well.


More to come!
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Carpe Diem (seize the day)