Obsession

Movies/Obsession

Anne & I watched "Matchpoint" Saturday night. Long drawn out tedious drama about obsession. Woody Allen, not his usual neurotic clumsy nebbish stuff.

Scott (owner of the company I work for) has hired a new lead engineer. I have been going over in my mind what I want to tell this guy, and it is getting old. He won't start for two weeks, and a lot can happen in two weeks. He may never start. But I keep going over this same stuff in my head and I am tired of it. Tired of obsessing.

The new guy promises to bring more than technical ability with him, so I am eager to see what he can do with the situation, if anything. I should be looking for a new job, and I do, sometimes, but I have not been putting in the effort I should. Partly because I am discouraged before I even start: any new job I get, my boss will probably be just as big a jerk as the one I have now, so why bother? Well, there might be more money.

I should have been out in the backyard digging up blackberry plants, but I managed to avoid remembering that until it was too late.

Johnnie's birthday was Friday, he turned 14. Anne and I took him and four of his friends to see the new Superman movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought it struck the right tone, true to the original Superman TV shows I used to watch as a kid.

Linux

Last week I had two computers running Linux, one at work and one at home. Had the GUI interface, access to the internet. Things were good. Then I added a file sharing package to the one at work, and the GUI died. So now I am stuck with a command line interface until I figure out what went wrong.

Saturday I fired up my Linux box at home and the monitor was dead. Went to "Office Depot" to get a new one. They had only two CRT's and more than a dozen flat panel displays. The two CRT's were only 17 inches and cost $170. 17 inches is not big enough. I wanted a 19 inch CRT. It should be cheaper than a flat panel, but they can't be had. Ended up buying a 19" Viewsonic for $250. Filed for a $50 rebate. 8 ms response time, which Johnny told me was better. Necessary for any kind of video so you do not get ghosting. Some flat panel displays have 12ms or even 20ms response times, so you need to read the fine print.

TV

They also had a really wide screen with built in speakers that doubled as a TV for $600. It was tempting. I passed. It is bad enough that we have two TV's at home now. Nobody wants to watch what anybody else wants to watch. Anne & I watch some TV together, and Anne and daughter watch some shows together, but that is about it. The boys have their own interests.