So, I had an epiphany this evening about my own state of mind. New Year's Day has changed for me. It's no longer a new beginning. It's just another day. I can pretend something's changed, but I know it hasn't. I can choose to set special goals just because it's a particular day of the year, or I can treat it like a rational adult should and just do what I need to do in the first place. Nothing changes on new Year's day. Well, nothing other than the calendar. I'm not saying that New Year's resolutions are bad. Some people need an excuse to do better. I would love to pretend that a particular day of the year could do that for me, but I can't any more. I kind of miss that.

I know tech is always moving forward. There's always some fresh piece of software out there, ready to be deployed. It's just that the most recent cycle really caught me off guard. I blink for half a second and our entire office is using AJAX to refresh the data on pages rather than form submits. Google introduces G+. Facebook destroys its homepage. I know these aren't really new things, the ideas driving the tech have been around for a while. It's just all so new at once. And don't even get me started on games. I just got Mass Effect for the PC. Not ME2, Mass Effect. To be fair, I prefer playing games that take a long time to play. Fallout 3 & NV. Oblivion before that. SimCity 4 before that. Even in my free time, I like to feel like I'm really working for something, even if it doesn't really exist.

So, I guess I'm really saying that I'm getting older just like everyone else, and really feeling the time slip away from me. I'm 28. I can't imagine what 50 will feel like.

If you never been Saxrolled
I was cool with the old version. No one got hurt, it was just good, clean fun. Even led to some hilarious jokes. "What does Rick Astley serve after dinner? Nothing, he's never going to dessert you." But this? This goes too far. I mean, the original was at least a real song, not just 8 measures repeated for 9 friggin minutes. Don't get me wrong, it still follows the "catchy" idea that Rickrolling had. But the repeating footage and music is just . . . well, it could've been done on ytmnd for like 2 megs on loop rather than 9 minutes on youtube.

I know better, but I read it anyway.

So, Fox ran a story today about how "a group of liberal journalists" used a listserv to talk about whether the government should shut down Fox News. The article continues to ramble on about how this is more of the mainstream media trying to cover up the truth yadda yadda yadda.

My complaint here is that Fox News is basically saying "Oh Noez! People on the internet are talking bad about us!" and I'm just not sure how this is news. Really? The other media organizations (who may be called "rivals" rather than "enemies") are talking TO EACH OTHER about how they'd like you shut down? I mean, they're part of a business just like you. Is it surprising that trash talk goes on? I mean, it's a listserv. It's not like their ideas are actually being brought forth for real debate. They're a bunch of guys sitting around talking smack from their parent( corporation)'s basement. And then to slant it as part of a greater conspiracy to cover up "the truth" is just insulting. I mean, I know that it has as much to do with it as a jaywalking offense being used to discredit you in a slander case, but it's just ridiculous. And I know this shit is effective to people who don't know any better. That's the really infuriating part. I've tried to express my outrage with people who aren't as tech savvy and they think it's consistent, mostly out of ignorance for what a listserv is.

It's my fault. Never should have read Fox News to begin with.

I love her to death, but it seems like, every day, she adds to the reasons I have to let her go.
It's not the cats that stink up the place. It's not their fault they pee anywhere that feels even a little like sand. It's not their fault the carpet, couch, and love seat feel like the perfect places to sharpen their claws. They don't know that they're destroying their clothing every time they gently paw at me. They're just being cats that will never be introduced to the concept of being de-clawed.
It's not the laundry that doesn't get done. It's not the food that doesn't get cooked. It's not the carpet that never gets vacuumed. It's not her chronic back pain that keeps her from doing anything around the house while she's home looking for a job.
It's not the rushed wedding plans. It's not the feeling that I'll never be able to pay for it on my own since her father's broke and she's unemployed. It's not the constant feeling that the slightest over expenditure is going to eventually leave me broke as well.
It's her maturity. Or, rather, not. It's her throwing her phone in anger. It's her rapid escalation from annoyance to feeling hurt to anger. It's her hitting me when she's frustrated or angry. It's her leaving, crying, when I present the reality that doesn't conform to her hurt feelings. When I show her that she's wrong. She thinks I'm taking sides. If the truth is a side, I guess I am. She wants my love for her to blind me from the way things are and I just can't. I'm crazy in love with her, but I'm not crazy.
And if she doesn't come back this time, I'm not going after her. I'll miss her, but I can't deal with it any more.

I'm a liar. If she comes back, I'll deal with it all just fine. Smiling my way to misery.

So, I'm taking Flex training and, as best I can tell, Adobe has spent a lot of time trying to make it easy to make Flash look pretty. I have yet to see how Flex would be more useful to me than the Coldfusion pages we're already using, beyond looking prettier. Typically, aesthetics aren't a main point for me anyway, but I'm concerned that the data manipulation capability I've had in Coldfusion just aren't there. I think Flash makes the pages bulkier in the process, and there are already user complaints about the sluggishness of our system - I think the rendering overhead would be unbearable on their 10 year old machines. I'm probably just resisting the entire change proposed by the instructor. Not only is the syntax change making the code slightly less readable, he's also pushing Flash Builder as the IDE of choice. I've been using Dreamweaver for years, so I'm comfortable with it.