I never thought I’d say it, but I am so sick of cheese it’s hard to even put into words. I’ve had more eggs, cheese, and meat this weekend than I care to describe, and I’m only five days into this stupid Atkins bullshit.

Then again, according to the scale this morning, I’ve already lost six pounds, so I can’t say it’s not working.

I sat up from 2:20a to 3:10a today on the toilet shitting my guts out. Every time I thought I was done, more showed up. I have gas and I’m afraid to fart because I may well blow my pants full. Somehow I think it’s my digestive tract revolting against my new diet.

Oh, and I think I’m getting sick - my nose is all plugged up and my throat is really dry regardless of the amount of liquid I drink.

Sigh. What I wouldn’t give for a piece of toast right now.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that I have no energy. No carbs = no fuel, baby. I wake up tired, I run through the day tired, and I get home tired. I woke up Sunday morning at 9:00a or so and by 11:30a I was ready for a nap. Seriously. I’m dead on my feet right now, too.

If Dr. Atkins wasn’t already dead, I’d fucking kill him myself.

Jenn and I rented the game Starsky & Hutch for PS2 this weekend, which is cool because one person drives the car while the other person shoots out the window. Cooperative two-player game, right? Well, then we ran into the problem where you can’t shoot very well using the standard controller because it’s too hard to control the crosshairs. But the game supports a steering wheel and a light gun controller…

…So I went to the mall and bought Time Crisis 2 with the Guncon 2 light gun controller. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on my big TV, so I had to take it into the bedroom to play on the smaller one. Bah. They need to fix that shit.

Either way, now we can get about halfway through Starsky & Hutch before it gets too hard. The Time Crisis 2 game is the bomb, though, so if you have a PS2, you definitely need to get it.

I’ve run into my first major issue with Windows Product Activation, and as far as I’m concerned, this is fucking ridiculous.

I took the last two days to build up my new desktop workstation here at work. I installed everything, configured everything, set everything up just so. Worked great.

After all that, I was given a larger hard drive to install. Cool, right? So I ghosted my existing installation, swapped drives, and put the ghosted image onto the new drive. Done.

Boot up, log in, and… Windows can’t validate my license. My volume license that shouldn’t need validating.

I’m running a repair on the installation right now to see if that fixes it. If it doesn’t, well… I guess I’ve got a project for the weekend. I can’t allocate any more time to it next week, and I need this thing running by Monday.

Fucking hell.

I’ve posted the pictures for the Enchanted Forest trip in the MildPeril Gallery. Check them out!

I’m back in the office today after working from home yesterday. I’m taking the day today to build up my new desktop (biggerbetterfasterstronger) and clean up some of the stuff that’s gotten left behind due to other projects.

I’m still working on that demo project (and will be for the next five weeks) and the more I work on it and see their requirements the more irritated I get. First, they’ve not allocated enough time to get done what we need to get done. Second, they’ve specified that, basically, we can’t use a database server to store the data - it has to all be in static files. Third, they want it so that Joe Schmoe can just grab it, install it, and run it.

Riiiiight.

The thing I’m really irritated with is that they don’t understand what truly needs to go into this thing. Just because it’s a demo doesn’t mean it’s not a fully robust application like our actual product.

Hey - shouldn’t a product demo be a demo of your actual product? One would think, right? Apparently not.

Anyway, they want this thing to be this silver bullet for all things demo - magic wizard interfaces that configure the thing, ultimate customization for the front end… last I checked, our product doesn’t provide that sort of thing. What makes them think we can do it for the demo?

Ah, the executive mindset. If only I had the same opportunity to wear blinders all day long and not employ any creative problem solving skills.

I’ve processed all of the Enchanted Forest trip pictures and as soon as I get an account on the gallery that’s set up on this server, I’ll post them along with commentary.

I’m working at home today because of the delivery of my new dining room set (a bar-height bistro table and two stools) which occurred a short while ago.

I find that, while it’s nice to be in a comfortable environment and get things done, there are too many things around here that I’d rather be doing, so it becomes difficult to concentrate at times. The cats demand attention, my Halloween costume needs to get done, things need to be cleaned…

Anyway, the long and the short of it is, there’s merit to working in the office, since there aren’t all of the other things to do. You either work… or work. Plus, working at home, I could get my schedule too screwed around. I’d be working at all different hours, some days I’d skip it, some days I’d live at the computer… who knows how consistent I’d be?

I think if I did work from home, I’d have to have, like, a home office or something, somewhere that implies “work” and not “other things to do.” Then maybe.

Of course, I need a house first… which isn’t happening on the current paycheck.

Re: my new table, I’m liking it quite a bit. It looks really good. It sits high (which I like), but that means it’s also closer to this stupid ceiling fan we’ve got in the dining room (which I don’t like), so, since you’re closer to the lights, you’re hella hotter. I’ve unscrwed a couple of the bulbs so it’s not as hot, but now it’s sorta dark. Argh! Can’t win for losing.

Jenn’s started us on Atkins today, so it’s low-carb living for a while. I guess we’ll see how that goes. I know I could stand to lose the gut.