Of Moose And Men
The Best Laid Plans Of Both Often Go Astray

Mind-numbingly boring work today. We’re reviewing emails in response to a Congressional inquiry, and actually what we’re doing is reviewing the work of the summer interns, and while I’m sure the member was expecting to find something smoking, what we’re finding instead is that people are really, really dull over email. If I have to read one more argument about where to go for dinner, or an announcement of another new baby, I may scream. Unfortunately the torture continues tomorrow.

Oh, and a manager (not in the counsel’s office) at the not-so-BGA called me today unsolicited to let me know there were attorney openings coming up there, and offered to answer any questions I had. I’m going to take her up on it tomorrow, since finding the actual structure of the counsel’s office there has proven to be a futile task. Again, nice to have folks with whom I’ve worked think of me for such things.

So, after the doc review, as a treat I stopped off at Jenny’s and picked up Chinese take-out (mmm, Fiery Tofu…). Ate at home, cleaned stuff up in the living room (pre-gaming chore), then set myself to setting up the Xbox. I actually crawled under the “entertainment center” (aka my desk) and unhooked all the cables from the PC that’s not worked in months now due to lack of a fan, and got that cleaned up and put away. Then the Xbox itself was relatively easy to set up and get into. Used the same old same old user name on there, ‘legalmoose,’ because my first choice was already taken and I didn’t feel like trying to come up with something else. Got hooked in, got the free month of Xbox Live Gold membership, and then popped in Bioshock.

Wow. Blown away. Absolutely loving this game, as evidenced by the posting here at 11:30ish. I had actually set an alarm on my phone (appropriately enough with the old horn “ah-OOOga” sound) for 9:30. That got snoozed a couple of times. I just played the thing on Easy mode, but am really enjoying it.

This is actually the first time I’ve played with a controller of this type. I know, scrape yourself off the ground, but up to the DS purchase, all my gaming had been on the PC. Now I’ve the DS, a Wii and an Xbox, and I love all three for the different types of experiences they give. Still having problems with the camera (for some reason I want to push down to move the camera up, and vice-versa – holdover from some other, older game on the PC maybe?), so occasionally I miss stuff, but the plasmids are quite fun. I’m playing the nice guy, rescuing the little sisters instead of killing them, ’cause for this one I wanted to see how that played out. Next time, slaughter.

So I have Bioshock, and Mass Effect (still in the shrink wrap), and two games that came with the system (some racing game and a Marvel Comics marketing ploy, I mean game). A fun addition to the living room, I have to say.

Someone at work today called me lazy because I took the elevator down a floor to find a working bathroom, rather than taking the stairs. I laughed and declined to point out that I went 70.3 miles on Sunday. Lazy. Ha.

Firefox 2.00000000000000000whatever sucks donkey balls on the Mac. Not all the tabs fit on the screen, each one has its own “X” button rather than a single button that would close the one active tab so you have to keep moving the stupid mouse cursor to shut them, hitting apple-key-W won’t close the entire window if it’s the last tab, and the font for the bookmarks menu is too large to hold all of my delicately balanced bookmarks on one page, like it all used to do just fine under version 1.5. I am not amused. Additional features are not always improvements, folks.

I remembered some more vignettes from the race that I want to put to writing later this evening. Should’ve been in the initial race report, but I wanted to get it up sooner rather than later.

It’s the last month of the federal fiscal year and I’m again one of the most popular attorneys in our office, if not the most popular one. The next month is going to be b-u-s-y.

That light coming from yon burning orb in the sky? It’s fall light, not summer light. No humidity to futz it up, and much cooler out than it has been. Clearer, but different in hue and tone. Nice to see, nicer to know I can throw the windows open and not waste electricity on the AC. But so not ready for it to get darker earlier.

I need a second drawer for my underwear. Not because I have so many that they can’t fit into one (almost, but not quite), but because I need to sort them. The categories: 1. Comfortable; 2. Not Comfortable.

After Jockey decided to do away with size small underwear (curse their oversized hearts), my underwear buying mantra has been, “Is it cute? Is it on sale?” If one or the other (preferably both), it’s in. This has lead to a great variety of undies, with few sets repeated in the collection. Contrast this to the days when I bought jockey boxer-briefs and the only difference between pairs was the color.

So, with a great plethora of underwear I tend to just throw them all in the drawer and then root around until I find something I think I might like that day. It’s mostly boxer-briefs, but the occasional plain boxer or brief or something else is mixed in with the collection. There are, of course, pairs mixed in which are, how to say, less comfortable than others. Either too tight, too loose, too high across the ass, too low a waist, too high a waist, the seam irritates my piercings, whatever. For some reason, they’re just not comfortable for wearing. And I tend to forget which pairs those are. Hence the need for a second drawer. Because heaven forfend I should throw out a pair. Then I might forget how bad they were and buy them again. Instead I just forget how bad they are and wear them again.

Which brings us to yesterday’s pair. A nice pair of black 2Xist cotton boxer-briefs. They fit well when I put them on. Not too snug, waist hit the right place, etc. Then they got worn for a while. Sometime around, oh, noon, the cotton in this pair had stretched out to the point where they might as well have been boxers. No support, no clinging to the legs/crotch, just limp cotton hanging around. But not like the nice thin cotton that boxers are, no, this was slightly thicker, with ribbing in all the wrong places. I couldn’t get out of them fast enough when I got home.

And since I did laundry last night, I know they’ll be dry tonight (cold wash, drip dry), and will go right back in the drawer, where they’ll sit unloved, until the next time I’m at a loss for what to wear and drag them out again, only to remember that I hate them. But by then it will be too late.

Let’s see. Today. Bullets:

• Left work “late” (aka on time) because I got caught up in fixing something. Not a bad thing, it gives me something to write tomorrow. (I say “late” because it’s summer and I typically am the last one in the office, with an official quit time of 6pm, and it’s been dead after 5pm)
• Got home to a new obsession in the mail. It’s all BC’s fault for mentioning it. And Amazon’s for offering the full set for less than $10.
• Played said obsession until just now. Hadn’t evven checked email this evening, that’s how bad it was.
• Despite that, managed to get laundry done for this weekend’s trip and race.
• Ran briefly this morning (as in, less than 2 miles). Went okay.
• Discovered while doing laundry that my favorite big running shorts have a hole in the crotch. Thank heavens I have multiple pairs to choose from.
• Still recovering from the head cold, but getting better.

And that’s about it today.

A vignette from the weekend, completely out of context:

Me: This is really fun.
BC: I’ve got no complaints.
Me: Good, ’cause if you did I’ve got a ball gag over there that would stop that right quick.
*pause, look at each other*
*both of us dissolve into giggles*