While browsing the web this afternoon I found a truly excellent review of Face/Off. The reviewer does an incredible job of explaining what makes the movie so good -- a much better job than I did, at any rate. Maybe she'll convince you to go see it if I can't.

Meanwhile, I've been developing a truly passionate hatred for AlterNet. I've known they were lame for years, ever since the months PernMUSH spent on some Canadian site and was constantly unreachable due to AlterNet's packet loss. I'd forgiven them, though. I was willing to move on -- but no. My only connection to Netcom (and thus my email) while at work is via AlterNet, and every single hop bleeds packets like it's going out of fashion. Idiots.

Despite that I am determined to have a good day, and am even succeeding pretty well. Earl is even now somewhere along the 5, driving steadily northward and thinking intelligent thoughts. As far as I can tell he spends the six hours between LA and here constructing worlds to game in, or designing new technology to make the company he consults for wildly successful. A very disciplined brain, Earl has. Mine is mostly good for storytelling; real ideas do happen, but I develop them much better in text than I do in my head.

The weekend promises to be a mixture of gaming, eating, driving, music, and hopefully rest. Carl's running Shadowrun for myself, Earl and Chrisber tonight -- the continuing adventures of the Barada Brothers, private investigators who just happen to be trolls. Their motto is 'We're smarter than anything stronger than us and stronger than anything smarter than us.' I play their token human, an ex-cop named Brett who is easily manipulated by her computers. It's not really a campaign, since we only play occasionally and tend to abstract all the off-screen time. The episodes are a blast, though, and Carl's excellent about giving us a chance to achieve goals while making sure our stupid mistakes come back to haunt us.

The Mittmann's (Mike and Susan) are having brunch in their backyard Saturday morning, which I'm greatly looking forward to. A little over a year ago (June?) I attended a similar backyard brunch, and my memories of it are quite tangled. I was dating Kirby, so I brought him and Ray along. I played Die Siedler for the first time. Marith and Chrisber were extremely cute together, which gave me some hints as to what was going on in that direction. I remember something about Earl, but I don't remember _what_. I think he was being amused by Marith and Chrisber, or maybe by me tickling Chrisber, but it's all faded now into memories of sunlight, good bread, blankets on the lawn, and (under all of it) anxiety about whether these people really liked me. Oh, I wasn't unsure about Marith/Chrisber/Trip, but the Mittman's? The rest of the coalescing horde?

Now, of course, I go play Ahrounquest weekly at Mike & Susan's, and the brunch this year is partially my fault -- Susan asked what they ought to do during ID4 weekend and I suggested another brunch. I'm certain of my friendships now. This year I'll have Earl to hug and lots of people to talk to -- and hopefully Die Siedler for continuity.

Saturday afternoon we're driving to Berkeley (me and Earl, Rachel and Jeremy, Czr and Angie) to book-shop, have dinner, and then see the Indigo Girls in concert. It'll hopefully be a blast, but I'm worrying about Czr and Rachel. They've been arguing constantly for the last few weeks. Czr's pretty unhappy with Rachel, and blames it all on her; I wouldn't be surprised if she thinks the problem (whatever it is) has all been caused by him, but I haven't had a chance to talk to her alone in weeks.

I wish I could refuse to care about stuff like this, but it's easy for me to get people to talk to me, so I end up getting involved in other people's problems. Sometimes there's also a certain fascination with it, like watching a train wreck, but in this case there's nothing fun about it. It's just wearing. I hope it gets sorted out before I'm stuck in a car for twelve hours with Rachel/Czr/Jeremy.

Reading back, this may be walking the line of confidentiality... but I haven't said anything here that isn't pretty much public information. I suppose I'll take the risk.

Work continues to be livable. I explained to some people in a remote office that restarted named would fix their Netscape problems and it worked. One point against my imposter syndrome.

This place is just such a _mess_. There don't seem to be any documented procedures about how to do basic tasks like shipping parts to remote sites. There's also no hierarchy, so people with high skill-sets get stuck doing OS installs, while people who're at the bottom of the learning curve are faced with hugely complex NFS problems. I have absolutely no desire to be a manager, really, but seeing things so poorly organised always makes me want to fix it. I'm fighting down my urges admirably.

Off home, to go buy the latest Dar Williams CD and then do some laundry until Earl shows up.