Netrek. The holy grail of retro-gaming. But, most people have no idea what it even is.
Well, I finally put my thoughts down in a post on rec.games.netrek on Usenet.

[ Note: The link to groups.google.com may not work right away. Check again later if Google still hasn’t received the post. ]

o/` It was great when it all began,
I was a regular, Rocky fan.
But it all f@#%in’ went in the can;
to unf@#% it will require a plan. o/`

Every once in a while, I’ll poke my head into the alt.cult-movies.rocky-horror newsgroup. Today, MIBecky asked in the thread WHY DO YOU DO IT?:

if [RHPS shows today suck] so hard, why in the world are people so obsessed with it? Why do people keep joining?

I couldn’t resist answering and my response turned into the usual rant in response to this question.

[ Note: The links to groups.google.com weren’t working when I posted this. But they are now, as of 9/6 8:00 AM. ]

Ever had an idea that seems simple to you, but is so very hard to communicate by putting writing it down in words? I mean, if someone were to interview you with a series of questions about the matter, you’d be able to answer them with ease, and the sum total of the answers would serve as that written communication. The tough part, of course, is coming up with those questions to ask yourself on your own, so that you can write down all the answers.

This is the problem I keep facing. I keep getting tasked with writing documentation and I keep choking every time I sit down and try to write it! I just can’t bring myself to do it and it’s driving me nuts.

I guess it’s liberal arts equivalent of being a porn star, having to sit down and write on demand. I just can’t do it. Perhaps, carrying on this really poor analogy, it’s performance anxiety? Is there a special writer’s Viagra I can take?

Apparently, we’re to expect a visit from my mother-in-law in September. She, like my own mother, has a hard time dealing with the boundaries that we established. So, playing the “aggressive ignorance” card, has simply booked her travel to come visit without consulting us under the pretext that she’ll be self-sufficient so we don’t have to worry about her. That’s exactly why we’re worried.

This is probably the worst time to be introducing this level of stress into our lives.

Ah, I didn’t properly mention exactly why I hate my new commute. I started a new job on June 16th. It’s roughly 42 miles away from my house. Almost entirely highway driving. You’re thinking, “Gee, that’s not too bad.” Oh, but you’re wrong. I go from New Jersey into New York, crossing that horrid Tappan Zee Bridge.

On the second day of my new job, I decided to leave my house extra early — around 5:45 AM — so I could be in the office early and beat all the traffic. Oh, was I so sadly mistaken about missing the traffic. Some insane nutcase decides to make his personal issues public and threaten to jump off the bridge. This closed the bridge down — and I mean closed, as in, not even a single lane of traffic was open — from 6:30 AM until 9:30 AM. Guess what — I’d made it just before the Palisades Center Mall exit 12 on 87S/287E … still on the Rockland County side of the Tappan Zee Bridge. I was stuck in that traffic, until some guy managed to talk the nutcase down.

Personally, I think allowing people to threaten suicide and then allowing them to live sends the wrong message. Hey, if you’re going to threaten suicide, do it to some toll-free suicide hotline from the privacy of your own home and don’t screw with everyone else’s lives. If you’re going to climb a bridge and ruin thousands of people’s commutes, you might as well god damned jump so we at least get the pleasure of driving over your bloody corpse for making us sit in traffic for three hours.

I hate my commute …

Today starts my second week at my new job. The commute over the Tappan Zee Bridge wasn’t too bad today, just over an hour. Still, it’s over twice as long as my previous commute, which is a real drag.

I’m just about completely set up with my accounts and miscellaneous access to things at work, so I think this week is going to be even more hectic than last week. Lets see how long it takes me to beat things into submission here and get it all flowing smoothly …