I never really understood how it made sense to hear 'cold as hell' and 'hot as hell' both used to describe temperatures in the same day. It's possible for the outside temperature to be 'cold as hell', while if the heat is too high inside it's 'hot as hell'. Two very different temperatures, yet each is equated (by the same person in some cases) with that of hell, oft believed to be a place of fire and intense heat.

So what does that side trip have to do with anything? 'Cold as hell' is my reaction to the sharp decline in temperature of late. Despite a high temperature of 81 of our Fahrenheit degrees on Saturday, current highs are as low as 68 degrees, with overnight temps in the low 50s. This is the expected behavior of days on the far side of the autumnal equinox, but unfortunately means that the too short summer of 2003 has officially come to an end. Not that it's stopped me from strolling around in short sleeves, shorts, and sandals, but that was as much a holdout until October as it was appropriate attire for the current climatic conditions.

As the temperature drops, my belief that I am cold-blooded is reaffirmed by the lack of energy and motivation that's fallen over me lately. I manage to get enough done to get by, but I don't have the motivation to work on any of my myriad of non-assignment programming projects, or anything else that's not part of a homework assignment. I'm hoping that adding some of this stuff to my weekly to-do list will force me to get some of them done, and it seems to be working, since writing this update was one of the things added to that list.

So if I haven't been accomplishing anything lately, just what have I been doing? The answer is a simple one, and is the same as 2/3 of the other Room 3 residents (though for different reasons): gaming. While perusing SuprNova a few weeks back, I came across an SDL port of the classic shooter Raptor: Call of the Shadows for Linux. Having been an addict of this game in my youth, I couldn't resist the temptation to download this. After opening a .tar.gz inside a .zip inside a .tgz, I came across a 9 meg shell script, which after a quick glance didn't appear to try and wipe out my computer, I ran. Since then, I've torn through the game, completing all 3 sectors (this was the full game, much to my delight; I'd previously only had the shareware version and one sector). Mindlessly shooting stuff is like instant stress relief, though when you're relieving the stress of not getting anything done by wasting more time, it's bittersweet.

My musical leanings of late have been towards the wonderful band Boston, in particular the Third Stage album, which is one of, if not the, best album (as in the whole experience, not just a collection of songs) that I've ever heard. Having first come across Hollyann via random selection of a full XMMS playlist, I chose to listen to the whole album, and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made (which doesn't say much for the quality of my decisions). Amanda is a beautiful song, which for me brings back memories of a situation to which the lyrics have a personal touch. We're Ready just has something about it I can't describe, but it sticks in my head until I put it on. The Launch is an excellent lyric-less track, flowing right into Cool The Engines, which seems to get better every time I listen to it. Then things slow down a bit for My Destination, A New World, and To Be A Man, picking back up with I Think I Like It. From there, we have Can'tcha Say/Still In Love, another one of those songs that has a personal touch with me, but is damn good anyway. The album ends with Hollyann, another great song, much like Amanda. It's like the musical equivalent of The God Of Small Things in that it's so good you don't want it to end.

Now that I've written more about a 17-year old album than I have about any other things that's happened in the more recent era, I've come to realize that I don't have a whole lot to say. Or rather, not a whole lot to say that anyone would find the least bit interesting to worth reading. Not like that has stopped a certain individual, but I like to think I'm better than that.

Before I end up droning on, and in the tradition started with my last update, a random away message of mine from earlier in the week: "no matter what, make sure you avoid the purple jackrabbit".