In the future, let us consider that when one’s trying to catch up on sleep and, in fact, get enough good sleep to be at all functional the next day, how about not spending the whole night in a series of creepy nightmares about demonic curses and alien invasion?

Why? Oh, just because…

Full points to my subconscious for creativity, mind you. The curse sequence was complex and bore a kind of slow-building dread that you find only in the best horror movies, and the alien invasion sequence was rather subtle. It was my job to figure out if the aliens could be trusted, and by the time the alarm went off I wasn’t quite sure that they were here with evil intent. The gist of it seems to be that they studied humanity very closely in order to most effectively come off as having all of the best of our ideals, but it seemed a little bit too perfect.

Anyway. Fun dreams (okay, the demonic part wasn’t much fun) but still, the sort of thing you wake up from a lot during the night. Argh. Who needs sleep?

You know it’s a good, solid Monday when it takes not one, not two, but at least four cups to get you through the day.

I’m on my fourth, and may not be done yet.

Is it any wonder I keep telling my friends to buy me hot cocoa mix whenever there’s an imminent gift-giving occasion? Currently I’m enjoying the Gourmet du Village Double Chocolate Truffle mix Mari got me a while ago. Earlier it was some of the Starbucks “seasonal-only” Cinnamon Cocoa from Dawn. (Sadly, I’m now all out of the Peppermint. Waah!)

Mmmmm. Cocoa.

I was supposed to work today. It’s about time for the monthly tape backup of the Traffic system, a seven-hour-or-so procedure that mostly involves me being bored out of my mind, but also involves me getting to the office fairly early in the morning if I want to be able to bus home again afterward.

Yesterday, however, came the surprise of hanging with the supercool rugrats while Wendi did another DJ gig. (She swears this one’s her last… it just about ruined her.) So I didn’t get home until nearly 1am. Add to that a drunken revel going on nearby that kept me up well past 3am, and you can understand why I didn’t peel out of bed until half past 9am, right?

What did I do today? A lot of that leveling I wrote about yesterday. Yes, Woodsie’s at level 18 now. Two more levels and he can add a costume and cape. (I’m still not sure about the cape thing, though. It doesn’t seem to be his style, ya know?) The best part of getting to 18 was adding what’s referred to as “mez protection.” Woodsie now has a skill that helps keep him from being stunned, put to sleep or otherwise mentally messed about with. Considering the sorts of foes he’ll be facing from here on out, this is a very good thing.

Mind you, on the downside was the matter of being disconnected every fifteen minutes or so during the last hour of play. Argh. They’d better get that resolved post-haste, or they’re going to start losing subscribers in droves. Double-argh.

Anyway. All I wanted to do was let you know that yes, I wasted another perfectly good Sunday playing games and goofing off. Sucks to be me, huh?

Wait, I did do one semi-practical thing: I created some mp3-format ringtones for my Treo. I’m hoping these are more reliable than the MIDI tones I created earlier. (The phone has a nasty habit of either not playing the MIDI at all, or only playing a few notes and then going silent. Argh.) Let’s hear it for making progress on minor geek projects…

Are you in Portland? Are you a “blogger”? Do you have a couple of hours free this evening? Then you should come to Backspace, downtown at 5th and Couch, between 6pm and 8pm.

For that matter, you should also be part of Portland Bloggers. I mean, why the heck not, eh?

See you there, I hope!

I’ll grant you that I’m not exactly the most well-versed person on the topics of religion, symbology, the occult or any of that mystic mumbo-jumbo. Even so, I’m pretty sure that what Dawn and I saw this afternoon is just plain sick and wrong on at least one level.

On the back window of a little old station wagon I spotted a sticker much like some I’ve seen before, just your average simple line-drawing pentagram.

In pink.

And then I noticed that the upper two points of the star were instead curves… which turned part of the star into a heart shape.

So, can someone enlighten me? Is this just plain absurd fluffy-bunny nonsense, or is that odd bit of symbology supposed to mean something? I’m completely bewildered, I don’t mind telling you. Who thinks up this stuff, huh?

2004 was a better year than 2003, in most respects. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy to see it go, though.

I hope that ‘05 sees all of you happier, healthier, and successful in achieving your personal goals.