Well, even if I do so at crazy hours of the night, at least I managed to get some things checked off my to-do list today/tonight/this morning (who the hell knows!).

Yesterday was a bit of a wash because of how late I slept in – til almost 1pm – double-UGH.  I had left my car at Tracey’s the previous day when we went down to the States so I had to take the SkyTrain over to pick it up.  I went by Manon’s and fed the cats for the last time and, I have to say, I’m relieved not to have to go over there again.  With her newfound relationship status, I really don’t feel remotely comfortable doing something as personal as going into her house when she’s not there and taking care of cats that used to be ours together.  From now on, I think stuff like that will find itself firmly in girlfriend-duty-land.

I stayed at Tracey’s last night – we watched some episodes of Dexter and, though I like the show overall, I have to say that some of the main premise of the show finds me scratching my head and muttering, “Yeah, right…” under my breath or, more often, out loud.  First, the idea that a boy’s father – a cop, even! – would nurture his son’s murderous tendencies by teaching him to “fit in” with normal societal practices like smiling in pictures (even if we’re not particularly happy at the moment), dating, “pretending” to have fun, etc. and also teaching him to only kill bad people…..pure bullshit.  I mean COME ON!  Also, the main character, played by Michael C. Hall of Six Feet Under fame, talks to himself a lot via voiceovers which I have always felt is a lazy filmmaker’s way of getting their point across.  Can’t tell the story/thoughts via action/dialogue in the show?  Voiceover!

So, you hear the character reaffirming his lack of emotions, feelings, connection to other human beings via internal thoughts/voiceover A LOT in the show.  Thing is, the way he acts, his expressions, etc. in the show completely contradicts what he’s saying he is – a monster, always hiding, pretending, etc.  I guess that’s why they feel they have to reiterate his truly heartless character, but it annoys me because I don’t find it remotely believable.  He has a girlfriend, a sister from his adopted parents, works for the cops, etc., yet he keeps telling us over and over again how everything he does with “normal” people is fake, that he does it to fit in, etc.  I just don’t buy it, sorry guys.  I was telling Tracey that I would find it more believable that he was just a normal guy and was a serial bad-guy killer on the side.  It would also make him seem more genuinely insane than this whole acted-out “normal” life/voiceover crap.  We discussed the possibility that he’s trying to convince HIMSELF, not the audience, that he’s so different and disconnected….maybe he’s struggling against finding out that he’s more like the rest of us than he’d like to admit.

At any rate…just wanted to get that off my chest! lol

I watched a re-airing of the Democratic debates on CNN last night and, I have to say, I think Hillary Clinton is right – you can’t just jump up on a soapbox and start preaching some inspiring speech about hope and change to the people and think that’s going to be enough.  You have to know how to deliver those things and to be realistic about what can be achieved.  Experience is a good thing, too.  The Presidency of the United States is not exactly a job where you have time to adjust to a learning curve.  But, it seems like the American people will be swayed by smooth talk once again, even though the message is about politics of hope rather than of fear this time.  I’d really like to see a Clinton/Edwards ticket, but he seems to be on B-Rock’s (as Frank calls him) side in painting Hillary as a bad guy…err…gal.  I guess because he knows she can beat him.  I loved what Hillary said about, “Can we just have a quick reality check here…” when Edwards and Obama started in on all this hyped up stuff about change, blah blah blah.  Go Hill!

So, I woke up just before noon today – another day of feeling like crap for having slept so late – and grabbed my stuff to head back here to get started on some work-related items.  I stopped by Staples and picked up an agenda refill for Tracey’s daytimer that she has been trying to find for a while and got myself a pad of graph paper which I’m going to use on my next logo project to see if it’s easier to draw out ideas with a grid built into my sketch pad.

I caught up on some emails and got a bath before the LSU vs. Ohio BCS Championship game started at 5.  I was stoked because I’ve been waiting for a good while since it was determined LSU would play in the championship and I’d heard on the radio that it was fully expected they’d kick the shit out of Ohio, and boy did they!  GEAUX TIGERS!  It’s fun for me to be so far from my native land and be able to watch the home team kick ass all year and win the championship. It gives me a small sense of pride since I actually went to LSU for – woooo – one whole semester and also Emily graduated from there.  Plus, it’s the team from my home city, so there! lol

We watched an episode of Dexter and Tracey went to bed.  She’s been working from 6am to 6pm and has to get up at 5am every morning. How fucking cruel is that!  Since my sleeping hours are so ass-backwards, I usually end up crashing on the couch for a couple of hours before she gets up so I don’t screw up her last couple of hours of sleep before she has to get up.

I sat down to get a couple of things checked off my to-do list (while adding more when I sat down) and am pleasantly surprised at how many of them I managed to check off in just a few hours.  I updated some stuff on the Work the Pond web site, did my first blog entries for my CFX site in over a year and a half, deleted the Gun Creek Ranch site from the admin and updated the copyright year on my site and firm profile PDF.  So, at least I feel like I got some stuff done in spite of my late start.

Re: the blog posts.  I had to “reclaim” my blogs from Blogger since they got bought out by Google.  Also, since I switched hosting companies since I last posted anything, I was able to update the live blog directly from the Blogger dashboard rather than having to use the Word plugin, which was nice.  My entries were called “Goal-Setting First Step Towards Success” and “Xerox: Not Just For Copiers Anymore”.  I read an article that was talking about Xerox redesigning their logo, so I figured it was a relevant topic to post on.  The goal setting post was basically inspired by stuff I heard at Andrew Barber-Starkey’s workshop a while back.  He said that it’s important to write goals down – not just keep them in your head – and then break them down into steps that you need to take to reach them. Makes sense to me.  I managed to weave in some “do you need to develop new marketing pieces to support your efforts?” into the copy, so it was somewhat sales-oriented as far as planting the seeds for people to realize they may need new collateral or a web site redesign to achieve some of their sales goals.  Now, I just need to sit down and figure out what goals to set for myself for this year and break them down into manageable bites.

So, now I’m going to go lie on the couch and read some more of Eat, Pray, Love before I nod off until Tracey gets up.