A little bit ago, I was doing my daily lunchtime web browsing, when I came across this VG Cats comic.

It is a rather somber and depressing comic, when you get right down to it. The thing is, it also reminds me of one of my favorite Doctor Who novels called “The Crooked World”. In it, the Doctor and his companions arrive on a world almost exactly like that of old Saturday morning cartoons. The world itself is also rather malleable and subject to outside influences, so thanks to the Doctor and friends, more “real” concepts start popping up. One of them appears when Jasper the cat finally loses his temper after losing so much to Squeak the mouse, and kills him. Jasper ends up being charged with murder, and wants nothing more than to be punished for killing his friend. The Doctor, however, defends him in court, helping him and everyone else understand the changes they’re going through.

The story itself (especially Jasper’s story) ends on a happy ending, with everyone becoming more somber and wiser. Still, it’s something to think about… at one point, would the toons grow up? Would they learn responsibility? What would they choose?

*sigh* It’s times like this where you wish you could see those toons through a kid’s eyes again.

Well, we’ll see how well this works out; this is an email post sent from my cell phone. Maybe, if I’m lucky, the new LJ plugin will let this post without my having to edit it later on. Of course, I won’t know until I get home.
On the not so bright side, I was able to arrange it where I can get my passport on Friday. Now I can on the Mexico trip Monday without any real problem. Of course, I’d just as soon not go, but that’s not really a choice.
Ah,well. At least my work here is done; I can go home now, with a stop at Hunam Garden to pick up some Chinese. Fun fun…

All right, so, I left the house at around 6 AM in order to get to the office early. An hour later, I FINALLY got past this major accident at Richey Road (two or three miles south of Louetta on I-45, which is where I had entered the freeway) where some guy had run into the wall in his SUV and gotten killed. If I had known it would take THAT long to get around the wreck, I would have exited at FM 1960.

Unfortunately, the Transtar electronic sign between Cypresswood and FM 1960 was not operating, so I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Has anyone else noticed this? It seems to me that the only time the Transtar signs show accident information, it’s for a location far enough away where it won’t directly affect you. Either that, or it gives travel time information only when traffic is good. When there’s a major accident up ahead that directly affects you or traffic is really backed up, it always looks like the signs are either offline or show a useless message like “Drink, drive, go to jail”. *sigh*

I dunno… I realize I’m still a tad frustrated from having to sit in traffic for so long, but really, if you’re going to have those signs, keep them updated! That’s what they’re there for, after all…

Well, if you’ve noticed the lack of “Current Mood” and “Current Music” fields on the site, it’s because I’m trying out a different LJ crosspost plugin for WordPress. I’m actually hoping this one handles cuts and whatnot better than the old one did. We’ll see.

Right now, I admit to some annoyance. This morning I received an email from a coworker telling me to get an airline ticket and hotel reserved, as he and I are now going to Villahermosa, Mexico on Monday. I’ve already booked the hotel and the flight; the main stumbling block is going to be my passport. My passport expired last month, and I have an appointment at the regional passport office downtown tomorrow to see if I can get a rush on my passport. Here’s hoping, as I don’t really relish the thought of trying to get out and in the country without a passport.

Ah, well. Hopefully this trip won’t end up like the last one did, with me having to rush home because of a hurricane. :-)

EDIT: Okay, it looks fine except the LJ side got a bigass header with the post. Ah, well… they can live with it, I hope. This plugin does more of what I need anyway, so it gets to stay for the time being.

First off, yet again, my latest desktop… :-)

I figure you Mortal Kombat fans might appreciate it. Now if only I could get a higher-resolution version of the image…

It’s 7:05 AM and I’m already at the office. I’ve started getting up an hour earlier so I can avoid traffic; it used to be that instead of taking I-45 to downtown and then TX-288 to my office, I would take the Hardy Toll Road to 610/US 59, and then take 59 to 288 (which would be a LOT faster). Unfortunately, construction on the Hardy Toll Road has started meaning that I’m paying for the privilege of sitting in traffic, and as a result I’ve started arriving at work later and later. So, beginning today, I’m leaving for work around 6 AM; even with taking I-45 I’m arriving at work faster than I did leaving at 7 AM and taking Hardy. This also gives me a bit of extra time in the morning to get my morning coffee and take care of a few things before the majority of employees arrive. I’m just not liking having to go to bed earlier…

Speaking of which, I should go get a refill on my coffee. Fun fun…

I could do with a longer weekend.

Of course, it didn’t help that I was at work until around 9 PM on Friday. Admittedly, most of it was spent cooling my heels while my boss worked on software upgrades on the machines at the datacenter where I was at. Then when I was done, I went home and caught up on the Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis episodes I had missed; fortunately, TiVo is my friend. Once that was done I was ready for bed…

… and got up nice and late the next morning, having caught up on lost sleep. Quite frankly, Saturday was a very slow and unproductive day, with one exception: I had to go down to Sears at Willowbrook Mall to get new passport photos taken. Unfortunately, I had misjudged when my passport would expire, and instead of expiring at the end of the month it expired this past 30th. Oops. Fortunately getting the pictures was a quick and painless process. Once done with that, I went with the parents over to this place in the Willowbrook Mall perimeter called 221B Baker St. Pub & Grill.

221B Baker St. was actually quite nice. Up until about a year or so ago, the parents and I liked to go to this Irish pub called Matthias’s. Unfortunately, the owner got tired of running the place, and ended up closing it. It was a shame, as it had a really good beer selection and the food was quite good, too. The atmosphere also was very pleasant, and authentic, as it were. Anyway, as we went into Baker St., I felt like I was wandering into one of the pubs back around my Aunt Norma’s cottage. The decor was suitably British, and the drinks and food were very good. They’ve earned themselves a repeat customer. Now I’ll just have to drag Louie and Dave down there one of these weekends…

As for today, the main thing I’ve done that was productive was upgrade PHP on this server, so that I could get thumbnail creation for uploaded images here working properly. Otherwise, it’s been a suitably slow and relaxing day, topped off with a quick nap in the kitchen. Right now, I’m just chatting with Missy, having a Shiner Bock, and enjoying what little weekend I have left. I’m hoping this week doesn’t turn out to be really stress-inducing, but one never knows. In any event, I’ll just take it as it comes.

Just a bit of a fluff post…

A little bit ago, we let Chase out into the backyard, and he went straight to the birdbath and lay down. While there, he just kind of started looking around, as if sniffing something. Dad couldn’t resist going out with the camera and taking a picture. :-)