11/20/05: Total lack of accomplishment

[davidlevine]

In the last week, I've mostly divided my time between work and being sick.

The project at work, time- and energy-consuming though it is, is coming together nicely and I'm pleased with my part in it. At this point my greatest fear is that our fine design might prove to be too much to implement. I wish we were in the same city as the implementers.

And then I come home at 7pm or so, read or watch TV a bit, and fall into bed. I just don't have enough energy or brainpower for anything more. I'm so glad I've got Kate to take care of me when I get like this.

In the last couple of days I've been much less sick. I'm still blowing my nose a lot, but the sore throat, aches, and fever are mostly gone. So I have had enough energy to put a bunch more music into my iPod (including several discs of Broadway show tunes -- still not convinced they will work well in rotation, but it's worth a try), see the new Harry Potter movie (I have some problems with the plot, but I applaud the filmmakers' decision to exclude those beastly Dursleys from the film), and read the new Iain Banks novel, The Algebraist, which I picked up at the Worldcon. I had heard some disappointment at this one, but for myself I found it a cracking good read with inspiring scope and complexity.

I don't get nearly as much time as I would like for reading these days, so I should feel glad that I managed to read a whole novel that wasn't required for anything. But I still feel like a total slug. Perhaps I shall accomplish something useful later this week. But for now... going to bed early has a lot of appeal.

Comments

[numbat.livejournal.com]

One of the advantages of the Potter movies for me is the reduced presence of the Dursleys. Rowling may have good reasons for writing as much about them and their persecution of Harry in the books as she does but it's far more than I'm interested in reading.

random broadway

[anitar.livejournal.com]

I like listening to the show-tunes channel on our cable tv system; it gives me a chance to sample a lot of shows that are new to me.

[nnaloh.livejournal.com]

Have I preached at you yet about the wonders of elderberry capsules for stopping or shortening a cold or flu? They really do work. Got me past two potentially bad flus while I was on tour in the U.S. in 2003 with no socialized health care.

Hope you feel better soon!

[charlieallery.livejournal.com]

I tend to swear by Vit C and Zinc to fend off colds, otherwise I fall very badly for them. Hope you're feeling better soon.

But I've enjoyed the Dursleys. Richard Griffiths is so wonderfully beastly and they're so nauseatingly suburban pretentious middle class failures. What's nice about them is seeing them get their comeuppance book by book as the nasty things they're able to do to Harry get fewer and fewer. Even though Harry's still not doing magic, they're becoming more and more aware of the influence he has on those who _can_ do magic and the instinct for self-preservation is overcoming the habit of dumping on Harry.