I’m in a reasonably good mood today, though I’m not sure why. I’ve got a dentist appointment later on which makes me irritated just thinking about it, so I won’t. Of course, now that I’ve said out loud that I’m in a good mood, I’m sure it’ll disintegrate like that much cotton candy. I can feel it leaving me now.

On the way in to work today, I was thinking about stuff that puts me in a good mood. There are lots of things, but here are a few (…these are a few of my favorite things…):

• Great 80’s music (including, but not limited to):
  • The Outfield - Your Love
  • Hall & Oates - Out of Touch
  • Laura Branigan - Self Control
• A stereo with great clarity and better bass
• Alphonse Mucha artwork
• Acquiring new technology
• New CDs and DVDs
• Going to the movies
• Biting my tiny Xev cat (just little ones; she purrs when you bite her… but she purrs when you give her any attention at all)
• Las Vegas

Then I started thinking about things that piss me off, and realized that the list of things that irritate me is much longer than the list of things that make me happy. Stuff that pisses me off to no end (again, including, but not limited to):

• The font MS Comic Sans
• People who just can’t figure out how to drive
• People with no bathroom etiquette
• Stupid people
• Improper use (and, more importantly, overt abuse) of apostrophes
• People who tell you they’ll be somewhere and then don’t show up
• People who are consistently late
• Bumper stickers
• Industrial carpet
• People who, when you send them an email that’s high priority and the first line is bold red caps that say PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE EMAIL, don’t read the email and then send you questions about stuff you answered two lines into the note
• Users
• Professional sales people - not retail sales, just the ones you refer to when you say “I’m having a vendor stop in today”

And the list goes on, but that’s a decent start.

Saturday Jenn and I went to LaserPort to play laser tag with our friends Jason and Tracy, along with Tracy’s sister, Crystal, and her friends Erin and Wayne. At least, I think the guy’s name was Wayne. I never really heard it properly.

That was a lot of fun, though I’m way out of shape. My legs are a bit stiff today (yes, two days later) which just further indicates that I need to be in better shape.

Sunday we went to see Shanghai Knights (which was fun, though I think I liked the first one just slightly better). We were supposed to see it with my friend Torin, who decided not to show up. I still don’t know where he was or anything, but I can’t say I wasn’t a bit pissed.

The thing is, like 90% of my friends are like that. They say they’ll be somewhere and then they show up really late, if at all. There’s always an excuse generally along the lines of “something suddenly came up” or “I was doing something else and lost track of time.” You know what? I’m tired of it. I’m tired of being the guy who shows up on time and then has to save seats in the theater for everyone else. I’m tired of being the guy who organizes everything at everyone else’s request only to have no one show up.

Here’s a little anecdote about that: The last place I worked, FatEarth (a startup that no longer exists), I was there with several people in my general age group and we were all pretty good friends. People would have parties at their houses/apartments, and we’d all get together and go. The whole time, they’d bug me about when I was going to have a party at my place. After enough harping, I agreed to have a party. I figured out when everyone was available, sent out invites, got the drinks and food together, cleaned the place up, and waited for people to show.

No one did. People responded and said they’d be there, but no one showed.

So now I have a new rule - no fucking parties. Hey, if people won’t bother showing up - even after they said they would - then I won’t bother having parties. Less trouble for me.

Jenn and I talk about that a lot, actually. Who we want to go do stuff with, who’s fun to hang out with… then we realize that most of our friends, even if we plan something, won’t show up. It’s a little disheartening. I mean, sure, there are definitely those who do make it, and we do hang out with those folks. But it’s hard to be excited about getting together with someone who can’t be counted on to show up on time, if at all.

Hey, great. There goes my good mood.