And a new saga begins. Actually, it sorta continues. Segues, maybe? I start a new gig today as a contractor, something that I haven’t done in about ten years. It’s also my first day of work at a new company in almost seven years. And because today is Veteran’s Day, the normal quagmire of traffic found each day on Connecticut’s highways was non-existent (meaning that I only had to completely stop just twice on Interstate 95 – hell, it means that I was actually going fast enough to have to stop!) which gives me time to hangout in a Dunkin’ Donuts – I can’t get into the building until 8:30. And the holiday season still looms on the horizon…

So what else is news? Halo has been consuming hour upon hour of my time. When the original Tribes came out, I bought it as an unknown and it sucked me in for a bit. Tribes 2 was a nice upgrade to the original – not many sequels can say that – but for some reason it didn’t grab me the same way. Oh, I’ve pissed away a number of hours on a PS2 with Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City but I have gone as long as ten months between turning on the PS2. I think Halo – which plays very similar to Tribes but with an easier game play – has kept me enthralled because I don’t suck at it as bad as I did with Tribes. Sure, there are days when I end up with four times as many deaths as kills and not ever even seeing the flag, but those are off days. There are also days when I’ve topped off 50 kills (more than the entire other team combined) and a number of flag captures and the top number of assists: the Halo Triple Crown. Pride? Me? In a non-coding way? Who knew?

I’m also told that the drummer in the garage/hobby band I’m in is having a Christmas party and we’re fixin’ to play it. This is an interesting turn of events. While the band has been together for years, our bass player decided to hang’m up a few months ago, which has shifted me to bass. Me? Bass? Yeah, I know, I’m a drummer by tradition, but so far, for this band, I’ve been on a bunch of different instruments and I’ve had a bass for years – I just never had a reason to spend time with it. Consequently, I’ve been picking it up a song at a time. Besides, I figure that if we hold off on the first set until after the bar opens, we’ll sound perfect to everyone anyway *smirk*

Hobby-wise – beyond the bass – I’m sorta torn on what to do next. I have two book ideas that are both begging to be written even though I haven’t been able to focus on either one and I know I can’t do both at the same time. See, a little less than a year ago, I started writing a manuscript for a fictional book. Actually, it was more of an anthology, as each chapter can stand on its own, but it’s still just one volume. Since then I self-published it and it finally hit some online book places during the summer. From the people that I know, they tell me that I should continue the story – after all, it stops with the main characters’ graduation of high school, and for a lot of people, life gets extremely interesting in college. So that’s a thought. What happened last year is that I got a wee soppy during the holidays and started it between Christmas and New Year’s and it built on itself throughout the winter; the same thing can happen again.

The other idea is spawned from the experiences of my last job. Yes, it would be fictional in nature, but a large part of the storyline could be based on the reality of that time. If I wrote about nothing but the reality during those six years, no one would believe me anyway. Picture Dilbert come to life. Without any thought of any kind. And without using oxygen. Also without a financial compass of direction. And with a good dose of unrealistic expectations about sales. With a lot of wireless devices. More or less. There’s a market for it too: the .com boom to bust is still most unwritten about from someone in the trenches and this would span from before the boom, even.

So what do ya think? Which book idea sound more interesting? A continuation of an existing work or something business oriented? I figure the continuation would be anthology style and the business book diary style – I don’t think I could pull off a novel in the sense of a novel…

Um, did I mention I’m really just a programmer by trade? I guess I forget that, from time to time. Oops, 8:32 – time to go to work.