Oh man, I just have to vent - it really annoys me when announcements of a work meeting are delivered only via an iCal file sent by email as an attachment, with nothing else in the email. no time, no explanation of what the meeting is about or why we need it or what the agenda is. And then you click the attachment and iCal wont let you see the information, just the time, unless you accept the invitation, but if the time is bad and you decline, then you never see any other information. Argh. whatever happened to good old text? just a "hey, let's conference call at 4 on tuesday about the contract?" and then i'll reach over and grab my organizer and a pen and write "4pm - work meeting" on tuesday. is that so hard? Argh.

Did I mention I'm sick?

The Venezuelan legislature is in the process of giving Hugo Chavez "the power to rule by decree for 18 months so that he can impose sweeping economic, social and political change." Wow. How long before he declares himself president-for-life?

Appropriately enough, I just saw an excellent film called Land of the Blind, about a fictional and archetypal country that goes from totalitarian right-wing rule to totalitarian left-wing rule thanx to a palace guard, played by Ray Fiennes, who later regrets his role in the revolution when things are even worse under the new "People's Committee for Justice and Democracy" regime, and is imprisoned for refusing to sign the loyalty oath to the Chairman-for-Life, played by Donald Southerland. It's a really great dystopian absurdist black-comic story, kindred in set design and mood to Terry Gilliam's Brazil, tho not as funny.

This weird fluffy white stuff started falling from the sky last night during a screening of films by Bill Daniel at Dry River that I had set up. I guess this substance is called snow and is very rare in this part of the world. I and other people looked out the window in amazement and some even rushed outside to feel its cold mushyness. I think it's been many years since it last snowed in Tucson. There was even enough to start accumulating and cover up the surface of our Dry River "open" sandwhichboard sign on the sidewalk.

In other news, it was another extremely interesting weekend, but I'm not at liberty to write why here. (If you want to sneak in my house and read my journal you can learn all about it.) Meanwhile, I'm sick, fighting the early stages of a cold. Hopefully I can stop it before it gets any worse. I think i've been staying up too late and riding around in the cold too much.

Snow is sort of exciting, or rather, seeing the excitement over snow of more longtime residents is exciting, but this cold weather is not what i came to Tucson for. I'm going to have to ramp up plans to move further south or something if this keeps up or becomes normal. Last winter was much milder than this one.

Is there somewhere I can ask for my money back? hah...