usually, i write the title before i write the entry. but sometimes... i just don't have anything in my head the sounds right, or the content of the entry is just too up in the air... so i wait until the end. usually those are the more relevant titles, because sometimes entries change right beneath my fingertips. today is a title at the end day
had dinner with an old friend of mine from high school. a year behind me in school, he also came to MIT, and is graduating on Friday. we haven't seen each other very often, but we have kept somewhat in touch -- always by going out to dinner. it's our traditional thing, eating at a nice, interesting restaurant. today we went to Bombay Club, which is one of my favorite Indian places in the Boston area -- and there are a *lot* of Indian places in the Boston area. it's sort of higher end then many of them, though. mmm, yummy. this summer he's working for a company called MITRE. MITRE looks like it should stand for something, but he didn't know what -- and later i asked Chad, who says that he's pretty sure it doesn't stand for anything. weird. why write a word in all caps if it doesn't stand for anything?
Houghton Mifflin just got bought by Vivendi-Universal, a French company.
Their most major American presence is, of course, Universal Studios and the
rest of what used to be Seagram entertainment. But in Europe they're a major
publishing and other media company. The weirdest thing about them is that
a little over half of the company is Vivendi Environnement -- water, waste,
and energy management. Ten years ago or so, they were only the water, etc.
business. Strange. When i first heard about this, i was worried -- what if
Vivendi Environnement turned out to be like those environmental consulting
companies i didn't work for? You know, often on the wrong side, far more
concerned with profit than with actually taking care of the environment? But
i forgot that Europe is rather ahead of us on these issues -- we're the ones
skimping on the international agreements, not them. So after looking into it
some, it is becoming clear that they are probably at least mostly very cool.
today i finally finished my feature about water. i have no idea if it is any good. i suspect i will not be able to tell for quite a while. too connected, you know? and i've never had a good feel for grade level. bah. anyway, i hope it's at least not *bad*... wouldn't want the Boss to be disappointed in me... but who knows. i did something very much like the best i could under the circumstances, though. always more time, always more coherent research needed... eh. i need to lend my housemate E. Cadillac Desert. but maybe i should read the whole thing myself first, instead of just the bit about the Ogallala aquifer. you know, it's almost funny how fucked we are, in the American West. almost.
what happens if i stay in publishing? what happens if i go to grad school in history? what happens if i do something else entirely? why is it that all my choices look... you know, pretty good. not bad. certainly reasonable. could be cool. not actually mediocre, but worse -- subtly promising, but not ever startlingly so. i hate making decisions anyway, and making decisions where i can't even see or feel all the factors... or even most of the factors? ugh. sucks.
i'm on a Neal Stephenson kick. i should get a copy of Cryptonomicon in mass market paperback so i'm more likely to read it going to and from work. and a copy of the Big U, and Zodiac, just to have. i love the societal structure stuff in both Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. i love many other things about those two books as well, but the societal structure seems to be one of things striking me most this time. hmm. i wonder why?
are many short entries better than few and far between long entries? i suppose it depends. and many is such a relative term, anyway. so many things are relative, even though we like to treat them as if there is some intrinsic levels. like hot and cold, good and bad, beautiful and ugly. my favorite things are those that are both of a contradictory pair. like, i *love* things that are both beautiful and ugly. like the movie Moulin Rouge, for example. which i just saw last night. it was... fabulous. ab-so-lutely fabuloous.
oh, bother, falling asleep at the keyboard again, time to go.