Waiting for the Banzai Cat

Sorry people for not updating much. Really, I can explain: it's been so damn busy at this end I haven't even the chance to surf the blogoverse much. It's not the work though but more of the personal stuff. However, at least a lot of things have come to a head by this weekend. Whether good or bad... well.

First of all, some news: I'm not moving from my present job to the new one as I really like what I'm doing here, something that I belatedly realized while monitoring last weekend's news. Hell, I've been at this for five-years now, that should have told me something, right? Because of this, I set a meeting with my boss yesterday and proposed to up the ante: more responsibilities for more money. In other words, I asked for a bit of career growth. My boss was amenable to my suggestion so hopefully, things will work out on the career and monetary side of my life.

On the writing side, I managed to rush my editing of a short story for the Gaiman contest though as usual, I submitted on the very last day of the deadline. As par for the course, there was an element of absurdity in the rush as the loader of my printer conked out. Because of this, I had to individually load each and every piece of paper when it was time to go to the printer. That's three copies times fourteen pages... *sigh*. Now you know why I lacked sleep the past week.

In other news, I just found out that a friend of mine (blairbitch's semi-boyfriend actually) lost his mother early today after a serious bout of pneumonia and other complications. That's really sad: I know my friend's mother did a stand-up job in trying to bring up a son, educate him well, and do well in life herself despite losing her husband early on. Condolences to my friend. We feel your pain and we're standing by you.

On the other hand, congrats to Hobbes. (I'd say what it is but since this is going to be a surprise and the other person involved is also a blogger, the clarification has to wait until after tonight. Trust me on this one.) Your news plus Carlo's is great; unfortunately that means a lot of pressure is now on my shoulders, dammit. Why is everyone getting ____?!? Doubly-unfortunate that I won't be able to go as [identity-protected] is running a fever today and I got to check up on her as soon as possible.

In a general news sense, here's an article that says the way to train cats to do circus and magical acts is not to force them do it. So what else is new? Everyone knows nobody tells us cats what to do... except what we want to do in the first place. (Courtesy of Neil Gaiman.)

Up next: More short fiction, more reviews, and a couple of book posts. So what else is new?