Tag Archives: asshattery

Beijing and other asshattery…

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It won’t be a surprise to anyone who’s been reading these posts regularly that I haven’t been watching the Olympics. Whatever the gene is that drives people to watch sports on television is one I just don’t have. I don’t hate them, it’s more like I don’t even think of them at all when left to my own devices. It’s impossible, of course, to avoid the coverage that the Olympics and other sporting events get in the media. I mostly tune those out, but occasionally something seeps through.

What little I’ve picked up about the Beijing games doesn’t fill me with regret for my general indifference to the sporting world. A winter Olympics with no snow. Athletes falling out with the Great Plague. The inevitable doping scandals. Participants using burner phones… and China just generally being China. It all reads more like bad reality television than something worth spending much brainpower on.

Based on the amount of breathless coverage everything in Beijing is getting, my opinion clearly isn’t shared by many… or maybe the Olympics are a convenient excuse not to have wall-to-wall coverage about the deteriorating state of the world and divisions at home. That’s more observation than accusation. There’s plenty enough shitshow to go around whether you want to watch the Olympics or any of the other asshattery filling the airwaves and webpages of 2022.

Almost, but not quite halfway…

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My “official” calendar in Outlook is often what could generously be called a hot mess. ​It’s filled with blocks of times for actual meetings I expect to attend, meetings that I just need to know are happening, generic reminders of when certain things are due, the full range of vacation days and doctor appointments, and often as much other information as I can cram on to them to make the days at least look productive.

As I was projecting out the schedule on some longer range projects that had known timelines stretching through next spring, when I ran across a chit I had put down long enough ago that I don’t remember doing it. Sitting there on the calendar not too deeply into 2019 was a simple block that read “Career Halfway Point” marking the temporal spot mid-way between January 13, 2003 and May 31, 2035.

I’m honestly not sure if finding this particular Easter egg has left me feeling better or worse. Better that the halfway point is a relatively close-in target now, yes. Worse, because It means there’s still slightly more asshattery ahead than there is behind.

I won’t say that time precisely flies, but it does seem to move with haste. At least that’s how it feels when considering time in long stretches – some of the individual days and weeks can feel like they’re dragging on for years all on their own. There’s a big part of me that feels unqualified glee at the idea of being over the hump. My inner pessimist in me, of course, also can’t help but note that the closer to the end we are the closer to The End we are. It’s not quite a Pyrrhic victory, but it shares a zip code.