Argo, don't lie to me now. Is it really after 4:30am? I don't believe you. It can't be. Let's see what hydrogen says. Hmmm... same thing, give or take a bit. (Hmmm... maybe I should run ntp.)

I don't believe it. All the computers must be lying to me. It can't be this late. I've lost time.

I exist in limbo.

Right now, I'm at my dad's place. When I get done using Argo, I'll journey over to mom's place to sleep. When I wake up, it will probably be early afternoon, at which time I will go to work at the grocery store. After that, it will be about midnight, and I will likely come back here for a few hours. Then, the cycle will begin again.

Today (meaning Thursday), I had a day off. Wednesday and Thursday. Two days off in a row. I already documented my Wednesday activities in responding to the recruiter.

This morning (meaning Thursday morning), she got back to me. Asked if I would be available immediately, and said they really would like to see some sort of sample. I asked if the work was part time or full time, explaining that I already had an almost-full-time job. She said it was indeed full time, for 4 weeks only.

At this point, we both pretty much agreed that this wasn't going to work. I wasn't really wanting to quit my existing job for only a 1-month deal. She said she'd keep an eye out for other possibilities, and suggested I check back at their website regularly to see if anything pops up. Yep yep yep.

Since then, I've basically done a bunch of the following: 1) sleep. 2) watch Buffy episodes. 3) managed to get myself re-addected to a very old pastime: civctp. Civilization: Call to Power. Ridiculous, eh?

I guess the last one is pretty much what I've been doing since around midnight. Crazy.

It's strange. The current state of the civilization I've been building for a few millennia seems to mirror my real life in an oddly depressing way. The utter futility of doing so much, yet ultimately accomplishing so little.

Consider:

Playing on Emperor Level (one notch below the top difficulty: deity), I am now easily the most powerful and advanced nation on the board. I've been wiping out the Zulus, bit by bit. Each time I make peace with them, after a few turns, they again attack me with their pitiful forces. Then I wipe out a few more of their cities. They beg for peace. I agree. Wait a few turns. Rinse and repeat. (Very poor AI. But that's another matter. Or... maybe not? Think of a Saddam Hussein simulator. Hmmmmm....)

Anyway, my civilation is efficient enough that science advances at a ridiculously fast pace. A new advance occurs every couple of turns. Often, these give me new things to build in my cities. But to what end?

I grow the cities large so that they can have more people, build more things, make more advances quickly. Of course, when cities grow, it gets harder and harder to keep the people happy. So I build improvements to lower the unhappiness level. Temples. Colosseums. Theaters. Hospitals. Cathedrals. Drug Stores. Etc etc etc.

Of course, as one builds these things, they require progressively higher production levels to complete. So in order to get them done without waiting a ridiculous number of turns, I build production boosters. Mills. Factories. Drug stores (which both add to happiness and production). Oil Refineries. The list goes on.

But then of course, many of these items create pollution, necessitating the building of recycling plants, fission power, and other such novelties.

But as soon as new scientific advances happen, allowing new things to be build, I feel like my cities are falling behind, and need to catch up. So I sometimes might spend some gold to rush completion of these projects.

But of course, in order to get more gold, there are other improvements that need to be built. Marketplace. Bank. City Clock. Airport. Television. blah blah blah.

My point? A few minutes ago, I came to the realization that I was having absolutely no fun at all. The whole thing became a big game of catch-up. The faster I went, the more insane it became. Occassionally, I would, of course, divert just enough resources to spin out a few machine gunners, tanks, and artilleries to wipe out more Zulus. Put a few cities aside to build Wonders as they were discovered. But these "cool" parts of the came were merely tiny by-products of the massively nutty self-consuming machine I had erected.

Why do I mention this, and why does it seem like my life?

Hmmm... Well... A few years ago, I got a job, because it seemed like a Good Idea. (Getting a job -- a nice paying tech job -- obviously wasn't quite as hard then as it is now.) After getting this job, I quickly came to the realization that it would be very helpful to have a vehicle so I could transport myself to and from it without having to invoke my parents, my legs, or the annoyingly inflexible RTD system.

Of course, I didn't have much money saved up at the time, so in order to obtain a vehicle, I had to take out a loan. So I did. Even though I hate debt, it was a worthwhile thing to do, because a car was a Really Important thing to have.

After spending a significant portion of time at said job, I ever so gradually began to become disillusioned with it (sometimes consciously, sometimes not). I realized, little by little, that the goals and ideals of the corporation were not my own. In efforts to keep my happiness level above the riot threshold, I learned to indulge myself with various distractions of the mind and body. DVDs, video games, fatty (sometimes expensive) foods, online porn, and, eventually, outright prostitution. I can't say I necessarily regret any of these activities, but I realize their meaningless futility.

Now, having been set back by some bad luck, I'm chasing that wheel again. While living off my parents, I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, in a couple more months, I can pay off my car loan completely and be out of debt again. (Even though king soopers wages are puny compared to what I was making before, not paying rent in the short term and being a little more fickle makes it seem attainable.)

Oh, but thinking back... What was I urgently worried about paying have when I started the software job in 2000? Debt, of course. Back then, it was student loans starting to come due.

And now here I am, half-wondering if it might not be a bad idea to go back to school for a while again to improve my chances of getting a better job. What sort of insanity drug has my mind been infected with? Have I no memory of the pox that started this whole lunacy-bound treadmill?

Oh well. Either way, I guess I can try to scrape together enough spare resources build a few Wonders and occassionally explore unknown territory. That's the hope, at least. Sometimes though, I wish I could just turn the machine off and go to bed for a while.

There it is. After 5:30 now. Approaching 6:00. The rest of the world wakes up soon. Time for me to hibernate.