another monday, a brand new week of coding hell. i honestly feel like i've been in a war the past few months, this relentless onslaught of deadlines and clients' e-mails and phone calls and long nights spend working. sometimes i feel i may never reach berlin! i suppose being busy is a good thing, means i'll be able to pay the bills, but this is too much, i feel like i'm drowning. this week three different deadlines converge all within the next few days. i almost want to cancel my social life, because every single waking hour is now earmarked for some sort of work. despite it all, i think i've managed to keep an upbeat attitude in light of this neverending stream of coding.

my upstairs neighbor shoveled the snow off of his 2nd story deck today. being that i'm on the first floor, some of it landed on my backyard porch, forcing me to sweep the deck as well. thankfully it was powdery snow and i had to use was a broom. i received e-mail from canon this morning telling me they shipped back the fixed lens - by this afternoon it arrived via fedex, as good as new. mushrooms continue to grow, a few more nodules have sprouted out. i played a round of katamari during my lunch break while waiting for my food to heat up in the microwave. i ate in front of my computer, a mess of utensils, food, and keyboard.

i finally stopped working close to 8pm, with a little bit more work left for later tonight. i heated up a toaster oven pizza and played about an hour of katamari (rolling a sumo wrestler, a snowman, and the zoo) before 24 started. these tv terrorists are so disciplined, willing to shoot themselves in the head instead of being captured. still no kim sighting. death toll this episode: one unlucky mall security guard (shot), 2 terrorists (one a broken neck courtesy of jack bauer, the other the aforementioned suicide), and about 20 mall patrons (exposed to nerve gas). it could've been worse, sam samwise gamgee was willing to sacrifice all 900 mall patrons in order to get the whereabouts of the other canisters of nerve gas. never let a hobbit run your CTU!