Stuff what's goin' on
Work: Back in May my committee and I agreed that a defense next May was a realistic possibility. I don't know if my progress this summer supports that. This would be the third summer in a row that I've really gotten into a funk. Probably the lack of meetings with my advisor. Or I should be taking vacations.
This last week was much better but demonstrates how the problem has changed. I'm slowly grappling with the realization that my wet lab project is big. I can spend days at a time in the lab without going to my desk to do more than check email (and LJ, Google Reader, news sites...). Which is good in a way because I shouldn't start the day by checking LJ, Google Reader, and news when I have work to do. But I do have one computer project that I need to use in some of my experiments so I do have to finish that. It's about to graduate from "extremely urgent" to "catastrophically urgent" and I clearly have a mental block about it.
Games: My weekly group is now playing GURPS in a science fiction setting. We are the law in one town inside a giant AI-controlled spaceship that accepts passengers/settlers from the various worlds it visits. It's Deadwood meets Battlestar Galactica.
My monthly Traveller group is in upheaval as the GM is moving to Connecticut. I've decided to sieze temporary control and run a one-shot in the Interstellar Wars era. The group likes old Traveller rules and minimal dice-rolling, so I'll probably translate it out of the GURPS system. Luckily it's a one-shot so I don't have to bother with trade rules.
I've been to two Red Sox games this year, once against the Rangers with sallythetimid and once against the other Sox by myself. Saw some lousy pitching both times, but Jose Contreras was the worst. Also saw Daniel Bard hit 100 on the radar gun, so that's nice at least.
New toys: I switched to T-Mobile to purchase a "T-Mobile MyTouch 3G With Google" (aka HTC Magic) the day it was available. Of course I thought hard about the iPhone, but the lower cost of T-Mobile, the chance to try programming it without paying for a developer's license, and the general warm-and-fuzziness of Loonix made the difference. I like it a lot.
I knew since last year that I was exactly one price cut away from a PS3. Sony took their sweet time but finally came through and yesterday I signed off on the deal. I also picked up BBC's Planet Earth, because what else do you do with a Blu-Ray player? It's pretty awesome.