I have the distinct impression that I had something or other I was planning on writing about today, but then sleep happened and threw my brain down the long metal disposal chute into the filthy oubliette in which my dream battered (and fried) consciousness dwells at a time like this, and now all I have is the usual crumbs and leaving floating on my stream of consciousness, to pluck and serve to you.

Not an appetizing image, grant you, but nevertheless apt.

My sleep situation is truly weird lately. (Have I mentioned that before? Or did I just dream that I did?)

The Facebook games keep me awake and have reduced my nap frequency, which is good. In theory, this should mean that I develop a good, healthy, normal, eight hours of sleep a night time sleep schedule, or at least some reasonable approximation thereof.

But so far, not so much. What it mostly seems to have done is make me just plain sleep less. I do not know if that is a symptom of addiction or just continuing hyposomnia, but I have not been sleeping a heck of a lot lately. Yesterday segued right from Facebook games all afternoon into cooking and writing and whatnot and then into hanging out with Felicity till three in the morning, and that is like at least fifteen hours with no nap and with tons of various mental activity, and for me, that is like a meth and coke fueled bender of consciousness. I am never awake and active for that long. And so, sadly, despite some generic diet cola providing a much need caff infusion, I ended up falling asleep on Felicity during that thrilling and intricate drama, Friday the 13th Part III.

The movie is pretty bad even by mass produced slasher film standards, but there was a fair bit of amusement to be anyhow, because the movie was originally released in 3D and so we had a lot of fun watched for the blatantly 3D-bait moments, like when the hippie stoner guy decides to pop popcorn in a pot without a lid on. Oh My God, Margaret, our movie theater popcorn is COMING RIGHT AT US!

Plus, there was a plethora of weirdly front heavy scene compositions that would make no sense if you did not know that they were trying to blow people’s minds with 3D.

So I suppose the film can be forgiven if it did not have much of a plot. The plot was not the star of the movie. The 3D was, and I can only imagine that seeing the movie in the theaters back in 1982 was quite the freaky trip. This was the same era as Jaws 3D and Amityville 3D, so you can imagine it was a good time to be a movie fan who had access to some quality marijuana.

As is, though, it was a bit of a slog. I am sure that I would have fallen asleep anyhow, after my long day, but still, watching such a boring and badly paced slash festival did not help me stay awake at all.

But hey, at least the movie inspired one of my favorite Weird Al songs of all time :

That whole album is huge with me, because it was the very first tape I bought all for myself, and my brother thought I was pretty weird for picking some comedy album as my First Choice Ever, but I was determined, and I have worshiped Al ever since. He is the God of All Comedy Nerds. Hail the Al!

In other news, my Sunbeam bread machine arrived last night. The UPS guy was very cool, young and fresh faced and great smile, and my god I am turning into a male cougar.

Anyhow, I unboxed it today (no video… sorry, kitchen gizmo fans!), and put it together, and I really would like to have tried it out but I have no yeast (well, none that did not expire last October) and no milk, and I really really really want my first batch of bread from my new toy to be good, so I am going to hold off until I have fresh supplies and can do everything totally according to Hoyle.

It is important for that first loaf to work, because I get terribly emotional about cooking and if the first loaf is a disaster, I just know I will take it really hard and that means I will be reluctant to try again. Even if I know exactly what went wrong and how to prevent it the next time.

I really am too easily discouraged. I keep trying to fix that, but end up giving up almost right away.

The problem is that I make strong emotional impressions right away when I do new things. And I am sort of shy and timid person to start with, plus depressive, so unless things go very well the first time, I am likely to form a very negative impression of the enterprise and never try again.

I know this is wrong. It is bad policy and not at all logical or scientific. After all, you cannot judge based on a single data point. I am sure the first time I tried to walk as a wee sprog, I fell down, and it was a bad experience. But I just kept going, and learned.

And just look where it got me : sitting down! We fat guys are crazy about the sitting.

But it is very hard to reason with, let alone influence and definitely let alone change, your basic emotional nature. Those first emotional impressions are very strong and vivid, and my best policy might well be to use my planning skills to make as sure as I can that they are positive as opposed to trying to make myself into somebody that I am not.

I will never be the sort of rugged person who tries over and over again till he succeeds.

Not unless there is a lot of money in it for me or something.