Romanes eunt domus.

This is one of those nights that reminds me of my youth--video game in hand, I'd spend the entire night with my face glued to the computer monitor. On more than a few occasions, I'd actually greet my mother, my eyes glassed over, as she left for work in the morning. (Incidentally, another amusing anecdote: I also had a tendency in those days to gulp down an entire 24-pack of Mountain Dew, with my cousin, as we stayed awake all night). You know what? Growing up was awesome. And why shouldn't I have a Saturday night where it's 3am, I'm not tired, and all I want to do is continue playing Fallout: New Vegas and say, "Sleep be damned"? Probably because I know I'm going to regret it Monday morning. Stupid adult responsibilities.

Unfortunately, I replaced the Mountain Dew of my adolescence with coffee tonight, and since I'm not tired whatsoever, I thought a night cap in blog form may help relax my mind.

1. I'm re-reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in anticipation for the movie. I had been trying to make my way through Lamb, but a lot of the religious references fly right over my head since, while growing up, I was pretty successful at avoiding church. After sloshing through that book for more than a few months, I'm getting through Deathly Hallows at quite a brisk clip. It's refreshing since my tendencies to buy books outpace my tendencies to read them.

2. The first two episodes of The Walking Dead have been tremendous! Yeah, I'm an absolute nerd when it comes to the comic (it's so good!) and I have an overall fascination with zombies in general, but I feel that the show gained a lot of cred with "normal people" when MoPo said she really liked it. If you're not watching it, you really should check it out. (Disclaimer: I have been having more zombie-related dreams these past two weeks, but rest assured--they are walking zombies, not running zombies; that makes a lot of difference!).



3. Speaking of zombies, zombie pub crawl!




4. MoPo and I are trying to brainstorm vacation ideas for next year. We did the "adventurous, out of your element" trip last year, so I'm currently thinking a tropical, warm weather, relaxing theme for 2011. Suggestions? Hawaii is always tops on our list (we've been there twice) but we also don't want to get in a rut (however, there's definitely a reason that Hawaii vacations are so cliché).

5. How about some not-fun news? Last Monday, in all their infinite wisdom, my employers decided to lay off 50% of my department. The layoffs weren't surprising--we've known for 6 months that this was coming (Nielsen brought in a guy over 3 years ago whose sole job was to outsource American jobs to India--dude's even got stock in the consulting firm we use), however no one really expected such magnitude. Of course, a lot of this is money-related (how couldn't it be?)--the venture capitalists who own Nielsen want to take the company public. But you know what's scary? The consultants who will now do the tasks traditionally done by statisticians are not, in any sense of the word, statisticians. To say it will be "interesting" to see how this all unfolds would be an uber-understatement.

6. For better or worse, I've grown a beard! MoPo does not approve. I find it amusing.

Alright. 3:04am. Still not tired, but I think I'll try my hand at reading myself to sleep. Or maybe I'll just go back to playing Fallout (and possibly encounter more Monty Python references like the title of this blog post).

-KP