Addenda
Lessee, a few quick notes before I'm off to work:
First, I neglected to mention that both Atlantis and Titan A.E. list Joss Whedon in the writing credits. I thought that might account for some of the similarities and some of the better comedic moments in both, but it turns out Whedon wrote only the treatment for Atlantis. He's also got a writing credit for Toy Story, btw. It's occurred to me a couple times in the past few weeks to wonder what would happen if he and JMS were to collaborate on something—if their good parts mixed, it would be superb, while if their weaker points combined, it could be pretty dreadful. I suspect (knowing little about either of them personally) that part of what they both do well is being Completely In Charge, which wouldn't bode well for a collaboration.
Unrelatedly, I owe some of you an apology: I unintentionally misled you into giving me more sympathy than I deserved over the email forwarding thing. I posted that entry in reaction to something that had happened at work, and it wasn't until later that I realized that in fact part of my negative reaction was because I had forwarded a piece of email that I shouldn't have forwarded, and it was re-forwarded to a large group of people including the original sender. So partly I was actually just embarrassed over my own inappropriate behavior. Sigh. (I'd even done that once before, with the same results, and been taken to task by the original sender (a different original sender than this time), so you'd think I would have known better.) I think that in my personal ethical system, forwarding a piece of email to one or two other people, for specific reasons, is reasonable; the problem comes when something is forwarded to a big group of people. But that distinction is probably a bogus one, and it doesn't take into account the likelihood of the one or two people who initially receive it forwarding it on to a larger group. I generally do paraphrase instead of forwarding (only directly quoting specific bits of emails that merely state facts, with no controversial phrasing, and being sure to cut out everything that isn't relevant to the point at hand), but I should probably turn that "generally" into "always." Even when someone in authority at work specifically requests that I forward an email, I should just say no, and paraphrase instead. Or get permission from original sender.
(It is true, though, that various people both at work and outside it have forwarded my emails to groups and thereby surprised me, sometimes even distressed me. (That latest incident involved forwarding some stuff I had written that wasn't intended for public consumption in addition to re-forwarding the stuff I shouldn't have forwarded in the first place.) But it's never been a really horribly big deal. Certainly not as embarrassing as the few times I've sent a private reply to a public forum, for example.)
In other news, my sleep schedule's been even worse than usual lately. I stumble off to bed barely able to keep my eyes open, then wake up four to five hours later (even if I take some Valerian before going to sleep, which usually knocks me out for about seven and a half hours), wide awake and fretting. I lie there for 30 to 60 minutes, not quite awake enough to get up but not able to fall asleep again; at some point I drift off, only to wake up again about 10 to 30 minutes later. Frustrating and tiring. My stress-fretting system seems to be able to convince my body that it's a higher priority than paying attention to any sleeping drugs I may have taken; I suppose that'll be comforting when the bad guys try to knock me out by drugging my wine (after I start drinking wine and become involved in international espionage), but in the mean time it's no fun.
Ah, well. This too shall pass, presumably when my deadlines calm down.
Speaking of which, off to work I go.