The DOWnward Spiral

Apparently It Wasn’t Just Me Department:
So apparently the Dow actually dropped pretty substantially today while I was busy only paying attention to the tiny little portion of Wall Street that applies to me.
I hope nobody was jumping out of any windows while I was bitching about my company’s 84 cent drop in stock price.
Honestly, I’ll never really understand the stock market. I mean, I understand the basics of how it works and all that crap, but what I don’t understand is the blind panic that causes these sorts of drops.
So there was some stuff with China or whatever. And? That’s a reason to go into a tailspin?
It’s like when it rains here and everyone has to rush out to the store to stock up on water, milk, and beer because, obviously, the fact that it’s raining means that civilization is collapsing.
People need to learn how to relax. If they would, they wouldn’t keep shooting themselves in their own damn feet every time they hear the slightest bit of bad news about the economy. “Oh my god! New home construction is down .01% from last month! I’m ruined! Sell everything I own! Sell! Sell! Sell!”
But whatever.

Watching The Colbert Report tonight I saw a quote from a man who is 107 years old attributing his advanced age to the fact that he’s largely done without sex since he was 30.
First thought: Why would you want to live after 77 years without sex?
Second thought: Oh shit, at this rate I’m going to live to be well over 100.
So the person I was supposed to meet with called and decided that she will e-mail the information I need, then give me a call to discuss some of the details about the job.
I also got a response from Kathleen about that “audition” design I did last week, with some notes on what she did and didn’t like about it. She also sent me a copy of what someone else had come up with. Long story short: I suck.
(In fairness to me, Web site design is not my specialty, and the other person clearly had access to a little more information than I did in terms of content and what the client was looking for, all of which, of course, is just me trying to justify my suckiness. Oh well. As I’ve said many times before, there’s a reason I don’t make a living off of my creative endeavors.)
Still, I’m the one saying that I suck, not Kathleen (though that could just be politeness on her part), and she is still going to show the client my design for him to not like.
Oh well.