There are times when one is just too damn tired to think of a suitable topic, or, when presented with potential topics, just can't manage to flesh them out sufficiently, and this is one of those times.
Tired, and, frankly, just not under enough pressure, and able to find excuses aplenty to avoid writing; I need the pressure of a looming deadline to get my writing mojo working, and, for some reason, I'm not feeling that at the moment, no matter how much I berate myself for being late, and actually missing my deadline, something that happens fairly rarely, so it somewhat surprising, even to me.
Usually, I get this thing written on Tuesday afternoon, at the latest, and I've usually sorted through a few topics over the weekend, and started doing any of the minimal amount of research that might be required to back up my opinions, which, being my opinions, really need no more backup than the force of language.
But this week, it wasn't moving me, and I'm going to put that down to tiredness, as my daughter is teething and is waking up four to five times a night, which really tends to throw a wrench in an already erratic sleep schedule, and one that, in my pre-parenting days, I had pared down to six hours a night, as I've long felt that sleep is basically wasted time, and I could definitely make better use of an extra two hours a day.
But that was six solid hours, and doesn't hold up well in the face of bi- or tri-hourly interruptions, which is unusual, as my daughter usually only wakes up once or twice a night for either a bit of milk or just to be extracted from her covers, as she tends to be a deep, yet fairly mobile sleeper, meaning that most common noises won't disturb her, but she'll often squirm herself into a corner and that will end up eliciting a cry, and it's a fairly simple matter to straighten her out and change her diaper.
Plus, as I mentioned, none of the various topics that I considered really struck me, not the potential game review (I figured it would be of minor interest), nor the news of artificial muscles (great for mecha, but only Battletech posited large muscle bundles as an explanation of giant robot motive capability, and Battletech is so silly it makes anime look like hard science in comparison), nor Jasona's excellent suggestion (Maynard/Fergus/Angus/[Pick One] McNab, ex-SAS Mailcarrier; sorry, but I couldn't get past a couple of paragraphs, although it's something I might come back to, and something that I make freely available to others).
So, ultimately, is this only a waste of 500 words, my time, your time, and oh-so-precious bandwidth (which is something that people always quite rightly scream about when presented with spam, but rarely when they read pointless/dull/uninformative articles, help guides, game/movie rumors and reviews, or message board posts)?
Yes, frankly, it is, and I apologize, and I think, had I actually sat down and started to write about something meaningful, I probably could have turned out something adequate, seeing as how I actually managed to write this in less than five minutes, not counting a couple of minutes spent answering email, which, to be honest, was really just another way of avoiding this little, and, to be fair, self-imposed responsibility.