UPDATE:I'm not using MT anymore. It's all about wordpress, baby. No more redirect in this theme either. You'll have to click the link below.


I've done it. I've moved to Movable type.

My new blog is over at livingtech.net. You'll be redirected there in about a minute.

Sayonara blogger. You were good to me... sometimes.


UPDATE: I've dissabled comments from here... go to the new site to leave comments. :)

"The life of every man is a diary, in which he means to write one story, and writes another."
--Bess Streeter Aldrich (Cheers For Miss Bishop (movie based on the novel Miss Bishop))

This quote reminded me of Tiny's dreams and rainbows post, which I always wanted to respond to, but never did because I felt I'd just be another person saying "me too".

Well, now I wouldn't say "me too", I'd post that quote, proving that Tiny is actually the one saying "me too", only he's said it longer and better. And really, this quote (from a movie, based on a book!) probably isn't even the first time anyone has said something like this. people say things like this all the time, and it's like there's this giant "me too" chorus of people, around the world, holding hands, singing it, screaming it, living it, yes living "ME TOO!!!" from the tops of mountains that aren't high enough and at the bottoms of oceans that are really just small lakes and ponds... ponds that dry up, evaporate into cloud layers (like the one outside--clouds with imperceptible silver linings) and then rain down, in the midst of thunder and lightening, rain down on the rooftops of sleeping dreamers, and rain down occasionally in the sunlight forming rainbows out of the wrong story.

but the wrong story is the one you're living, and you better read it, baby. you'd better read it.

This past weekend will live in my puny brain as memorable for many reasons. I am not going to go into those reasons, other than to say that there was some nudity involved, a hot tub, and much drunken kissing.

Today is one of those hot and windy fall days. The kind that screams that fall is fast approaching, but does not (yet) blow leaves across the streets and sidewalks.

I just want to sit on a concrete slab downtown, and people watch.
I feel diffuse and exuberant.
Tonight we are juggling fire.

My eyelid is swoolen. I think I might have some kind of strep. I'm going to the doctor this afternoon.

The movable type conversion isn't happening as fast or easy as I'd like. Maybe after I get back from the doctor I'll work on it some more. On the other hand, I have a character here that is almost to level 10!

I'm trying to import into mt.

Just had a 2 minute "team meeting" to announce the firing of a co-worker. (His last day was yesterday.) He's not dead, but I'll mourn his passing anyway. Nice start to this particuarly rainy and misserable day.

On the plus side, he "willed" me his java books and Pessimism poster!

He's in a better place, believe me.

While I'm talking about juggling, let me say that it's a mixed bag. Like anything you do, you're good at it sometimes, and other times you just suck.

Tonight I was ok. Sunday, I was terrible.

Sunday afternoon, I went to see cirque again. 2 for 1 tickets courtesy of dan, who worked as an usher. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Made me want to do something, anything, for cirque du soleil. I would run lights, sound, backstage makeup, clean the theater, or be a fucking usher... just made me want to be a part of it.

But then we bustled out to fest right after, brought along my friend Kristin to watch me play volley club. I sucked. No, to say I sucked is an understatement. To do badly, you have to at least DO. I just didn't. I basically just stood there and dropped the club whenever it came to me.

It's like a performance, volley club. And I choked, big time.

Anyway, tonight was practice. Monday nights at the neverthriving.

I played some good combat, and flashed six balls a few more times. I don't really know why I care, but suddenly I really want to be able to do six balls. It's just that one tiny step more impressive than five, and all of a sudden--for the first time--it seems remotely possible... remotely.

So yeah, performance sucks. But I would give my left leg to be a part of cirque du soleil. Go figure.

I don't really like performing. I have to pipe up and quickly note that, while I unerstand what Buddah and MJ are saying (over on Meghan's blog,) generally for me the rush you get performing doesn't outweigh--in importance--the feeling of dread. (and yes, I'm too lazy to find the deep link...you may have to search through her archives if you're seeing this later than, say, next week.)

And then there is a second feeling of dread if I receive no feedback after the performance. With good feedback, I feel better--bad feedback, it's like a relief that at least I know I was right--I did suck! But no feedback, and I sit there the rest of the night, thinking... did I suck? Sometimes it's so bad I can't even think about the performers still up on stage. (we're talking open mics here... when I used to perform an actual act--yes, juggling--that was different, because I felt a sort of "Whew! Glad that's over!" after every show.)

I agree with the sentiment that the "true artist" is never satisfied with their work. And given the chance, a good poet would keep revising their work forever. (Lets not get into the beat movement, or my favorite poet, Frank O'Hara.) Point is, taking the stage to read something (or sing something) that you've written is like saying "this is done"--or at least done enough to perform. It's a bit like publishing something, I guess. Stage publishing.

When do you let go? when is something "done enough" to perform, or whatever... I don't know...

This isn't even making sense to me. I'm going to go play unicycle hockey now. Yes really, unicycle hockey.

Last night I went to see Alegría. I can't possibly express with words the beauty and magical nature of cirque shows, and this was no exception. I feel like reality is this dull grey blanket now.

Speaking of dull grey blankets, there is one in the sky outside my window, casting a heavy pal over the Rainbow foods parking lot. What a view.

ugh, today and yesterday have been extremely frustrating for me. I have a project due on wed that I have not been able to move on. I don't know why. It's not even a dificult project. I just don't want to do it for some reason. I find myself procrastinating on all kinds of fronts (reinstalling office for OSX, for instance, or reading FAR too long transcripts of conversations with the IRS on this site). Even worse, I'm suppose to have some poems printed up tonight for our chapbook meeting, and that's all I really want to do... work on poetry.

Here's one I found in my laptop last night:

=====

untitled -- 4.8.2

In a world full of Big Macs, and Big Macs with cheese,
I sometimes feel like a lowly cheeseburger,
shoved ungratefully into a happymeal.

And eventfully, the afternoon graduates into night,
throwing its hat into the air; and it plummets
over the edge of the earth.

singing a brief anthem to wordsex

sylables as actions
words asphyxiate on paragraphs
pharagraphs smother in novels
seeing the vowel-forest for the trees

syntax is reflex
semantics, the poetry-killer
drown linguistically, drown

OK, right now there are strange construction worker men on my floor, creating a new kitchen-type-area RIGHT behind my cubicle.

This is normal, they've been at this for a week. There is a nice new curved wall where none used to be. The buildout may be nice even. Not as nice as the stuff the first floor folks got, but nice.

But for the love of god AND ALL THAT IS HOLY... they were not DRILLING INTO SHEETROCK until only JUST TODAY!!~!!!~!~!!!!!

If you can't imagine the sound of drilling sheetrock, think of the dentist's chair. Then amplify the sound, if you can, but move it out of your mouth, to an area near to (but no longer inside of) your head.

I want to KILL. I will be going home early now. Yes I will.

PS, I do not love god, or holy things. In fact, I often despise them. Amen.

So... Meghan, Ryan and I are going to put out a chapbook of poetry. We're in the "brainstorming titles" stage, but almost as important we're also in the "brainstorming supergroup names" stage. (For publicity's sake, we have to be able to say: "yeah, I'm with this group of poets called <insert supergroup name here> and we just put out a book of our poems. Maybe you should pick up a copy.")

Anyway, meghan forgot to mention (intentionally left out?) our possible superhero-group titles: (conceived by me and inspired when Ryan called us collectively a "supergroup")

• The obvious one: SuperPoets
• my favorite: The Poetastic Four
• the X-Poets
• Poets-who-leap-tall-buildings
• Poet-avengers
• poet-league
• mutant-poets
• the uncanny poets
• Power-Puff Poets (I like this one too)

So... if you have any poetic chapbook title ideas, post them over at meghan's blog... but if you have any supergroup name concepts, post them here!

Mopsa has already suggested CHAPsmear as a chapbook title. This is, of course, a pun, AND inordinately disgusting, therefore it would normally go at the top of my list, but since I don't think I want the word "chap" in the title no matter what the circumstances, all of her suggestions are probably right out the window.

(Incidentally, Kohout apparently thought we were making a "chatbox", and suggested all kinds of titles in that vein. Has anyone ever read the book Chat? It's about two people who meet and date online... it was perhaps the first of it's kind ever in print.)

I feel obligated to say I wish we knew exactly what happened last year on this date. The events are fairly clear, but who knew what is still, apparently, a mystery (or at the very least, a non-issue).

Has pouring more money into our defense budget done us any good in the last year? How is it possible that we have not yet captured Bin Laden? Why hasn't Bush been forced to resign?

These are questions that I try not to think about. These are questions that make me want to move to Canada. I never watched the movie "The Seige", (and heard it wasn't that great) but for some reason I'm struck suddenly wanting to watch it.

If anything, this site may curb my ebay addiction.

I can't believe I didn't post a single poem in august. Here's one to commiserate:

======
i AM yelling.


you can't see me
flailing emotive words
floundering in political spittle
perturbed by right-wing flies on MY wall

because I'm pretending Twain was right
I'll appear less ignorant in silence

you know I avoid confrontation?
I'm an independent-opinion-armada,
rusting in a placid bay of political-agoraphobia.

but i AM yelling
a megaphone in a soundproof balloon
and some-particularly-frustrating-day...
pop!

My favorite DVD extra has to be the remake of the song 'Camelot', from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I had no idea who was responsible for this brilliant parody until just now, when I found a link to Spite in your Face Production's parody of 2001, titled One: A Space Odyssey.

It does the whole film in one minute... brilliant!

http://www.lukeburrage.co.uk/
I wonder how many other google parody sites there are out there...

my weekend was the end of a week. I helped my good friend Kris move into his new place, and went out to fest on Sun. Work is a slow zombie today. I'm dropping limbs and drool, and bleeding half-coagulated blood from various drying wounds.

tonight seems as good a time as any to sit and try to think of something to say. The last day or so I've felt acutely aware of how menial my blog has been lately. I talk of nothing but trivial moments and events, the very blogstuff I abhor when I'm reading someone else's blog for the first time. Is it wrong though, for me to never want to read what I am actually producing? What does that say about the two or three people who follow this thing regularly?

I used to say, I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, that is poetry. (or someone else used to say it, and I stole it, no doubt.) Now, I have nothing to say, and I am saying it, that is... I blog it.

Here I am, laying in bed, updating from the laptop. We got our linksys yesterday, and it's amazing. Absolutely no setup required. I did, of course, change some things, like admin passwords, and network name, but it worked as soon as I plugged it in. Also notable--signal strength is at full no matter where I am in the house. I'm not sure if the signal strength indicator just doesn't work without apple's airport, or if it really is this strong... I will have to walk down the block whith my laptop sometime and see how far I can go.

I am very close to having movable type all configured on livingtech.net, so expect a redirect in the next couple of days. (the blog is all set up, but I haven't imported anything yet, and my templates need work before I switch too.)

Happy birthday me.

Birthdays are so lame. I'm always depressed on them. Today is no different. I don't know why. I have great friends and family, I'm in a great place in my life (with notable exceptions), I got a bj for breakfast this morning... what could I possibly have to complain about? Nothing really.

What do I end up thinking about all morning: Why haven't I written a novel yet? Why am I still working in the suburbs? Why does 70% of the joy in my life revolve around playing the latest and greatest video games? Why can't I have a car that doesn't come up with a different strange noise every few weeks? Why does my house have bats?

*heavy, pathetic sigh*

I wanted to leave early today, it still might happen, but suddenly instead of a short project that's almost done, I have 3 short projects that will probably tie me up till the end of the week. I may still steal an hour or two and play with MT.

better living through blogistry. so much to blog about today.

This morning I read through the blog of an old friend of mine (ok, an old x). She admits to having two blogs, but will only give me the URL for one, and I'm not suppose to post it, (sorry). But anyway, we haven't kept in touch all that well. I was ashamed to find she'd been at it longer than me. (This raises some interesting issues... I mean, why should I care?)

But far more interesting issues were raised by her blog itself. If we shared one thing in common (in the list of things that failed to keep us together,) it was a hatred for organized religion, and she's not afraid to show it in some of her posts. In general I don't think I write enough about politics and/or religion. Last week sometime, yami and I had a conversation about why I hate thinking about these things (it was kind of a conversation stopper, now that I look back on it) and I decided it was because my opinions differ so vastly from that of the "norm" that I get frustrated easily. I shouldn't allow that frustration to silence my loathing! (Her poetry has also improved since we dated, and although it lacks a certain crazy randomness I remember, it's really quite good.)

The three day weekend update: Where I become a letch out at fest on Sat and Sun--also I have the revelation that fantasies I perceive as within (or very near to) my grasp are actually much farther out of reach than imagination would have me believe.

...Where I play Mario Sunshine for like 20 hours and get a wavebird controller from Nate for my birthday. Where I buy laura 3 different Kirby video games, including the one where you actually tip around your gameboy to control which direction kirby "rolls".

...Where I have this revelation multiple times: "I own a house. I actually own one. Really." And where I help Nate screw our storm door back on the front of our house, thus using the drill/screwdriver Laura bought me for the first time.

I've been surfing for B&W sites over at the ageless project most of the morning. The thumbnails make picking possible black and white sites out easier. Hey, I've got to have a hobby, right?

Speaking of hobbies, anybody have the time?

Why do I always hear about this kind of stuff from foreign news sources? Hmmmm?

I want to go to the new sex museum in new york!! Here it is online: http://www.museumofsex.com/

Quite sexy.

I've started collecting sex-blog links. I don't post enough about sex here... I tend to try and keep this at least R rated, I'm not sure why, but I suppose it's the thought of all the coworkers and possible relatives reading this in the future. I will admit that I have another blog, absolutely anonymous where I have been posting dreams and sexual fantasy/poetry.

It's weird stuff, some of it... so I'm not giving out the URL. I'd feel too weird, knowing many of you had read it, I think. Not here, online, where I can be bits and pixels--but in meatspace, when I see those of you I sometimes see.

I will share the links I find though, if you email me some you've found.

I know I've posted this link before, and probably with skepticism, but if it's real, it's over. And it's really, really sad. I wonder if it would also be the first blogger death.

It's certainly the first blog whose death has affected me.

I've got a song struck in my head, and I don't know what it's called, or who it's by. I hear it all the time on radio k. It's got this saulty female vocalist singing "It's all right... because you said it's all right."

Damn I'm a sucker for a good female vocal.

crazy. I'm updating right now from the bottom of mozilla. It's amazing, I can do things like drag links from my browser straight onto highlighted words in my blog entry. Mozilla truly is an amazing achievement. There are so many side projects and cool features to add, it boggles the mind, I think. I can even add a spell checker this way, which blogger doesn't have unless I pay for it.

I am still super busy at work, and I shouldn't be playing even this much... All week I've been brainstorming my ideal job, but I think I've realized it just now. If only I could get paid to blog. Or maybe work on mozilla. I don't know which would be cooler.

UPDATE: OK, this thing needs serious work, I guess. I had some funky things happening, and formatting was all weird. It may be that I can fix the formatting issue, but there is no post and/or publish confirmation, and that's a bit disconcerting. Plus, it adds doctype tags and head and body tags to EACH post. That seems unnecessary.

ahh, back to the routine.

a website here, a websearch there...

I want to make money online, I've decided. I don't know yet how I'm going to do this. I've had some ideas, but I never get around to implimenting them. I might start a business with my friend Jason. He wants to start a specialty sex shop. I'd put it online for him. Problem is, neither of us have enough startup cash.

btw, I've done a bunch of the stuff on the list now too... even bought a new computer, which has allowed me (silly as it sounds) to pay my bills...

maybe doing some of the stuff just sets off some kind of thing inside me that makes it more imperitive to do the rest of the stuf. I don't know.

UPDATE: if this site sucks right now, it's because bitstream's DNS is hosed, so livingtech.net is not resolving. *sigh*

I have felt particularly stressed out since Sunday. I don't really know why, but it just feels like stress. I have been sick, and I feel like it's as a result. This is especially strange considering the fact that I took monday off from work (and again today... yesterday sucked), so you'd think I'd feel if not better, at least non-stressed out about stuff... but no, it seems to just get worse!

I feel like there are tons of things looming over me right now, and I don't know why.

You remember that list? Yeah, nothing. I've done nothing. Last night I went and saw some awesome poetry. Today, I woke at noon, brushed my teeth, shaved my head, read some Wired, and have done absolutely nothing else. (well, surfing for awhile before making this post doesn't count.)

I'm a pathetic slacker to the 10th degree. What's worse is that when I first woke up I didn't really feel like playing video games, but now that laura is bound to get home any minute, (and subsequently we'll be out the door to try and purchase a new computer), suddenly I do.

I suppose that's not quite the crisis I'm making it out to be.

My shameful confession: I ordered an x-box on ebay. Hey! No money to M$! But now it's sitting at the UPS office, and I can't pick it up till monday. Frustration ensues. Maybe I'll go play some Mr. Mosquito.

quote of the day: "I don't just want to feel kinky, I want to feel *abnormally* kinky" -Yami

After an afternoon skirting around, and blatantly approaching the topic of sexuality between far too much work over ICQ has gotten to my head. I need to go home and "lay down". This is a pathetic shadow of the post that I meant to make, but I've suddenly started thinking about audience again, and wonder exactly how many of you want to hear about (or more likely, will get neasous from hearing about) my sex life.

good day.

bah, archives work like 20% of the time. I'm switching to mt as soon as I have a night free... I want to write my own, but I just don't have time.

Ren fest starts this weekend, and I have no time for that either. I've felt so busy in the last week that I'm keeping a list of things to do... I carry it with me everywhere in my pocket, and unfortunately, I think of more things faster than I'm doing them. So far, the only thing I've checked off has been to register to vote at my new address, and change my address on my driver's lisence. That really only counts as one thing, because I did them both at the same time. Work sucks, and promises to be even busier than today.

Tonight I'm going to volunteer for national poetry slam. I'm excited to see the contestants. Yay for poetry, even if it is in slam form...

This week is automobile news week, I guess. Today's tidbit: I got my oil changed for the first time. It wasn't all that exciting, I don't know why you would care.

I have too much work to do, and I just want to go home. bleh.

When I arrived at the tire/service place last night, the little donut tire was still on my front left side. Clearly something was wrong. Apparently there was a simple miscommunication and nobody told the guy doing my muffler that the whole reason I was there was for two new tires.

I left in a very new minivan. The minivan was nice, it even had air conditioning. I traded it back for my car at lunch. My car now turns better (doesn't squeal around corners), sounds quieter (doesn't roar like some kind of retarded motorcycle), and also smells faintly of burning from under the hood. (I looked, and couldn't actually see where the smell is coming from. It may have been a fluke.)

I should have asked about an oil change, but forgot.

$300 poorer, my total car expenditure is now $750.

BlogTree.com provides a family tree of blogs. Not only is this amazingly fun, but it provides yet another place to surf for fun blogs.

On my way to work this morning, a loud noise began building from the front of my car. I pulled off the side of the road, scared the thing was going to blow up at me, or that it would cost hundreds of dollars to fix. (I already knew my exhaust was leaking, which was loud enough, so some amount of repair was in order, but the car was cheap, I didn't want to spend too much.)

When I got out of the car there was a nice surprise waiting for me... it was only a flat tire! I proceeded to call work and let them know I'd be late while I searched for my jack.

Jack? What's that? Apparently you don't get a jack when your car cost you $450.

Just as I was about to stretch the boundaries of my co-worker's generosity, a truck pulled up behind me. The side of the truck read "Highway Relief" and was branded Minnesota State Something-Or-Other. The man driving the truck was very nice and changed the tire for me while I stood there watching like an idiot. He had to beat the damn thing with a mallet after removing the bolts to get it off, but even with that added work it took him less than five minutes. When I put the beat up flat in my trunk, he warned me that the serrated edges would be sharp, and I apparently didn't take his advice seriously enough, because when I looked down at my hands, I was starting to bleed from a scrape I hadn't even felt myself getting.

When I asked if I was going to be charged for the service, he said he was part of Minn Dot, and that my taxes had already paid for it!

That was a nice surprise.

Five minutes later, I'm sitting in the lobby of the Tire Services Etc joint right across the freeway from where I work. (That's not really their name, but I have no idea what it is.) They gave me an estimate for the exhaust that seemed reasonable, and I got a ride from a coworker, leaving the car there for the day.

All in all, it was quite the experience. My first car tragedy.

This afternoon I've been trying to find a resource that may or may not exist. I recently purchased a Daewoo 5800 (slightly modified) on ebay. This baby plays everything, region free, macrovision free, and so many formats that I'm salivating just thinking about it.

I've heard that there are lots of DVDs only released in other regions. Buffy the vampire slayer, for example, is only on season 2 here, but in the UK they're up to season 6 or something! I have no interest in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I did find out that Delicatessen has only been released on DVD in region 2. Anyway, I'm looking for a guide to cross-region DVD releases.

I've found a couple of sites that compare various DVD releases, but these sites wouldn't even list Delicatessen, because it's only been released once! (Well, one of them lists it, because technically there is a French release, and a UK release.)

I've also been really jonsing for an x-box. I don't want to give any money Microsoft... so getting one new is out, and buying a refurb too. Unfortunately, used x-boxes are kinda rare. I'd actually have thought they'd be more common, just because they're not selling as well, but that doesn't appear to be the case. Ebay may just be the only real option out there.

Of course, I really shouldn't be buying anything. I did just buy a house.

Today I feel like vomiting. Everything is particularly sickening, and everything is dramatic. I don't want to do anything, and I don't want to pretend to do anything.

They replaced my phone at work, and the headset is AGAIN one of the filthiest things I've ever seen.

I'm depressed, and I'm unproductive, two insufferable qualities that leave me wanting to throw myself out a window. Plus, I'm fishing for pity, which is fucking pathetic.

I played a game of darts, and I came in last.

I'm leaving early. Fuck it.

Life is about rich and satisfying experiences.

I think you have to balance the fullness of your moments against those moments you save up to be more full. Obviously I'm talking about vacations and things (purchases that supposedly enhance those moments when you can use them), but I'm talking about other stuff too. Big things, life changing things. Choices about jobs and relationships, and compromises of all sorts.

Life is, arguably, compromise after compromise. It is the degree of compromise that helps determine your satisfaction.

...

I don't know why. But why is important.

To be listed in the category "things everyone should know":

Where do "Work from Home" signs come from?

It's a long read, and you may want to skip to the conclusion once you get the gist of it.

Personally, I feel much wiser having read it. Recently, I was doing some postering for the National Poetry Slam, and I (naturally, I thought) put posters up on all the telephone poles in the neighborhood. Less than a day later I got a call telling me that it was illegal. I'd always assumed it wasn't, since there are always those annoying "loose weight in 40 days" signs everywhere. I've always wondered where those and the "work from home" signs came from... and now I know they're from the same place.

The world is small, but I am insignificant.

Yami linked this CSS related Haiku Contest.

Here we are. Friday. Nice day for a blog entry.

The move was chaos and disorder. Borderline disaster. I've owned a house now for more than a week. Already I've had to call a plumber. He gave me a free estimate, and I sent him on his way (the problem will doubtless occur again, but wasn't happening while he was here, so whatever...)

Otherwise, the process has been all sweat and no tears.

I walk around at night... (after a week without work, I'm again waking up at 1:00pm, and going to bed around 4:00am) ...and I think about how all the windows are on the ground level... and how we keep them open so it's cooler. I can't see outside, and I freak myself out thinking someone could be in the yard, ready to break in. I never imagined I'd be so freaked out by the thought of a burglar. I don't know why it bugs me.

Maybe because we don't know whether to pay the $30/month to have our home security system monitored. (We have no idea how to use it right now, I should figure that out, even if we're not going to have it monitored.)

Perhaps there is some malicious burglar reading this, even now...

liquid tumult in my tummy

still no sense in rolling
but I'm collecting grass
and as hard as I am, I like to keep it smooth
bald is blue, you know,

there's a carnival inside my cranium
last night's dream
shadows on eyelids
closed to me, close to me

ode to an after dinner mint
eaten at breakfast
an entire day's pendulum of happiness
closed, close... to me

I'm a candy-smitten smidgen of pig latin lovin'.

Don't ask me where that came from. I really need to automate the updating of my "mindblurbs" page.. seeing as how I never log into the system anymore, I often find myself thinking, is it worth it to log in and just add one line of text to one file that hardly anybody reads? Maybe that'll be part of next week's project.

Today I signed a check for my home insurance. My agent even stopped by my work to pick it up and get me to sign some papers. He's this really nice old guy who always seems to me should be a doctor making house calls. (He's always come to me when I have to sign something.) He also gave me a litle care package with a fire detector in it. I guess that's part of his insurance.

There are other ways to do this. Try some of them.
    -http://www.boredinsomniac.com/hmltcmplx/

I am not trying nearly enough new things. Hell, I am not really trying anything new here. This is all pretty standard. My life, some of it, my reactions to various things, my experiences, some of them. Throw in the occasional poem, and there you have it, boring as fuck.

I've got to get off blogger, and create my own contraption. I like blogger, I love blogger, but I want more control, and I want to do things differently. Hell, I've been meaning to experiment with "pure" css layout for months now, and the only things I've done have all been for WORK. I have all next week off, but I'm going to be moving. Spending most of the time in the new house. I have no idea if I'll get around to it, but I'd really like to tackle a blogger-like application. Or rather, a movable type type application, since I will not be allowing others to use my services. I will however, if anyone should eventually care, allow them to use my code.

I also need to take more literary license. This prose stuff is just too boring.

So last night I went to see MUM at the Women's Theater. In case you're one of the few people I haven't already told about MUM, they're this band I've only recently heard one or two songs by. I went so far as to buy a couple of their CDs (new off ebay, of all places), which I have yet to receive in the mail, and the first song I heard of theirs, (which I downloaded from a link on victory shag), I've had stuck in my head for about two weeks straight. I described their music today to a friend as complex minimalistic melodies from female Icelandic twin vocalists.

It was MUM's first show in the United States, and I'm affraid they're going to turn around and leave after what happened last night. The sound crew (which I presume was the theater's staff) was just awful, and their first 2 or 3 songs were riddled with feedback and poor mixing. Their Moog never worked, despite various idiots swapping out cords (on stage!) for the duration of at least two songs in the middle of their set.

I felt horribly for the poor lead singers who were both visibly frustrated by the technical difficulties. At one point, one of them was actually wiping tears from under her eyes. (And yet she kept singing and playing!)

Over all, the band's potential was clear. Their drummer was amazing, the twins played accordion and cello quite well (when we could hear the cello), and all five performers switched instruments between nearly every song. I would even go so far as to say the show was "worth it" despite all the technical problems.

I also enjoyed the fact that most of the beats and "programmed" portions of the music were done on Mac laptops--including one of those new "wide" iBooks that I secretly covet.

They have their tricks and I have mine.

I can make myself float
by staring into light bulbs,
so they use florescents.

When I breathe the open air
I too am open, and my mind
floats into cloud-scapes--
so they don't use windows you can open,
and the air is forced to us,
cold, through pipes and vents.

But secretly I drink a glass of water
and even though it could taste better,
it is cool and wet in my throat
and I am on an ocean
floating on my back in a wooden raft.

I can smell the seagulls who land at my feet
and my hair is floating in a pool around me.
The boat lurches softly as the keel
scrapes onto a sandy beach.

Here's something I just wrote that I'm calling Hindenbursting:

=========
Hindenbursting

We are zeppelin.
Exploding clouds painted helium
red and yellow spark-colors at sunset.
I'm hanging from parachute clouds
by handrails of hail
and slippery rope-like raindrops.

I've taken a bottle of the explosion with me
to the park by our apartment, cloudbursting.
Grass is tickling the back of my neck. Dirty imperfect patches of grass
evolving slowly to mud, and for the moment
insects are too stunned or wet to move. I try not to squint
at the wet aerial assault and enjoy the perspective
of each individual shooting star of water, ultimately failing.

Tails of each drop point to the earth, simultaneously
pointing at me; making me the center of the universe.
Each spatter on my cheek is suggesting something--
a universal equation of which I am an integral part
or perhaps a span of time the length of my life
which could not exist were I not present to experience it.

We are too small or I am too big.
Dirty oily cloth and metal bones are screaming,
falling.
The air is hot despite the rain.
=========

I think it's interesting that there is really no emotional turmoil whatsoever in my life right now, and yet, the moment I sit down to write a poem, I fictionally create some.

Did you know the pledge of allegiance didn't use to contain the phrase "under god" in it? Recently, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this phrase unconstitutional.

A man in Sacramento named Mike Newdow is responsible for this ruling, and is also suing the USA for several other things related to separation of church and state.

All I've got to say about this stuff: It's about fucking time.

Another of this guy's suits has to do with prayers at the Presidential Inauguration ceremony.

Searching for this guy brought up the site http://www.au.org/, or Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. That's where I found out about the court ruling. I've got a lot more reading to do...

What's it mean when you wake up nauseous in the morning? I'm not pregnant, so that's not it. I think I'm not getting enough sleep. I guess that's probably because saturday night was spent playing warcraft3 until the light was seeping in the windows.

Uplate: Last night I just couldn't sleep (big suprise there, I didn't wake up till 2:00pm on sunday), so I spent it reading the new wired, cover to cover. They've changed some things around in there, and I'm not convinced yet that it's for the best.

I have the capacity to do nothing but whine and complain. Where did this come from? Laura said the other day she think she's rubbing off on me, and that's what it is. Earlier this week I just thought I was depressed... I have another theory: MY JOB IS SUCKING MY WILL TO LIVE.

But then again, maybe I'm just being a drama queen.

Update: On a related note, along with this general life-dissatisfaction, I have also lost all interest in science, arts, and politics. In general, anything not directly and immediately effecting my being. For instance, when I get a new magazine in the mail, I try and spend at least an hour pouring over it, when I get the chance. This week, I have a new wired in my backpack, and it's sat there, unread, for several days now.

Update to my update: I never had any interest in politics. To have suggested I did was a lie.

boy, my archives were all f'd up when I looked today... I'd just like to take this moment to complain some more about blogger.

In other news, I've got this mum song stuck in my head, so I'm ordering the album from ebay. (Thanks a lot victory shag.) I also found out they're going to be here next wed, so I'm going to try and catch that.

Now I've got a parade to get to.

*tap tap*

Is this thing on?

Last night I wasn't able to publish.

On monday I got a call at work from a stranger. Stranger still, that person was from Drive 105, and they gave me a pair of tickets to see Moby tonight at the Roy Wilkins in St. Paul. Needless to say, that's where I'm headed.

Today, the entire city is a black-lagoon. I am merely one scaly creature, slithering my way down Interstate 394. The sky is some kind of oppressive black curtain that doesn't quite touch the white fuzzy line of the horizon.

But somehow this has only served to brighten my spirits. Either that, or the pendulum of my manic-depression has swooshed onto the manic end of the spectrum--and I'm just at the mercy of various self-created brain-altering chemicals tinting this ugly day a brighter shade of pleasant...

Either way, it's a good day, but still too early.

I got a parking ticket this morning.
My eyes are sticky-rice and Tabasco sauce.
Things are moving in slow-mo.

Broken English is only one reminder
that we are a diverse and interesting populous.

I have no original thoughts.
I am crushed in a swamp
of self-deprecating desolation.

There is a car door open in my head with that annoying *ping* sound repeating indefinitely.

Suddenly I feel like some kind of imposter walking into work today. I don't belong here, obviously, but at home too--Laura cleaned and the entire apartment is foreign. It was (and still is) one of those "how did I get here?" moments. What the hell am I doing here?

Excuse me, all my neurons are not firing today.

I'm burping pad-thai.

I'm printing emails again. Saw MIIB last night for free. It was ok.

Small sentences are good.

Funny quotes.

Found this over at Yami's blog, but apparently there may be a nuclear reactor at the center of the earth. Damn that's crazy. I wonder how many different ways there are possible to exploit that as a weapon?

Got a new victory shag today. (I still haven't searched for blogging-shag-watchers. I'm going to start a shaggers anonymous or something--I swear!) My own fantasies are like ripe plums, juicy and ready to spoil. The fact that I told a friend about my possible fantasy-come-true and haven't heard from her since has me sort of eyeing my email with rather silly regularity this morning.

I have too much to do at work, and a weekend with far too much planned. There is a parade this evening that I'm planning on being in, and a parade on sunday I'm planning on watching. Tomorrow promises to be busy as well.

How's that for a pathetic post.

I recently linked Cat and Girl from my Black and White Web site. I haven't spent enough time lately working on my own websites. I'm thinking I'll try and get some stuff done this weekend, like a redesign for B&W, (which it has needed for quite some time) and maybe those links on this here blog, yeah.

well, I'm back from vacation. (A few days wasn't nearly long enough.) I walked out to the bridge over our slimey little river, and it's about two feet higher than normal. A coworker and I saw some of the big fishies, and talked about how dust in your house is 70% dead skin. Next time I turn on the TV I'm going to call it the dead-skin-collector.

Lately I have been absolutely plagued by pop songs stuck in my head. Some times it's worse than others. Right now I have this abysmal song chanting up there like some kind of mantra. "Watch it spin arround till a beautiful oblivion..."

I just took a shower. Today was particularly satisfying. I'm not saying why. I want to tell laura why, but she's not awake. I got an email today, and one of life's particularly elusive fantasies has a chance of actually coming true. That's all I'm going to say. You can email me if you want more details.

For some reason, in the shower, the title of one of those dumb bedside philosophy books just popped into my head. Don't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff. Well, duh. But I was thinking about the times lately that laura has been angry with me for not telling her something I consider really small stuff. She just wants to know everything, and I don't blame her. It occurs to me that as much as it's all small stuff, it's all big stuff too--and while I'm busy "not sweating it", someone else may be busy drowning in the stuff. That's why the title of the book, (and the whole philosophy) is fucking bogus. My small stuff may be helping little children die in South Africa.

On the other hand, it's particularly satisfying to feel removed from things. To step back from reality and pretend it's pretty much all unimportant in the long run. It's not, but maybe--just for awhile--it's ok if it is.

Today I am printing html emails. Yes. Printing.

I am a web production artist.

nuff said.

still no new victory shag. Either he's waiting till Anna gets back in town, or his life is boring, or he's been run down in the streets by women who just want a piece... I feel like one of those people who watch all the soap operas, and talk about the characters all the time like they're real people. I wonder if there are other bloggers out there who post about his "exploits". Maybe I'll do some searching.

I'm taking a few vacation days. Tomorrow, monday and tuesday. So if there's less posting, it's because I'm at home relaxing, or maybe somewhere else partying.

The sci-fi author Jim Munroe's most recent novel contains various instances of product placement. He decided to send invoices to the companies he wrote about, and even followed up with some pretty damn hilarious "past due" letters. Here's a couple of my favorite quotes:

"Let me clarify things for you, Steve. I am a science fiction author. This means I invent the future. SF writers wrote about rocketships - we got them. Cell phones - ta da. Tricorders from Star Trek are basically Palm Pilots. "

"Maybe your accounting department is in the same country as many of your
clothing factories, and this accounts for the delay."

I'm going to have to pick up one of his novels for sure.

On an unrelated note, dobbs (author of victoryshag--where's the latest post?) and I have been discussing the nature of blogs vs real-tv. I just now decided in my last post that I think blogs deserve a new literary classification: Non-narrative non-fiction. (perhaps only new to me, I have no idea).

As for my narrative--tonight I get to go see the Flying Karamazov Brothers at the Guthrie!

I've got that new(ish) Elvis costello song stuck in my head, except it sounds like this:

Tear off your own thread!
Tear off your own thread!
It's a blog revolution!!

I don't know how that happened. I woke up with it.

I have nothing to say, and I am saying it.

I guess I am desperate for content. (I'm working on getting those links up, but I think I may have to re-design for them to work--they're pushing my right nav-bar out, which makes things look funny with this jurry-rigged template.)

Anyway, here is another conversation ser and I had on friday:

  trophy-boy: how style-sheet-saavy are you?
  databl1p: pretty up "with it" if you know what I'm saying.
  databl1p: shoot..
  trophy-boy: =o
  trophy-boy: apart from just removing text decorations completely, how does one change the "underline" part of a text style?
  trophy-boy: is there a text-decoration-color tag?
  databl1p: interesting... I'm not sure.
  trophy-boy: dot dot dot
  trophy-boy: you are no longer my hero
  databl1p: hold your fucking horses.
  trophy-boy: NOW NOW NOW
  databl1p: the only thing I can think of is giving the paragraph a style with a bottom border ... and you can specify the color of that border..
  trophy-boy: kk you are once again my hero
  trophy-boy: you can put the trophy back on your mantle.
  databl1p: my "mantle"?
  databl1p: your "trophy"?
  trophy-boy: your fireplace mantle thingie
  databl1p: my "fire" place?
  trophy-boy: yes
  trophy-boy: where you put your fire
  databl1p: where it's "hot"!
  trophy-boy: yes, the sun rarely shines there, too.
  databl1p: IN HELL!!!!
  trophy-boy: and you should get the cause of the fire looked at
  databl1p: do you mean the burning sensation, because that didn't happen until you put your "trophy" on my "mantle".
  trophy-boy: well there is definitely not a problem with my trophy, if that's what you're suggesting
  trophy-boy: maybe you've been putting too many trophies on your mantle recently
  databl1p: Maybe your trophy has been on a few too many mantles!!!
  trophy-boy: ridiculous. i always am careful about what mantles my trophy is on
  trophy-boy: it's not like i run around town putting my trophy on mantles
  databl1p: but do you generally use a doily?
  trophy-boy: i'm not into stuffed animals

Last night, while working on the code for Laura's impending blog, I heard an obnoxious girl out the window. She was clinging to a boyfriend, posing for a very flustered looking camera man who urged them to stand still for 15 seconds. I assume he needed that to get the right exposure. Today's VictoryShag was haunting. This guy has got to be a writer of some kind. I meant to emulate at least somewhat his post, but I've failed. I'm too in a hurry with this mortgage paperwork I need to get signed by my dad, and taking a "long" lunch.

I have really nothing to do at work anyway. Maybe I'll write more when I get back.

This is how productive my afternoon has been: http://www.rooney.us/funny/triumph/

Yesterday I took my lunch in the conference room, and taught a coworker to juggle. (Another one bites the dust--she's leaving in a week or two.) Those who have paid attention know that I work in a pretty office-oriented cultureless-pit. We were fairly successful at sneaking away, and nobody interrupted us but a couple people who already know what was going on. She learned quick, and last night I called up a friend who works at air traffic, and got her some juggling balls. I don't know why I'm telling this story here, other than to show my bountiful generosity...

People at work have started making fun of me for having so much food on my desk. It used to be candy, but now it's food. It probably doesn't help that I usually leave my lunch on my desk after getting it from the fridge (if I remember to put it in the fridge in the first place). Edible items on my desk right now (which do not include lunch):
• Panda Black Licorice
• Honey Wheat Wheatables
• Cheez-its (the big box was on sale!)
• Sun-sweet Tropical Mix (dried fruit)

Notice: The licorice is the only candy! I'm trying to cut back. I've also gone vegetarian. I don't remember if I've mentioned that here already.

Today's victory shag was not especially interesting. Reminiscing about a failed relationship in the form of a letter. I can't help but think that if I'd written an email like that to an x (and actually, I've written plenty), I'd immediately feel like a big sucker, and if I hadn't sent it right away, I probably wouldn't.

It's easy to understand how he feels though. I feel that way every time I read through old emails of past relationships, which I like to do with a frequency I'd rather not admit to.

This is bizarre--I feel I have stumbled upon something big, or rather something mysterious. Mystery always makes things seem bigger than they really are. This is akin, actually, to when I discovered the websites created for the release of the movie AI. They were elaborate, and large... and mysterious.

Basically, I have discovered my first blog that is not a blog: Victoryshag.com. It's a mailing list really. You have to sign up for it, but then you get a couple of back issues (mine were not particularly striking--but in hindsight, did give some background information) and then the daily email. I guess they are often love letters. But this one was a bizarre description of a strange proposition four women had made to the author of this blog that is not a blog. The four women all want to sleep-with/date the author. How crazy is that? How does a man (Dobbs, if you would believe the "From" in his headers) create such desire? I guess I'll find out...

Somewhere in the process, (it may be on his website, I can't remember,) the author claims that there are hundreds of people signed up for this thing, and that only 12 have unsubscribed.. ever. I am obviously intrigued, or I wouldn't be writing all this. I don't think I would be as curious if the letters/emails were presented by themselves, but to make things a bit more interesting (interactive!) the author appends a link to the end of each email.. back to his site for corroborating evidence. Today's batch of links contained JennyJuice.com which I have even seen before, and enjoyed, (as I recall), and who is part of the plot in some way.

Question for further thought: How are blogs like real-tv? And are they appealing in the same way?

on a related note (to the post below):
http://www.geekissues.org/quotes/?top

on ICQ this morning, after a friendy insult to one of my neighborhood everquest addicts:

eq_addict - fucker
eq_addict - i will cut you
databl1p - you are SO intimidating.
databl1p - bring it!
eq_addict - bitch, you don't want me to get out my Sebilite Croaking Dirk (10/18, +4ac +4str +4sv poison +4sv disease, +4sv magic)!
databl1p - jesus man! no, I was only kidding. You know I never would have insulted someone with one of those!
eq_addict - that's right
databl1p - oh wait, look what I've got here, a Yosemite Sam Scimitar (20/20, +5ip, +8ssh +9dvd +15polution +25penis-size)!!!
databl1p - I think it's time to say once again.. bring it!
eq_addict - *yawn* without a good haste item, i'd easily outdamage you. you can't even dual wield, mofo!
databl1p - *HASTE* (I've got a powerup now mother-fucker!)
eq_addict - the haste power-up is just movement speed, not attack speed
eq_addict - haha n00b u r so pwnd, la~
databl1p - Ahh, but what you don't know, is that I am not left handed!
eq_addict - databl1p writhes in a grip of agony!
eq_addict - You have slain databl1p!
databl1p - I guess your schwartz was bigger than mine.
eq_addict - no, i just have Deathtouch on a 72 minute timer
databl1p - is that an egg-timer, or one of those old alarm clocks with the bells on top?

I was talking with someone the other day (Neil, from unicycling) about these bicycles he saw with roll bars that go from in front of the front wheel to behind the back wheel of the bicycle, allowing the rider to stop, and roll forward--essentially doing a somersault with their bicycle. I think that would be awesome to try (once I got over the initial fear). I was looking for some info online about this, but I haven't found anything yet. (surfing for bicycle links is crazy. there's SO much stuff out there.)

On a semi-related note, I saw this link over at Yami's blog which has become quite the happening place in the last few days, I might add. I shoulda got in on this whole "guest blogger" thing, but then I might not have found all these great deals on ebay this last weekend, so maybe that's ok.

I was thinking last night--just before bed, as I was too lazy to write it down--about the act of creating art. I'm using the broadest definition of art possible here, whether it's poetry, photography, ceramics, dance, music, juggling... The differences between them all are negligible for this thought process. Basically all arts are skills. You get better at them the more you do. Yet there is a definite point when the artist first begins to practice the skill, where they possess what might appear to be a heightened level of creativity due to their inexperience in the field. In fact, many artists spend their entire careers trying to re-create that initial playfulness or creativity.

So then there are two factors that make a good artist--I would argue--"skill" or the practice of the art, and "creativity" or uniqueness of the art. A very skilled artist is almost always easy to admire, (depending on the art, I suppose, since high skill in some fields is imperceptible to the outside observer) but for most arts, someone who is talented is easy to spot. Yet this alone doesn't make them a master in their field. Examples of this are everywhere, from that really good cover band, to the painter who cranks out portrait after picture-perfect-portrait of nature scenes--and not good ones. I think you probably know what I'm talking about.

I think most fields talk about these ideas in their own semantics. And I'm not pretending to be an expert on any of this stuff. Last night I was just asking myself what I didn't like about this recent performance by one of my favorite jugglers (who is also a good friend of mine), and I realized that in this piece--and a few others I've seen--creativity is carrying the bulk of the load, and there was really no skill involved. (And believe me, there is plenty to tap!)

As an artist myself, in my poetry, I often leave out the skill portion of what I'm doing as an exercise. In fact, I was going to say I don't generally share the results of this labor, but then I realized that right there in my right hand navigation is probably the most frequent example of this--my mindblurbs. Thoughts without reason. Poetry without skill. A creative exercise I try to do at least once a day (and end up doing three times a week or so). But there they are, for everyone to see. I'm a hypocrite again, and I was feeling so smug, so superior. I was thinking to myself, he should never have performed that piece in public. Maybe it was necessary for his creative growth, but he should never have performed it. And if performance is to juggling as publishing is to poetry, I'm just as guilty if not more so. Where are my good poems? Where are my works of skill and creativity? Obviously not here.

I'm going to go hang my head in shame now. (or go to the bookstore, 'cause that's what I planned to do this afternoon anyway.)

it feels good to back up files and delete them. Like a good rainstorm.

Things are still fucked up here at work, and there is no development environment. I don't want to work on a live site, at least not without some kind of safeguard... I really should be doing the work I have to do offline, and then just upload, but DNS is hosed on that particular site anyway, so they won't even know things are fixed. (and I have to do _every_ page, so it's going to be tedious to say the least--maybe I'm just procrastinating.)

I've stumbled onto some really not-so-interesting blogs today. I also discovered The Sex Project which I may contribute to... but nobody really wants to see erotic male photos... (except other guys, but that's another story.) I'm not sure what the the reason for this is, I mean, it's a gross generalization, but I think there is some truth to the idea that men are far more visually stimulated or stimulatable than women are.

I think maybe I'll add links to other blogs on my site... I haven't consciously decided not to do so, I'm just not sure what the best method would be. This whole blogspot thing leaves me feeling a bit too not-in-control.. if that makes any sense. I think it's the templating system that's offputting, and I wonder how the templates work for Movable Type.

I have lots to do, and I'm doing it.

Link of the day: sacrilegious dildos.

If I have learned anything in this universe (in the last 24 hours), I have learned these things:

• It's good to understand how your php script works before you complain about weird "caching" issues and/or go about fucking things up in said script.
• Other people write better poems than you. (whoever you are)
• Business is business--that means it will always be run by stupid people.
• Some tricks are really really hard. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to learn them anyway, and in fact, makes it more fun to sort of half-learn them, because you can celebrate "almost-getting-it" that many more times.
• Old friends may call at any moment.
• If a game is released on a particular day, and you call a store that is open 24 hours at 11:45pm the night before, that game is not guaranteed to be in stock at that particular store until 10am. Especially if the store is Wal-Mart, and the game is Bomberman Generations, for the Gamecube.

Sometimes, I think unix is like magic. Playing with configuration files and .rc files has to be one of the most fun things I've done at my job. It's especially fun to "source" your .tcshrc file and watch the magical changes happen! I'm sure this kind of thing would get old if it were something I had to do more than even once a week, but for now, I'm content changing my prompt on occasion... just for kicks!

This is similar to the way I feel about programming in general. I'd like to do more of it. I probably wouldn't even mind being assigned more of it, but right now--because I do it so little--I'm like a kid in a candy store playing with php...that is, until the big awful server caches your script in some naughty bad way, and you can't see your changes. Then I get frustrated, and want to kick the server. But my terminal doesn't allow for physical bludgeoning, so I take a deep breath... and wait. Maybe the comments will look better... someday.

My archives are totally fucked up, and I have no idea what's happening. I think it really is time to start using movable type or something. This is rediculous. Every time I go to the "archive template" area on blogger, I get a "page cannot be displayed" error.

I don't know what it is about monday mornings, possibly just that I never get enough sleep, but damn I'm tired, and I haven't been able to focus on much of anything yet. Plus, it's fucking cold outside (and rainy, which normally I would enjoy) and inside, where you would expect the temperature to at least reflect some amount of warmth, the AC is on! Are we fucking popsicles that we need refrigeration?

I feel like crying myself to sleep.

I am almost disappointed that the new moby album is good. I had kinda planned on not getting it, because I don't really like that song they're playing on the radio.

one thing I really hate: when a weekend feels like work. Tasks for this weekend: get groceries, wash clothes. OK, that's not that long a list, but Laura has about 20 things that she would like to tack onto it, plus, there are another 20 "fun" things we have scheduled (party tonight, unicycling and museum this afternoon...) I just feel crowded for time.

Here's a poem I wrote a few days ago... this is 2.0, and much more coherent.

=====

"Give us today our daily commute." -the faint

On the freeway swimming upstream toward work
morning after morning Hiroshima on 394
little pollution gas light on
velvet mufler--divine spedometer
nursing my clutch
addicted to airbag
humming to the radio
like some dashboard freekshow
safety-cracks in my sanity.

=====

the world is my crash-test-dummy. w00t.

If you check this site, and all the images are gone, you can blame my ISP, whose services have gone steadily downhill since the split.

I could spend all day reading blogs. seriously. all FUCKING day.

Yesterday I had this completely impromptu blog-writer-get-together. Of course, I didn't even think of it that way until we started talking about blogs... I was just getting together to hang out with meghan, and she had apparently talked with mopsa earlier in the day about going to this (turned out to be fairly awful) variety show at the BLB. (Incidentally, I happen to know the person who designed and built the current BLB website, and wouldn't it be funny if mopsa and/or any other readers also knew that person!)

Anyway, we skipped out on the show after the second bad poet, and ended up (after briefly loosing each other) at pizza luce. (whose site I won't link, because it sucks ass). The topic of blogs only came up briefly, and mostly in the middle of one of mopsa's many anecdotes, but when it did, it felt rather odd to be actually talking about something that had, until that moment, been purely electronic. Behind the screens, so to speak.

I have talked a bit with Laura about my blog, but other than that, any times I've mentioned it I'm usually giving someone the URL. I have been, once or twice, surprised by someone mentioning something they read on the blog, but otherwise, blogging and reality have scarcely met at all. Blog, meet reality. Reality, meet blog.

I've had this experience before--in reverse--when I first got into webpages and stuff, I met this girl who lived in Iowa. We met at a con. She and I ended up having a (mostly) electronic relationship, but have met (with mixed results) in reality a few times since. Every time it's that same weird disconnect. We're not the same people online as we are in reality. I mean, we're the same, but we're not.

If I were being particularly philosophical, I would wonder which I'd rather be, but then I'd have to draw boundaries. (Are video games online/electronic reality, or reality reality? This gets especially blurry when you start to consider my recent ebay addiction.)

I used to be very into thinking about these kinds of issues. I read "life on the screen", "Hamlet on the Holodeck" and "Interface Culture" over 3 years ago! (Which now seems like an eternity.) I actually have a smallish collection of these investigations of the "new" electronic frontier at home, but it's been a long time since I felt they were pertinent. I guess there is another reason I don't tend to buy them anymore as well--seems like most of the new ones are all about money and/or power. Products of the failed .com era, I guess. I don't find them nearly as interesting, although some of the newer ones (about why it failed) are on my list... I find the personal narratives the most interesting, I think. Somewhere, under my facade of indifference, I'm a people person--an electronic-people person.

OK, I know, I know, I don't watch tv or read much in the way of news, but how come I've never heard of Hammacher Schlemmer before? I guess maybe they're just another specialty store, and it's not like I'm into those...

(Do a search for bicycle, and you'll find a bunch of jems, including a new one that turns into a unicycle!)

Tuesday. I've suffered the revelation that my life is a blur of the same old stuff. Stuff I enjoy, some of it--juggling, video games, movies--but stuff I really could care less about too--work, driving, eating, sleeping...

Some people really enjoy sleep. I find it cumbersome. I don't like it, most of the time. It's one of those things I have to force myself to do if I want to get enough of it, and I hate not getting enough of it probably worse than I hate doing it. They say our bodies do important things while we're aslep, and that's fine. I just wish I weren't so busy that sleep felt like an intrusion.

All that having been said, I didn't get enough last night, and I want to go back to it. ;)

This is one of those days where I feel like I'm walking around with blinders on. I can only see the thing immediately in front of me. I've never been good at multitasking, but today it's even worse. I get sidetracked by thinking about chocolate. I get to a logical stopping point in a project, and I stop, but not for any reason, just because I'm there. It takes me a few seconds to realize, yes, I have more work to do.

My brain is frazzled and stupid. This is not that unusual.

I have huge news. Last night I went to look at a house right off of LynLake. It was awesome, and we made a bid on it. I went to my mom's place, to juggle with Travis & AJ, and then went home to watch The Others with Nate. By the time I got home, Nate had already heard our bid was accepted! The house looks a little something like this:



I have so much work to do it's comming out my ears. So I'm getting back to that. blah!

I'm having "issues" with blogspot again. Page not found errors... And bitstream is falling apart at the seams... I have my email one minute, and the next it's all fucked up. Fortunately, they've got some really talented people down there, and I'm sure they're doing the best they can...

Today at work was this all-gage company meeting... we played "games" which were mostly trivia about the various parts of the company. It's actually a pretty amazing thing, when you think about Gage marketing as a whole--merely in terms of the volume and sheer diversity of work that comes through this building. Unfortunately, working in one of these cubes, on my stupid little projects, doesn't leave me feeling part of anything big or important. The opposite is more frequently the case, (if it wasn't already obvious.) I usually feel so separate from this whole thing. I want to get out. Run. Become a hermit.

I am not a drone. I am not a drone. I am not a drone.

*sigh*

I've caught the ebay bug. It's funny how I've used ebay in the past without getting addicted. I think I was always looking for something in particular, but that's how this started too... it was just something in particular that I didn't (strictly speaking) need, so maybe that's the difference. Video games are plentiful in the land of online auctions, and I've found a few pretty good deals. My SNES/N64 game-organizer should be arriving in the mail any day now. I'm pretty excited about that one. And I bought Kirby 64 because Laura likes playing Kirby when we play Super Smash Bros.. But last night I found myself staring at the screen long after I'd already checked my current auctions, surfing for everything, anything, something--things I don't even really want... but have maybe thought about buying in the past. I think maybe it's got to stop... maybe.

the audition on sat. went well. We all kinda tightened up and didn't talk nearly as much as we should have. That's the kind of thing only practice well alleviate, I think.

Work sucks, as usual. I'm debating the merits of working a night security shift somewhere. If I can make $15/hr, I'll be excited about the prospect. I just don't want to actually do anything. I'll bring a laptop and books.

The house purchasing has to happen first, since financing depends on my job. We'll see if I can hold out for a couple of months. We looked at about 8 houses this weekend, and weren't really excited about any of them. Slim pickings right now, I guess.

well, I've been ignoring this here blog for almost a week now. Chaos has ensued in nearly all aspects of my life. Work is... well, work. There has been quite a bit of blame-slinging lately, and I feel like I'm in preschool here.

The big news is that I'm trying to put together an "act" for the renaissance festival this summer. My brother and sister will be in it, along with good friends AJ and Travis, who I have known for awhile in a juggling context.

We've been getting together almost every day this week, despite (or maybe partly fostered by) the fact that I've been calling in sick, and sleeping till noonish every day. I really have been sick, although if I'd have known how sick--and how much work I'd miss--I probably wouldn't have taken monday off.

Not that I've missed working... I wish I lived in another country, where I could work 30 hours/week. I wish that were more socially acceptable here. If I could get away with it, I'd do it at the job I'm at now. I wonder if they'd let me... they'd probably make me hourly or something.

blogs are truly fascinating.

I was at first disappointed to find out that Keep Trying (a blog I've been meaning to, but haven't visited in awhile) was no longer posting meta-comments about blogging. Then I read a bit of it, and--DAMN--it's all about the situation in Jerusalem and world politics. It's hard for me to remember that there are really horrifying things happening in the world around us. The worst part of my day is the agony of realizing my productivity level is at an all time low. I can't work, I can't seem to think. My brain is a puddle of disorganized thoughts melting into one another--sometimes something relevant will surface, but it's completely by accident.

And then this slap in the face. We're not all born with the freedom to post about our shitty jobs on the Internet.

today is 5-8. that is ostensibly my height. the universe throws coincidences like quarks.

poem

elephants never forget--it has something
to do with their ears, or trunks, or something--
and I suppose, I wish
--photographically--
I had some of the same grey stuff
reminding me of all the things I've already forgotten
before I forget them--
or write them into a poem.

can elephants even write poems?

the eloquent elephant
(on the pleasant pheasant's day off)
jumped over the quick brown fox.

outside, a storm cloud brims
with memories of its own.
soon a cerebral dam will break
and the sky will forget
into the lightening rods of local churches,
tops of banks
and skyscrapers.

there are so many things slinging electrons around--
who is to say the sky doesn't rain down thoughts
too dense and wet to understand?

OK, so I was listening to Yami's playlist from home yesterday, and fell in love with this song, "adding up numbers", which is (I found out this morning) by Kompressor, this weird muppets-meets-industrial band.

So... at the bottom of their homepage, there's a link to this article they were mentioned in from Spin magazine... I highly recommend reading it, it's got a bunch of links, and is pretty awesome.

From there... I got to http://songfight.com/, which is this weird songwriting competition site. Some really good stuff on there. If I were a songwriter, I can't imagine a better way to hone my skills. So now I've been listening to old songfight songs. Good stuff.

I wanna know who thought of http://songfight.com/. It's such an awesome idea.

I broke down over the weekend, and bought a gamecube. Dropped $400 I don't have on three (additional) controllers, a (required but not included) memory card, three games, and the system itself.

Super Smash Bros is AWESOME.

now I'm working at home because the network is screwed up at work, and DAMN if I don't just want to be playing it.

Today I'm starting on yet another project for Microsoft. I feel a bit like the son of Satan. I wish I could at least get x-box games for cheap. I have a friend whose brother apparently works for a company making ports of microsoft games, and he gets x-box games for $10. I might actually buy one if I had the hookup like that.

I have been very tempted by the modded panasonic gamecube that can be found at http://www.lik-sang.com/. They have all kinds of awesome products, actually. $500 is a bit pricey, but it'd be worth it if I were collecting DVDs or something.

Today I've got swat-team brain stem-cells.

Read a bit of the new Discover mag today. Did you know they think turtles may not age at all... ever? They die of accidents, viruses, and predators, but seemingly do not age. This explains why we still have teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles, as opposed to disgruntled 20-something-ninja-turtles working salaried day jobs and hating every minute of it.

I think it may be time for me to take a vacation. I need to talk with SOMEONE who knows how much vacation time I have, and when I get more... It used to be contingent on my anniversary with the company, which is actually coming up fairly soon here, and I've got a week to burn. On the other hand, maybe it's not anymore, and I've got to figure that out.

Today is one of those days that just rolls off you. I've already forgotten everything I've done today, and I feel very busy while having accomplished very little.

The impending house-purchase is going steadily. I'm excited about the prospect of living with Laura now. It'll be fun to sleep in her bed all the time instead of mine... and yet the video games and computers that make me feel secure will still be there, just waiting for me to wake up, comforting me with their presence.

well, Laura's car has a flat, so I gave her a ride, and I'm into work at the unbelievably-early hour of 8AM. How do people fucking do this? There were three of us here when I first arrived, and now the population of the office has doubled. I feel like some kind of lab rat. Plus, I should be wearing a sweater, my office is FUCKING COLD.

Oh yeah, everyone wish Yami a happy birthday. w00t!

Friday I'm in love has to be one of the best songs known to man. It may even be my favorite cure song, although it's got stiff competition, especially in that remix of close to me on the "mixed up" album.

I got up early for work today, so I can leave early and drive down to chicago for the Stevenson's Toss Up juggling festival. I'm pretty excited, because I hear they have a great space, and there will be lots of people. Plus, I have this new weirdo haircut that I want to show off.

I have had many comments on the new haircut this morning... I've had two people say it looks like I'm wearing some kind of helmet, (including a very blurry-eyed Laura this morning), but my favorite was from Alex, (a designer here at work) who said it looks "evil".

Greg Bear's latest novel, Vitals, was a very well written pile of steaming shit.

I was extremely disappointed in this novel. X-files syndrome galore. No plot tie-ups, no ending really to speak of, this thing sucked ass. It was far too possible and plausible and yet stupidly, inanely, without conclusion, without coherence. Maybe I should explain a bit. I hate half-cocked science fiction. It's a fine line really, but one that I think bares flushing-out (pardon my pun).

I love certain kinds of surrealist writing. And I (obviously) love science fiction. But there is an area where they should never meet. If you're writing what is obviously intended to be swallowed as a "hard science" science fiction novel, damnit, you better fucking have it all make sense at the end!

Don't get me wrong. This novel was written well. It's internally consistent. I'm not going to be looking for holes in the logic any time soon. What bugs me is that, at the end of the novel, we still don't know who dun it. In fact, we're scratching our heads as to who are the "who" candidates.

The first half, and yes, admittedly, toward the end, the narrative was compelling as hell. I kept turning the pages--completely unsuspecting--and after the climax, I raised my eyebrows... a timeline. A mother-fucking time line right there at the end of the book. I kept reading, waiting for a punch line. It never dropped, the other shoe is still out there floating in space.

One of two things is at fault here: pretentious writing, or lazy writing. Greg Bear could have really nailed it with this novel if you ask me, but he fucked it up good.

I've decided I don't use enough fucking descriptive terms in my god-damned blog.

I guess there's nothing for it but to celebrate the robots, robots who are "idealized post-modern savages".

=====
Ode to Fighting Robots

silver-fist, babelfish
low-to-the-ground--vaccumed to the wall--
full of flame-throwers and bandsaws...

spin like flin, an angry din
axes and sharp sticks.
Robots making robot toothpicks.

Majesty of microcircuitry.
Radio-controlled Andy Warhol waltzing on tripwire
white iron and ornery LED conspire

Still life in electro-strife--
an onlooker's geek rush and tussle
breed of new athlete's mind-muscle

dissatisfaction, stirs within
our saucer-shaped metal-killing-coaster.
If circuitry got sympathy, it would have been a toaster.
=====

God it's horrible. I'm like some kind of abomination.

Mondays are a bitch. Especially mondays that follow fairly satisfying vacations where you visit your girlfriend's sister, and find out how much cheaper housing is in the middle of nowhere, and finish your book, and start another really excelent book by Greg Bear, and watch that new cohen brothers movie, and go see a nice museum, and dance on the heads of needles wearing winged sandals and halos and togas all the while singing about lolipops and choochoo trains...

Yeah, so I guess that last didn't happen. But mondays are still a bitch.

I got a lot done today. Read slashdot, theonion, played some Cannons with Chris. It's funny, I really did get a lot done today. And I'm still working! My computer is upgrading itself... (mac osx software update RULES!) The onion and slashdot both had interesting articles. Plus, the onion links to a hello kitty dildo, which I may have to buy as a gag gift for someone, because... damn that's funny.

I'm getting excited to be on the road. In less than an hour, Laura and I will be on our way to Kansas. Yes, it's only Kansas, but it'll still be fun. My only real concern is that I won't get to play nearly enough video games while I'm gone. I probably won't have a ps2 at all! Plus, lately, I've been getting pretty into the copy of Summoner that I picked up for $10. It's not as bad a game as it first appears, and the graphics do get better as you play--although they're still nowhere near what a PS2 game should be capable of.

I'm also looking forward to hopefully finishing my book while we're on the road. Since laura can't read while she's in a car, I'm hoping I can make her do most of the driving.

Today has been surreal. I think it may be carryover from last night, when I watched the second half of Mulholland Drive. I rarely stop watching a movie and start it again, but for some reason this one wasn't grabbing me the first time. Hell, it didn't really grab me the second time either, but it left me thinking "I must have missed something.

So I turned to the internet, and found a really great article on Salon that explains the entire thing. Strangely, after understanding more of the nature of the film, it was far more haunting. I think I had dreams about some of the various aspects of the film. (unfortunately, my dreams did not incorporate the lesbian sex scenes.)

I guess I woke up somewhere in the middle of the night and told laura she was making too much noise. I don't remember this, but she decided to leave. I feel pretty bad about it, and will try to make up for it by staying at her place tonight.

I got a message from my illustrious friend Peter. His life rivals most novels in terms of plot points, and excitement. I'm always jealous of the kinds of things he gets to do. This week it was some kind of inline-skate-theater-event. I'll have to write back and tell him about my rollerblade Cyotes. (The rollerblades with 6" wheels.)

The drive to work today felt more like swimming through traffic. I was probably still far too tired to be driving, but I don't feel tired. Just surreal. To keep with the water theme, I keep thinking stuff on my monitor is just floating there... like it's some kind of fishbowl.

how come it takes me so long to read a book now? I realize that I'm maybe halfway through the book I'm reading, and I posted on the 25th of last month that I started it. yuck that's slow!

Another former co-worker has started a blog! This time it's nancy, who used to be president of our company. She registered watressdreams.com a while back, and has just now gotten around to putting some stuff there.

I'm eating Teddy Grahams, and for some reason, my fingers are not content to pick just one at a time out of the box. Yet, my mouth seems only able to accept one at a time. I am constantly picking them up off my desk and lap. I must look like a total slob.

This weekend is a trip to Kansas City to visit a couple of Laura's sisters. Supposedly they have DSL, so maybe I'll even get to update my blog. Not that anyone reads this thing. ;)

How's this for a nice weekend:

Friday, I went and looked at houses again. Saw a couple that might actually be worth living in, but neither that we were so exciting that we'd have to buy RIGHT THEN. Straight from looking at houses to a bachelor party for a friend of mine from juggling. We played 8 player Halo on 2 X-boxes, one hooked to a big screen tv, and the other to a projection monitor type thing. The entire wall was Halo. Awesome shit. We stayed up far too late considering the next morning....

we woke up at 6:30 to go play paintball. Got there around 7:30, started playing at 8:00, played till noon. $75, but it was fun as hell. I have bruises but not as many as some of the guys (you can imagine how the groom got pummelled, as it was his party.) But in general, I didn't do nearly as well as I'd done playing halo.

After that, home to shower, then straight out to my friend Derik's to a lan party. My computer has been flakey at best lately, so I borrowed one of his "spares". It kicked ass!!! OMG. We played some maps by this guy Lake Trout. Everyone who showed up was awesome, and we played some kick ass 7 on 7 capture the flag. I even got the high score on one of the games!

Sunday, I woke up around noon, finished my taxes, fell back asleep, woke up at 3pm, did laundry with laura, mailed my taxes, and went to a movie party where we watched Mystery Train.

All in all, it was a good weekend. I need another one to recover.

wow, I'm a blog slacker. This week has been hell, working on a new site for Symantec. (TM) I'm getting fucking sick of working on yellow sites. Three out of the last four large sites I've worked on have been yellow. What's up with that?

Today is pretty yellow.

I once started a manuscript of poetry I was calling Yellow. At least, I think that's what I was calling it. You can see all the books I actually finished here: http://www.livingtech.net/oldpoems/.

My friend Meghan just started a blog, and has been showing me up by consistently writing interesting stuff... She had a headache this morning similar to mine. She told me not to publish her link cause the site isn't done yet, but I think it's good enough. I won't add it to my links till her "friends" page contains something other than "asd'fkjsadfj;laskf;jl"

My friend Jason has registered a domain name, and thinks he's going to be a porn barron.

It wouldn't be so bad if he just wanted me to appear on the site, it'd be almost flattering even. But he has to mention the fact that he finds my brothers attractive. *shudder*

There really aught to be a law.

songs recently aquired from Gnutella:

Otis Redding: I can't get no Satisfaction
Devo: I can't get no Satisfaction
Ben Folds Five: Brick (Acoustic)
Superdrag: Who sucked out the Feeling
Tattle Tale: Glass Vase Cello Case

The last is from the movie "But I'm a Cheerleader". The soundtrack was apparently never released, but if you look hard enough, there has been some clammor for it. I'm hoping to download the entire Tattle Tale album, because it's rare, (or at least hard to find). The song is awesome, and I've put it on repeat. (Otis Redding is awesome too.)

What's up? My roomate and I (flatmate heh.) are looking for a house. I'm not at all certain of my financial future, but I figure, if I'm pumping money into something to the tune of half my paycheck (right now it's like a fourth, but if I were to buy a house, it'd be like half), it might as well be something saleable in the future.

What else? There are a couple of short articles in the new issue of wired about blogs. It's crazy really, people thinking this will take over for traditional news. Who exactly (of those blogging) has time to do anywhere near the amount of research traditional print magazines put into their articles--for a blog? I'm not saying nobody does, but certainly not me, and certainly not in the numbers that would be needed to take away from traditional news-venue readership.

Anyway, the "wanna bet" thing bugged me. Nisenholtz just sounded like we're going to have more opinion columns in Time Digital, which would (in my opinion) be abysmal. Blogs, for me, are not a news source. Unless you count "finding cool new interenet sites" a newsworthy item--which I do, but which many people would not. Anyway, for me they're more like reading a non-fiction book or something. It's fascinating how much poetry we can find in people's everyday lives.

UPDATE: Mozilla seems to have some issue today with refreshing the bottom blogger frame. I had to resort to Exploder to post this entry.

On my screen I can count over eight visible places I could be entering text. Watch the blinking cursor. Keep track of window order. onFocus. onClick. onLoad. onLook. onSweat. onWrite.

________________
Depth of frame.

render template
upchuck doctype
crosseyed browser compatibility
nslookup dictionary.com
________________


I haven't been paying attention to this whole blog thing this week. And why haven't I been able to find a decent archive of April Fools day site modifications. Everyone does it... change their site just for april 1. I particularly liked GameFAQ branding themselves GameFaX, and covering only X-box titles. I should have looked for more of them, but didn't even think of it until today because I was too busy playing Dynasty Warriors3 in a snowstorm.

Amelie may very well be the best movie I've ever seen. I want to see it again--soon. I was amazed by this film over and over again. The poetry was exhilarating, and the cinematography extraordinary. I don't know what else to say.

Oh yeah, I meant to post this pic of me in my new office earlier this week, but I forgot:

you too can be a Cyberlovah.

things I want to get this weekend:

a get-well card for my grandmother, who slipped and fell, breaking a finger or other bone in her hand...

an oil change for my poor neglected car.

easter candy on sale at target.

A shaver for my scalp. (also, probably, from target)

I know there was more, but I can't remember. Today is another boring addition to my existence in Plymouth, MN. I'm considering writing a novel while at work. I could just write a sentence or two in between every menial task I perform, and I'm sure a few weeks later I'd have hundreds of pages.

Henry's Diary is one of the coolest things I've ever read. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age.

Last night Laura and I found Ocean's Eleven on DVD (the old one) at Target, so we bought it for Jason, then watched it. It was ok. nothing too special, but certainly not bad. Jason lied though--both Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin sing in it.

I'm trying to decide if I should go to unicycling tonight, even though laura probably isn't going to go, and I'm suppoise to hang out with Travis. (he wanted to go, but he's not home...)

OK, now he's home, and we're going to go.

a week in this hell-of-an-office.

an email list that was formerly limmited pretty much to porn and dirty jokes has now been the main avenue for discussion of this news. None of us even have real details on this thing, but we all have opinions!

Chris--one of my favorite coworkers--has posted several cries for peace, including the full lyrics to "you are my sunshine"... Isn't internet debate great!?!

I got an email from alex, who is in Japan. Apparently he's taken it over. I wouldn't schedule any vacations for there in the near future.

Tonight I'm suppose to see the original "Ocean's Eleven" with Jason, who is thinks my preference of color movies over B&W is a crime of some sort.

that's all the news that's fit to blog. Or rather, all of it I'm bored enough to type...

we are sweet nothings

sealed in our boxes of humanity
taped up and mixed, melted together
you never know what you're going to get
a live one or dead one,
happy or sad.

we can be the whispered kind too
a word on the morning breeze
a meaning left to be imagined
our lives are like this
implied on a lover's lips.

I've already spent a large chunk of my time at work today logging my hours for the last two weeks. We're suppose to log hours daily, but I'm far too busy to spend an extra five to ten minutes a day trying to figure out what I've been doing all day. I was just thinking, what if I had to do this with my weekend?

• 12 hours playing Tetris Worlds
  
• 17 hours sleeping (not including last night)
  
• 3 hours having sex
  
• 3 hours unicycling on friday
  
• 3 hours playing Tetrisphere
  
• 2 hours doing internet research on Tetris variations, and Neil Voss, who did the soundtrack for Tetrisphere and The New Tetris (both for N64)
  
• 2 or 3 hours reading my new book, The Eyre Affair
  
• 1 hr compiling and then packing my laundry to go to the laundrymat
  
• 1 hr driving to/from laura's place on the way to the laundrymat
  
• 1/2 hr spent in line to get my oil changed at Valvoline (and leaving because it looked like another 1/2 hr would pass before I got in!

there's at least two hours unaccounted for. I'm not sure where those went. Maybe staring off into space. Maybe eating? Probably eating.

ode to my moronity

alas! the long island
slithering snake of a drink
sweet potato I
sip and gulp guiltily
she is a camera shudder
eyes closed, lips pucker'd
*urp*