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*

ok, I skipped a day, but it's day four now. Yesterday we had lunch from this tiny hole-in-the-wall chinese place in the strip mall by my work. I have a window now, which is a big improvement over straits at the warehouse, but it overlooks the aforementioned strip mall, so it's not terribly exciting. I'm off now to go pick up my copy of tetris worlds from funcoland. W00T.

second day in the new office. I don't mind it so much right now, but I do feel a bit like an outsider. I'm trying to get over my drunken crush on a co-worker, and it's not helping that I have to work fairly closely with her for the next couple of weeks. (I got seriously plastered last friday and found out she has either had a crush on me, or just thought I was attractive--I'm not sure which--anyway, I was hitting on her pretty badly, and I think she's since reversed her opinion.)

I have been buying CDs like crazy this last week. I picked up a copy of Ben Fold's latest, which I think is fabulous. But before that there were like six that I found used and should have been in my collection already.

Right now I'm listening to Etienne Daho, who is a sort of french pop star. It's pretty good stuff.. The album is called Corps & Arms. I have another of his as well, but I'm spacing on the name. A co-worker hooked me up with these.

It's the first day out in the new offices. We're located in Plymouth now, no longer the sweet and sexy downtown warehouse district suite. I'm so excited I can hardly stand it.

Actually, things aren't all that bad. Despite the florescent(sp?) lights, the carpeting doesn't slow up the rollers on our chairs that much, and I've got a new PC to play with. Here's a nice little anecdote. When I first logged into my new (windows 2000) machine, it told me my password had expired, and gave me a nice little dialog box to change it. Then, I found, amazingly, that I didn't have permissions to change my own password! How is that even possible? You can have passwords, you yourself are not allowed to change? Crazy.

I haven't done any work yet though. I'm saving that for later.

Well, I have a new business idea. I'm not sure what the reaction is going to be amongst bloggers, but I'm hoping it'll be a positive one. I've registered www.googlebombsquad.com. I stole the idea from this article:http://www.corante.com/microcontent/articles/googlebombs.shtml

I'm hoping it'll take off, and I'll have at least a few hundred sign ups (once I start promoting it, of course). I'm going to start the programming this weekend, but I want to get a FAQ and some other pages up before that happens (perhaps a preliminary signup form too...) Anyway, it's no worse than having one of those blogsnob links on your site, and hey, you may get paid! (of course, there is the moral dillema of altering the sacred google--selling out, etc.)

The Register finally has a US version, although I'm not really sure if there's a difference, as the article I've linked appears on both.

Also, speaking of love... isn't Jesus all about love? (Needless to say, I really like the folks over at BBspot.)

woah, looks like love transcends all boundaries. When is a book going to be written about all the internet/networking marriages?

ok, a few comments, since I'm up at 8:00AM to update a client's site... which is, i have to say, complete bullshit.

Somehow, after more than 9 months living in bachelor-pad heaven, the insects have finally caught on. For some reason, there is now a cricket in my room. The damn thing is faster and smarter than me, and I'll never catch it.

Also, my room-mate, whome none of you were probably aware was out of town, is now back. I awoke this morning to find my room a frozen arctic again, since appartently the heat was far too great when he (I should say they, since his g/f is with him) got home at whatever time last night. Now, there's an underlying issue here. The thermostat is only in the living room. Yet my room is BY FAR the coldest room in the appartment. We do not pay for heat. Nate and his g/f can open a fucking window. My room does not need to be twenty degrees.

Finally, there is a new Mozilla build out. Get it!

christy asked if this is like a diary. I guess.

I worked from home today, and had to use that shit-program ICQ. After about twenty minutes I was fed up, so I went searching for a nice clone. Not only does Trillian take its name from Douglas Adams, but it's a great ICQ, yahoo messenger, AIM client. It supports a couple of others too, including IRC, but I haven't tried that. I would say it's even a tad better than Fire, which I use at work.

last night laura and I finished reading High Fidelity. I checked amazon and bestbuy.com, and it was just as cheap at my local blockbuster, so we're going to watch it tonight. I'm all excited cause it's so great.

I'm currently reading Permutation City, by Greg Egan. It's awesome. Some of the best narative around the premise of mind uploading that I've ever read. The link is a great site for information, although I think I dissagree with some of the premises in the "Handy Neuroscience Facts" page. It's getting added to my transhumanism links.

here's my link for the day: Looks like someone had a nasty run-in with those sneeze fetishists. There is also a great (read: irreverent) jesus comic linked from the root. Very funny stuff.

I've got Kylie Minogue (Can't get you out of my head) stuck in my head. A co-worker made me watch the video, and DAMN.

I have no links for today. Mondays are good-for-nothing. I'm waiting for my software update (osx improves itself!) before I get myself off to juggling.

I think nate's girlfriend thinks I hate her. What's more, I'm not discouraging her. Today she actually appologized for calling. I said "OK, bye." and hung up. It was in the space after you say "no, he's not home right now," when a sane person would usually say "could you tell him..." or "just have him call me back then." or "I'll call back later, thanks." I'm probably not one to talk. Here's my social life: juggling in a gym full of nearly-strangers.

ok, so I've always kinda thought people who post their search engine results referrals are a little weird, but now I TOTALY see the attraction.

I come up first on google for the term sexsweat.

oh yeah baby. Plus, at some point I misspelled cocaine "cocane", and if you search for "how to make crack cocane" (without the quotes) I come up first. It's a funny misspelling, because--even though I know I'm a poor speller--I do know how to spell cocaine. I also show up when you search for "excitement machine" and strangely enough, blog + newbie does it too.

today's link, a site full of flash games... they're awesome: http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/

I went to see a sneak preview of 40 days and 40 nights tonight, it's a romantic comedy about this guy who is still in love with his x-girlfriend, and decides to go without sex for forty days and forty nights. It would have been a good date movie, but I went to see it with my roomate. At least he bought me dinner before hand. (Two-cheeseburger meal at McDonalds, with orange soda. I know you care.)

We wanted to try and remember to look up the female lead, Shannyn Sossamon, who is HOT. I wanted to know what else she's been in, and Nate remembered a Knight's Tale, but I thought she'd been something else. I guess not.

So, it's movie night, cause now we're going to watch Kiss of the Dragon.

today's link is this amazing music video I stumbled into: http://www.tobyslater.com/consumption/

My roommate just tried to start his own blog, and got it all set up and stuff, then proceeded to write for twenty minutes. (or maybe more like 45) His session had expired (since when does blogger use session timeouts?) and he lost all of what he had just written. (Which was probably quite a bit after 45 minutes--and judging from his bitching afterwards.) Needless to say he was pissed. I told him how I've made it routine to copy text out of the main text field if I've worked on an email or an update for more than 20 seconds. I do this even in Eudora, but especially in any sort of webmail. When Eudora crashes on me at work it's always frustrating as hell. (I only use it for my work mail because I can sort the emails into project folders so easily.)

I originally set down to write about how shitty I'm feeling. I just got back from reading a book to Laura, who stayed home from work today, and is misserable, and sick. I read more to her from High Fidelity. It's not that I feel terribly sick, although I do feel as though I'm starting to get a headache, but I think just being around her--so misserable, so weak and helpless seeming--caused some sympathy gene to kick into overdrive, and I'm having sympathy headaches, and sympathy dizziness.

I got an email today from John, my younger brother, who is in the next few days going to be starting on a three month walk. He is in California right now, I'm not sure where, (I think San Fran--which I'd always thought, until looking at a map just now, to be south of LA--I am so dumb.) He's going to walk at the very least to Portland, and if they get ambitious, to Seatle. He's walking with three other people, and I can't imagine it really. When I think about that kind of freedom, that kind of carelessness, I feel constrained by my job, by my debts, by my possesions... it's a fantastic idea, really, and he's doing it.

I finished A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius yesterday, and it was good. I felt thrown for a loop. It was as if the whole book was a discussion about the idea of self-obsession from this guy who is terribly self-obsessed, ridiculously so, and he's not even trying to hide the fact that it's all a joke in poor taste. Fabulous. Someday I'll have such a great idea, and I'll write it, and I'll be famous. Just wait.

Matt Wilson lent me the book originally, and I meant to give it back to him today. He is in a new band with this guy he used to play with who is now in Semisonic. They're called The Flops, and I just have to mention the site, because Matt is putting so much into it, it's really turning out great. He's writing all the copy, and it's just chalk full of this crazy stuff. I hope he doesn't get mad at me for mentioning it. I know they're already getting signups and stuff, so it's not like it's some big secret. I dig the car--nuff said.

link of the day http://www.liquidgeneration.com/poptoons/britney_breasts.asp

This last weekend was MONDO, the local juggling fest. It was probably the best mondo ever, and I learned a ton of stuff, got a new set of props (zuni's--poi) and otherwise enjoyed the hell out of the weekend.

Last night I took a shower, and finally unlocked the last character in DW3. I was up far too late doing it, but it was great. More playing tonight, if all goes well. Laura is sick, and I want to visit her, but I already have plans for group PS2... so... I hope she doesn't hate me for not making her ckicken noodle soup.

I got an email from a once aformentioned old friend (peter) today. He says I "LIED" before when I mentioned him. I guess it's only been a couple of months since he wrote last, not six. Sorry peter.

Back to the grind (for a half hour) before I head off.

morning is dismal. Outside raindrops on little stretchers are being carted to raindrop-morgues, dead before they hit the street. I woke up to the annoyingly perpetual dawn-hue from my window, sunlight filtered through cloud-layer after sadistic cloud-layer.

now I'm trying to psych myself up for going to work. This is much like ten minutes ago (showers are short now...) when I was trying to get myself up out of bed... thinking the door is so close, it's not that far, and taking a shower isn't so bad for at least five, maybe ten minutes--felt more like an eternity in that half-awake, almost-dreaming state just before the snooze kicks off, and my alarm continues its auditory barrage.

I can't decide what kind of art car I'm going to turn my beat up old geo-prism into. I would like to do some kind of collage, but I'd have to use some kind of varnish, so the first rain wouldn't just wash away the whole thing. I like this idea, because I could just carry around two tubs--one of adhesive, and one of varnish--and paste up anything anytime. It'd be dense, fun to look at...

I'd better get going. I need to work on finding a way not to work.

We're living in this incredible flux. This book I read, some really dumbass science-fiction psychology focused book--Cyteen--was constantly talking about how we live in flux. How our minds are full of contradictions, and that causes us to "flux" which really just meant let our emotions control our actions. I don't think lack of thought automatically means we're acting based on our emotions. I'm not even sure the book meant this. I'm getting what the book was saying and what I'm trying to say all mixed up. It's not important about the book. It's one of those epic things that's far too long to forget. I wish it had been much shorter (like 400 pages shorter) and I'd have already forgotten all about it.

Anyway, I feel moody today. In flux. Maybe it's the moon. Maybe it's the stars. Probably it's just my weird sleep patterns that end up getting in the way of work and my schedule for the day.

I bought the new Freddy Fresh album. It's grand. Good-ole techno. Hard beats and catchy loops that go on for probably too long. It's his first american release, and I've got one of his imports (the one with the fatboy slim remix on it) and I think this is better.

I'm gonna go take a shower, and wash away the moody sleep-eye residue. Water falls different on my head now. It doesn't run down my hair. If there's anything I miss about my hair, it was the way the hot water sorta soked into it slowly, moving it's way down my back like a snake or something. Now the water is just there, instantly, and it slides off my head just as fast, heating my scalp for only so long.

I reccomend everyone go from having really long hair to shaving their head once in their life. It's like you're a new person, only you're still the same. And everyone comments about it, even people you don't talk to that often. (or, as was the case yesterday, people you never talk to--a waitress at a bar I go to two or three times a month with co-workers came up to me and made some comment.)

The response to the change so far has been very positive. I don't have any weird lumps on my head or anything. I look tougher now, I guess, and my ear-rings stick out more, which I think is good. I've always wanted to look more punk, without actually doing anything terribly darastic. OK, so I guess shaving my head is kinda darastic. Maybe. Really, I'm just affraid Yami is going to never speak to me now. (And, as predicted--not here--she hasn't really been writing me since she got back to caltech. So I wouldn't even notice a difference... not that I'm bitter. ;)

another thing that has changed is that now I have a car. It's alex's old car.

Laura played a dirty little trick on Jason by telling him that she had a new boyfriend (because when she got back, I was a new man, no hair, and a car!) anyway, he was amused when we showed up at his party together.

OK, it's been eleven days. A lot has changed. (I cut my hair.)

I don't know what finally pushed me over the edge. Maybe if I hadn't been working 13 or 14 hour days for the week before it wouldn't have happened. Laura was out of town visiting her parents in Texas. Now she's back, and things are finally settling down after a nice four day weekend. Work is far less stressful.

The site I was working on is live, and has several thousand signups already. (duh.) We just didn't get the project until a week before it was due, so that was the issue, really. That, and poor project management. (we were still getting changes from the client even as the site went live, so development was all fucked up.)

In case I haven't already said this, Final Fantasy X kicks all kinds of ass. The book I'm reading is really good right now too. (yes, still the same one.)

I don't know, maybe it's because I was up till 4 AM playing FFX, but I feel like I'm swimming today. Everything is slow and water-like. Also, when I'm sitting still it seems like I'm still moving.

I had this image as I was walking into work of air completely surrounding me, drowning me.

Any minute now I'm leaving to drive Laura to the airport. She's going to Texas for a week to visit her parents. I'm working on this amazingly retarded website for virgin atlantic. But it's all about discounted fairs to london, supposedly $200! I'm tempted, actually. None of that Texas crap for me. ;)

I got my rollerblade cyotes today! (got 'em on ebay for $60)

today is a dust mop afternoon
my delicious morals are degrading by design
my hair is standing on end and inside out
my stomach is turning summersaults
from too little water, and too much sugar

I've been reading about fucking hearts and babies born on the internet.

My desert-island, all-time, top-five most memorable breakups a la Nick Hornby, in chronological order:

1. Kaia
2. Emily Mohowald
3. Megan Opp
4. Kate Christensen
5. Annie Baril

I don't know whether Kaia or Emily Mohowald deserve to be on the list. I don't really even know if that's how you spell Kaia's name. It's pronounced like kayak but without the last k, and with an 'a' at the end. Anyway, she was the first person I'd ever slept with, and there's a nice funny story to go along with it--one that I'll spare you, for now. I spent months afterward hoping to see her downtown. Run into her at a show, or a coffee shop. When I finally did, she ignored me, and pretended she didn't know who I was. Hell, maybe she didn't know who I was. We were drunk and stoned. The lights were off...

Emily I broke up with. Actually, that goes for at least three, maybe four out of the five above. I don't know, I guess I regret the most the relationships I know I could have held on to. With emily, it was a lot like Hornby's second relationship. I just wanted to feel her breasts. Only, with her, I got to. We spent this totally memorable day at home, "sick" from school, at her house, and I remember taking a bath with her, then making out for hours on her futon. I told myself I was in love with this other girl, a girl I knew better from my school, and one who I considered more up to par in the intelligence department. Truth is, I didn't know Emily at all. She could have been einstein for all I knew. I also talk about how she told me after our day home from school together that I was the first person she'd ever fucked around with. And I didn't want to be her first. I was scared to death of taking her verginity, and I knew she wanted me to.

There are a couple of people who didn't make the list who probably should have. Lia, and probably Heidi. Strangely, they're both of them girls I now despise. OK, I don't despise Heidi. I don't want to talk about her, or to her, or around her. Maybe it's too soon. She was only a year ago. Lia I don't even want to think about, I still see her occasionally around town, and she always walks by with her nose pointed in the air like she's obviously far too good to talk to me. Heh.

I've started reading High Fidelity to Laura. She'd never heard of it, never seen the movie. It's so good, every other paragraph or so makes me tingle.

I've also been reading my old journal far too often recently. The document (which I've relatively recently converted to a largish 350k text file) is really fascinating. I wish I'd written in it more often at times, and yet there is so much! Every third or fourth entry reminds me of some forgotten moment, some element of my past so powerful, so crystal, that bringing it to mind causes all kinds of emotional knee jerks.

I've been surfing for web community links all day. I wanted to include a blog link or two, but I realized that blog communities are really weird. It seems like they're all super specialized small intense bursts of social activity. This versus a site like Mac Fix It or something where they have hundreds upon hundreds of users that show up every day or so, log in, and help other people.

Web communities are the bomb.

oh yeah, check out my sister (second from the right) on the cover of last sunday's Star Tribune.

I find ordinary fiction relatively boring. That is, unless it brings something else to the table. Probably the most common "other" thing a book can bring to me is beautiful prose. Poetic prose even. The one I'm reading now does this well. It's funny even. Funny is good too.

When I write, I should think about this issue more. Not when I write here. That's not what I mean. This is more of a journal really. I mean when I write stories and stuff. When I write boring prose, it should be poetic. Or funny. It can be funny too.

I'd rather write science fiction.

Last friday I saw William Shatner right here in Minnesota. He was promoting the release of his movie (he directed and starred it in) called "Shoot or be shot." I didn't see the movie, in fact, we didn't even know he was going to be there. It was weird. He seems nice. He's short. I didn't shake hands with him or anything, just watched from 10 feet for a few minutes.

it has just struck me as extremely unlikely that anything as sophisticated as a CD player would ever get invented. I am amazed. Dumbstruck even. How is it possible? How is this awe possible? Am I crazy? Is it really amazing, or what?

The wonders of modern technology.

caviar on crackerjacks.

I'm inflated and frozen today. Work is a steaming pile of horse dongle, complete with tapeworms.

Now I will go juggle until my arms are sore and my legs numb from bending to pick up clubs. DAMNIT! I forgot a t-shirt today. I'll be juggling bare-chested. I'm so hot.

ugh. I'm a lizard in the sunlight
dreaming about crack cocane and mescalin
robe hanging off my shoulder
tying knots in my brain with video games
playing chopsticks on the player piano
we're fermented and moldy
green fuzz on my skin--alchohol content 98%
out to lunch
burp

well, I haven't had a googlewhacking post yet, mostly because I haven't had anything really exciting to post. Now a friend of mine here at work has got 166,110,000,000 points, with the two words
u n u n h e x i u m  &  j o n e s.

Hehe.

It doesn't beat out some of the best scores over at JOHO, but it's still pretty damn good.

My personal best was
p u s s y  &  t h y r o t r o p i n
with 29,440,000,000.

It's fun as hell, and I'm not getting any work done today. :P

I just found out a good friend lost his job. I keep saying I want another job. At one point I would have been happy to be fired. Now I'm not so sure. It sucks out there! I'm sure he'll find something.

I was thinking--on the walk from my bus to work this morning--about how boring my life is... then I thought about it some more and realized that it really shouldn't feel boring. I mean, there are so many things I do. I'm a FRIGGIN EXCITEMENT MACHINE!!!

I mean, for pete's sake, I've got a girlfriend who doesn't mind if I look for other girlfriends. I juggle two, sometimes three, times a week, I watch far too many movies, read incredibly good books, play amazing video games... I live a life of fucking leisure!

Laura says I write my blog like I'm lonely. I'm not sure why. Maybe she just means I don't mention her enough. If any attractive females between 21 and 29 are reading this, we're looking for potential 3-somes...

Here's a great quote from despair.com: "Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people."

UPDATE: If your screen name is Yami, and I already know you, it doesn't matter how old you are, get your butt to Minneapolis, and I can guarantee at least one night of hot steamy sex, quite possibly much, much more.

I just had this incredible eye-moment with a sexy-red-lipstick-wearing-girl on the bus.

I was standing in front of her about to get off the bus. She looked at me, I looked at her. We locked eyes. She licked her lips like she was going to say something. I bit my lip. The drunk in front of me stumbled getting off the bus. I grinned at her, she grinned at me. I got off the bus. I turned around, and she was still looking at me out the window of the bus. I made sure she knew I was looking at her, then I turned and walked up the street toward my appartment.

I suppose at this point I thought I was waiting for her to make some move--get off the bus behind me or something. I fantasized about the evening we'd have, getting to know one another... drinking heavily, smearing her gorgeous red lipstick.

Of course I'd already blown it. The moment was gone.

As I walked into my appartment, I fantasized about taking my flatmate's car and chasing down the bus to ask her out. Then I laughed at myself.

This kind of thing happens frequently enough that I'm always thinking about it... On the bus in the morning I'll fantasize about moments like this with every girl my momentary glance around the bus deems worthy of fantasizing about. In fact, as I got on the bus today, I began to fantasize about this kind of thing happening with this very girl, and I stopped myself, read my book instead. I never do anything when stuff like this happens. I'm totally and completely incapable of actually saying anything to a stranger.

I should have asked her out for a drink. I should have said "Hello," or "Goodnight," or "Hi, what's your name?" or ANYTHING. I'm a moron.

Not that I'm saying I really need to meet someone or anything. I'm just a moron.

Crazy factor #3: I like to bite butts. I don't know why. I really like sinking my teeth into a good ass. It's one of life's little pleasures.

Tonight I had a little adventure. I've decided I'm going to do more filming. Juggling movies are the way to go... I made that one of my brother Dan, and I've taken lots of other footage, but haven't put anything together since then. (There have been a few false starts, but nothing finished, yet.)

Anyway, I came up with this idea to walk around downtown juggling for something like 30 min, then speed the video up so it's like 4 or 5 minutes of fast-forward juggling. Easy, right? Well, I convinced Nate to do the filming, and we even looked up the exact time of sunset, so we'd hit it right in the middle. The plan was to film until the digital camera's battery gave out, which is normally something like 30 min. Anyway, just as we were starting, I realized that I was still wearing a coat, and not only is it hard to juggle in a coat, but I knew I was going to get hot. We were something like20 feet from Nate's car... and I wanted to go back and put it in there, but he said "no, I'll carry it." and off we went.

It went great. After the camera gave out (at 45 minutes!) I was super exhausted, and we'd had a lot of fun. Nate handed me my coat, and I checked my pockets. No wallet. Shit.

So we retraced our steps, squinting into every dark little puddle and snowbank looking for the damn thing. No dice. another 45 minutes later, I walked back into work (we did the whole thing downtown) to check my messages and grab my backpack before leaving. There were like 3 messages on my work phone, and as I was checking them, Nate checked the answering machine at home. Some lady had already found my wallet!

So we ran over there, and this lady (who seemed like she probably thought I was a moron for loosing it in the first place) handed over the thing without saying 3 words. She maybe said "you're welcome." maybe.

So that was my evening. I left the batery charger at work--I'd been in such a hurry to get my wallet back--so no video editing tonight. I'll do it tomorrow.

I'm going to write an autobiography titled All this Work for Nothing: the story of my life. Or perhaps, All this Work for Nothing: A Martin Grider case study.

(Oh oh, now I've done it. I've posted my name. No end of troubles now!)

Anyway, I think all this work for nothing is a catchy title. I'd like to repeat it a few more times--All this Work for Nothing. Or perhaps, All This Work For Nothing. Which capitalization scheme? You see the perplexing decisions I'm faced with each and every day! All this work... for nothing.

So much of what we do can be, (and is!) interpreted as "crazy" by other individuals. Exhibit A: How many times a year/month/week do you hear this phrase: "It would have worked out, except for the fact that... he/she was CRAZY."

I realize that this probably applies to myself even more so than other individuals. Perhaps I am crazy. I will begin a trend here of posting things about me that are often percieved as crazy by other people.

Crazy factor 1: I will not enter a monogamous relationship.

I feel that monogamy is yet another social convention accepted by the masses out of sheer convenience. We are not monogamous animals. There are actually human sperm that have evolved for the sole purpose of attacking other human sperm! That proves that biologically we are not monogamous.

I have relented a bit in my stance that nobody is meant to be monogamous. I have had convincing conversations with a suficient numbers of people over the years who feel that they are soley monogamous creatures, and could not bear for themselves the idea of attraction to more than one individual. This is simmilar to my former opinion that everyone is merely shades of bisexual. I realize now that there are individuals so far off the "scale" that there is nothing left to do but call them fully homosexual or heterosexual.

Maybe someday soon I'll post about crazy factor #2: I cannot abide the word "faith", and I have a strong disapproval of religious institutions of all kinds.

well, here I am, back at work. The entire day, pretty much wasted trying to get a simple page to layout correctly with CSS positioning. I don't know what the deal is, because I basically cut and paste from a page that looks the same in IE5.5 and mozilla, but mine doesn't. Frustrating as hell.

Not that it's work related.

I really want to start a business of some kind. Or maybe just do more stuff that's not work and video games. I'm not sure. But I really feel like I could find some other way to make a living. I know so many people who just juggle, or sell juggling stuff, or perform.

Bleh. I really just want to sit at home and never deal with people ever again.

I'm going to Madfest juggling festival this weekend. So I won't be posting. I'll be completely unplugged. I made my first favicon today. It probably won't go live until later next week, but it's pretty exciting. I can't believe photoshop won't save in .ICO format though.

Back in the day, I made a few levels for Marathon, this great Mac game that was basically the Mac's Doom equivelent. (better than doom, IMHO). Of course, when quake came out, Marathon was dust in it's tracks, but Bungie went on to make some other kick ass shit--but all that's beside the point.

This is what I meant to link. Funny as hell, and themushroom.com is well worth checking out, even if the design sucks ass. (their "Apple releases iLamp" article is also quite humorous.)

Nate and I had a smallish party. Nate is my roommate (a word which doesn't seem to apply, because we have a two-bedroom appartment). Now we have lots of leftover junkfood, because we both ingeniously bought quite enough for everyone who was going to be there.

Now, a story:

Once, there were two guys living in a small appartment. If the guys hadn't known each other since kindergarden, and already worked out all the differences they may have once had--including one fall the stealing of one's girlfriend and the subsequent three months of silence that followed--they would perhaps be at each other's throats with switchblades and flamethrowers. Fortunately, such is not the case, and these two guys get along great. Thus, there is no reason for this story. The End.

If Nate and I ever live appart from one another, we're going to have a hell of a time sorting out who owns which DVDs and/or Playstation games.

I dedicate this late-night post to Nate. He's my roommate. A great guy. He plays Comedy Sportz.

Now, the meaning of life.

I just can't seem to get started today. Everything feels like too much work. I was spoiled those days I spent at home last week, sick like child-pornography, and now I don't want to do anything. Ever again.

OMG. I'm "working" from home today, and I just now felt compelled to try the salt licorice that Yami sent me from Denmark ... (It's been sitting on my desk while I was basically too sick to really taste it.) Let me repeat. OMG. I can't decide whether I like it or not, but I think it's akin to sourpatchkids, only without being sweet.

OK, there is a little sweet, but it's FAR more salty, and then underneath somewhere there's this hint of licorice flavor.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a HUGE fan of black licorice. I love good licorice. But this is just wrong.

Woah. Crazy.

I find myself obsessively compelled to watch a friend of mine at work because she has a webcam. This isn't even someone I talk to regularly, or see on any kind of regular basis. In fact, usually our social interactions will be months at a time between chance encounters that go something like this: "Hey, good to see you!" "yeah, what've you been up to?" "not terribly much, and you?" "More of the same. Good to see you though" "Yeah, you too." Not even the sometimes obligatory "we should hang out sometime!" or "we really must do this more often".

But my watching her has sparked more than one day where we exchanged emails all day... maybe it helps that she's single and attractive, but it's a really odd thing to just watch her at various times throughout the day.

morning is a shadow on a fly's back. I'm sick of mornings... can't we just be rid of them entirely? Maybe it's sleeping through them that I'm sick of. It seems like I never get enough sleep...

Today I woke up just before I should be at work. So I elected to work from home today. (Milk it while I can.)

I've discovered a new way to think about my job. It's all just free money from here on in. I don't really feel like they need me where I work, so anything they pay me is (for as long as they keep paying me) pretty much like winning the lotery. Every day I'm winning at least a hundred bucks! It's crazy money, handed down from above!

Well, I think it's time to get to the miniscule amount of actual work I have to do before I slack off for the rest of the day...

Last night continued the trend of dreaming about living in a video game. I think I was running around beating up people as if Dynasty Warriors were real. I was a "stalwart hero", and remember just slaughtering hundreds upon hundreds of warriors.

It's a rather disturbing way to wake up, actually.

At the bus stop, I saw an old friend in his car, and he waved me in. I haven't seen him for at least six months, but we were close for awhile. I blame his grad-school, and the fact that he's got a new girlfriend--doubtless leaving him less time for old friends. He was driving home (blocks away) but drove me to work instead, while I told him about various happenings and events in my life. I felt rather distracted talking to him, and wasn't able to think very clearly or quickly (as is often the case in the morning). I was conscious of how little he would say about himself, and his own life. Is he happy? who knows.

Then, upon checking my email, I discovered I had an email from another good friend I haven't heard from in quite awhile. (not quite six months, but almost!) Peter is quite the world traveler, and is vacationing in Australia (his home turf). His home is in the netherlands. Last year we met in Las Vegas, (for quite the memorable trip), and it's always good to hear from him, even if it was just a short email...

Work is fairly boring today, and I've been surfing blogs again. I've added quite the list to my bookmarks.

well, the weekend swung by while nobody was looking. I watched a movie or two, and played more video games. I took an adventurous journey to pick up my sister on friday, and on saturday I went to uncle hugo's--a science fiction bookstore... one of the last independent sci-fi bookstores. Sunday was uneventful.

Now, even though I'm not exactly feeling 100%, I find myself without excuses, and I'll be returning to work again today to face the near-zero workload that will be waiting for me.

I'm midway through A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, which is thoroughly great and wonderful. I knew this going into it, but I had forgotten or something when I mentioned it here, but it's by the guy who edits McSweeney's, which is also quite wonderful.

I've noticed a disturbing trend today. I'm taking sudafed (with pseudoephedrine) for my virus or whatever it is. The box says I can take it safely every four hours. Today, like clockwork, I start to feel like absolute shit about every 3 and a half hours. What gives? Did I get the batch they skimped on, or is my body just eating the shit up? Or are the viruses (plural of virus? viri?) just stronger than anticipated by ye-ol-pharmaceutical company?

any way you look at it I'm getting the short end of the stick.

Big news today: I bought a humidifier. It glows in the dark!

The doctor said I have an "upper respiratory viral infection." and that he can do nothing for me. I'm suppose to drink lots of fluids.

I'm finding more faults with Mozilla. There are weird form posting problems. Simmilar problems to the ones IE has on OSX, actually (and this is Mozilla for Win98)

I can't think about anything for very long. I've been playing lots of Final Fantasy X and Dynasty Warrriors 3. Also, today I bought Tony Hawk 3, for only $25 at blockbuster (previously viewed). I was pretty excited about that. Well, as excited as I can be when it hurts to just exist.

OK, enough self-pitty.

wow. I hadn't thought it was possible to write such drivel! I have soared to another literary plane with that jumbled account of nothingness. I'll blame the fever. I've been terribly terribly sick these last three days or so (isn't everyone). I haven't puked yet, but I've done the whole standing in the bathroom looking at the toilet like its filth-ridden bowl might suddenly be your best friend thing. I hate that. But it hasn't really been a "puking sort" of flu. It's more sinus related, I think. I may or may not have an infection. I'm going to try and squeeze myself into some clinic tomorrow when I wake up.

Just about all I've done the last two days is play video games, read this (so far) awesome book, and occasionally check my email. Occasionally is one of those words I seem to always misspell. I never know wheether there are two 'c's, or two 's's. Speaking of misspellings, I thought for a second there that I was misspelling "misspell" because it just looks wrong to me for some reason with those two 's'es in there. so I looked it up, and it seems webster's has both spellings. Of course, mispell (one s) is just a refference to misspell with two. Fascinating.

ok, I'm going to try and sleep now. It's been almost pointless these last two days, but maybe I'll be able to get a few good hours in...

Midnight houses all mannor of thoughts
creeping like edgy spiders into the whitespaces of your mind.
Sleep, the white web's tickling tendril--
a trailing edge of symetrical dream-apocalypses.

Every night I fail to sleep a little longer
breathing life into darkened bedroom corners,
wearing covers and insomnia.

This page cannot be fucking displayed.

of course, I found this (again) on blogdex, so I'm just echo-ing another popular link...

more poetry, less trite bullshit. Who cares that I bought groceries today?

=========
Gnawing on a string of midnight;
anger is omniverous.

I'll grease metal silver-cloud-linings, trying
to slide down some unsuspecting constelation;
a star-spangled banister-rider,
banging eye-sores with tear-drips from the sky's lips.
Luna never sang so sweet
her concave crater-stains smiling sweetly at me
or grinning greedily at me.
Is the moon fuzzy like a peach?

Trying to turn over a new emotion-leaf.

Rubbing brain-elbows with eucalyptus leaves;
soaking myself in the star-light's-echinacea-tea.
=========

I didn't even look out the window. I'd probably only see light polution anyway.

oh wow. I forgot I posted that. rather disgusting, isn't it?

Final Fantasy X is not only beautiful, but it's terribly addicting too... I've found myself talking strategy over ICQ with friends while I'm at work, then leaving early just to play... (ok, so work is slow, and it was only an hour early.)

I bought groceries today. Then I tried to sign up for SimonDelivers.com but they're not accepting customers in appartment buildings. Typical.

I've been meaning to start posting pictures. I have this nice digital camera, and I do use it... on occasion.



So I snapped this low contrast image of my scrotum in the hopes that it will help you get to know me better.

Why does fifteen minutes reading blogs seem like at least an hour? Yesterday was perhaps the longest seeming day at work for me, ever. I remember thinking at one point, it had to be time to go, and I was evne mentally getting ready, and I looked at the clock and it was only 2:30. I don't suppose it helps that with my recent OS upgrade to 10.1.2 there is no option to choose between 12 hour time, and 24 hour time. This is true even on my ibook, where I don't have the problem that I'm stuck in 24 hour time. (for some reason, I look at 14:38 and it looks much later than 2:30, ya know?)

I'm going home to play some Final Fantasy X.

I have discovered the plan to have a blogcon in August in Las Vegas... It's absolutely crazy.

I feel not at all a part of any sort of blog community. at least, not yet. The weird thing is that I kinda want to feel that way. It's like a nagging social itch. People I want to meet, or email, or feel close to...

It's rather strange, actually, because what I really used to crave was online colaboration. I remember doing various online projects with people, usually people I knew, but didn't hang out with that much, or see that often.

I wonder how many blogs I can find from minneapolis or minnesota.

I have done very little at work lately asside from test out the new build of Mozilla, which kicks ass. There are three reasons I think it's great. First, you can now use tabs to keep track of your open sessions (instead of windows). I'd change a couple of things abou this (for instance, you can't right click on a tab and move it to a new window...) and I'd also like to be able to have a nice list of open tabs _and_ windows somewhere. Right now it's just keeping track of windows under the "tasks" menu.

Second reason it's great: You can dissable javascript popups. It must be dissabling "onload" popups, because javascript open new window scripts seem to work fine. Porn will never be so innocuous.

Finally, the last reason Mozilla is great is that you can now right click on banner ads and "Block images from this server". Banner ads begone! I just feel kinda weird about it, because I really want to support some sites, by viewing their ads, or whatever it takes. So I hope I don't accidentally block servers that also happen to serve ads to sites I like. (oh well if I do. ;)

There are some other things I don't like so much about it (my mouse scroll-wheel doesn't work with frames), but the typical complaints, (slow load times, bad rendering) seem like they've pretty much been taken care of. I did have it crash on me once in about 8 hours of use. Probably about as often as IE crashes... I can't wait till there are hundreds of skins too!

*sigh*

sex post will have to wait. I have no time for anything really, and I've put off doing a little update like this because I wanted to sit and immerse myself in sex-tension-esque-apades for awhile. (How's that for a word that'll never catch on?)

I finished Cyteen, by CJ Cheryth last night, and my official opinion is that it sucked ass. If someone reading this loved the book, I'd really like to know why. It won the hugo, so a bunch of people must have, but I really just thought it was far too long, far too drawn out, and far too stupid for the length. I could maybe see if it had been really easy to read, really compelling, but I never felt that way about it, with the possible exception of the first twenty pages.

I'm moving on to a non-sci-fi book... probably the first I've read in at least a year. (fictional, that is.) It's called "A Heartbreaking work of staggering genius." or perhaps, "a staggering work of heartbreaking genius." something like that. you get the idea. I'm probably not even getting the words right.

I'm going home now. work sucked, but I did very little but install Mozilla on my mac. It's beautiful, by the way--mozilla is. really breaks new grounds. Tabs were a stroke of genius, and the fact that I can dissable pop-ups is enough to make me install it on my box when I get home. Blogger doesn't really look that great in it though...

I think it's time for a good sex post. I don't know if I've even had a sex post before, much less a "good" sex post, which probably just implies "dirty" sex post, Awe, screw it. I'm too tired.