Personal

The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.

AOL Presidential Match

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Lane pointed out the AOL presidential selector today, so I wandered over to take a look. It’s quite similar to the Presidential Candidate Selector that I pointed out last July, though the results were a bit different (of course, the possible candidates are different now, and there has been more time for all of them to fine-tune their policies and messages).

AOL President Match

My list ended up being fairly similar to Lane’s from the look of it (admittedly, not a terribly big surprise) — the lineup is in the identical order, it’s just the percentages that differ a bit.

Kuchinich and Sharpton came out at the top. Um…sorry, but they’re basically nonentities in a realistic race at this point. Buh-bye.

Next up, and within 6% of each other, are Kerry, Dean, and Clark. Sounds reasonable, really, and about what I’d expect.

Bush, of course, gets a whopping 3% compatibility with my answers. I’m just curious what those 3% could be (and amused that Lane scored a 7% compatibility with Bush — I’m 4% less compatible with our President than Lane is, or something like that)!

Anyway, just another way to take a look at the current crop of Democratic candidates and see who might fit you best. Give it a shot, see what you think.

(I just noticed that T has the same lineup and similar percentages to Lane and I, also.)

iTunes: “L’Heure Exquise” by Operatica from the album O Vol. 1 (2000, 2:52).

Preliminary Birthday Wishlist

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This is really early (my birthday isn’t until May 3rd), but I’m starting to put together a birthday wishlist. Admittedly, just about everything I’ve come up with so far is definitely on the “wish” side (as in, triple-digit prices), but I can dream, right? ;)

Black 10-eye Doc Martens
I haven’t had a good pair of Doc Martens boots in a few years now, and I’m jonesing for another pair. Black, of course (this is me, after all), and while I occasionally toy with 12 or more eye boots, I think the traditional 10-eye style should do me just fine. Unfortunately their website is entirely Flash-based, so I can’t link to a specific style.
Black Utilikilt, either in original, mocker, or survival style.
I’m not sure quite when the idea of getting a Utilikilt really started bouncing around in my head, but I keep wandering back to the idea. Seattle’s Utilikilt company makes some really nice models, and all three of the styles mentioned above have caught my eye. Besides, I think I’ve got the legs to pull it off. ;)
An electric violin.
It’s been years since I picked up a violin, but I’ve occasionally thought that it could be fun to pick up an electric violin to play around with. The recent release of GarageBand (which I’ve yet to pick up, but will be getting as soon as I can afford it) has just kicked the bug back into gear again. I may not be much of a guitar player, but being able to run the violin into GarageBand and run it through the various guitar amps, filters, and other assorted toys could be a lot of fun to play around with.
Added: Stanton ST-150 turntable
Not only is it a nice high-quality turntable, but it has a digital output — coupled with the digital input on my G5, it’d make my eventual vinyl to digital conversion process much easier!
Added: SightFlex iSight stand.
The included mounts with Apple’s iSight camera leave a little bit to be desired, and this replacement stand looks absolutely perfect — a firewire cable inside a gooseneck fixture that the iSight plugs onto the top of. As an added bonus, this is actually a reasonably-priced item, unlike the other items I’ve mentioned so far.

That’s it for the moment. As I’ve said, they’re all kind of high-ticket items, but that’s the point of a wish list. There’s a few months to save up before the big day rolls around, anyway. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. :)

iTunes: “Decypher” by Velvet Acid Christ from the album Fun With Knives (1999, 4:47).

Jason gets his heart back

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Last November, I went to Jason Webley’s ‘Deathday’ performance. At the end of the performance, he removed the heart from a puppet figure of himself, which was soon attached to balloons and sent flying off over downtown Seattle. That puppet eventually landed in an alleyway downtown, and was rescued by an appreciative fan…

Chris Jr.: Something landed in front of me on the way back to the Ferry terminal…

Well, we saw the balloons land in the alley so we rushed to get them. They were in the alley, so we cut Jason free from the balloons. I have the puppet, along with the heart. I seemed to have lost the flag. I didn’t want someone who wasn’t at the show to take the puppet and wonder what the hell it was.

Jason Webley puppet

I was just going through the guestbook on Jason’s site, and it turns out that on Dec. 30th, Chris received an unusual package in the mail…

I just got a package today (Dec. 30th), and a weird one, at that!  So I opened it to find Webley’s clothing!!!  And instructions which read:

  1. Remove heart from wire web.
  2. Carefully open chest.
  3. Gently place heart in chest.
  4. Light a candle.  Rest.

All of this is to be done on the eve of February 1st.

I’m sure Jason’s happy to have his heart back.

Now we’ve just got to wait until spring to see what else might be in store.

iTunes: “Sleeping Jiva” by Kula Shaker from the album K (1996, 2:02).

Dialogue while watching a movie

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“You want a cookie?”

“Mmm…naaah.”

“Okies.”

(munch)

…

(munch)

Said with mouth full: “You sure you don’t want any cookie? I’ve got a tasty little bite here, you wouldn’t even have to chew it!”

“Okay — you stay on that side of the bed.”

iTunes: “Pudding Time” by Primus from the album Frizzle Fry (1990, 4:08).

A little shakey

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Either we just had a small earthquake, or they’re making NyQuil a lot stronger than they used to.

iTunes: “More” by Crystal Method, The from the album Keep Hope Alive (1996, 5:59).

Let’s kill him

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This has been amusing me all morning — ever since I read it, it’ll pop back into my head and I’ll start laughing again.

At the MoveOn.org awards presentation [for Bush in 30 Seconds], Al Franken made the sign-language interpreter crack up by saying solemnly, “I heard Al Franken make fun of deaf people backstage. Let’s kill him.”

That, my friends, is good comedy.

(via Lane)

iTunes: “Pandora’s Aquarium” by Amos, Tori from the album From the Choirgirl Hotel (1998, 4:45).

Green oblivion awaits

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Woke up this morning with a head cold, and it’s just gotten worse as the day’s gone by. I’ve been drinking OJ like it was water all day, and just popped two NyQuil tablets, so hopefully I’ll be feeling a little more human by tomorrow.

For now, though, it’s an early bedtime for me.

iTunes: “Crablouse, The (No Visible Symptoms)” by Lords of Acid from the album Crablouse, The (1994, 5:26).

uhrgh

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My node id stubbed up, my head hurds, my throad id raw…today’s gonna suck.

iTunes: “Erased, Over, Out” by Nine Inch Nails from the album Further Down the Spiral (1995, 5:58).

Changing my habits

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NetNewsWire grouped

As sloppy as my apartment can get (and believe me, it can get quite sloppy — though it’s usually just “extremely cluttered” as opposed to “disgustingly messy”, a small but important difference), I tend to be extremely organized in many other areas of my life. My occasional rants about metadata and .mp3 tags have probably clued a few people in to this aspect of my personality. I also tend to keep my movies, books, and music alphabetized, files on my computers all in their appropriate places, and so on. Heck, part of my drive to ensure that my web pages validate as clean, standards-compliant code stems from this innate desire for simple categorization and the ability to find things quickly.

To that end, since I started using NetNewsWire to keep up with the various weblogs and news sites that I like to read, I’ve used its grouping function to assign each RSS feed to a specific category — technology, macintosh, personal, and so on.

About a month ago, Rand was asking about RSS reading habits, and after a bit of thought prompted by his post, I’ve been wondering for a bit if this categorization is really the best approach for me to take. As my list of subscribed feeds grows (currently hovering right around 100 or so, give or take a few I’m reading on a trial basis — nowhere near Scoble’s 600+, but still fairly respectable), I’m finding it harder and harder to get through all my feeds on a regular basis. I’ve been doing very well at keeping up with sites that were in the groups at the top of the list (usually Personal and Macintosh), but not so well with groups towards the bottom (usually Links and Political). If I get bored, hungry, or distracted during my reading, the ones at the bottom get fairly regularly neglected.

NetNewsWire ungrouped

So, starting tonight, I’m going to try to vary my reading habits a bit to see what that does. I’ve deleted all the groups I was using before, and instead have all the feeds listed in more-or-less alphabetical order, top to bottom in a single group, ordered by date posted. While the amount of information doesn’t really change, the presentation is different enough that it might make a difference in what I find on any given day. I know I’ve missed a few breaking stories over the past few weeks, especially in the political arena, simply because I wasn’t getting far enough through my reading to see them until they’d already been blogged to death by everyone else on the ‘net.

I’m hoping that this little adjustment will be enough to help me keep up with everything a little bit better. No way to know until I try, of course.

iTunes: “She Cries Your Name” by Orton, Beth from the album Who Will Be Big In ’98? (1997, 4:47).

Kevin and Emily, sitting in a tree…

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…K-I-S-S-I-N-G, first come love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!

A few days ago, I got word that my brother and his fianceé had just discovered that they’re going to be having a baby, due to show up in early August. Yesterday parents let me know that the long-awaited wedding has been scheduled — for next month!

This has been an exciting week! Kev & Emily are getting married Feb 15, with the baby due early August.

The wedding will be at a botanical garden in Memphis, outdoors if the weather is good, or indoors if necessary.

That’s about all I know. They didn’t want any fuss, but Emily’s aunt convinced her today that a small family wedding would be ok, so they “booked a place” then came home and told Kevin!

We’ll be there, of course.

I’ll be there too — I fired off an e-mail to my manager last night, and got confirmation this morning that I’ll be able to get a few days off to head down there. Tennessee, here I come: my lil’ brother’s getting married!

Of course, given that the wedding was announced after the baby was announced, and the ceremony is going to be in Tennessee…well, one has to wonder whether I’ll come back with wedding pictures featuring a shotgun-wielding father in the background…;)