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).
Personal
The stuff about me and my life. The “diary” side of blogging.
Let’s kill him
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
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
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
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.
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…
…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…;)
Why I’ve missed IRC
Pertinent parts of a #joiito conversation just after I walked in…
Tantek: Clinton did pay down the debt with budget surplus.
rojisan: of course he did. during the clinton administration, blowjobs were FREE
michaelh: sounds good to me
michaelh: get that boy back in office
Tantek: term limits
michaelh: details, Tantek — if he can debate the meaning of “is”, I’m sure he can debate “term limits” ;)
adamhill: or surplus or blow job ;)
michaelh: he’s a master debater, he is
adamhill: <rimshot/ >
adamhill: michaelh, he’ll be here all week, try the prime rib
michaelh: don’t forget to tip the waitresses
michaelhpushes a waitress over
rojisan: try the waitresses? tip the prime rib?
rojisan: sorry. clinton flashback
iTunes: “Get Down, Make Love” by Nine Inch Nails from the album Sin (1990, 4:19).
Restaurant vs. Bar
Tim’s got a handy list of ways to tell whether you’re at a restaurant or a bar:
If your napkin feels like linen, it’s a restaurant. If your napkin feels like the Yellow Pages, it’s a bar.
If you need reservations, it’s a restaurant. If you have reservations about admitting where you were till 2 a.m., it’s a bar.
Good thing, too, I’m constantly getting confused.
iTunes: “Brain Washers” by Blackalicious feat. Harper, Ben from the album Blazing Arrow (2002, 6:22).
All I want to do is go back to bed.
I’m exhausted this morning, for no particular reason whatsoever that I can think of. Slapped the alarm for about an hour after it went off, and it was still a chore to drag myself out of bed.
The weekend was fairly uneventful — mostly just kicking back here at home, bouncing around the ‘net and importing a ton of CDs back into the computer. Nothing really overly stressful. I think this is just “one of those mornings.”
Hit the Vogue Saturday and Sunday night. The more Sundays I go, the more I think I prefer them over Saturdays.
Saturdays (and Fridays) are a mix of 80’s, 90’s and modern new-wave, gothic, and industrial, and Sundays are the club’s “Fetish Night”, with similar but slightly darker music. The biggest difference is that Fridays and Saturdays are more “tourist friendly” — there are definitely the regulars each night, but there are also a lot of the people who either just come by occasionally or are “straights” coming to get a taste of the scene. There’s certainly nothing wrong with that at all — most of the time the “tourists” aren’t too bad, it’s rare that they get overly obnoxious or offensive, and some of them actually seem to really get a kick out of the atmosphere and the music, even if it’s all new to them. It’s just that the club often gets incredibly hot and crowded. I’m usually not overly tweaked by crowds, especially in dance clubs, but I ended up leaving early on Saturday when it got to be too much for me.
Sundays, as the “Fetish Night,” are rapidly becoming my favorite night. It’s not nearly as crowded, which is probably due to a combination of it being a Sunday night (and many people have to be up early on Mondays to get to work) and the theme itself. The music is a bit darker and outfits tend to be a bit more extreme — it’s not at all rare to see people (men and women both) in little more than chaps and leather studded g-strings, “schoolgirl” outfits, bondage gear, etc. — which can be seen as extreme enough that it doesn’t lend itself to a “tourist” atmosphere. I’ve never had a problem with things like this, myself, while I don’t have any outfits along those lines in my wardrobe (I tend to neither be that flashy nor have the budget to indulge in outfits like that), I often enjoy the look of them, and many of the clubgoers are wonderful to watch (whether it be because of their personal attractiveness, their style of dress, the way they dance, or any combination of those). All in all, it’s a more relaxed night, and I’m enjoying it more each time I go.
I’ll likely not entirely cease hitting the Vogue on Saturday nights, as there are definitely times I like the busier, bustling atmosphere of a weekend night, and the slightly “pop”-ier music gets some songs in that I like dancing to that are less likey to show up on a Sunday night. However, if I had to choose just one night to hit the club on any given week, Sundays would definitely be my choice.
iTunes: “Godhead” by Nitzer Ebb from the album Ebbhead (1991, 4:29).
Curls?
I’m not sure how long this is actually going to go on, but so far, due only to a combination of laziness and idle curiosity, I’ve yet to shave my head this year (and hadn’t for a good week or so before Jan. 1st). I’m starting to wonder just how long I can go before I get sick of the curls and shave my head again. It could be just a few days — or it could be months.
I guess I’ll find out when I find myself in the bathroom, clippers in hand.
iTunes: “Light (Vengeance)” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album Light (1994, 5:39).