wanna know what the hell's taken me so long to update? (probably not, but since you're already here… )

reason #1 – New Spider-Man game for PlayStation

this is probably the best Spider-Man game I've ever seen. there are some quirky things with it, but it's generally just great! I've been vegged out for several days in my off time playing this excellent game. (brian pointed out a little while back that I hadn't yet fessed up to being a comic geek. well, I think this post will remedy that.)

reason #2 – OmniCom 3.0

brian found this earlier last week, and almost immediately after he'd shown it to me, I was online attempting to download it. four days later, I paid the shareware fee (& I never pay shareware fees).
    this little beaut is a comic book database program that's pretty much the closest thing we've found to exactly what we'd been looking for. it's a great program right now, and from what the programmer's told me, the next release should be even better. the installation routine in the last release (3.0) is a little wonky–you pretty much have to install it where it wants to go (ie. you can't choose a directory)–but if you just let it do it's thing you won't regret it (and the author says he'll do his best to fix the install problems ASAP, so you may not even have to worry about it). If you're looking for a program to catalogue and track your comic collection, this is it. don't look any farther. the author seems like a great guy, the registration (a measly $15) was promptly delivered, and he's been very open to some of the ideas we've presented to him for the next version of the program.

now, go get 'em!

I started out this past week doing pretty well, updated three times in two days… kinda fell off after that.

to follow up on my last post, the next day I was once again working a little late, and once again ran into the janitor in the bathroom before going home. this time he was rather more friendly, he actually spoke to me, and he seemed to be in better spirits. I wanted to tell him that I thought he was doing a great job, but I couldn't figure out how to say it. I guess even despite my last post, you just can't really tell these people that you appreciate them without sounding like a bastard. probably the best way to respect them and show your appreciation, I guess, is to just do your part to not make their job more difficult than it needs to be. clean up after yourself, don't smear shit on the walls, don't piss in the floor, don't pump the soap dispenser out all over the counter, don't put an entire roll of toilet paper IN the toilet.

I can't help but think that his improved attitude and friendliness towards me was some form of positive karmic feedback as a result of my contemplation of him, his position, and my presenting my ideas and trying to engender respect for him and his fellow "menial laborers" among the readers of this weblog.

in other news, the site we're working on at my new job has slipped by yet another "deadline," but we'll hopefully have it up this week (people are thinking it might go live tomorrow, but that hope is probably unfounded). If it goes live, I'll link it in here, so you guys can go check out the demos for a laugh or two.

since I hardly ever include a link, I'll just post this one here for your surfing pleasure. my apologies if I've posted it before.

I've just been struck by something… you know how it is when you're going through your day as you normally would, then for some reason, some normal event stands out and causes you to think about life, the world, existence, etc…

I'm getting ready to go home, shutting down my computer, washing out my coffee cup, and I see the janitor guy in the breakroom. I say hello, and get no response other than a general (not really thrilled) look. which makes me think about the necessity of those "unwanted" jobs in our society. now that I have a good job, one that I'm (so far) happy with, and in fact have been searching for for years, what about those people who don't have the jobs they want, what about the person I, at one point, was?

the thing is, our society, our world–as it is today–could not exist without these people doing these things. if all the janitors, bus drivers, stockers, delivery people, street cleaners, etc. just up and decided to quit, our whole society would fall apart at the seams. we have to have these people in place, unhappy or not, to maintain what we've built up. when I think about it, I know I would'nt be happy as a janitor, probably not anymore than our janitor is. I would be resentful of the well-paid staff of the company of which I would be a vital, but largely underappreciated and underpaid, part. I would be resentful of the people who work normal hours, not thinking once about me, or the mess I'll have to deal with when they leave for the night. the trash I have to pick up, the floors I have to vacuum, the toilets I have to scrub. I would be resentful, and unhappy.

I suppose there must be some people out there who enjoy janitorial type work, enjoy being able to do their job when the place is shut down and quiet, to be able to work pretty much at their own pace, taking breaks whenever they like, having time alone away from the family. in some ways, I guess it must be even desirable, but probably most people in those positions are not (necessarily) there by choice.

I'm not suggesting some great outpouring of our gratitude for these people, since I don't really know what we could do, if anything, that would make things better/easier/more enjoyable for them. I guess, I just want people to think about it, and understand that without these people doing these jobs, we wouldn't be able to do ours. and if one of these people is reading, well I guess I just hope you know that you are appreciated, you are respected, at least by me. I certainly couldn't do those jobs, but I am glad someone is willing.

stats pages can be quite interesting, as we've found out here at bipolar. our number one search string for the month, the one phrase that has lead more people to the site than any other is… "250lb women." go figure. i'm going to have to start working in slutty xxx phrases more often in my hot steamy discourses. funny thing is, I don't remember ever having written anything about 250lb women, nor do I remember my perverted friend brian (next door porn site just for you. have fun!

in other news, I had an interesting trip to Bloomington this past weekend, perhaps I'll tell you about it later.

I have just witnessed one of the most embarrasing spectacles of the twentieth century. last night, brian, Jess, (brian's friend) Scott, & I all went down to the waterfront to catch a "free" show. the scheduled entertainment for the evening was Tone Loc and C&C Music Factory. I wasn't expecting much, but it was a free show, and I did recognize the names involved–I even actually used to like Tone Loc, so I thought it would be an interesting evening out for four broke-and-bored-as-hell people.

as we approached the entrance, we noticed that they were actually taking money, so in a flash of fortuitous thought, we decided to take a stroll to a point where we could hop the fence (not that that was a really difficult task, but…).

C&C were already on the stage as we approached, and pretty much from the moment we'd gotten out of the car, we'd been laughing our asses off at the lame attempt at edgy, funky, hip-hop. now, C&C were never what one would consider "good", but I did like that one song at one point (back in high school when the only music I had to listen to was WPKY in Princeton, KY.–if you haven't heard of Princeton, you get the idea…) anyway, as we listened further to the strangling cat sounds coming from the stage, and the worse than a three year old, totally non-flowing "freestyle" coming from the "leader", we began to despair and would have immediately started looking for long range weapons, had we not been completely mind-wiped before we could protect ourselves.

eventually, we just started yelling for them to get off the stage, go home, go shoot themselves, or whatever during lulls of the "music". death would have been much more enjoyable… a slow, gruesome, excrutiatingly painful death.

I was simply holding out for Tone, holding a flicker of hope in my heart that he might be somewhat good.

all I can say is that he was better. he, at least, could freestyle with some actual style. it was still somewhat dissapointing hearing his live rendition of "Funky Cold Medina" I remembered it being much better, much more dynamic. and the fact that Tone can turn the deep gravely "Tone Loc" voice on and off at will, and that actually 75% of the time he sounded just like every other rapper, kind of dispelled some of the old magic.

the worst blow to the evening came after Tone's little teaser, after he urged the crowd to chant– " I say wild, you say Thing!", then decided not to do Wild Thing, but instead to freestyle some more. not only did he decide to freestyle rather than going on and performing one of his greatest hits, but he invited (or maybe was forced to invite) the guy from C&C onstage to join in the rhymes. a collective groan was heard from the three individuals around me, and we swayed on our feet as we tried to decide whether or not to leave. Tone rapped for a while, then passed the mike to C&C guy (brian just pointed out that his name is Freedom Williams–we can only hope for eventual freedom from mr williams) who immediately started pretending he hadn't stolen all his rhymes from his much more competent predecessors. even with his third grade rhymes, he had absolutely no flow whatsoever. he made it about three, sometimes four phrases, before having to pause for several seconds to rack his tiny brain for more rhyming words.

within 10 seconds of "freedom" taking the stage, we had firmly decided to immediately leave. we had almost forgotten how to walk, and swore we'd just lost over 100 IQ points. the discussion centered firmly around the horror we had just witnessed, and we decided that if we were Tone Loc, on tour with these "performers" we'd probably blow our brains out after the first show.

Tone's journal would probably read something like this…

Comeback Tour 2000

day one:

    I can't take it anymore, I tried to hold out, but it's not worth it. Tell my mother I love her, and please forgive me.

tone

quick update just to point something out and toot my own considerable horn just a bit. I actually finally put a few hours into figuring out javascripts and shit that'll make bipolar a little "friendlier" (for me and brian at least). first change was adding a little thing that'll force you to use frames even if you don't like 'em. bipolar just wouldn't be bipolar without 'em.

second change, and the reason for the "title" of this entry, I finally added (as we promised when we first opened up this little hellhole) javascripts to handle the archives somewhat. basically, from here on out, we don't have to do shit to add new archives, they'll (or they should) just automatically pop up from now until eternity.

now we've just gotta get these little scripties over to brian's side… I think maybe I'll let him figure it out for himself…

in other non-news, I was going to write a nice, long, really depressing entry, but I think I'll save it since I need to get some fucking sleep, I've kind of fucked up on my committment to get to bed before 11PM everynight, and last night MC Seth-yo of wraithsys (our wonderful hosts here) came over and installed Linux on an old 486 PC I'd assumed I'd never use again.

I'll try to post that depressing shit tomorrow.
(something to look foward to…)