as in, "i reckon that'll work…"

of course, if you were really observant yesterday, you'd have noticed that i made the last post around 3:30 AM… so, despite the fact that i was almost falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home from work on Friday, i ended up staying up until almost 4 in the morning.

it's been a pleasant day today. got up around 1 or 1:30, went out for lunch at KFC, then ran over to compusa primarily for kicks, but also so i could buy this year's version of TurboTax deluxe, and so Paul could debate buying a new computer. Well, he didn't, but i did manage to get my software, and picked up a new webcam for 30 bucks, to boot. Though Paul didn't get his computer, he did get approved for a credit card thing, so (looking at it one way) he walked out of the store $2400 dollars richer than when he'd walked in.

we came back to the house and i started trying to set up the web cam. it gave me some weird problems trying to install and update the software, but i finally got it working. then, i tried to change a simple little option in the controls of the software, and it locked up. in fact, it pretty much locked up the computer every time i stopped using the camera. so, when i'd exit the program, it'd lock up the computer. i even tried a different webcam program, and it had the same problem. so, needless to say, i'm taking the damn thing back tomorrow and trying a different cam. (if you're interested, the first and only pic that actually made it onto the site is here

while i was busy fighting with the webcam, paul was apparently busy convincing himself to buy the computer he'd looked at. he and brian went back out to compusa, and about an hour and a half later, the puffin came back with a kick ass new Sony VAIO. his new machine kicks brian's and my machine's combined ass. after setting it up, we debated for an hour or so (as we played around with it) about whether or not we wanted to strip that Windows ME crap off there and put on some Win2k. We finally decided that we couldn't stand the thought of a machine actually running ME on a regular basis, so we ended up reformatting the hard drive. and since then (almost 6 in the evening) brian and paul and i have been diligently working to bring the new beast to full working order. i've had fun, but now, it's time for bed.

oh, and don't forget the contest.

argh. thank god the weekend's finally here. i've been so damned tired all day today. i could barely keep my eyes open at work, and i think i was grumpy and uncooperative occasionally. sleeping 4 – 6 hours a night just doesn't cut it, and i seem to do the same damn thing every week–get home from work, and have the best intentions of getting into bed and asleep at a decent time. but, like i said in my last post, i have been making great strides with personal projects, so i guess it's not as bad as it could be. though really, i'd be much more accepting of my inability to get to sleep at a decent hour if a female was involved…

which, at least on thursday night, was almost true. i got a call from mi amor and we had a wonderful long conversation. it was so nice to hear her voice again… she and i have been away from each other for many many years, after i went off to college, then she went to college in a different state, and now… she's moved all the way over to the (as brian likes to say) "left coast." needless to say, it's a rare treat for me to actually get to talk to her. and the sound of her voice and her laughter still resonates within and lifts my spirits.

my sister has been so busy with her new duties at work that we've hardly had a chance to IM each other over the past couple weeks, and she's apparently had very little time to update multiliterate as well. i'd kind of gotten used to being able to talk to my sister across the ocean, and to read about her interesting experiences in the city of love, i really miss it now. well, here's hoping that she hits her stride with the new job and manages to wrangle some time to update.

in contest news, paul has answered the "redesign bipolar before we do" challenge. he hasn't told us his ideas yet, but i'm sure they're going to be good. but don't let that sway you from entering… paul may be one of my bestest friends in the world, but that don't mean his redesign's going to get any slack from me come judgement day. and we're even talking about the possibility of setting up multiple versions of bipolar… if we get enough good designs, we may eventually set it up so you can choose your favorite. rest assured, we will declare a winner even if we have to drag a wino in off the streets to break a tie.
so… enter the contest damn you.

oh, and i've added a "judging" section and a parenthetical statement to "rule" #1 on the contest page. if you're planning to enter, or are already working on a design, you might want to check the additions… they aren't changes, just clarifications.

at least i can say this for myself… at least i'm consistently inconsistent.

so, it seems like quite a bit has happened since the last time i posted, but then, nothing's really changed. like brian mentioned, i finally managed to finish watching that dune mini-series that i started watching, what… 3 months ago? watched the second episode on Monday, and the third yesterday (which kind of forced brian into watching it, since he was off work yesterday). overall, i thought the series was really well done. there were some instances of really shitty acting, but the primary characters were all done really well. i thought the second episode was the best of the three, by far. if you've not watched it, be sure to do so if the sci-fi channel reruns it.

i also finally managed to finish cataloguing my comics collection, so that's one huge project pretty-much out of the way. the next step is to find coverscans for all the issues i have, so if anyone knows of any out-of-the-way comics coverscans caches on this 'ol net, .

i cleaned my room, did my laundry, balanced my checkbook, caught up on some overdue email… altogether, it's been a pretty productive week for me. and i'm feeling pretty good about things right now.

and today, apparently, i've been productive and prolific, as not only am i writing this post (finally) i also wrote two rather lengthy posts to a discussion thread on an Amiga site that i frequent (which is something i never do). here's hoping today's trend calms down and spreads out to at least one post here per day… well, it's a thought anyway.

oh, and i know brian's kind of mentioned this, but just in case you hadn't noticed, bipolar has already moved to it's new home. note the swanky new address in the address bar up top…

alright, i've been reading erasing.org for several months now, on a mostly daily basis, and i just now clicked the Sadness link. such a simple concept, replacing words in corporate slogans with the word sadness. simple, profound (in spots), and so much the story of my life (at times).

so, i got an email from since he's been reading, he's not really finding anything out about my life, but about the other useless crap i've felt compelled to fill these pages with for the past few posts.

i figured he would have liked the "holy grail" post, but then he's heard about her enough times, it's old news to him. i figured he would have liked my "year in review" post since i provided a brief roadmap to some of the more important points of my life that have occurred since the inception of this blog.

but he's right. with the exception of the "holy grail" post, everything else has pretty much just been filler.

so, i've been busy at work, at least until a week ago, when the frantic activity suddenly came to a grinding halt due to the fact that no one could seem to get me the remaining three pieces of content that i needed to complete the new corvus site (on which, btw, are welcome).

in my home life, i've been busy cataloging my comics, now that brian and i are helping beta-test OmniComics and catching up on email. i've now got five emails in my inbox at home, compared to the 25 that were sitting in there for a few weeks. i've been trying to refine my focus a little, concentrate on certain projects, see them through to completion… y'know, the way it should be done. like the puffin i tend to get 15 or 20 projects going at the same time, and just never finish them. when i think about all the things i've got "waiting in the wings" i just feel kind of hopeless and lost. so, it's been good to finish the email project, to be near completion on the comics project, (and yes, i'm still working on the bipolar redesign project, which is… uhm… kinda close).

overall, i can't say i'm really happy, but i'm not really depressed either. i'm just kind of… here. and i don't know, maybe that's even worse than the other two.

ah, don't worry 'bout li'l ol' me though, i'll be fine.

here's an excerpt from an email i just wrote my dad, that i thought might be of interest to… whoever. basically, this is a brief list of some local restaurants i like, with little one-line descriptions.

  "…maybe you'd like to take a jaunt down to Frankfort Ave, there're some great restaurants in that area. Let me think of some of the options:

Irish Rover : Good Good Good Irish food.
Kim's : awesome oriental
Grape Leaf : great greek
Genny's Diner : greasy spoon, tasty heart-attacks on plates. oh, and they have "frickled pickles," which are awesome breaded deep-fried pickles.
Clifton's Pizza : pretty standard non-chain pizza restaurant (good pizza).

on the Bardstown Rd. tip, there's:

Twig & Leaf : another diner, greasy spoon, they're "tops in food" (according to their slogan) and famous on these pages for the ever popular "Louisville Paul (Hot) Brown" and the cheesy twig taters.
ZA's : pretty standard non-chain pizza place (good calzones).
Bristol : pretty standard non-chain chain "fancy" restaurant
Ramsis : great little place with really good multi-ethnic food
Skyline Chili : cheap, tasty, fast-food spaghetti
LaBambas : cheap burritos as big as your head
Dittos : quality non-chain relative of Applebees or Fridays

and, that's it. like i said, it's a limited list of stuff i just took a few moments to think about. but, for you out-of-towners, any one of these restaurants is worth visiting if you're in town for more than 30 minutes.

i wrote a long ass post yesterday, but blogger ate it. i guess they were still working on the new server and i was one of the lucky ones it burped on.

then, i was going to rewrite a brief version of the update today, but (surprise, surprise) i got caught up in doing a temporary redesign (the one between this and the permanent redesign) today while i was busy doing nothing else at work.

so this little post is filler. filler and crap. but now you know that a bipolar redesign is actually in progress, so if it's not up by the end of next week, you can all and give me shit for it.

and tomorrow, i'll try to rewrite yesterday's post. believe me, it's not time sensitive shit i'm talking about here.

g'night all.

how pretentious is that title… oh well.

it's nice to see that some people have gotten into the spirit of my last post. kinda makes me feel special (in a egotistic kind of way, not a short-bus kind of way). perhaps i should post more often?

you'd think that now that i've got a workable new system all for my lil' ol' self at home, that i'd be more conscientious about it, but i can't seem to actually get anything done. i'm trying to catch up on all the email that's been neglected for the past several months, to all my friends who are probably pissed at me for not writing before now, expect to hear from me soon.

things at work are kind of slow right now, and it's sapping my energy and inspiration. we're in a "lull." at least, that's the word that's been used. i had a much better ending to this paragraph, but the link that it hinges around is apparently dead. if it "resurrects" itself soon, i'll come back and replace it. ( how're you supposed to do a weblog when the links spontaneously combust? )

oh, and don't worry too much about brian over there, he's just not getting enough sleep lately–it's affecting his mind.

and paul, tell dennis to send some MY way. i think we can afford a san-fran trip between the two of us.

the dull ache that is my life continues to suck the inspiration from projects i thoroughly enjoy–such as this oh-so-lovely blog.

scott over at erasing.org has posted some recent photographs that have been somewhat inspiring to me today. most of them are very good, some of them are moderately good, and a few of them just look like snapshots.

i have to say that i really enjoy photography, though i know very little about the technical aspects of it. i enjoy candid photos–not "snapshots", but carefully framed candid shots where the subjects aren't posing, and the photographer has taken time to find a good composition. of all my little projects that have fallen by the wayside, i probably regret my neglect of photography the most, probably because it would be the easiest thing to do while doing everything else that occupies my time. i could theoretically carry a camera (even a disposable!) around with me everywhere, and never have to say "if i only had a camera" like i currently do almost everyday.

if anyone knows of some other online photo galleries, collections, personal stashes, or whatever, .

hopefully either this weekend or sometime next week, we'll finally get the trip log and photos from our chicago trip up like we promised weeks ago, and maybe–if you're lucky–we'll actually finish the new bipolar as well. now that i've got this (sort-of) new computer and blazin 'net access, i'll actually be able to devote a little time to it.

it would appear that we've achieved a paltry 69% rating on bloghop.com. all you regulars do us a favor and:

Rate Us on BlogHop.com!
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c'mon now, be honest. you love us, don't you.

wow. it's amazing how much can happen in one day. basically, Friday evening was insane. i went to bed that night, wondering how in the hell i was going to fit the entirety of the worthy events into a single update. i kind of figured i'd have to space it out over the course of several. lucky for you i have a bad memory, and time has a way of dulling things down.

Paul and i spent the majority of the night (after my third night in a row of drinking) "thinking outside the box". at this point i can't remember how many different subjects we covered, but i know technology, philosophy, politics, sociology, and religion were all dealt with. I'll challenge you all with the question he presented to my drunk ass on my back porch after finally getting home from the bar (he has a singular knack for timing these things).

if you want to participate, with the answer to the following question:
Suppose, on halloween, you meet someone dressed in a slightly ratty suit, with a flat black-haired head, greenish face paint, and two metal "connectors" sticking out of either side of his neck. Who is he dressed as?

i'll post the results (and the answer i'm looking for) by the end of the week. i'll give ya till next Monday.

this particular question, i believe is what sparked our entire conversation that night. we talked about semantics, trademarks and abuse of same, and the general stupidity or laziness of the majority of the nation. at least this time, i didn't get the feeling the apocalypse was nearing.

by the time Paul & I finished talking, it was already almost 7 in the morning, and i had to get some sleep before going into work on a damned Saturday. no sooner had i fallen into the very edges of sleep, than i was shocked awake by the very loud sound of a transformer blowing up 20 feet from my window and all the various lights and contstant household sounds going dark and silent. i groaningly pulled myself out of my comfortable bed, hoping my house was not being utterly consumed by fire, because a fire would certainly prevent me from getting to sleep anytime soon, and would be a major hassle. once i realized the house was relatively safe from immediate destruction (barring, of course, attack by terrorists or space aliens) i went to the kitchen and called the electric company's automated "our service sucks" hotline and reported the trouble. Jess & I sat up chatting for a little while, and at one point, she suggested (as many many people have) that I should go back to college and get my degree. i thought about it for a minute before coming to a conclusion.

the only major that i could conceivably see myself taking would be something along the lines of "Theoretical Realism." I think it would be kind of neat to be a degreed theoretical realist. I could tell people with authority when they were living in a fantasy world, or i could come up with various theories attempting to explain what exactly reality is, and why it sucks so much.

then i thought of an even better degree program, which i would just have to follow all the way to the doctorate level. I mean, wouldn't you like to be referred to as a "Doctor of Omniscience"… ? you know, you'd start out with your bachelors in omniscient studies, move up to masters, then get the PhD. sounds fun.

well. i guess that's it. i'm drained for now. i'm not omniscient yet.