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!

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.

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…)

a follow-up to yesterday's "vanity insanity"

damned interesting. after waking up last night and checking my e-mail, I was very surprised to see, in the latest glassdog MEMO, a brief entry discussing the same subject as my own post earlier that morning.
    the entry was about egosurf.com, a site that makes vain pursuits such as mine much easier, and which even includes an option for e-mail updates from a continuous search. ** update 12/17/2004** egosurf.com is no more. just use google. for the "e-mail update" feature, just use google alerts.

what a relief, now I don't have to waste two hours wading through links that end up not having anything to do with me.

I am a really really sad individual. sad in a "what a pathetic loser" sort of way, rather than a "woe is me" kind of way.

I have just spent an inordinate amount of time on raging.com–a new search engine by the AltaVista crew, which really isn't any different or better than all the other search engines out there except that it doesn't have a bunch of extraneous "My" kinda crap and ad banners all over the place on it–and if you've never done this, i really don't recommend it. the ultimate pursuit of vanity.

i plugged my own name into the search engine. to my partial surprise, it found over 1,000 pages that "matched" my query. i immediately tried to get more specific by using "+" signs, trying, somewhat unsuccessfully to get it to do a boolean-and type search. my lack of success, I suppose, bespeaks my ignorance and the fact that I've only briefly read those search "help pages." who the fuck knows how those damn search engines work… i plug in rabbits and I get hot steamy asian anal rampage.

anyway, there actually were a few pages with my name on them, but strangely enough, none of them had anything to do with any aspect of my life over the past three or four years. and, of course, none of my own pages come up… weird. 'course I suppose it would help if I submitted the damn things to the search engines.

i did find a few genealogy pages, with listings of people who might have been my ancestors, and obituary pages, which was a little off-putting and I didn't really delve into out of some paranoid fear of actually seeing my own name.

thats it. i'm out.

once again, it's been a few days since I've updated. seems like it's going to be an ongoing struggle with me to come up with stuff to talk about on a daily basis.

brian pointed out to me that there are some .wav files on the Chester fan site I linked to in my last post. You have to go to the "And Now" sound files section.
**update 12/17/2004** again, that site is now down, check out the official site.

friday was an intriguing day. brian and I have been discussing the high speed internet options for a while now, and have finally decided we're going to go with something when he moves in. well, on friday, I received a call from Bell South "whoring out" (as brian said) their FastAccess (DSL) service. Since we'd already discussed going with Bell South for the "good deal" they were proposing, I went ahead and signed up. Little did I know that only that day, brian had been in discussions with our system person about setting up all kinds of whacked shit like firewalls and a "complete" home network outfit so we can all use the same high speed modem. I signed up for the service, thinking we'd just install the modem on brian's new system and network it from there. No Dice.
      if only art could imitate life. when brian showed up at the house and we discussed the situation, he called up Bell South and tried to talk them into giving us the special setup we'd need, at the price they'd offered. what followed was almost an hour long crusade against the corporate establishment that would have made Tyler Durden proud. he talked to one rep. who obviously had no clue what she was talking about, then called back and spoke to Roland.
      to Roland's credit, he worked very hard to get us the setup we needed. it finally came down to the point where we'd worked out our hardware needs, but they were going to have to charge us another $150 for "professional installation" on a product that only required plugging two wires into two boxes–one to the modem and one to the computer. obviously, since we have a bit of technical savvy, we weren't really into paying someone that much money to do something we could do in about two minutes.
      brian very calmly explained that fact to Roland, and logically requested that he waive the "installation" fee. Roland had a bit of a problem with that, so our faithful corporate dominatrix proceeded up the ladder to Roland's boss.
      once Roland's boss was on the phone, brian was quick to praise Roland for at least attempting to assist us, and at least partially knowing what he was talking about. then the war truly started.
      flabbergasted that our needs couldn't be met, the supervisor continued to try to talk brian into accepting their offer (incluing the "install" fee). brian, of course, would have none of it, and made several counter offers, none of which could be done. in the end, brian finally ended with the comment that if Bell South couldn't meet our needs, we could just as easily go to one of several other ISPs offering high-speed access and get a competitve rate. whether this is really true or not, we don't know, but he had a great time flogging the corporate "whores" in a very professional and courteous manner. it was a joy just to watch and listen.

right now, I'm at work, going through the first day of a week long training session, where corporate types are trying to pound their propaganda into my head. I survived the Army, this is a walk in the park.

just ran across an interesting tidbit on my daily surf–amiga.org–about the fact that Amiga (Yes, they're still around…), along with Sun, Intel, Motorola, Espial, and maybe some others are about to launch a new Java developer's portal called devicetop.com. it's nice to see that the new Amiga is running with such high-profile buddies. before now, I haven't mentioned my Amiga fetish, but it was bound to come out sooner or later, so I figured now was as good a time as any. If half of what Amiga are promising comes true, things could get very interesting in the computer and consumer electronics worlds.

one interesting thing came out in the press release for devicetop.com that gave me pause. I'm really fond of the english language, and really enjoy when people do weird things with it. down towards the bottom of the page, after several miles of comments about "smart devices" and "information appliances," there's a comment about this joint initiative for widespread use of Java (portable programming technology, as if you didn't know) in these devices. they use the term "device agnostic" to describe a piece of software.
      correct me if I'm wrong, but agnostic generally describes ignorance of the existence of (usually God, or a higher power). so what they're talking about is software that is ignorant of the existence of the hardware on which it is run…. I suppose it makes sense, but it really struck me odd. kind of attributes the properties of self-awareness and the capability for doubt on these so-called "smart devices." perhaps that's what makes them so "smart."

well. that was really pointless. thought I was going somewhere with that, but it just kind of fizzled out.

which reminds me of a discussion I just had with brian (the guy who writes stuff over there writing a lot…). because it's been this way for so long, I second guess myself and don't say what I want to say. apparently I don't have that problem here (when I actually bother to write something, I tend to ramble).

for those of you asking, yes, I will shut up now.