well, tomorrow Sara runs the Papa John's 10 Miler, which means that i get to get up before 7:30 am again on a Saturday. Thankfully, she's only planning on doing the Triple Crown once. 7:30am was not meant for Saturdays.

found out about protest records the other day–it's a site run by Thurston Moore to collect the anti-war projects of different musicians. so far, there are two volumes of mp3s on the site, and there's some really good stuff in there. I originally found it because Mudhoney will soon be releasing a song as part of this project.

i've been having one of those weeks where i just haven't felt right all week. i'm not sick or anything, i just can't seem to get to bed before 3:00am, and my body feels like it's turning on itself. as if no matter what i'm going to do, i'm just going to feel miserable & uncomfortable. i think i just need more regular sleep. i think that would help a lot.

don't forget: April 11th, the Rudyard Kipling, 10:00PM, $4.00 cover.

in light of recent politically fueled discussions over there in the comments on brian's side, i thought i'd post here the results of this political quiz i just took: My Political Compass. This quiz was being bandied about last night in a email group, along with several of the member's resultant graphs. seemed like fun.

also, it's very similar to another quiz i've taken before, and which i may've even linked to from a previous post (too lazy to search for that post), called the world's smallest political quiz, and which is sponsored by the Libertarian party.

i highly recommend taking this quiz, you might get a better idea for yourself of where exactly you stand.

i did think some of the questions on the "political compass" quiz were a bit… inflammatory, and unnecessary, but perhaps the intent was to provoke "knee-jerk" responses.

ok. now that paris is out of the way, i can get on with the real business at hand here on bipolar, which is–or rather, should be–interesting and regular posts about inane facts of my life. in honor of St. Patrick's day–which i may or may not have any real right to celebrate (the question of the Rasnake wick having been dipped in an irish well at some point in the past has never quite been answered to my satisfaction)–i give you my first post Paris posts post.

this weekend i had the extreme pleasure of getting to see several old friends again, people who i don't see nearly often enough though some of them only live 30 minutes away. on Friday, after a lovely evening attending a catholic fish fry with Sara and family, and after leaving her at home so she could rest up for the Rodes City Run, the first leg of the Louisville Triple Crown. after getting home, i had planned to just eat some dinner (one piece of fish between two slices of bread not being sufficient), watch some TNG episodes on DVD, then go to bed myself before 1 in the morning so i could get up early and awake enough to go meet Sara at the race and be there when she crossed the finish line.

well, as luck would have it, Kenny, Christanne, Shawn, and their friend… Rosanne, i think… decided to come over after the show they'd gone to was over. then we all went out to wicks so they could eat and we could all hang out, drink, and have a good time. this is exactly what we did, and amazingly enough, i was still able to get up in the morning and go down to the race (though i didn't get to see Sara before-hand, as an ungodly number of people were there). i did end up meeting up with ben who was there to support his wife, and we palled around town down to the finish line where we waited for them to appear. both Sara and Kelly finished the race in good time, and none the worse for wear. afterwards, we went out for a celebratory breakfast at the cracker barrel.

by the way, for those keeping track (all… none of you) this whole race-day thing involved me getting up by 7:15 on a Saturday. the fact that hell has not yet frozen over still somewhat surprises me.

anyway, and to continue, later that day after showers and relaxing, we met up with Ben & Kelly again at the St. Patty's day parade. ben took some pictures with his handy dandy digital camera, a few of which were of sara & me. Sara was very excited by the possibility that there would be things (candy, beads) thrown from the floats, and i had to explain to her that in pretty much every parade in my hometown, most of the floats were well stocked with (at least) candy. i can't remember a parade where candy was not thrown. (finally, something my hometown does better than a real city!)

during the parade, we met up with geoff and his lady-friend, and geoff offered up a little of his stash of irish whiskey with which to increase the potency of the celebration. needless to say, it did the trick. after the parade, we all retired to geoff's girlfriend's house (i hesitate to attempt spelling her name, as i know i'll get it wrong), where more irish whiskey (bushmills, for those interested in that sort of thing) was consumed and a pleasant time was had by all until stomachs started grumbling.

we decided to walk homeward, and stopped at the newly re-opened Wendy's for a bite of dinner. this Wendy's has been closed for over three months… you have no idea what a traumatic experience this has been for me, but it is finally over, thank goodness.

now, it is shortly after this point that the carousing and consuming that i'd been doing over the past 14 – 16 hours started to catch up with me. once we got home, my stomach was expressing its displeasure with me, so we lay down for a nap–sara, myself, and my stomach. at some point a bit later, neither of us is sure because we both were out like rocks, paul called to let us know where everyone was (we were planning on meeting up with my friends again and having another night of revelry to celebrate Christianne's 30th, but no plans had been established or expressed to me), so we got up and went to meet the gang at applebees.

after applebees, we adjourned to the crapfest that is Jillians where we played several video games that cost way too much money, and otherwise sat around, drank, and hung out. after soaking in the Jillian's atmosphere (such as it was) for long enough (too long) we decided to again adjourn to a more familiar, more lively, less expensive locale–the backdoor.
we got there, got some drinks, hung out, carried on, had some fun, and then it was time to go home. All-in-all, it was a very enjoyable day.

Sunday i slept 'til three. PM. as usual.

in other news, i'm going to be an uncle! yup, my loving sis is finally pregnant. in fact, here's a picture of my little niece or nephew:

this wasn't too much at once, was it? sorry, it was a very eventful weekend.

it's taken me nearly 30 years, but i've finally figured out a few of my favorite things. (i have a hard time limiting myself to just one favorite, so the fact that i've finally done this is a big deal for me.)

Movie – Amelie from Montmartre : the first time i saw this movie, i fell immediately in love with the main character. i knew that i liked the movie a lot, but before i rented it and got to watch it again, i had settled on "So I Married an Axe Murderer" as my favorite movie. shortly after i finally decided on "So I…", i rented Amelie, and my recently picked favorite was quickly deposed.

Album – Monkeywrench – Clean as Broke Dick Dog : i've been saying for years that this is the greatest album of all time, largely tongue in cheek, but i finally realized that this album–of everything i own–is my absolute favorite. This first disc by some of the influential players from the Seattle "grunge" explosion, was an exploration of blues music as the roots of modern rock & roll, and particularly of grunge–the "Seattle sound."

Restaurant – Irish Rover, Louisville, KY : I've long held the Irish Rover to be "one of" my favorite restaurants, but i've finally taken the plunge and singled it out as the numero uno of restaurants in my personal pantheon. In fact, as i was thinking this morning, and to pull out an inside joke from the old days… if Jesus were to give me a plate of fish & chips, he would've ordered it from the Irish Rover.

i've been trying to decide for several years on a favorite color, and it's either black or a dark purple… but then, i don't know if you can really *pick* black as a favorite color. it seems like it's one of those staples that you just aren't allowed to pick… i dunno.

those are the only favorites that i've managed to settle on (well, i've got my favorite girl now, but she knows who she is). just don't ask me for top ten lists, 'cause i don't work that way… i like too many things too much to narrow it down that far. that's why these favorites are such a big deal to me–it's a miracle i managed to figure them out at all.

in other non-news, there's a fun little discussion going on over at the new louisvilleshowcase.com where we started out talking about all the crappy emo rip-off bands, and moved on toward rip-off bands in general.

and yeah, still haven't got the last Paris entries up… i know you're just dyin for 'em.

ok. so, i managed to take my laptop to my grandmother's with me over christmas, and, while i was there, managed to get *both* of my final paris posts typed in and ready to go. only problem with that is, i've yet to find an opportune moment to get them from the laptop to the desktop at home, and to work on the remaining images i need to link within the post. so, this is another stop-gap post, to hold us over until i can get off my tookis and get the final Paris entries online so we can get back to a regular schedule (or something).

AllSnap – this is a kick ass little utility for windows that gives "all" your windows the ability to "snap-to" one another (and the desktop edges) like PhotoShop's palettes, or WinAmp's various component windows. i've been looking for something like this for years.

LLuna 2 – and this one is probably the most interesting application of Instant Messaging (even of Jabber technology in general) that i've ever seen. it allows you to browse web pages and chat with people who are currently browsing the same site you are. craziness.

geoURL – this is one of those fun, utilitarian sites we all like to geek out over, at least momentarily. i went ahead and registered bipolar with it, so now you can (if you can interpret the satellite images) get within 40 – 50 feet from my house. also, there's this neat little feature that will show other registered sites and their physical distance from casa de coffeemonk. the closest currently is ben's site. (of course, since he's the one that pointed this site out to me.)

old-man.net – yes, in case you hadn't noticed, old-man.net did finally launch on monday. and not a moment too soon, as the puffin has decided that it's time for the a-go-go to be a-gone-gone. so, take your last longing looks folks, as the a-go-go will be no more in short order.

that's it for now.

well, i've gotta say, the first few weeks of this year have been just as good as the last few months of last year. so far, so good. i generally don't like to make resolutions, so i've avoided it this year as usual. of course, there are things that i'm trying to do in my life to improve it, but that process started many years ago.

for the past several days, i've been working like crazy on getting the Old Man site whipped into shape and ready for public consumption (that link isn't live *yet*, but will be soon). The really sad thing is, i think i've ended up putting together a better site for them than i made for my own band… ah well, guess that just means i'll have to overhaul the prick site soon.

and speaking of getting things whipped into shape… i just went out on monday and played racquetball with friend & co-worker ben while our respective significant others did their own workout routine. now, he beat me solidly at 3 games to 1, but i figure i did pretty well considering i've only just stopped smoking recently (well, in the past couple months), and i haven't had a lick of exercise since the last time i played baseball with him & his crew. and before baseball… the last exercise i had was probably the last time i went running… nearly a year ago. needless to say, this body is pushing 30 (well, ok, pulling 29) and severely out of shape. but, i did actually manage to make it through four entire games (and could have done more if the gym hadn't been closing), and i managed to hold my own throughout. ben pretty much took me to school for the first couple games, but once i remembered what the hell i was doing and got warmed up, it was pretty much a dead heat, even battle. i think i can take him, next time.

damnit. i had something else to say, but by the time i got a browser window open to load… whatever it was… up, i forgot what the hell it was i was going to look up. sometimes i really hate being so easily distractable.

anyway, i fully expect you all to hold your breath in anticipation of the new old-man.net. oh, and have a happy geeky wednesday!

well, i'm finally closing in on the end of my Paris journals, so, maybe i'll get back to some regular posts before too long. as it is, i've been happily almost totally pre-occupied. things in my life have taken a dramatic turn for the better in the last three weeks or so, with the exception of my car continuing its decent into dilapidation.

i wanted to mention a couple things, so i'll just take this opportunity between Paris entries.

Sneakemail – this is a pretty cool little online tool. You can essentially create "proxy" email addresses whenever you have to give an address to sign up for something or log into something on the web. It'll allow you to track (if you get spam from these proxies) exactly who the bastards were that gave out your address. Plus, the added bonus is, if you do start getting spam to one of these proxies, you can just shut it off and not get any mail from it again, thus keeping your real email address safe(r) from spam.

i added a nifty little item at the bottom of my (most recent) blog entry. (it's also now on my portable webcam page as well.) basically, anytime i'm listening to WinAmp at home or at work, it'll update with the current track that i'm listening to. Plus, the song listed will link to WinAmp's "Now Playing" minibrowser page so that you can see a pretty comprehensive list of information about that artist/album (assuming WinAmp knows what the hell i'm playing). Now we just gotta get Lucifigous Prick, Old Man, and Green Formica Table listed with Muze.

and finally, here are a couple bookmarklets i've created for my own personal use. just drag them up into your "favorites" or "bookmarks" bar, or right click and there should be an option that says something like "add to favorites" or "add to bookmarks" or "bookmark this page" or some such nonsense.

Lookup
Resize 800×600
JS Console

The Dictionary.com one i've listed here before, but thought i'd post it again since i've been using the hell out of it since i made it. It's damned useful.
Those other two are ones i use fairly frequently while doing development work… they're extremely simple, but also extremely useful. The Resize one does just what it says, resizes the browser window to 800×600. The JS Console on only works in Netscape browsers or derivatives (Mozilla, etc.)… if you develop in these browsers and code JavaScript, you'll already know what it does. In fact, i think this one may well be the least complex bookmarklet in existence. If anyone knows of a less complex bookmarklet (that actually does something, mind you), please let me know, i'd be intrigued to see it.

anyway, there ya go.

slow day at work today. i tend to like these days about as much as i dislike them.

i've spent quite a bit of the day fighting with my jabber client (or more correctly, the jabber server i use), and have had little IM love going on. another big chunk of my day has been spent perusing the "Photoshop Phriday" and "Comedy Goldmine" threads over at somethingawful. if you like stuff that's funny… uh… you should go check it out.

my most recent obsession has become… polishing my boots. for about 2 years or so, i've pretty much never taken a polish brush to my combat boots (my only form of footware), so, needless to say, they were looking pretty rough. very little actual black left on them, and huge chunks taken out of the leather all 'round the heel & toes.

so, about three weeks ago, i broke out the ol' polish kit and gave 'em a quick once over. since then, i've been polishing them once or twice a week. today (i've now dubbed Wednesday as boot-polishing day–since i don't usually eat lunch on Wed. i can polish them on my lunch break.) i actually gave them a quick spit-shine. they seem to like it. i'm actually thinking about maybe taking some time tonight to finish the job… yeah, we're definitely getting to the obsession level with this whole polishing thing, i think.

ah well, never did seem to have a problem finding something with which to distract myself.

ok, i can't let this one pass without comment.

Hollywood's Bachelorettes

first off, i love how these online celebrity sites always use the worst possible photos of people when they're talking about how attractive they are. some of these pics are just utterly horrid. i know these people look better than this.

but my biggest beef with this list is… Cameron Diaz at number #25? come on. you're kidding, right? Cameron may not come in as number one among this "elite" group, but there's no way she's behind Jennifer Love Hewitt and Kirsten Dunst. hell, Cameron should be in the top 5, at least in my opinion.

and, Natalie Portman at number 11? somebody at e! or msn has gotten hold of some seriously good crack. Natalie comes dangerously close to knocking Cameron off the top of my wish list.

i really need to stop letting myself get sucked into things like this.

this has been cracking me up for hours.

thanks to nate for the little spirit lifter that is "pie."

i'll try and make a more substantial post when i get a chance, but 'til then, enjoy weebl and bob.