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!

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…)

just a quick update concerning my recent happy news.

Jim from Corvus Digital called me yesterday, finally, and at a time when I was awake and home to receive his call. after brief chit-chat, he informed me that he was calling to "offer me a job." glory be and hallelujiah, after weeks of nailbiting and despair at my inability to succeed in the world, I have been redeemed! I am finally a "professional" web developer (well, will be in two weeks anyway), I have landed my first salaried position, and my first official position making more than $9.00/hr. maybe now I'll be able to start paying my bills on time.

in other news, i've pretty much decided to go in a completely different direction with my coffeemonk.com redesign idea. the two people who've responded with useful and detailed constructive criticism don't quite agree on the things I've attempted thus far, and I've come to realize that the old adage clearly is true–"you can't please all of the people all of the time"–and really, you can't please some of the people most of the time. (–this last is not an attack on my friends, whose time, help, and honesty I truly do appreciate–)

also, I've taken some time surfing around in that randomly connected chain that is the web, and have been inspired by some of the really great graphics design people out there, whom I could never hope to equal. my jumping off point for this little sight-seeing trip was saturn.org which is a great example of the type of web design I enjoy, and wish I could create.

I'll be doing more surfing for inspiration, and perhaps will have some new inspiration in the next few weeks (I already have half an idea tickling at the back of my head, but haven't quite got the whole picture yet).

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.

well, I'm sitting here at work once again, on my "lunch break" at 2:40 am. you'd think that after two months of being unemployed and having no money, and having to beg, borrow, and/or steal to pay my bills (I never really had to steal anything, but I did have to beg & borrow a lot), that I would be thrilled to be back at work, making money. i'm not. there are much more important things I'd rather be doing with my time, but most of them aren't things I'll make any immediate money from. I'd love to be able to devote more time to coffeemonk.com and get it to where I'd like it to be design and feature wise. I'd like to be able to devote more time to web development and finding new clients for x:13. I'd like to be able to spend more time working on my writing, finishing the novel and short stories I've started, and maybe even write more poetry. I'd like to be able to finish my second poetry book, and get that out on the shelves and on the site. there are lots of things I'd like to do, but "real life" seems to get in the way. maybe I don't try hard enough, maybe I don't take enough risks, maybe I'm too much of a dreamer and not enough of a do-er.

'til I get that figured out, I guess I'm stuck working a job I don't really enjoy, making less money than I should be, and wishing I could be doing something else.

it's been a couple days since my last post, sorry 'bout that. Life has progressed as it always does, and despite what's been going on, I've been pretty much wordless. still am, in fact.

one thing I've realized is that despite the amount of time I spend "online," I am not an internet junky. I don't have to find a new interesting site every day to keep myself happy. I go to the same sites, day after day, check my email like three or four times a day, and that's about the extent of it. this realization has also made me wonder about the point of this weblog thing–to be interesting, I imagined I must throw up some funky, weird links with every post. well, fuck that. I'm not a link collector really, though I've been trying. most of the sites I visit are functional or purely informational sites that either a) most people probably already know about, or b) most people probably wouldn't care about. maybe I'm just lazy.

for the shameless self promotion section of this post, I'll point out that I finally finished the online version of my first poetry book, which you can happily view at coffeemonk.com. enjoy.

don't you hate it when, despite the fact that you've had an enjoyable, relatively uneventful day, you suddenly get totally depressed about something you can' t even pinpoint or put words to? perhaps it's dissatisfaction with my life, my current situation, the fact that I'm still unemployed even though the manager at Kinko's told me she'd call me on Monday (as in, this past Monday). well, moanin and crying isn't going to make it any better. perhaps I'll post something more upbeat tomorrow.
read my poetry. (that was not a request)

not much to yak about today. slept until damn near 4:00 pm. went to lunch at the twig and sat there for an hour or so reading.

i can't wait to finally work again, it'll give me something to do at least. s'funny, there's a whole bunch of stuff I could be doing during the day, creating web sites, editing my book, writing my novel, writing some poetry, beating small children, I just don't seem to have the motivation for any of it.

then, I sat down to check my email and write this entry, probably about 2:00 am or so, then got sucked into bewitched.com and lost three hours. damn.

perhaps tomorrow will be better.