i am no stranger to obsession, thought sometimes they run stronger than others. for the last… er… what, like 8 months? a year? almost a year… i've been singularly obsessed with politics. and not just politics, but with current events as well (though not with a broad scope). i have collected links to sites that i read on a regular basis, and in the past couple of weeks it has seemed that pretty much all i do anymore is read news sites/blogs and either store the information loosely in my buggy brain, or slip it softly into a "staging" folder in my bookmarks.

for quite some time i've used a "daily" bookmarks folder to house links to all those sites i visit (oh, this is good, you'll never guess) daily, with subfolders for sites i visit "frequently" and for the sites of "friends." before that it was just a huge dailies folder and a blogs folder.

about a week ago i finally decided to take some time and figure out what bloglines was all about. now, i've attempted to use RSS aggregators before, but never really found them to integrate well into the way i surf the web. plus there never seemed a good way to fold the results of all those RSS feeds in with each other. bloglines still doesn't integrate the feeds, but it does an adequate job of tracking entries that have been read, so that i just have to check periodically for new ones. since it's a browser-based aggregator, it's integrated into my regular browsing habits just like my daily bookmarks, but quicker (plus, i no longer have to remember–for the most part–which posts i've read and which i've not, not that it was that hard to begin with).

anyway, it seems to have streamlined my daily reading, but now i seem to have so many damned sites that i read, most of which are fairly prolific posters (or teams of posters) that all i seem to do is read.

The Daily Reads:

43 Folders
AmigaWorld
Bloglines | News
Boing Boing
Cool Tools
The Courier-Journal
Daily Kos
David Allen
Daypop Top 40
Engadget
Gizmodo
On Lisa Rein's Radar: Daily Show Clips
InfoWorld
Jabber News
Josh Rubin: Cool Hunting
LostInLouisville
Louisville, KY – Topix.net
MobileWhack
MoCoLoco
MT-Blacklist/Comment Spam Clearinghouse
Quotes of the Day
Screenhead
Taegan Goddard's Political Wire
Talking Points Memo
Techbargains.com

i've actually managed to do a little work tonight (answered a few emails, updated old-man.net, and written this post) but i still feel like i'm racing the clock.

part of this continual feeling of overwhelmed ineffectualness has driven me towards things like Danny O'Brien's LifeHacks, 43 folders, and especially David Allen's Getting Things Done. i am now making a concerted effort to learn the GTD concepts, and research and figure out how to apply the principles in my life, and with the tools that i like to use. i want to figure out how to make that Handspring Visor i've been neglecting a vital part of the process for me. right now, my room's a mess of discarded envelopes (and, of course, their content) and i have a bad tendency to let things sit for too long or forget them altogether until it's too late. i've gotten my finances under control because i have A SYSTEM, now it's time to get the rest of my life in some semblance of that same control. i know i have the capacity, now i hope i'm finding the methods and the tools that will let me figure the rest of it out. we'll see, but i do have a good feeling about the whole thing.

oh yeah, bush sucks, kerry rules.

seems like the last month has been a major upheaval, lots of crap going on, but it's mostly just busyness, frustration, and happiness.

the band's been practicing, and though i've totally neglected the site since before the last show, we're really not dead. in fact, we've a show coming up this weekend, which i've only just finished making flyers for, that i hope to get up around town tomorrow before practice. our second show with a drummer, and we've been coming up with ideas of how to change things around to make us happier… more on that later.

sara's and my wedding plans are proceeding apace, and we've actually been talking about the possibility of buying a house or condo prior to the festivities (once the lease is up at the current abode). we're getting ready to send out "save the date" cards, and she's been dress shopping. we finally finished "catholic wedding school" so that's thankfully out of the way, and we didn't even have to endure a great deal of that "natural family planning" crap the popesters like to foist on people. yippee.

add to all that fun the fact that sara's finally started back to school, and our schedules have been in major flux trying to adjust back into that whole routine. we're starting to settle in now, so i'm hoping to start getting some work done again.

which leads me to the next exciting thing (for me, anyway). i finally, after years and years of wishing, finally bought myself a swanky new laptop… an AMD Athlon 64 beast of fury and brilliance, that has caused me no end of heartache the past couple weeks mainly due to my insufferable need to wrest complete control over my machines from the great satan (Windows). So i got the machine and proceeded to poke and prod at it, uninstalling as much as possible and deleting a bunch besides. It was becoming a stripped down monster, but then i made some networking change trying to surreptitiously get a 'net hookup at work, and then i couldn't connect to any of my machines on the home network… so, a couple reinstalls later, a much more cautious takeover attempt, and i've finally got it in order again. i'm still installing some of the day-to-days, but it's mostly up and running. thus, this, my first blog post on the new champion. (named the hard drives after the members of Mudhoney, for those who wonder those things)

also, somewhere in there, i got to hang out with my brother who came up to the fair with the FFA, and i managed to get myself in to see the eye doctor, who told me absolutely nothing helpful. in fact, he said that, not only was there nothing that he could do about the problems that i'd come to see him about, but there is another issue that i wasn't even previously aware of, and which, surprise surprise, he also can't do anything about. some retinal specialist, eh?

and the last bit of life complicating news is that i managed to get started working on a little freelance project for some friends (and with an old Corvus coworker–ben), a thing which is currently moving slowly, but positively. i've been wanting to try to take on some freelance stuff, so this should be a good opportunity to see if i can manage to balance the leisurely bits of my life with actual obligations to others.

so, bunch of stuff going on, a lot of it just tedious, time consuming, and schedule wrecking, but thankfully enough of it happy and fun that i've not minded the other bits too much. so, here's to another 'bout of time wrestling.

speaking of paris, one of the things i enjoyed the most while i was there both times was the metro. i'm not entirely sure why it fascinates me, but there just seems to be something inherently captivating about it. perhaps it's the unique character of each station, the interesting people you'll see, the performers (which we saw much more of this time around than i did last time), or even the occasional ride where you'll pop out of the tunnels and ride around above the city for a while…

none of those is exclusive to the paris metro i'd imagine, though i don't recall seeing any performers in the metro in D.C., and i don't recall the stations there having any particularly unique character. anyway, i stumbled across my gallery. one of the most recent posts talk about a particular section of transfer tunnels, and he's even got a really cool pictorial tour from one end to the other.

i'll get back to talking about *our* trip soon, i kind of wanted the shock from the fact that i posted the other day to wear off a bit before i put another monster out there.

it's kind of funny how things have a way of happening. last post i promised to write a longer post "later"… a month later is later, is it not? needless to say, however, 'twas not my intent. however, in light of recent events, i'll have to forgo the post that was "brewing" and write the one that has and is happening.

on about the 27th of last month, after events i'll have to provide the details of some other time, the big boss-man called me into his office and let me know that—once again—the company was in dire straights. we'd exhausted every available line of credit a year and a half ago (the last big closing "scare") and had been relying entirely on hard income since that time. Amazingly enough, the last (fiscal) year, we actually made a profit! so, i really didn't quite expect this new announcement of vulnerability.

i suppose i should've seen it coming… the only thing i'd been working on (except very small fix-it jobs) for the past couple months had been either internal projects or client make-work that i'd started on my own. in other words, as far as i could tell, there were no new paying jobs coming in the door. should've been a clue right there, right? well, no, i just kind of assumed that the paying jobs were coming in the door and sitting in the planning and designing room for a while. little did i know that pretty much all of us were sitting around twiddling our thumbs.

nevertheless, the time had come, we'd finally reached the point where our expenses were projected to outweigh our income, which meant we were no longer viable… it was all part of the deal our boss worked out with our parent company last time.

of course, as far as i knew, it was all still hush hush, so i wasn't able to even talk to anyone else about it until later in the week, a couple days before my co-worker was about to head out on vacation (as i'm doing this wednesday). we were both a bit disoriented, but, since "the scare" had happened before, we were a little more prepared (in an emotional sense, if not a job-hunting one). I reluctantly started work on a portfolio site, and on dusting off my resume.

the next week, the boss let it be known that everyone's last day would be on the 7th, the end of that very week. however, because i was one of the only ones who still had some work to do (a signed, but uncompleted contract), my own last day was extended to the 14th.

I put my new resume out a couple places, got a response from a staffing company almost immediately, and had an interview scheduled for the monday of my last week. in the meantime, i was spending almost every free moment working on my portfolio site design and construction. on thursday, i had a telephone interview with my potential employer, and because of my impending vacation, scheduled an on-site interview for the following monday, the 17th.

i continued spending every available free moment working on the portfolio site, and finally, at the hour of reckoning (way past bedtime sunday night) put the final finishing touches on an incomplete but releasable version of the site. if you're interested, and i know you are… check out my portfolio.

when i walked into the interviewer's office on monday morning, practically the first thing she asked me was if i had some type of online portfolio site. so, it was an entirely fortuitous thing for me to make sure i'd finished it beforehand. the interview itself went well—it must have, considering they'd called to offer me the job barely four hours later.

so, from a potential long unemployment period, i now find myself with a new job, even before the old one's completely over (i did come back in on monday to attempt to finish up a few things.) as i said earlier… things have a way of happening.

and now, to top it all off, i'm heading back to France this week, but this time with my favorite girl in tow. we're ready, and certainly even moreso now with today's news, to go enjoy the City of Lights as much and as freely as possible. and i should actually be able to relax when i'm up there, since i won't be having to obsess or worry about having a job or having money when i return… sometimes, things just work out alright.

though i have to admit, it's not something i'm used to.

i fully intend to write a longer post soon, as i've had one brewing for a while, but no time to actually sit down and write it. 'til then, how's about this:

i finally got the Lucifigous Prick online store up and running this past thursday night, and, as simple as it may be, i'm pretty damned pleased for it to finally be in operation.

also, for another shameless plug of a commercial project, i'm getting my first poetry book re-printed by a professional printer, and i hope to have those available in the next 3 or 4 weeks (i should be getting a proof copy on monday or tuesday). so again, i'm really excited about this as well.

coffeemonk.com hasn't been updated in a dog's age, but it looks like i might have to move that up on the timetable a little bit (most recent project schedule had coffeemonk.com being updated some time in the next 100 years or so).

ok. enough with the gross commercialism.

Go Buy Something! (ok, now that's really enough)

i know that just about every post i write lately seems to center around politics. i guess it's inevitable, since we're in an election year and currently under the rule of the most authoritarian regime this country's ever seen. for someone who said he was going to be a uniter and a champion of the people, he sure seems to have rustled up a massive hornets nest of independents and political apathists (myself included) all now dead-set against him and his party.

see, before "Dubya" charged into power–with the assist from his brother's administration in Florida, and the slam dunk by the Supreme Court–i was largely a non-partisan liberal socialist whose only agenda was that the big people should help the little people, and the large corporations should not be allowed to hurt the little people or wield any type of power over the government or its citizens. for the most part i didn't care about politics, and i was of the firm opinion that my one voice didn't count for much of anything. i didn't bother to vote, or even to learn about the candidates or delve into the issues of the day. i knew from a philosophical standpoint what type of society i wanted, and i knew that the pursuit of *my goals* in the context of this society full of idiots and greedy bastards would be a futile endeavor. so i contented myself with the idea that i could do things better, but without the responsibility (in the face of certain defeat) to attempt to actually attempt to do so.

all this changed when bush was running for president. for the first time, i felt compelled to do a little research and go to the polls to exercise my civic duty. see my post from Nov. 2000 and the two emails linked to from that post it is interesting going back to the stuff written nearly four years ago, especially the passionate political stuff and seeing what and how i was talking about the issues when i was really *just* seriously delving into them. it's also gratifying to note that i still hold the same opinions to this day, pretty much point for point, issue for issue.

i certainly railed against the Democratic party as being too centrist and in the pockets of the large corps. and lobbyists. that's one thing i've been rather pleased to have seen change with the candidates for this year's Democratic nomination–they are more liberal (except Lieberman) and there are at least a couple candidates who are non-career politicians and beholden to no industry or special interest groups (Clark & Sharpton, though Edwards & Dean may meet the latter qualification). and they are all passionately talking about the issues that matter, in no uncertain terms, and making plans that can make a difference.

now, i'm pleased to say that i'd be proud to count my voice among the supporters of most of the potential Democratic nominees, all of whom (except Lieberman, Sharpton, and Kucinich) i think would make great presidents. having studied the issues, the candidates, and their positions and qualifications, i proudly say that i whole-heartedly throw my lot in with see how he stacks up (in my mind), and take an opportunity to get yourself an education while you're at it.

as a side note, of all the people who said they'd enjoy filling out one of the blank score sheets, not a one has actually done so. there's still time, if you want to put yourself through the paces and weigh in. '04 ScoreSheet

now, i was originally going to write this post in response to President Bush's first stump speech of the 2004 election campaign (A.K.A. the State of the Union address). in lieu of that, i'll just mention that i thought it was a huge pile of crap, pandering to his conservative constituents while taking direct adolescent stabs at those who disagree with his opinions and policies (a "uniter" indeed). but rather than attempting to debunk the speech myself and recreate the wheel, i figured i'd let those more qualified point out the more obvious flaws, misleading statements, and outright lies in the State of the Union Speech.
i'll also refrain from doing anything other than mentioning the inappropriate and inapplicable moral and religious grandstanding.

finally, i've been pleased to see Wes Clark (though i strongly support separation of church & state, and am loathe to see anyone in or seeking public office touting their religion, especially touting it over someone else's) answering the long-standing and wholly inaccurate Republican idea that liberals are amoral atheistic people (this is me greatly summarizing the point). it really is time that we liberals stand up and point out that the religions we grew up with preached tolerance, brotherly-love, self-sacrifice, and the obligation of the strong to protect and/or help the weak. It was Jesus who said "Love your neighbor as yourself"(Matt 5:43-8; Lev 19:17-18; Matt. 19:18-19; Matt 22:37-40), "as you do unto the least of these my brethren, so also you do unto me" (Matt 25:40), who healed the leprous though they were outcasts, and who instructed the Apostles to go out and preach his word to the Gentiles though they were considered unclean and less than human. In favoring the rich and powerful over those not so fortunate, and in castigating and denigrating those whose race, gender, or sexual orientation differ, the Republican party takes this country in a direction entirely opposite that which was set forth by the very figure from whom they claim to draw all their inspiration and guidance.

ok, so i meant to save that whole religion thing for another post. oh well. extra fuel for the fire, i guess.

hi. uh… my name's matt. you might remember me from such hits as "posts on a semi-regular basis," or "lies, lies, and more lies." needless to say, considering the time of year, quite a bit has happened since my last post. i'm not going to try to go into it all in one post, but here's a summary, in the form of an ordered list:

1. visited nathan in bloomington over a weekend
2. followed, almost as i predicted, the fun the Courier-Journal was having with Ernie Fletcher's stupid transition team choices, and his lies about them not being lined up for jobs. he hadn't even been sworn into office yet, and already his making questionable choices and getting reamed for it by the liberal media.
3. got to meet sara's new niece Emma Rose
4. got a new cell-phone, but had to wait a week for it to work, because of the whole number-portability thing
5. went home for thanksgiving and finally got to meet my new niece Emma Ruth
6. made some modifications to the MP3 of the moment thing… anyone notice? — for a while, i was uploading the mp3 directly from WinAmp to the server, and the magic script gnomes were providing a link to it for you to download. i scrapped that in favor of…
7. more modifications to replace the previous modifications — now, if you see the little "listen (x)" link after the MP3 name, (on my side anyway), you can "tune in" to my bipolar radio stream.
8. even more modifications that basically entailed me taking the javascript that was driving the MP3otM thing, and converting it all to PHP. — oh yeah, and, it doesn't show up at all if it's been more than 30 minutes since we last listened to anything.
9. finally managed to get around to buying christmas presents, spent way too much, but found some cool stuff.

sara's working on her 1st semester finals this week, so i've been trying to keep her sane. i'm just looking forward to the rest of the month, at least until she starts her 2nd semester. it'll be nice to be able to hang out with her without her worrying about a test or having to study 90% of the time.

i'm looking forward to this next week as well. christmas with the fam is always an enjoyable time, even if i'm somewhat of a anti-social hermit while i'm there. i've been getting better over the years, we'll see what happens this time.

btw. winamp5 has been officially released.

well now. the last post sparked quite a round of commentary. it's always amazed me how certain topics in certain circles can be so powerfully mobilizing. equally amazing is that often the most vehement and violent reactions are provoked by those topics that have the least chance of ever truly reaching a universal solution or consensus–abortion, religion, church & state, star trek vs. star wars, capt. kirk vs. capt. picard vs. capt sisko, windows vs. mac vs. amiga.

which is not to say that the commentary on the last post was vehement or violent, it was actually quite stimulating, exciting, and informative. if you haven't read them yet, you should.

aside from taking part in political discussions, i've been keeping myself busy. keeping my favorite girl relaxed and happy during her stressful educational endeavor. and pursuing all those other little tasks that i've outlined for myself.

i've nearly finished the database design for My Favorite Martyr. i've finished reading a few of the many books that have been piled up on my bookshelf for the last year or so. i went home for a visit with the family for my brother's birthday (he just turned 16, so if you're in the vicinity of Princeton, KY, be sure to keep a very sharp eye on any other cars on the road.) let's see… the band has recorded the main tracks of the last song of our album, so now we're getting down to mixing in earnest, adding extra layers, and writing new material. i've bought a flash book and am trying to teach myself that. and by god, now i'm very nearly 30 friggin years old. not yet damn it! not yet. but almost.

finally, to bring this back around to the topic of politics (my pet subject, of late), i'd like to be the first to point out my new 2004 Candidate Score Sheet. i'd like to be the first to point it out, but ironically enough, my friend ben has beaten me to it on the community blog he frequents–Lost in Louisville. He beat me to it, 'cause i've been showing it to him the last few days as it's been developing, and i'm a slow bastard about writing a new post. what does it mean when a veteran blogger gets beat to the punch on announcing one of his own projects? i'm not sure, but it's gotta be something profound.

anyway, check out the Score Sheet, and make note of the fact that there's even a link up at the top where you can get a blank version of the chart so you can do your own. if you're really cheeky, you might even email your chart to me (a completed HTML version would be easiest for those of you who know your way around the code, otherwise, just however you see fit.) and i'll figure out some place to put links to them all. sounds like a fun project for the whole family!

ok. enough with tha jibba-jabba. my boss is letting me leave work early–who am i to argue?!

woohoo! i finally found a plugin for WinAmp3 that will let me update the MP3 of the moment thing. (look at the bottom of the most recent post, and/or my webcam "portable"). i had switched to exclusively using WinAmp3 for a while, then i decided i wanted to do the MP3otM thing, realized there weren't any decent plugins to do that with WinAmp3, so i had to switch back to WinAmp 2.x. (which has just been updated to 2.91, for those of you still using the 2.x version). anyway, i finally found What's Playing today, and did some quick hacking to get it working with the existing javascript code. When i get a chance later, i'll probably move it totally over to PHP scripts, but it's working right now. yaay!

tomorrow (today, technically–the 26th) is the day when Sara finally runs the last leg of the Louisville Triple Crown–the miniMarathon. i know she's excited (mainly that it'll all be over soon and she can quit putting herself through hell) to finally finish. i just hope she doesn't hurt her knee any worse than she's already apparently hurt it. in any event, i'm sure she's going to do well.

and, (strange, this was supposed to be a quick update) my sister got in town on Wednesday night and has been staying at the house. it's been pretty wild to see my sister pregnant and to be talking with her about all this stuff, watching her, basically fawning over her to make sure she's got everything she needs. it's pretty cool.

later today, after the race and breakfast, we'll all (my sister, my girlfriend, myself) be driving down to my parent's. this'll be the first time Sara's met my parents, and though she's nervous, i know my parents are going to love her. plus, with my sis being in from France, and pregnant, i think they'll have bigger things to worry about than giving my girlfriend a hard time. i guess we'll find out though, eh?

i just stumbled across the Wikipedia while looking up Glockenspiel for a minor update to the Lucifigous Prick about page. Wikipedia looks to be an awesome thing–an open source encyclopedia, built and maintained by a broad internet community. It's an encyclopedia that, should you find an article you disagree with, you can change (or recommend changes) to better fit the facts as you know or understand them. I think i may have to add some functionality to my bookmarklet to add an option for searching the Wikipedia.

In other fun news, our show on the 11th went alright, except that the people (there was another show scheduled earlier in the evening) who were on stage before us didn't get off-stage until 15 minutes before we were supposed to start playing. Seeing as it takes us most of an hour to get all our equipment set up, it was 10:45pm before we even started playing. So there were several people who kept asking us when we were going to be ready, and that we needed to start "soon." Needless to say, we were all a bit frustrated before we even played the first note, and the first half of the set pretty much reflected that–we were a little tight and held-back. Really, we didn't play badly at all… we were just "in a mood." I think most of the crowd was enjoying what we were doing, but i was a bit too frustrated to pay attention at the time.

Ah well, this sort of stuff is to be expected every once in a while, i'd say.