I've got nothing to say.

I tried. I scoured Boing Boing, but nothing there really strikes my fancy to post here. And The Velvet Forum seems to be on this bizarre food kick where they were discussing the best types of pizza made in England and now they seem to be discussing what makes a good cheesesteak. Which is, I suppose, amusing in itself but, again, nothing that I'd think would be worth mentioning here. I thought I'd try some free word association, but nothing came to me. Although I've been playing "The King of Spain" quite a lot and enjoying it immensely, it hasn't been sufficiently inspiring by way of blog entries I was considering doing a running-blog-commentary on my Wednesday Night TV watching ("Lost" followed by "Alias" followed by that new show, "Eyes". Except Mike was delayed this evening so he didn't stop by for our weekly Bright-Matrix meeting until 8:30. He didn't leave until 9:30, so having missed the last half of "Lost" and the first half of "Alias", I decided to just tape the whole evening and watch it later.

(I should look into having some wi-fi gadgetry so I actually could post while watching TV; because with the way my apartment is set up, there's no way I can watch TV and type on my computer at the same time . . . well, not without putting my body into some truly spectacular contortions. But if I could post to this blog while watching TV, I could probably end up with quite a large amount of interesting blog entries.)

Anyway, the bottom-line is I have nothing to post. Which is a shame, really, because I've been on a roll with posting in the last week. Three days last week, twice this week . . . it would've been nice to go for a third. But sometimes the muse is with me and sometimes it isn't. Which is mildly ironic considering I was busting Silent Witness last night for not updating her blog. But hypocrisy is my middle name, so what the hell.

But I don't want this to be a complete waste of time for you, go check out a web page on Arctic harpoons, and when you're done with that, scroll to the bottom of this page to marvel at the ingenuity of a tuna missile. Really, that thing is friggin' cool. I gotta get me one of those bad boys. . . .

Once I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
Oh... my unspeakable wife, Queen Lisa (now I eat humble pie)
I'm telling you I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
And now I work at the Pizza Pizza

1 2 3 4!

Royalty, Lord it looked good on me
Buried in silk in the royal boudoir or going nuclear free
Or playing Crokinole with the Princess of Monaco
Telling my jokes to the OPEC leaders, getting it all on video

Once I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
A palatial palace, that was my home (now I eat humble pie)
I'm telling you I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
And now I vacuum the turf at SkyDome (Once he was the King of Spain)

I can't wait, I'm lowering interest rates, my people say:
"King, how are you such a genius?"
"There's a roof overhead!"
"And food on our plates!"

It's laissez-faire, I don't even give a care
Let's make Friday part of the weekend
And give every new baby a chocolate eclair

Once I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
Hey Clinton! Hey Yeltsin! Got problems? You phone me! (now I eat humble pie)
I'm telling you I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
Now the Leafs call me up to drive the Zamboni (Once he was the King of Spain)

Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce to you the international orchestra!

(vocal solo)

Now some of you might be wondering how I came to be living in Canada after being royalty in Spain. Should I tell them, guys?
"Tell us, King!"

You see late one night when the palace was asleep
Out of my royal chambers and into the garden I creep
And I wait till the appointed time, when the moon is lighting the pitch
At which point my peasant friend, who looks just like me
Arrives and we make a switch!
(gasp)

Prince and pauper, junior and whopper
World made up of silver and copper
Under my own volition, I took a change of position
So next time you drool in the pizza line
Remember, slower pizza's more luscious
The King of Spain never rushes!!!

Once I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
I was lookin' for off-handed ways to improve us (now I eat humble pie)
I'm telling you I was the King of Spain (now I eat humble pie)
And now I'm jamming with Moxy Fruvous!

Once he was the King of Spain

            -----Moxy Fruvous

The musicalness continues. I got this link off mollyknight.com: It's a webpage that tells you what was the number one Top-40 single when you were born. (You may need to hit the link at the top of the page to get there.)

So what was the number one single on August 14, 1975?

"Jive Talkin'" by the fucking Bee Gee's. Christ, have you heard this song? No wonder I tried killing myself when I was younger. Any world that lets something this putrid recieve widespread airplay is a world that is not only not worth living in, but should be sterilized completely so the contaigon doesn't spread.

But then again, maybe I'm looking at this wrong. Perhaps this is why I have such great taste in music--I had to restore the Cosmic Balance that was so infortuitously torn asunder when the sonic twaddle of the Bee Gee's was granted approval by the brainless masses. It's like a trailer promo.....

One Man, born into a world with zero musical taste. Fighting for all Humanity in a World Gone Tone Deaf. His Mission: To Bring The Glory of True Music to the Masses (ie: Rush. And, um, Pink Floyd. And Jethro Tull. And Micheal Penn--but only the first two albums--and Ben Folds. And....)

Er, maybe not.

Anyway, I've decided to see whether I am alone in my misfortune or if misery truly loves company. So I've checked to see what the number one song was when my friends were born. The problem is I kinda/sorta forgot half my friend's birthday, and of the half I do remember half of those I may be off by a day or two. But you get the idea:

September 27, 1974: "Rock Me Gently" by Andy Kim

October 18, 1974: "Nothing for Nothing" by Billy Preston

November 15, 1974: "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Nuclear Band (w/ Elton John)

February 21, 1975: "Pick Up the Pieces" by the Average White Band.

May 9, 1975: "He Don't Love You Like I Love You" by Tony Orlando and Dawn

May 28, 1975: "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" by Freddie Fender.

July 24, 1975: "The Hustle" by Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony

September 25, 1975: "I'm Sorry" by John Denver

March 19, 1976: "December 1963 (Oh What A Night)" - Four Seasons

March 1, 1977: Love Theme from 'A Star Is Born' (Evergreen) - Barbara Streisand

March 8, 1977: Love Theme from 'A Star Is Born' (Evergreen) by Barbara Streisand

October 15, 1977: "Bad Blood" by Neil Sedaka

December 29, 1977: "How Deep Is Your Love" by The Bee Gees


Good God. With the exception of Kate, Sam, Miller, and Noah, we all got hosed.

BoingBoing posted this on Sunday, which means this thing is about two days away from hitting critcal mass, but it's too much fun not to mention.

Apparently some guy with a Live Journal decided to breakdown pop songs in outline form. To wit, his initial example:

• Things I ain't afraid of:
  
  • no ghost
    
  
  
• Strange things in the neighbourhood (partial list):
  
  • seeing things running through head
    
  • invisible man sleeping in bed
    
  
  
• Things that make me feel good:
  
  • bustin'
    
  
  
• Who you gonna call:
  
  • Ghostbusters
    
  • I can't hear you
    
  • Louder
    
    

This one entry has spawned nineteen pages in response (as of Monday evening; it was sixteen pages when I discovered this at lunch.)

Of course, with that long a list, there are lots of repeat songs and the law of diminishing returns certainly applies. But, especially in the beginning, there are some brilliant deconstructions of all kinds of songs--The Bealtes, Depeche Mode, NIN, The Theme to the Muppets Show. Alanis Morisette, Sir Mix-a-Lot, The Police, VNV Nation, They Might Be Giants, NWA, Ben Folds, Metallica, Jane's Addiciton, Weird Al, REM, David Bowie (The Ziggy Stardust breakdown is particularly exceptional)--you name it; your favorite artist is most likely there. Well worth checking out.

*******UPDATE 11:40 PM******

This was harder than it looks. I tried two Rush songs and couldn't get it. Fortunately, I found a song that lent itself to outlines fairly easily:

• I) Theorem
  • Physical gender does not correlate to expected gender roles
  
  
• II) Location of the experiment:
  • A Soho club
    • Candlelight is electric
    • Champagne drunk like Cola
      • Two varieties
        • Cherry
        • Regular
  
  
• III) Attributes of the observed (“Lola”)
  • Note Spelling:
    • L-O-L-A
  • Physical Strength
    • Surprisingly strong
      • observer's spine almost broken
      • Picked up observer and placed observer on knee
  • Gender confusion
    • walks like a woman
    • talks like a man
      • dark brown voice
  • Aggressive tendencies
    • Initiates contact
    • Asks observer to dance
    • Takes observer by the hand
    • Invites observer to the observered's home
  
  
• IV) Attributes of the observer (name unknown):
  • Inexperienced
    • Geographically
      • Left home one week prior
    • Sexually
      • never kissed a woman before
  • Strength
    • Questional balance
      • fell on the floor
  • Is not:
    • dumb
      • does have occasional comprehension difficulties
    • the most passionate guy
    • a masculine man
  
  
• V) Activities involving the observed with the observer
  • drank champagne
  • danced all night
  • sexual intercourse
    • inferred, but likely
  
  
• VI) Conclusion:
  • the observer is a man
  • so is "Lola"

So the Supreme Court has decided not to hear the Schiavo case. I can understand why--this thing has been going round the litigaton circuit for over ten years. Apparently the Supreme Court has already denied hearing the case on several occasions. This time would've been interesting because at least this time would have touched on the outrageous legislative run-around the Florida Legislature and the House of representatives and President Bush have tried to pull. Though the fact that none of the measures met any success is reason enough to feel ye olde "checks-and-balances" are working without the Supreme Court needing to intervene. Still, it woulda been nice if they did and gave Washington a scolding for it.

So Terry's soon to be pining for the fjords. Jeb and the Florida legislature are trying one last attack to make Terri a ward of the state, but given their previous battling average I don't think they're going to get anywhere. Which means you'll only have to suffer one or two more posts from me on the subject before Terri snuffs it and those of us who aren't vegetables can get on with our lives.

In the meantime, here's an interesting article from the Miami Herald which talks about how Terry's husband and parent's were once in synch with taking care of Terri. There was a good three years where they did fine, and it all seemed to fall apart--quelle surprise--once money got involved. Though that may be a coincidence as it also seems the rift started once Micheal began leaning more towards euthanizing Terri rather than hold onto her. Amusing how the parent's are on the record about supporting Micheal in meeting other women when it's now one of their biggest complaints against him.

But the funny thing is, both sides really don't care about Terry. They care about their memory of her. I mean, let's think about this. If Terry's truly a vegetable (and unless you've got first-hand proof that she's responsive, we're going to leave the matter at inconclusive-at-best), then what does it matter if the body lives or dies? If she's in a vegetable-state then the woman they knew and love had been gone for fifteen years. Whether you dump the body in the ground or let it mold away in a bed, what's the difference?

The husband has obviously moved on so he's clearly put the memory of his wife to rest; why not divorce her, keep some of what's left of the settlement, and cut the last ties to an old life? On the flip side--after fifteen years, you'd think the parents would get a clue that their baby ain't coming back. I understand the whole "power of hope" thing, but also a little thing called "denial" that these people should try and consider as well. Perhaps it's a parent-thing, but considering there's been plenty of other parents that have understood the necessity of euthanasia we're not exactly in unprecedented waters here.

I get that the death of the body is particularly ghoulish. Not that I've done it myself, but from what I've heard, drying of starvation and dehydration isn't a particularly fun way to go. But that just brings us back to the issue of whether the person is really inside the body. Yeah, it looks like a person; but if it don't walk like a person and if it don't talk like a person, then however much like a person it resembles, it's nothing more than a pound of flesh. Traumatic to decide, certainly. Difficult to choose, without a doubt. But it's a far cry from murder.

But, see, it's a circular argument no matter what you do. And given no one posted to my previous entry on this, I get the sense you faithful reader's aren't too keen to debate the issue,anyway. But even if you are, anything we say is irrelevant. Only our own arrogance makes us think our answer is unequivocally correct.

OK, it should all be working now.

My thanks to the complete strangers who checked me out (well, checked my blog out) and let me know something was wrong. Oh, and Terry, too.

Not quite sure what it was exactly, but I noticed my table spacings were out of whack, and now I've moved all my CSS codes to their own external file and cleaned them up in the process. Any one of these things seems to have done the trick. Oh, and I cleaned up the gif images so now all the graphics will display properly whether you read the main page, monthly archive, or individual entry.

Yeesh.

Now, the Firefox browser may still cause you problems--even in my old version of my blog, it would often render the page in gibberish until you hit the refresh button. Mozilla had admitted their browser was having trouble reading Blogger's coding, and I think the recent upgrade fixed the glitch, but if you use Firefox and can't read the site, hit the refresh. Netscape users should be good to go now, ditto for Explorer. (But why on earth would you still want to use Explorer?)

All the same, if anyone else notices a problem, to hell with the comments, just click my e-mail address on the left and lemme know, OK?

Danke shein, sweethearts.

You have to understand . . . if I went through the trouble of redesigning this place, then the least I could do is a full work-week of updates. And since my office is closed on Friday, I have a very good shot of doing five consecutive updates. When the hell was the last time I did that? I don't even think I did it when I was looking for a job.

So what to post about? I want to write about the plants I have, but that could take some time. I got two plants now: one that Chris got me as an apartment-warming gift, and one that my co-worker got me . . . as an apartment-warming gift.

You know, it occurs to me, I'm screwed either way. I mean, what are two of the most traditional house-warming gifts? A bottle of wine or a plant. Well, I got two or three bottles from people, and I don't drink alcohol (fortunately they do and at least one and a half bottles went to good use at my apartment-warming party). But these bottles were for me, strictly speaking and I don't drink so as presents go, while the thought is muchly appreciated, you got to wonder why they didn't think things through more practically. Then again, I am the guy who now owns ten wine glasses, so perhaps my friends knew something I didn't. Come to think of it, my friends usually know a helluva lot more that I do, so methinks it'd be best not to question the wisdom of friends bearing gifts, whatever they may be. (But I've heard that horse has a lovely set of teeth, I just want to see it for myself....)

But plants? What the hell do I know about plants? I hear you have to water them, and some of them need sun and some of them don't. But that's it. And there's plant food. It's kinda like fish food, only not. I don't know, I haven't eaten either to say for certain. Regardless: people give me plants and I'm supposed to take care of them? I can't be that responsible--I can barely take care of myself! (oddly, I'd feel very comfortable taking care of dogs. Perhaps if my parents had seen fit to make horticulture as constant a presence as Golden Retrivers were to my formative years, I'd be better equiped to handle this.

Regardless (there's that word again), now I've got two--two!--plants to worry about. Chris got me . . . something. I don't know what they are. They're purple, and that's fortunate for purely geek reasons . . . perhaps they're violets. I think they are, because they rather look like these. And if they are violets (because I either never asked Chris what it was or she told me and I completely forgot) then serendipity strikes even further because V is for Violets . . . too bad they're not violet carson roses, but that would be asking for too much wouldn't it?

(Yes; too much. Like the express-train-tanget-typing that was the preceeding paragraph.)

The point is I've got this little itty-bitty pot o' violets.

What do I do with them?

Meanwhile, my co-worker got me a jade plant. OK, great. Apparently I have to water it twice a week. Or something. I dunno. It's a plant. (A plant? I thought you people were called a fruit.)

Plants like music, right? I think I heard that somewhere? Well, the Beatles "A day in the Life" just finished and now U2's 'Where the Streets Have No Name" is playing. Do plants like rock music? If I play some Bauhaus, will that turn all my plants to black? There must be a case-study about this somewhere. Oh, wait, maybe I'm supposed to talk to them. I think the music thing is for babies in the womb, and talking is for plants. Or maybe it's both. Maybe you're supposed to feed a foetus fertilizer and breast-feed geraniums. I'm really out of my element here.

Ah well.

So I have plants. I suppose that was the one thing missing from my apartment. Well, besides the bevy of super-models I was certain my friend's were going to get me as their apartment-warming gift. (I wanted supermodels; I got wine and plants. You'd think my friend's would know me by now, but noooooooooo. Well. It could
ve been worse: they could've gotten me cheese and crackers.)

Where was I?

Ah, yes: super-models.

So I've got plants in the apartment and that was the one thing missing so now I guess I really have this place together. And there is something rarther cool about having plants to take care of. some sort of maternal (er, paternal?) instinct-thing. Maybe I should talk to them. I mean, it's not like there's anyone else here to thing I'm strange for talking to plants. Perhaps they might be able to offer me some good advice. Like how to pick up some super-models....

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably at least heard of the Terry Schiavo case going on right now. Now, being the God-loathing kinda person I am, my sympathy shut-down the moment anybody started invoking God's Name and Law as reason to keep Terry alive. When the Florida senate tried its run-around the issue by issuing a subpoena for Terry to appear as a witness, I groaned. When I heard Congress had gone off the deep end with their emergency legislation which Bush naturally signed, I was pretty outraged.

But have you read up on this cluster-fuck? Did you know Terry's "husband" is already living with another woman and they're raising kids? (And please note that the article does not say whose kids--though, presumably, if they were Terry's and Michael's it would be all over the place; and marvel at the subtle implication of possible spousal abuse on Michael's part.) There's also some wonderful implications on the official pro-parent's site about the usage of money won from Terry's malpractice lawsuit. We will skip the question about whether Terry is truly in a vegetative case or not--the parent's claim terry responds to them. Michael says they're nuts. There are physicians and lawyers on both sides, so let's leave the issue at a question-mark.

And then there's the whole "life-support" issue, which is a bit more problematic. Because terry it's really on life support--she has a feeding tube that gives her food and water. Now we can get into a semantic argument 'till Bright-Matrix becomes my full-time job--if the only thing keeping her alive is that tube, then why wouldn't it be considered life-support? But is letting a person slowly die of starvation and dehydration humane? I suppose that would depend on whether or not she is truly a vegetable.

To be honest, from the looks of things, I'd say Micheal's on pretty shaky ground. He's legally married to Terry but he lives with another woman? He won't divorce her, but wants her to die. Now, I can understand the not-divorcing if you love her so much that you don't want to abandon her, but what's the difference when you already live with someone else? Of course, the flip side to that is, despite moving on with his life, he still cares enough for Terry--and trully does know know what her wishes are--that he can't justify letting her stay as she is, regardless of whether he's moved on with his love life or not.

I think the parent's are nuts, personally. This woman's been a vegetable for fifteen years. She ain't coming out of it. But if they want to pay the bills and keep on hoping that their daughter, one day--maybe--wakes up? Who are we to say otherwise? But until Michael starts explaining how he can justify his position, maybe Terry's parent's should take over guardianship and let 'em do what the hell they want. If Terry's a veggie it ain't gonna make a difference to her whether she lives or dies, right?

My point is: this issue isn't our call. But we've got the fucking government sticking its nose into a family's private matter. But this is America where your opinion isn't as important as mine. But we all like to look at a car accident, whether we slow down or not. So despite the fact that whether Terry lives or dies shouldn't affect any of us, far too many people are acting like it does, which ironically means it may very well affect us. Gotta love them self-fufilling prophecy's.

Hey . . . did you change your hair?

I have to admit that it's fairly ironic to be sprucing up the place now, after a two week hiatus wherein anybody who's read this thing has up and scattered thinking I've let it to die. And maybe I have, because for the last month or two I've been wondering where I was going with this thing. Let's face it--blogs may be getting some good press these days, but it ain't because of narcissistic bastards like me; it's for, you know, people that actually do something with their lives, like Kevin Sites, and all the fun with First Amendment rights and other legal niceties now that Blogs are starting to become valid and relevant sources for news.

(And, yes, I'm reading BoingBoing practically daily now. Sure, you could just skip reading my blog and get almost all the same links, but what would you do without my semi-irregular yet undeniably pithy and entertaining commentary?)

The point is, I've been wanting to make-over this blog for a long time. I originally tried to come up with a design in time for last year's anniversary, but nothing ever solidified. The funny thing is, this is actually an old design. I stumbled onto this yesterday when doing the occasional rummaging of the various folders and sub-folders I have on my computer. From the date of the files, this was created around early August of last year, which means it must have been a contender even then, but for whatever reason I never went through with it.

I guess I can surprise even myself because when I found the design again it really struck me and I felt it worked quite well. Of course, the even bigger irony is that I had been working on yet another design concept for this thing, even more radical than this one, just last month. So don't be surprised if v3.0 shows up sometime before the end of the year.

But this is pretty much the way I've been wanting my blog to look like almost since the beginning. It's not perfect; I'm still playing a bit with font sizes and some minor style-sheeting . . . and I'm not sure if the right-justified position of the blog posts work; my original idea was to keep the blog entries centered, with the archives on the right and the site links on the left, but I couldn't do it all properly without either noticeably shrinking the font sizes--and my posts are enough of a strain on the eyes as is. I could have expanded the table to accommodate the column widths, but I'm actually missing some fonts thanks to my hard-drive crash so revamping the logo would require even more time, and I wanted this done soon. Lastly, there seems to be a glitch in the archives: the monthly archives are fine, but if you pull up an individual entry, the graphics disappear and the archive links don't work. So, needless to say, more tweaking will follow.

But it's streamlined and more professional, and most importantly it's my own design and not someone else's. So welcome back to Electric Wire. Keep your pocket knives handy.

It's Spring and it's raining.

Yesterday was supposed to have been 60's degrees. I wouldn't know; I spent rhe day indoors with the blinds drawn. I could've opened up the vertical blinds by the sliding glass door; the door faces (roughly) east/south-east and when open I get almost a full day's light through it. But yesterday I didn't feel like it, and even though it's grey and drizzling outside, I've decided to compensate for yesterday by opening the blinds and letting the diffused sunshine come on it.

So welcome to spring. You might call, I have a thing for equinoxes and solstices. And some day I shall campaign for the New Year to begin Dec 21/22/23 because, really, that makes so much more sense; but for now I am content to observe the occasion privately.

Ceremony is a strange thing; I'm actually very fond of ritual, as long as it's personal. It's the institutionalized rituals I have a problem with--somtimes accepting, sometimes easy, sometimes outright hostile. (What can I say? I'm 30 years old and still a rebel without a clue.) But I try to keep my own holidays. May 22; November 5 . . . for a while, in college, I tried commemorating the anniversary of the rape/death of Kitty Genovese but such self-righteous indignation was best left to Harlan Ellison and Alan Moore.

And then we have the equinoxes and solsitices. I prefer three of them, with the autuminal equinox something of a red-headed step-child. Well, that may be harsh. I respect the autuminal equinox, as it hearalds the last phase of the year. But I have little joy in it happening. The summer solstice is also bittersweet. It's the longest day of the year, but it's all downhill from there. Ah, but the winter equinox, that's the lowest point you can go (in a darkness/light dichotomy; from bad to worse. Unless you're a night owl. Or live in the southern hemisphere.)

The vernal equinox is probably my favorite because, theoretically, it's only going to get warmer. And it's been a dreary winter. March has been odd, what with all the minor snow storms we've had at the first half in the month. And being down here in Maple Shade, still trying to make a go of these, the winter has been a long one.

But Spring is here, and constant warm weather isn't too far away. It's already light out at 6:00 in the evening. Soon I'll be moth-balling the winter jacket and wearing my fabulously past-its-prime trenchcoat. The next First Friday in Philly is coming up, and it should be nice to be out with people. I'm running out of excuses to stay indoors.

I was remarking the other day that I am keenly aware of time and distance. I think that's half true. I'm aware of it, I understand it, but I'm not 100% sure I understand it correctly. Or, perhaps more to the point, I don't accept it's relation the way I should. Instinctively, I try to force time and distance to suit my needs, to do what I want it to do. Naturally, my success in this endeavor as been unsurprisingly minimal, but I've never met a windmill I wasn't willing to tilt. (It's the guy on the horse and the lance charging straight for me that illicits the instinctive tactical withdrawal.) I'd like to be able to make some semi-pompous generalization that "everything is a matter of time and distance" and while I think that's something that holds a fair amount of water, I think it's also over simplfying matters for all the wrong reasons. Time and distance is relative. What it is for me is not what it is for you, for your pet cat, etc.

Still, the matter remains: time and distance. The sun in the sky, the Earth in its orbit. For a moment, all things are equal. Balance is achieved. But the Earth keeps on spinning--the sun, too, and the galaxy, and the universe is expanding and you can insert your one-grain-of-sand-on-a-beach analogy here thank you very much. We are always moving, four dimensions-plus. We have our moments. Moments are all we ever get.

I stood out on my patio without a jacket. By the time I got home, about twenty-five after five, it was already cooling off. But you could tell it had been a warm day, even if you were like me a stuck inside an office all day with no window in sight. my apartment was four degrees hotter than what I set the auto-heat button for, which means it was warm enough to keep my gas bill down.

So I stepped outside, standing on my balcony. The sun was starting to set, but there was plenty of light.

It's March. Spring is, what, three weeks away?

I stood there on my patio, looking around at the trees that are starting to show remember what time of year it is, and thinking about the days ahead. In another few weeks it'll be warm enough for me to bring out my chair and relax outside, and light enough long enough so that I can do this when I get home from work.

I love this time of year.

Courtesy of Sean "Much Ado" Hale and Yahoo News:

My life seems so much more in focus now....

Meanwhile, back at the hall of Justice . . . .

I have no idea why I said that. I never liked Superfriends. Actually, that's not true, I think I rather enjoyed Superfriends, but even when I was young, like 12, I realized that it was a stupid little cartoon and so I stopped liking it. Thusly, now that I'm nearing 30 and every little scrap of my childhood is selling for big bucks on e-bay, I could care less about Superfriends.

Still waiting for that impending Orbots revival, though. Like waiting for the Pogues to reunite. Only the Pogues did reunite. So where the fuck are my Orbats, dammit!?!?!?

Needless to say, I'm at a loss for what to write.

I know, I know, I could be regailing you all with fantabulous tales of my Adventures in South Jersey. I actually had some this weekend--a lovely Friday in Philly and then a semi-impromptu hang-out with a co-worker at the bar that's literally across the highway from my complex.

But that would mean writing about that stuff and I so don't have it in me to do that right now. It's late. I spent all day finishing up a website for a client, and then I had to catch up on a bunch of V for Vendetta related e-mails. (This movie thing is going to be the death of me.)

And let me tell you something: do you know how weird it is to run a website about a comic that is about to be adapted into a big budget movie? I mean, it's funny because all my friends still look at me funny about Vendetta--Well, not all of them. I think a handful have read Vendetta, and many of them know what a comicbook freak I am. But, like, come on, trying to have a conversation about comics when you don't read comics is like trying to talk about baseball when you don't watch baseball--it's all polite nods and varying degrees of interest, but there's no connection.

Not that is is necessarily a bad thing. I stopped being a comicbook missionary yearsd ago. But now the movie's coming out and suddenly (well, not suddenly; not yet, anyways. Give it six months, when the first teaser trailers appear in theaters) there is common ground. Because the majority of people in this country haven't read a comic but even the Unibomber has been to a movie.

Common ground is established: "Oh, you have a website about the movie."

"No, I have a website about the comic the movie is based on."

"Oh."

Connection immediately severed.

It's become a bit of a cliche in fandom circles that fans try to pass themselves off as mature by saying "Well, I just hope the movie is good enough so that more people will read the comic."

Which is crap. Spider-Man has done a billion dollars worldwide. None of that transfered into better ongoing sales for Marvel. And a man dressing up as Guy Fawkes fighting a fascists is going to be a hard enough sell to mainstream audience as a movie, so let's not kid anyone that it'll lead to a significant jump in people reading the comic.

In fact--and I realize I've got eight months to go here, but I'm on a roll (to where I have no idea)--but let's take a test, shall we? Let's presume the V for Vendetta movie is actually going to be good. It won't, but let's pretend. And better yet, let's pretend it's wildly successful and all my friends see it. How many of them do you think will say "Hey, Craig, that movie rocked. Can I borrow the comic 'cause I really gotta read the original story." Let's see. I'll be back to this post in eight months and we'll see which one of you

(Yes, I'm using the single of one. And how weird is that? One can be singular--"one"--or plural--"ones"--but one is still one. It's the loneliest number that you'll ever do.)

But my point is: running my website is an exercise in futility. Not that there's no point to the site; it's one of my proudest achievemnts, I get letters from all over the world from people so I think I've done something of value there. But trying to keep this site active, and updated, in the shadow of the movie is like a dog yappin' around in the shadow of an 800-pound gorilla; the dog may bark, and it may catch the gorilla's attention, but when that gorilla movies the dog don't stand a chance.

(This is a very bizarre metaphor. I am no dog. I am, however probably way too tired to be writing now. But I'm rolling rolling rolling so what the hell hell hell.)

My point is: I feel like I'm trying to compete with the movie. No, that's not it. I feel like I have to keep pace with it. Have to stay on top of the movie because the movie is an opportunity for my website. As of yesterday Google still lists me at the top of the food chain for V for Vendetta searches. So people looking for the movie will come to me and I have to be ready. For what, I have no idea.

This post stopped making sense about . . . oh, crap, it didn't make sense since the beginning.

This is what happens when you move to South Jersey! It kills your blogs!

Or maybe it's just the sleep deprivation typing.

I'm going to try this again tomorrow when I'm a little more coherent. Compare and contrast for hours of amusement.

All things considered, I think I got off lucky.

My computer is working again. I've lost Roxio, as the version I have is not compatible with XP Service Pack 2. Apparently if I had Roxio installed before I upgraded my XP it would've worked fine, alas this is not the case. Meanwhile though my DVD player works, there's something screwy with the video image and I can't see a damn thing. This is not really the end of the world considering my non-computer DVD player is about ten feet from my computer. But not having Roxio means I can't burn or copy CD for the moment, and that kinda sucks. But otherwise all programs are back on -- although the picture viewer I had to view photos is gone; apparently I've lost the disk to it.

Meanwhile I've been able to recover almost every single file from my hard drive. I actually found my e-mails and addresses, so that's back. And though things still take time as some files are corrupt, I've actually recovered almost everything--all my Photoshop files are safe, everything web-related (Firework files, HTML pages, etc) is safe. All my MS Word and Excel documents are good; save for four MP3, all my music is back (out of 600+ that's a damn fine ratio, I must say). I'm slowly transfering over all my photographs. 2002 is done and I'm working on 2003. If I can find a good strech this weekend, I may be able to finish it all.

So for all the hassle, I'm in good shape, which is quite a welcome relief. Still have to load up my games, though. After this week, I could definitely do with some hack-n-slash of Diablo, y'know what I'm sayin?