Ploafmaster General

Big News, coming soon.

And no, it has nothing to do with work or babies or the Lottery.

I'm just too excited not to post anything about it now, but I can't spill the beans yet. I'm giddy!

So as you may notice, I've changed my blog theme...again...and back to one I've used before.

I did this for two reasons:
1. While the previous Mac-centric design was clever, it was really only clever for like a week. VERYPLAINTXT is much cleaner.
2. My previous theme wasn't wide enough in the main column. I was tired of referencing images that were too big...basically anything more than ~475 pixels. Sure, I could have spent some time resizing images myself, but I'd have to wait until I got home to use Photoshop, and I prefer to post on the fly rather than waiting until everything is ready. Well, most of the time, anyway.

So yeah, that's the deal. I'm wimping out again by changing to another theme instead of just buckling down and building my own. I hope, at least, this is easier on the eyes for a while.

Rarely have I felt so purely as if my brain had been cooked in a lightly-greased, Teflon-coated omelet pan.

I think it's time for cocktails this evening. For serious.

Val recently decided that she'd like to be added to my YMCA membership, so we're going for the family plan. Thing is, Val gets home much later than I do on a given day, so we'll be going together in the morning.

Before work.

Arriving at the Y around 5:45.

AM.

Today was our first day of this...ahem..."unique" schedule, and I'm wiped out already. I'm sure I'll adjust...after all, it's for our health, right? :-)

I have a tendency to wait until a fad blows over before I'll use a product at the epicenter of the trend, whether it be a Nalgene bottle or cargo shorts (but I'm still not using chipotle peppers in my cooking).

I can't say whether Sudoku has really "blown over" but it certainly doesn't seem to be the replacement for crossword puzzles that many people expected. I just recently decided, however, that I could use a good number game to get my brain grinding - and it seems that Sudoku serves that purpose. I've been crankin' through a series of puzzles of progressive difficulty using a little "gadget" on my Google home page. It's pretty fun for me, and I like figuring out the patterns and strategies to help me finish them faster.

I can't believe it's freakin' JUNE FIRST today.

I feel like the year has flown by so far. I guess that's really the big change when you "grow up" and don some semblance of a responsible adult life; time speeds on by. It's as if now that childhood is over, the rest of your life rushes past on it's way to the end.

That may sound terribly fatalistic or depressing, but I don't mean it that way. Just an observation :-)

So I just finished working on a secret document last night.

It's secret because I don't want certain people to know about it yet.

In due time. In due time, indeed.

I'm feelin' pretty blah lately, so writing here will probably be a bit more sparse than usual.

Ugh. Tired. Got in to Richmond at 2:05 am. Gotta go to work tomorrow anyway. Had no interwebs all week, but it was no problem since the week was righteous. More on that tomorrow.

...that the first thought in my mind, upon seeing the eye-patch-ed cashier at Taco Bell, was "Arrrrr!!!"?

So it feels, lately, that my site here is kind of dead...My last comment was a week ago, and before that a few days. Even Jake and Mugs seem to have quieted down a bit.

This hasn't removed my motivation to keep writing stuff here, however; rather, I've been pretty busy working on my Blog application in my spare computer time, so I've sort of neglected this page. I'm actually quite close to having a really bare prototype of my blog site up on the web soon, however. As soon as I can sort out the routing issues :-)

I am, without a doubt, sick.

I wanna go home and sleep.

What do you write when it's a slow, foggy week?

A post about how slow and foggy you feel during said week.

Really...it's pretty dull around here lately. Although I AM finally rebuilding my blog...slowly, foggily, but surely.

I think I figured out why I've been so tired...

You see, Valerie decided that she wanted to give something up for Lent. She chose one of her favorite things, french fries. I figured I'd help her out by also giving up something for 40 days, so I decided to give up soda. All soda.

Of course, most of the soda I imbibe is of the caffeinated variety. Since I rarely drink coffee in any form, I've been without caffeine for over a solid week now. And I'm running ragged. Let's see how I fare by St. Pattie's Day, and even more so...by Easter.

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it.
- HG Wells

Ford Motor Company today reported that it lost a record breaking...

TWELVE POINT SEVEN.

BILLION.

DOLLARS.

All this in the course of a year. That's like losing the complete domestic economic output of Jamaica. So lets see...in 2006 Ford loses $12.7 Billion. In 2005, GM lost $10.6 Billion. This year, Toyota is almost unanimously expected to take the No. 1 auto maker spot in the world.

Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

You know, a while back, I created a MySpace profile despite many misgivings in a pitiful attempt to drive more traffic here. I haven't done anything to the page because I haven't wanted to mess with that. I just wanted it as a means for people to find me, thereby finding my real website.

Well, MySpace sucks. Spam comments and notes, loud insane profiles, and general vomit.

I'd heard of Facebook, and wanted to join for the sake of all my VCU/Intervarsity friends way back when, but VCU does not do alumni email addies, so at the time I was SOL. They recently opened up to everybody, however, and after some nudging by my sister and law and my buddy Nate (who's decidedly anti-trendy-stuff, incidentally), I caved and created a profile there.

First off, I'll say that the interface is MUCH cleaner than MySpace. Perhaps it's because they don't let you customize your page, but man, "apartment white" never looked so good.

Second, I just discovered something totally sweet about it. You see, I never really wanted to spend too much time maintaining a profile on Facebook, either. I was, again, hoping vainly that such a profile would drive traffic to my site. This, perhaps would increase my readership from six to seven :-) Well I was looking at the "notes" feature, and discovered that I could "import" a blog. What they really meant was that I can link a blog to my profile, so that posting here will automatically show up as a note on my Facebook profile. That means that anybody who cares enough to look at my profile will see my updates to this site, which I think is pretty dope. The whole process was seamless, and involved the simple pasting of my site's URL into the page. Two clicks, and it's ready. Well done, Facebook.

I think it's time for my annual malady, and it appears to be striking me around the same time as last year - in that precious home stretch before my 10 day Christmas break.

Thankfully, I've started hitting the Zicam much earlier this time, so my hope is the illness will depart soon. Last year was a self-inflicted hell - dragging myself to work so I wouldn't have to give up any of my days off between Christmas and the New Year. I'm hoping I don't "have" to do that again this year.

Alright...Thanksgiving is over, I have heat, and I have to settle into a groove, because I have four full weeks of work ahead before a much needed Christmas break - 10 full days in a row with no work.

Time to set my teeth and press on...

Thankfully I have plenty of distractions, because I have a front door to hang, a house to decorate, Ruby on Rails to learn, a novel to read, two birthdays in between, and a steady stream of tasks at work.

This clip was hilarious..."Stay the course" through cheesy musical bit - it's worth it.

To you two to four semi-regular reader - sorry...I've been in a writing dry spot. I've been reasonably busy at work lately, and at home I've been too distracted by the heating situation (still not resolved).

I'll do a little som'n-som'n on Saturday, and it's possible I'll find something to write about as soon as 10 minutes from now.

Alright, go ahead and laugh at my, "I'm still here," post.

As a follow up to that Weird Al video posted below, I thought I'd link to the Slate article that led me to it in the first place.

Well written and nostalgic, the article reminds me of why I've always respected that man. Maybe I need to watch UHF soon...

I don't nap often, but when I do, it's because my body clearly demands it.

Yesterday, such a nap occurred, where my body gave up, my eyes closed, and I slept during the day.

I'd had poor sleep for several nights before, so I suppose it was recovery sleep. Little did I realize the punitive effects I'd experience later on:

When I went to bed last night, I laid in bed, AWAKE, for two hours. TWO HOURS STRAIGHT. That SUCKED. So here I sit at work on a Monday morning, dying for Monday afternoon, and eventually...Friday afternoon.

Boo.

Sheesh...I'm exhausted, it's Monday, and the song, "Working Overtime," by New Order is playing on Radio Paradise right now.

I just want to go home and go back to bead.

Or just skip to Friday.

Wasted day, wasted time. Wasted opportunity. I have what's essentially man time all weekend long, because Valerie is taking a prep course for her certification exam. What have I accomplished?

I spent 4 hours watching cartoons this morning. I got my hair cut. I bought rat traps and a weed eater. I met a buddy for lunch and went for a walk. I came home and set out one of the rat traps.

I've pushed the lawn to tomorrow afternoon. Ugh. Sometimes I just feel like I have no motivation.