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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Month: January 2008

  • Slow down, you move too fast.

    Two unusual things happened this morning.

    I stopped down, after I caught up on my forum reading, to make some long-awaited changes to AEIOU. Scheduling isn’t my strong suit so things tend to get done when I happen to have a bit of free time and I actually remember things need doing.

    I remembered, upon getting into the shower, that this isn’t a workday and I don’t need to rush through things quite so much. I forget that, most weekend mornings, and just run on autopilot. Instead, this morning’s shower took as long as I felt like taking. I feel not only clean but also relaxed and rejuvenated. What a change of pace!

    And that’s enough about me being naked for one journal post, isn’t it?

    There’s a nervous, frantic quality to most of what I do. Already a naturally high-strung individual, in the last couple of years I’ve become too focused on either The Task At Hand (winding up) or The Fun I Can Have (winding down). In between those extremes is where we find the incidental but important tasks, and if we don’t remind ourselves to slow down a bit then we’ll miss some of the good stuff entirely.

    I used to be the guy with the power of perspective. Now that I’m finally shaking off my years-long depression, it’s high time I regained that power. Also? I need to slow down more often. Not to sniff the roses, really. (My sense of smell verges on nonexistent.) Just to give myself permission to “waste time” taking care of myself and the incidentals that often fall through the cracks of a normal day…

  • Chasing words is no concern

    A normal life, even a moderately decent life such as I’m enjoying lately, isn’t always the sort of thing you write about much.

    I just wanted you to know that I’m still here; life is treating me fairly well, all things considered. I just haven’t had much to say. Nor have I had much in the way of free time during which to assemble coherent material. This is an improvement, mind you, over the last couple of years during which I had plenty to say but no energy or willpower to put words on the screen.

    Same results, different causes. I find this amusing.

  • Rocks!

    A weekend like this makes me feel almost rested and cheerful enough to manage the upcoming workweek:

    • Went out on a lovely date with Lil’ on Friday night, including a tasty dinner at a restaurant I’d not tried before by name of Kappaya, along Division in Southeast Portland. (Picture a Japanese restaurant without tonkatsu on the menu. The food was still good, though.) In-joke of the night: “Rocks!” For the record, they are neither modern or much of a marvel unless you’re a hardcore geology nerd.
    • Spent most of Saturday with the rugrats and Kyla, watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender” and eating burgers and checking out the newest rendition of the Heroes of Might and Magic V game. The in-joke of the day was not “Rocks!” since we haven’t made it to the second season of “Avatar” yet so we’re not really seeing that many earthbenders. My kids are well and truly hooked on the show now, however. (Insert maniacal laughter here.)
    • Spent Saturday night and most of Sunday with Kyla, watching silly TV shows and playing City of Heroes. The last episode of the first season of “Torchwood” is not, upon second viewing, quite as terrible as I originally thought. The first episode of “Smash Lab,” however, left me unimpressed. Think “Mythbusters Lite” but without the engaging personalities. Instead of actual rocks, the show featured concrete.
    • Spent part of Sunday evening hooking up the center channel speaker in my surround-sound rig. Yes, I consider this one of the pertinent high points of my weekend. Yes, I’m a dork. My rock music concert DVDs will sound just that little bit better now, which (naturally) ROCKS.
    • Spent Sunday night gaming with “the boys,” as per usual, and made a decent showing in both Quiddler and Carcassonne. I didn’t win, but I almost never win and I work hard to be a good sport about that most of the time. The only rocks here were the ones in my head, I’m afraid.

    And now, I think I’ll enjoy a few minutes of rock music before I go to sleep. Rock on, y’all.

  • Sew Lid L Thyme

    By the time I get home, eat, get the computer booted up, check mail, and take care of any urgent items that have come up… it’s almost bedtime, or at the very least I’m too worn out to want to put forth effort toward much of anything.

    I was going to work on banner artwork for the anime forum, tonight. But now I’m just too tired. Maybe I’ll slice out some time this weekend. Maybe.

  • Things I Should Be Writing About

    Here’s a quick rundown of topics I have in the queue for when I have enough energy coinciding with enough time to tell you all about them:

    • I need to review the new music player, the Insignia Pilot. The short, for-the-moment review? It’s kind of excellent in most respects, though it could use some improvements. This is especially true for Ogg Vorbis fans like myself.
    • I need to review my new phone, the XV6800 from Verizon. The short, for-the-moment review? Other than being ashamed that I’m toting a Microsoft operating system around on my hip, I’m thoroughly delighted with it. What I need now is a way to configure SMTP on a non-standard port so I can send email though my IMAP system, though.
    • I need to review a couple of new albums that have come my way, such as Dave Gahan’s “Hourglass” and the Pet Shop Boys’ “Disco 4”. The short, for-the-moment reviews? “Hourglass” starts out strong and finishes blah, while “Disco 4” is one of the better entries in its lineage. This might have something to do with it being only partly comprised of actual Pet Shop Boys songs, a departure for the “Disco” album series.
    • I need to post the pictures from my multimedia PC build. You know, the one I completed some time last year? (Oy.) It wouldn’t hurt to detail the process, triumphs and pitfalls and all.
    • I need to complete my draft post about the nature of happiness. Please, let’s not talk about how long that post has been stagnating in the queue.
    • I should, of course, be journaling my life. That was, after all, the original intent of this site. But we all know how likely that is… more’s the pity.

    Don’t even get me started on the non-writing stuff I need to get caught up on. But I lack energy to do anything about anything right now. I think I’m going to go curl up with a good book, instead…

  • Album Cover Meme

    Ganked from one of my LJ reads, here goes:

    1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
    The first article title on this page is the name of your band.

    2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
    The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

    3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
    The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. (I recommend cropping it square, naturally.)

    4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post link to the result as a comment in this post. Also, pass it along in your own journal because it’s more amusing that way.

    Fake album cover

    (Not bad for just using IrfanView on the laptop, eh?)

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