Circadian Shift

Spring is here, which means that the weather is getting warmer. Notice that I didn't say "hot", but "warmer".

As Graig notes regarding the temperature at his office:

"It's frickin 15 degrees outside and May... why do we need air conditioning?"

Meanwhile, here's a sample conversation that took place at my office earlier this week:

Coworker 1: "It's so hot in here. Can't we turn the air conditioning on?"

Coworker 2: "F------, why don't you try taking your sweater off first?"

(Said coworker did have another shirt on under the sweater.)

Meanwhile, I'm sitting at my desk wearing a heavy polar-fleece jacket.

It's going to be a long spring/summer...

...then I would be able to thought-beam "Please shut the hell up and go away" as clearly and unambiguously as possible.

Time. Time. Time.

Every once in a while, the sickness kicks in a little more severely than usual.

"In 1985, physician Larry Dossey, in his book Space, Time & Medicine, coined the term "time sickness" to describe the illnesses that nag us because we believe we're in the race of our lives against a ticking clock."
(from the article "Slow down your life", by Martha Coventry)

Seems like there a multitude of things that one can, might, should, must devote one's attention and energy to. Sometimes the choices are easy. Get up. Go to work. Meet a deadline. Sometimes the choices are not so easy, or are all too easy to avoid. Read a book. Clean the apartment. Phone a friend. Go back to bed.

And then the day passes, and you wonder where all the time has gone.

But it's not just time-sickness on an acute scale -- measured in hours, days, and weeks -- but on a chronic one. Months, years -- even a decade -- of choices now bears scrutiny and lament. Mistakes are becoming harder to recover from, because, well, time is running out.

What to do? What to do...

"Where I am, I don't know, I'll never know, in the silence you don't know, you must go on, I can't go on, I'll go on."
Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable (1959)

P.S. It's now been one year since I put my first weekly mood board online. You can view all the boards as a slideshow and see how time has passed.

The weekly mood board for 05 March 2006 will not appear, as I'm completely and utterly lacking in inspiration.

I'm not in the mood for doing a mood board.

Back in a while.

It's 6pm on a Saturday and you're standing in the canned goods aisle of the supermarket, trying not to panic.

Something's wrong. You think you got lost.

You look in your handbasket, and you see:

• 4 Lean Cuisine
• 1 loaf of bread
• deli meat and pre-sliced cheese
• 2 tins of smoked mussels

These are not your groceries. There must be some mistake.

What the hell happened?

What. The. Hell. Happened?

You missed something. You slipped up somewhere.

Shit.

But you can't put it all back. It's much too late for that.

Checkout time.

This is your sandwich. Now eat it.

Wow, would you look at the time. It's Sunday night already! How did that happen?

Please tell me tomorrow isn't Monday! The weekend can't be over yet! Nooooooo!

Aw, rats.

(Pic via pandafix, who got it from this page of cute animal pictures.)

The word "setup" is not a verb, it is a noun.

The correct phrase, if you want to indicate an action, is "set up". That is the verb "set", plus the adverb "up". Two words, goddamit. Two.

Set up.

Set up.

Set
.
.
.
up.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Addendum, 18 January 2006: The same goes for "check-in" -- grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

...since I posted anything substantial. Sorry, I'm not feeling very inspired.

In the meantime, please enjoy little Tarepanda, as he tumbles over and over and over.

(Animation taken from this page. I have no idea who those other characters are, but the dancing bunnies are kind of cute.)

I forgot to go outside today, and now there is no daylight.

Oops.

Frigging !*#!@!!*%@^!!!!! course assignment is due at midnight.

Aaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!

(Addendum, 11:53:57 PM -- Fired off something vaguely coherent. What the hell...)

On my way home today, when I got to the subway and reached the turnstile, I pulled out my keys instead of the coin purse which holds my tokens.

Oops.

It is 6 am on Saturday and I am awake.

That is so wrong.

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo, my local pub has an array of Mexican food on its menu.

I just wound up eating a chimichanga about the size of a newborn infant's head.

Oooooooooh!

Note to self: The $3.99 combo special at Burger King is really not a good idea. Particularly if you're attempting to get some studying done in the library afterward, and all you can do is sit there and try not to throw up. Get a salad next time.

Yeah, it's been a week since I updated here. Been busy with other things, including bashing out a few posts over at Clicks & Notes.

On a completely unrelated topic...

Am I the only one who glanced at this pic of Renee Zellweger at the Oscars and thought "Rosanne Barr"?

I didn't intend to be mean -- that honestly was the first thing that popped into my head.

Poor Renee. I'm sure you'll wow the crowd next year.

Work on blog?

Work on other blog?

Do laundry?

Nap?

Mmm. Naaaap...

Meanwhile, you folks can go visit Sonic Sunset for some neat DJ mixes.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

This is now the third day in a row that I have not dragged myself outside before the sun went down.

I also didn't get to bed until sometime after 5 this morning.

Oops.

In light of the current shortfall in blog posts, I've taken the following measures to reduce the length of the sidebar so that it doesn't scroll out longer than the body of the blog:

• Moved all the blogrolls, webring stuff, and search widgets to this page. (Note: the side-by-side display of the two blogrolls was achieved using a table. Insert overly apologetic web-authoring self-recriminations here.)
• Moved the Drive-By Linking into the body of the blog, after the "regular" blog posts. (I've also changed the setting so that only posts from the last 14 days -- or lack thereof -- display on the front page, instead of 28.)

Posting to the main blog will continue to be sporadic, but I'll try to add to the "Drive-By" links with a bit more regularity.

Apologies if things look wierd.

Just because I haven't been writing here much lately, that doesn't mean that I haven't been spending any time working on le blog. That's because, while I haven't been posting, the comment spammers have. And it's gotten particularly out of control in the last month or two.

So, I've spent several hours both yesterday and today going through every single goddam post on this blog (all 1357 of them), deleting anything that carries even the faintest whiff of spam, and shutting off the commenting option on all posts that don't currently appear on the home page (i.e. most of them). Going forward, this will clearly require a more elegant solution.

Meanwhile, here's some related linkage:

• a Wikiepedia entry on link spam, which explains what it is, and why people do it; there are also some links to more information
• a BBC article on how spammers are targetting blogs
• a Wired piece on the evil genius of comment spammers
• the Online Journalism Review looks at bloggers fighting back against comment spam
• the Blog Spam Database maintains a list of spammer domains and publishes it as an MT-Blacklist file

Might be a while before this sorry little page gets updated, as I will be channeling my webified energies elswhere.

Don't worry. It's a good thing.

Taking a break. Back in a while.

Yeah, well, what is there to say at this point.

As is wont to happen, whatwith procrastination and getting sidetracked elsewhere, I still have not even finished Phase 1 of what I set out to do over a week ago.

As well, something has gone amiss with the MP3 Blogs Aggregator, although I've heard that the RSS feed is still functional. Fortunately, Herr K does a decent job of keeping on top of music download news.

Meanwhile, I've been "helping" Brett deal with a giant hyperdimensional Kenny Rogers that has infested Blamblog. Uh, yes, it's wierd. But, hey -- I like wierd.

Will post some more eventually...

While scanning the list of my fellow Flappy Birds in the Blogosphere Ecosystem, I stumbled across Ravings of a Corporate Mommy.

Favourite line:

I gotta stop mixing Dayquil and Sudafed. Wow! Is that flower talking to me? Hey! Flower! Are you talking to ME?!

Mmmmm.... Dayquil and Sudafed....

The good news: I cleared a whole bunch of stuff off my desk, rescued the notebook PC that was buried underneath (said PC now neatly stored elsewhere), cleared up some of the maelstrom of cables under the desk, and now have my DSL modem, router, and USB hubs nicely arranged on some mini-shelves that I've set up on the desk.

The bad news: Much of the stuff that was on the desk is now on the bed. That thing that I sleep on. And am supposed to be going to sleep on soon.

D'oh!

(pic is from morguefile)

Raspberry vinaigrette dressing has a natural attraction to white shirts. Other laws of physics, such as gravity, may be bent accordingly.

Although I'd spotted the link several times before on del.icio.us, I never bothered to click through to Badger Badger Badger until yesterday.

Now I can't get it out of my head.

So, of course, I must share the link with others.

heh heh heh...

(Flash, needs sound)

The next week or so is going to be rather busy.

I'll probably still be indulging in "drive-by linkage", so check the sidebar, or my del.icio.us page.

Um, you might notice that my Spurl-powered feed of quick links in the sidebar is missing. I hope this is only temporary.

Meanwhile, you can check out said linkage via my del.icio.us page.

I really need a nap.

Go check out the MP3 Blogs Aggregator. There are many nifty things to download. Too many to mention.

CNN reports:

Bear guzzles 36 beers, passes out at campground

(via del.icio.us)

Addendum 19 August 2004: Shared this links with some colleagues at the office. One remarked that the bear must have migrated south from B.C. Given its predilection for donuts and microbrew, I'm inclined to agree that the bear is likely Canadian.

Addendum 20 August 2004: Yahoo! also reports on the story, quoting one park worker as saying, "This is the first time I've heard of a bear drinking beer. He was obviously a party animal." However, astute readers of this blog from two years back will recall the tale of Mrki, the drunken Bosnian bear, who started to annoy the local villagers with his intoxicated "singing"; the locals resolved the matter by getting the bear to start drinking de-alcoholized beer.

I am sleep-deprived, my 9 AM meeting was cancelled, and I am hopped-up on caffeine and decongestants.

Trust me, kiddies: you do not want to mess with me today.

  Work on project that has suddenly become a train-wreck
  Work on project that started out as a train-wreck
  Work on report that is always a train-wreck

I must have dozed off at around 9pm yesterday.

Which means that I am awake now.

D'oh!

3259 unread items in the aggregator

Dear People Who Ride the Subway:

You are not doing anyone any favours by standing during the ride when there are empty seats available. Why?

1. Nobody can get around you, because you're blocking the aisle.
2. Nobody else can sit down either, because you're blocking the empty seats.

Kindly sit your ass down and get the hell out of the way.

That goes double for you standing there in the doorway.

Thank you,

Jen V.

Given that I have to put in an appearance at the office today, I should be sleeping right now. Of course, I'm not.

What else to do, then but play with Mr. Picassohead.

Go look at the sidebar, and/or my links on del.icio.us, why don't you...

I currently have 1958 unread items sitting in my aggregator.

.... or have the spammers been extra-super-busy this week?

I checked my e-mail this morning, and there were 75 new messages; 72 were spam.

Rum and Monkey has a bunch of Personality Tests & Web Toys that you can waste your time with. Naturally, I availed myself of a few of them:

My japanese name is Fujiwara (wisteria fields) Kumiko (eternal beautiful child).
Take your real japanese name generator! today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

And

Which Office Moron Are You?
Rum and Monkey: jamming your photocopier one tray at a time.

Also, it's been eons since I contributed anything to the big list. Should you wish, you can go view a list of Things That Have Accumulated in my Daytimer.

Yeah, been busy/preoccupied/brain-damaged/whatever.

If you haven't been checking the home page, you're missing out on my del.icio.us links; or you can subscribe to them via RSS.

Accidentally yanked out one of my speaker wires from the stereo, and in fumbling to replace it, knocked a bunch of my old notebooks off the shelf. Of course, I started flipping through them.

From an entry dated 10 August 2000:

the best way to deal with someone from marketing is with a wooden stake & lots of garlic

Oh, good lord -- now I'm one of them...

At what velocity would one have to fling a stapler (Swingline #405, full strip of staples) for it to penetrate the human skull?

I've been dodging the issue for months.

There was an article that appeared on Boxes and Arrows back in February about Planning Your Future, which provides a good template for mapping out both your short term and your long term career goals. And I'm going to have to sit my ass down with it this weekend and bash out a few thoughts before Monday, when I'm scheduled for a meeting with my boss.

Yikes.

I don't dislike what I do here on Planet Marketing (although it could be better). But I find I miss being an Information Architect. It's all the more bloody frustrating because I wind up documenting/measuring websites that someone else designed, and the architecture is just fucking brutal.

sigh

Also, I've been saying for a while that le blog here is due for some changes. It's still going to happen, but I've hit upon a few technical snags that I have yet to iron out (it's not difficult -- I just have to make the time to do it). And there is the ever growing backlog of posts in the aggregator.

Anyway, thanks for continuing to read, and especially for your great response to Carnival of the Canucks #20. I'll try to post some stuff on the weekend. Meanwhile, there's always the sidebar.

i just want to scream and scream until i can scream no longer

Goddamit.

Difficulties, both technical and non-technical have cropped up.

It's pretty safe to say that I won't be posting until after the weekend.

Sorry.

Sometimes, the hustle and bustle of life at the office makes one forget to eat when one is supposed to. Fortunately, there's an easy way to remember:

When you start feeling psychotic, it's time for lunch.

Learn it. Live it. Love it.

The aggregator is screaming for a clearout, while the laundry whimpers pitifully for attention (I wore one grey sock and one beige sock to work today). While feeling too spacey to attend to any of it, I don't actually feel sleepy yet.

Will get into the jammies, lie down with the light off, and see how it goes. Meanwhile, you can look at the sidebar.

[Addendum 05 May 2004: I slept well, but getting out of bed was still an ordeal. Today's sock combo: one light beige, one with khaki and orange stripes.]

The Hovel is knee-deep in dirty clothes once again. I know I should run stuff through the wash, but I keep putting it off.

Over at The Occupational Adventure, Curt has a lovely pile of links on overcoming procrastination.

Of course, if I took the time to go through them all now, it would mean putting off the laundry, wouldn't it?

Please excuse any wierdness that may ensue.

Although, really, you don't have to do anything here that you don't want to do...

Why, oh why, do attempts at going to bed early when one is feeling a tad drowsy invariably end up as toss-and-turn fests which leave one falling asleep at a time much later than what one might have accomplished had one gone to bed at a normal time?

(And why does writing about oneself in the abstract, rather than just saying "I", produce such turgid prose?)

Anyway, what else to do at this hour besides spew out some pointers to elsewhere on the weeb:

• Zed lists some Things that you can't mail to Germany
• FuturePundit has some nifty linkage about the brain
• Speaking of the brain, here's something that I've suspected for a while: Guys are brain damaged at birth
• Worthwhile has some useful linkage about dealing with bully bosses

I've been sitting in my cube, happily snarfing through a bag of Peek Freans Ginger Snap Crisp cookies (along with some tea), when I caught sight of this little item listed on the cookie bag's "Nutrition Facts" label:

Per 30g (Approx. 3 cookies)
Fat 4.5 g
   Saturated 1.5 g
   + Trans 1.0 g

Aaaaaggh! But they're so tasty!

Unfortunately, the pleasure centres of our brains light up when we put fat in our mouths. Evolution must be to blame. Somehow.

I am sitting in my cube giggling like an idiot (as opposed to whining like an idiot, like I seem to have been doing much of lately) because of this.

Thank you, Raging Kraut, for brightening my day a bit.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

And I just walked into the fucking doorframe and got a bloody nose.

(Thanks, once again, to Gaping Void for the pithy visual summary.)

It's the World Wide Wombat Web.

(via Give, Get, Take, and Have)

Having wondered aloud if something has infected the blogosphere lately, I discover that the affliction has a name:

"Beal," for those who may not be aware, is an illness characterized by having it. It's named after the character Howard Beal in Network, and was discovered by one of my college English Lit professors.

Thus:

Susie: "I can't go to class, I have beal."

Helpful questioner: "What's beal?"

Susie: "It's the reason I can't go to class."

In this case, though, I think beal has struck the blogosphere with a vengeance. I know I have been unable to comment on others' blogs because of it, and I suspect that there was a particularly bad outbreak this past weekend--only a few hardy souls were able to post at all. Unfortunately, there is no known cure for beal. It strikes without warning, usually in winter time, and has no set duration. Research into its cause and treatment are sadly underfunded. In fact, very few people are even aware it exists!

Over on Ripples, David St. Lawrence posts some thoughts on combating beal.

I'm suffering not so much from a lack of inspiration as I am from an excess of information; there's just so damn much of it out there, and I've got too few fingers for too many pies.

(Not coincidentally, I seem to have hit a fork in the road known as my so-called "career". I need to decide what I'm going to focus on.)

Anyway, enough whingeing. Thanks to those of you who've bothered to stick around.

(BTW, a long time ago, Richard coined a term of his own -- "blangst" -- which strikes me as being more readily compreshensible than "beal". But maybe that's just me.)

[Addendum: 'Twould appear that extrasonic and lactose incompetent are both taking tentative steps back into the world of living blogs. Let's hope recovery is also contagious.]

Just as bob reports that he's feeling better, and has started blogging again, Chris decides to put his blog on extended hiatus.

Could there be a malaise spreading in blogland?

Here are some quotes on why people give up their weblogs.

I'm not ready to throw in the towel, yet. No, not yet.

Mind you, I'm now up to 633 unread items in the aggregator. At some point, I'm just going to have to let the bits go.

But, right now, I think I need some sleep.

This is so true:

I'll be back in a few days. However, linkage accumulation on del.icio.us continues.

I'm having a severe bout of blog fatigue. And I'm a prime candidate for RSS Anonymous.

The link-starved amongst you can check out what I'm accumulating on del.icio.us.

I just found my first grey hair.

(thank you, toothpastefordinner)

I think my head weighs an extra pound, thanks to all the snot that seems to have accumulated in my skull and won't leave. In that light, I phoned the office this morning and informed them that I wouldn't be gracing them with my presence today.

Anyway, what better time, then, to bring you this linkage on workplace life:

• Angry workers get clicking after lunch -- " Tell off an employee before noon, and there's a good chance that he or she will be back at their desk after lunch searching for a new boss on-line" (via del.icio.us)
• Happiness pays -- "PaeTec Communications is fiercely dedicated to two things: worker contentment and inexorable growth. The company's relentlessly focused CEO takes personal responsibility for both." (via BostonWorks - The Job Blog)
• Downsizing raises risk of death in workers -- "Corporate downsizing doubles the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and has serious health effects on employees who survive redundancy, suggests new research." (via waydownhere)
• Drum Sessions Protect Employees from Burnout -- "In the drumming sessions, participants performed a series of exercises, including beating the drum to the rhythm of their own name, copying the rhythm of others' names, representing their feelings via drumbeats, playing along to music, and discussing ongoing stresses with the group, if they so chose. " Not quite as much fun as envisioning your nemesis' face on the drumhead. (via DiVERSiONZ)

Uh, yeah, been neglecting things here in The Hovel again. Posting will be light to nonexistent between now and Saturday.

If you're really impatient, you can take a peek at some of my linkage accumulation on del.icio.us. And there are my long neglected and clumsily implemented news portal things. And there's all that sidebar linkage.

See you on the weekend.

Over at Lactose Incompetent, Edward points out that karma works. Right now, it's something that I really need to believe.

Am looking forward to tonight's soiree chez Accordion Guy.

Regular bloggage to resume tomorrow.

Ugh. I've had a wicked headeache since yesterday, and I feel like crap.

Posting will likely resume on the weekend, as tomorrow I'll be busy as all hell catching up from the two days that I've been off work.

Feel free to spend your time browsing the sidebar linkage.

Oh, my poor, poor, neglected blog.

sigh

I had good intentions of catching up on my blogging this evening, but then I wound up talking on the phone for two hours. More extensive bloggage will have to wait until tomorrow.

Tomorrow also happens to be the first day of the Chinese New Year. Happy Year of the Monkey, y'all. (And, thanks to Richard for the link.)

Meanwhile, Graig has some nifty stuff on his blog, including Northern Lights photos from Mr. GAK's recent trip to Finland.

Curt has his usual fine selection of squishy people-skills/job-related type stuff.

And Hotlinks features plenty of fun/interesting stuff, likely to appeal to short-attention-span/visually-oriented/geeky tech types.

Of course, there's plenty more going on in the blogosphere -- just check out anything in the trusty sidebar.

'Til tomorrow, then....

Go tell that lonesome liar
Go tell that midnight rider
Tell the gamblin', ramblin' backslider
Tell them God Almighty gonna cut 'em down

You might run on for a long time
Run on, ducking and dodging
Run on, children, for a long time
Let me tell you God Almighty gonna cut you down

You might throw your rock, hide your head
Work in the dark with your fellow men
Sure as God made you rich and poor
You're gonna reap just what you sow

Posting will resume on the weekend.

Got other stuff on the go, not to mention over 200 links from the aggregator to sort through. Meanwhile, feel free to peruse the fine linkage from the sidebar.

Making changes to the newsfeed. Anyone seeing them?

[Addendum: Um, I think it's working. Do you like it? Dislike?]

[Addendum 2: Aaaaaaagggghh!! Why is it, when I add my own blog to my Bloglines subscription, it just shows the items dating back to Saturday? Goddam RSS. Aaaaaggggghhh!!!]

[Addendum 3: Awright, what the hell does this mean?

Exception parsing: {E301} The prefix "content" for element "content:encoded" is not bound.

Aaaaagggghhh!]

[Addendum 4: *breathe* Ok, everything seems to be copacetic now. I'm sure it was my screaming incoherently into blogspace that did it. Yeah.]

If you live in downtown Toronto, odds are good that you've gotten phone-spam (an unsolicited sales pitch left on your voicemail or answering machine) from Boris the Mover.

Today, when I got home, the little red light on the machine was blinking. I pressed play, and sure enough, it was Boris, for what must be the fourth or fifth time.

And then...

A second message, from some guy calling himself Reggie. Reggie also had cut-rate moving services to sell, with his pitch delivered in a execrable wannabe-British accent which sounded like a bad cross between Queen Elizabeth and Robin Leach.

Before signing off with a high-pitched "Cheerio!", 'Reggie' left his phone number. Quelle surprise -- it's the same number that Boris left. Nice try, dumbass.

Meanwhile...

I didn't realize that I qualify as a "Toronto blogging personality" (there must be some mistake, surely), but blogging.to is a new blog that collects and publishes posts from a number of us bloggers here in the GTA.

Chris still seems to monkeying with the code a bit, but go over and check it out for a quick overview of what's happening in this corner of the blogosphere.

And tonight, I really must do laundry, as even my emergency backup supply of clean underwear has hit bottom. Oh, joy.

Number of e-mails that accumulated between 10pm last night and 2.15pm today: 84
Number that were spam: 61

sigh

Didn't get out the apartment yesterday, even though I had other places to go.

At least now I am showered and dressed, although I have yet to depart the confines of The Hovel. Meanwhile, the sun wanes in the west.

I suck.

From reports read thus far, sounds like I missed a helluva bash. Am annoyed with myself, yet still vaguely indifferent.

Time to go outside.

I know that posting personality-quiz results is so lame, but I have to share this one with you:

I'm Lisa, who are you? by Lexi

While indulging in a bit of self Googling, I discovered that I rank among the top Blogshares players for the month of November:

46. Jennifer Vetterli 55790.35% growth (Rank: 5839, $279,451.73 current worth / $500.00 start of month)

This despite having done absolutely nothing except stake a claim on my own blog (and putting the requisite Blogshares code in my sidebar), and receiving 1000 shares of it (presumably purchased at market price) for my trouble.

If only I could accrue funds so easily in real life.

(BTW, le blog has been on a real pricing rollercoaster on the Blogshares market. However, the price seems to be going up again, so if any of you Blogshare-playing kiddies want to snap some up, now might be a good time. Or not.)

I'm just really not up to posting anything more ambitious, so here we go with a personality quiz result:

Super!! You are WILLEM DE KOONING.
You think just like you paint: in the abstract.
You live well outside of the box and never
know where life will take you next. Your
friends admire your ability to fearlessly veer
away from the boundaries of society.

Which famous artist most reflects your personality?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Thanks to Reflections in d minor for the link.)

The sole purpose of this post is to record that I am bloody well awake at this hour, and I really should be sleeping.

As you were.

Le blog just had its 25,000th recorded visitor this past hour. (I say "recorded", because my SiteMeter was AWOL in February after Blogger munged my template on the old site.) The visitor had been running a Google search for 'circadian software'.

Thanks, everyone, for stopping by.

Made a few changes to the sidebar. Still need to change a couple other things, but at least it now loads faster.

Yeehaw.

It is way too bloody early in the morning.

Link to fun stuff?
Link to not fun, but interesting stuff?
Link to business/technology stuff?
Link to -- and comment on -- posts elsewhere concerning phenomenon of linklogging?
Spend time more closely scrutinizing stuff already linked to?

YAAAAA-AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

Go to bed.

How nice. I am the #1 Google hit for the phrase "A million lies to sell yourself".

...

Addendum 10 October 2003: 'Twould appear that I'm also #1 for When routine bites hard.

...

Addendum 2: Also hit #1 for police car and a screaming siren pneumatic drill.

Ah, the benefits of using song lyrics as blogpost titles.

The Hovel is looking much better than it did 24 hours ago. Underworld's live set from the 1999 Fuji Rock Festival makes for good housecleaning music.

Drive boy dog boy Dirty numb angel boy In the doorway boy She was a-lipstick boy She was a-beautiful boy And tears boy And all in your inner space boy You had hands girls boy And steel boy You had chemicals boy I've grown so close to you boy And you just groan boy She said come over come over She smiled at you boy

Meanwhile, you simply must check out this time lapse video of the Toronto skyline. (Thank you, MetaFilter.)

My albatross continues to dog me.

(Is that mixing metaphors?)

Meanwhile, you can go bend your brain cells looking at the Vasarely.org Virtual Gallery:

(Link courtesy of Manifesto Multilinko.)

Incidentally, hello to my dad. I am fine. My headache is better, thanks.

Apologies to the rest of you for the lack of actual content. Things should pick up again tomorrow.

Accordion Guy has declared today to be the First Annual Post a Picture of a Cat to Your Blog Day! I am happy to oblige.

This is Bam Bam, who owns lives with my friends Tim and Belinda. You may remember the little guy from the unfortunate haircut incident several weeks back. This pic was taken when he was a wee kitten, and shows him cuddling up with a stuffed toy snake.

Awwwwwwwwww.

Meanwhile, I've had a wicked headache going on and off for the last few days. Fortunately, it does not appear that my head is going to explode.

(Thanks to my brother for sending along that handy guide.)

Cats are supposed to be relatively low-maintenance pets (compared to dogs) are they not? Apparently, some people feel it's important to take time out and shave their cat's nose. Poor kitty-kat.

(Via Darren Barefoot.)

Spent most of last night with the TV on (season premieres of CSI and ER), but wasn't really watching. Instead, I was adding a bunch of links to my Bloki -- all stuff that I've posted here already, but organized a little more coherently.

This afternoon, I have to put my frigging work portfolio (such as it is) online, if it bloody well kills me. And it just might.

...

Addendum: ARRRRRRRRGH!!

Had a busy weekend, then was just really lethargic yesterday and didn't feel like posting. Will see what I can do later today.

In the meantime, there are plenty of places to visit listed on the sidebar.

Action figure fans may want to check out Jesus Christ Superstore, which caters not only to Christians, but also Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhists. This is the place to go to get that articulated, buff, plastic replica (with accessories) of your favourite supreme being -- Dalai Lama (with AK-12 automatic machine pistol) anyone?

(Thanks to John for the link.)

I've been watching too much TV lately. And I surfed and blogged yesterday a bit more than I should have. At least I've also been getting some reading done.

The Hovel is in dire need of excavation. And I need to do laundry and take care of some other stuff I've been neglecting.

If I blog again today, will someone please slap me.

I'm going to blame sixdifferentways for these links, 'K?

• Moscow Cat Museum
• leopard kitten