Head Trauma

I’ve had the worst headache since early this morning. I’ve heard enough horror stories from people who have real migraines to know that I don’t have that, but that’s fine with me because what I do have is plenty. It [...]

I’ve had the worst headache since early this morning. I’ve heard enough horror stories from people who have real migraines to know that I don’t have that, but that’s fine with me because what I do have is plenty.

It was bad enough to keep waking me up and then immediately make me want to go back to sleep. Which I did, several times. I’ve been sick to my stomach all day, it’s been near-impossible to concentrate on anything, and off-and-on it’s been hard to visually focus on anything. All taking a pill does is degrade it to a dull throbbing pain for an hour or two. Complaining about it helps, though.

Speaking of complaining: I’ve got to spend another whole week in LA. I’m still not a fan, but my trips down there have been relatively productive recently, so I guess it’s a necessary evil. But my easy travel karma has expired, apparently, because for this trip I’ve got to fly through LAX instead of Burbank. I’ve only been in that airport once, when I missed my flight back to SFO from London and had to re-route there instead. The airport itself isn’t so bad, it’s just not as small and convenient as Burbank’s is. And of course, the drive from LAX to Glendale is a stone drag.

Because I haven’t made use of my Annual Pass and it’s going to expire before too long, I arranged to spend an extra day down there and go to Disneyland. It’s definitely not as much fun when you go by yourself, and there’s not much new going on, although I see the Monsters, Inc. ride is now up and running. And when I’m paying for my own hotel & rental car, instead of working it into an existing business trip, the accomodations go down a couple of stars. Still, it’s Disneyland, and it’s something different to do, and I do want to see the Pirates of the Caribbean one last time before they change it to fit the movie.

Lousy Runs Both Ways

Every time I’ve tried to see Alison Krauss and Union Station in concert, the tickets have been sold out long before I even heard they were going to be in town. One time I even considered driving down to some [...]

They mock me with their bluegrassEvery time I’ve tried to see Alison Krauss and Union Station in concert, the tickets have been sold out long before I even heard they were going to be in town. One time I even considered driving down to some God-forsaken town in central CA to see them because the Bay Area shows were sold out.

So (duh) I signed up for their online mailing list. I got my first mailing in my inbox today, and they’re coming to the Nob Hill Masonic Center on March 11th! I immediately tried to get tickets online, and all that’s available are two seats way in the back of the far side of the balcony, which, including tickets.com’s bend-over fee, would come to $120! Single seats are easier to get; if I went stag I could sit way back at floor level for just under 70 bucks.

I’m convinced there’s something unsavory going on here. There’s got to be some consortium somewhere buying up tickets in bulk to scalp them. Or some secret concert-announcement service that I’m not aware of. Or the band has a huge fan following and they just won a bunch of Grammy awards and they’re playing in a big city and I missed out because I didn’t get up until 10 and didn’t log in until 11 this morning.

Anyway, the mailing list also linked to this mash-up of “I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow” with “Hollaback Girl.” I can’t say I like it, but I’m baffled and intrigued by it. Something Awful got it right when they said that in a better world, “Hollaback Girl” would’ve been the stupidest song of last year if not for the tragedy that was “My Humps”. And the beat doesn’t quite match up, either. But still, I can’t stop listening to it.

Checklist

One of the consequences of having a spastic attention span is that I’ve got a huge mental to-do list that grows faster than is possible for a mortal human — even one with my considerable gifts as granted me by [...]

One of the consequences of having a spastic attention span is that I’ve got a huge mental to-do list that grows faster than is possible for a mortal human — even one with my considerable gifts as granted me by your yellow Earth sun — to check them off.

And because it’s all in me head, it’s completely unsorted and un-prioritized, so stuff like “do laundry” is right there mixed in with “write a Flash prototype for that card game you want to do” and “make quarterly tax payment” is right below “watch the season premiere of ’24′” and “learn Japanese” and “get medical insurance” are somehow getting exactly the same level of procrastination. Which really doesn’t make sense, and is making me into more of a flake than I ever intended: “Sorry, I would’ve shown up for surgery to give you my kidney, but I’ve been meaning to finish reading this issue of Batman for months now.”

I keep seeing links to online and offline organizers and to-do lists, but have yet to find one that even closely approximates how my brain works. Err, “works.” I need to be able to add entries quickly, the second I think of them, attach notes or whatever other information I need to get it done, reorganize it and assign/change priorities so easily that “organize the To-Do list” doesn’t become another item, and give a real sense of accomplishment once I’ve checked one off. And maybe give me a cookie.

I could write my own, but I hope I don’t have to point out the problem there.

Still, even though technology hasn’t yet caught up with my brainspasm method of neural functioning, I have managed to make some minor headway. I’m assuming nobody reading this cares all that much about Java reflection and persistent object databases, so I’ll leave that stuff out. Even though it’s kind of cool, and isn’t so over-engineered as to be useless.

Finished Shadow of the Colossus
And I’m going to have to recant my earlier reviews of it — interesting concept and presentation and great visuals, but it’s not a good videogame. It feels too gamey, and it’s not a good game; it’s a frustrating game that you only keep playing because the concept is interesting. Sure, the conclusion is satisfying as an interactive movie, but I decided halfway through the last level that there was nothing they could show or do that’d be worth the frustration of beating the final boss.

Watched The Aristocrats
I’d expected it to be more interesting than funny, but it turned out more funny than interesting. The whole “joke as jazz performance” idea isn’t strong enough to carry a feature-length movie, and I’m not really buying it since very few people actually tell the joke. But pretty much all the people they interview came out of it seeming pretty cool and funny, even the ones I don’t usually like. The only ones who still seem irredemably creepy and annoying are Taylor Negron and Andy Dick. And that sleazy guy in the jacuzzi. And the bad ventriloquist.

Updated the website
Not really, but I did finally clue in and add a link to Fingerbutter.com. And that’s interesting either as a comment on the anonymity of the internet or on how dense I am. A while ago I saw via technorati that some new site was linking to mine, and so I checked it out to make sure they didn’t have any of my tasteful but misguided erotic photos on there. It wasn’t until last night that I actually made the connection that it was my friend Joe’s website. Even though his name is on the posts, he links to our mutual work friends, and he mentions stuff I should’ve recognized, I’d just been thinking, “hey, that’s nice and a little odd that some stranger is linking to my website.” I went back through and re-read it all hearing Joe tell it, and it makes sense now. So the lesson is either that Joe needs to add an “about” page, or I need to rethink my life dream of becoming a private investigator, or some combination of the two.

So that’s four down (I also finally saw Conan the Barbarian over the weekend), about a billion to go. Now I’ve got to go buy replacement ink cartridges for my printer, which had been hovering on the list between “write a novel” and “reconnect with friends I’ve been neglecting for way too long,” but just shot up in importance because of “do taxes.”

News from the Bunker

Okay, my sleep disorder thing has gone from being quirky irresponsibility to being really, really, really annoying. What set off the latest round was my decision at around 10pm the other night to rewrite what I’d been doing for work. [...]

Making my own kind of musicOkay, my sleep disorder thing has gone from being quirky irresponsibility to being really, really, really annoying. What set off the latest round was my decision at around 10pm the other night to rewrite what I’d been doing for work. And all the problems from that kept me up to the wee hours. It only takes a little bit to upset the balance, which means I’ve been up past 6am the past couple days, sleeping into the late afternoon, and feeling generally creepy and disconnected.

I wasted a big chunk of time this afternoon writing a post on SFist about that congressional hearing on internet business in China. I first read the transcript of the hearing around 8 this morning, and it got me filled with righteous indignation that lasted until I fell asleep. By the time I woke up, I felt obliged to write something about it even though I don’t care that much about it anymore.

Now I’ve finally got my work back to a functional state, I can finish adding the stuff I need to add, hopefully without introducing a whole nother mess of problems. What sucks is that I’ve only got myself to blame; I’m not over-worked by any stretch of the imagination, and I have a perfectly reasonable set of things to have accomplished. It’s because of my poor time-management and tendency to over-engineer everything that’s got me to this state.

Now it’s up to Tylenol PM to get me out of this state. And as I slip off into pharmaceutically induced slumber, I can dream of a world in which I go into work, have a list of things to do, and finish them without my ADD kicking in or my usual tendency to over-complicate everything. And I fly the Millennium Falcon.

180 on the 360

Another inconsequential post on SFist, this time about the rumored video iPod with a bigger screen that, like me, is touch sensitive. And still I can’t work up much of a reaction other than “meh.” Either I’m getting more mature [...]

Blurry KlingonAnother inconsequential post on SFist, this time about the rumored video iPod with a bigger screen that, like me, is touch sensitive.

And still I can’t work up much of a reaction other than “meh.” Either I’m getting more mature (plastic guitars notwithstanding) or I’ve just reached consumer electronics saturation what with all the handheld videogame players and MP3 players and phones and such. They don’t seem all that impressive anymore. Now, when they come out with one that plays video and more MP3s than will fit on a memory stick and gives directions and keeps notes and works as a phone, then get back to me. That’s what I’m missing from the Treo — it was kind of a lousy phone, but I liked always having access to maps and a notepad.

In other news, the Microsoft guy is saying that the Xbox 360 shortage is coming to an end within the next “four to six weeks,” and they’ll be readily available. Much to the dismay of ebay price-gougers. And me, since the news (along with the speculation that the PS3 won’t be out until September) re-sparked my interest in the damn thing. I still don’t play console games that often anymore (plastic guitars notwithstanding) and nothing’s really changed to make me want one. I can only guess it’s a subconscious reaction to a story I read a couple of days ago about this group of rabid recyclers who were pledging to buy nothing new in 2006 except for food and medical necessities. The thought of going a whole year without buying things I don’t need fills me with horror and dread.

Which reminds me: what I do need is a new camera. I’ve been to four conventions and other indoor-type events now, and half the pictures I get are worthless because they’re too dark and/or blurry. Either this camera sucks, or I’m developing Parkinsons Disease. Even the ones I take in daylight come out either too grainy or the colors are a lot more muted than I’d like to see. I realize that there are ISO and shutter-speed settings I could use to account for it, but my last camera (same Sony Cybershot line, just lower resolution) worked perfectly as a point-and-click. It was hard to take a bad picture with that one, and it was smaller and a lot more convenient.

If anybody has digital camera recommendations, I’d like to hear them.