As miserable and unhappy as I am, which is about as low as I think I’ve ever felt, I also know I’m doing the right thing. This is probably the best set of choices I’ve ever made. This is the most painful experience I have ever been through, but from pain comes great art, as they say. This is the right direction now. Moving back into a more creative, a more open me, more honest with myself and with other people. I’m no longer living a lie, living under a thick cloak of denial. Yes, peeling that cloak back causes grean anguish, like a vampire in the sunrise, but that sunrise will burn away the dead layers, and in the end I will be reborn as I should be. The real me. I think I can see that version of me in the distance.

You can help me get there too, by visiting this page and spreading the word (and the link). Maybe look at the ads, see if they interest you, or buy that book or CD from Amazon through my link. Or maybe you need some great web hosting? 🙂

[04:26] * jX is currently spinning: Nelly Furtado - Saturdays
[04:26] <jX> See, this is why I know I'm right in going back to arts. this song turns me into a fyrating retard.
[04:26] <jX> You can't fake that.
[04:26] <jX> yes, that's right, FYRATING.
[04:27] <jX> It's like Ray Charles, but standing, and without any kind of piano anywhere near by.
[04:27] * MightyMu can't handle the fyrating!
[04:28] * jX spins around like the bee girl in the "No Rain" video.

In my never ending quest for misery and self-torture, I went over to eHarmony.com after seeing one of their ads on TV for the fifteen-billionth time. I went through their 29 dimentions of compatibility matching profiler, and it came back with “Unable to Match You at This Time”. Yep, their extensive psychological profiling was unable to figure out what kind of girl I might like.

“Unfortunately, we are not able to make our profiles work for you. Our matching model could not accurately predict with whom you would be best matched.”

I could have given them some clues if they allowed a little more input besides religion, smoking, and drinking (like, say, HEIGHT! I like TALL women, damnit!). But no, they instead tell me I’m an enigma that science is unable to understand. Thanks! Anyone want to point me to the nearest bridge?

Click the thumbnail for a screenshot…

Well, the time has come. I need a massive change, and am taking those big scary steps to do it. One step is to mount a call for help. Thus is born Reboot My Life. In the grand tradition of Save Karyn (her original site), and other people appealing to the world for a little help, I’m here before the world laying out my position. All the details are here. Please give it a read, and if all you can do is share the URL, that’s great. The wider the audience the better. Thanks.

Update: Yes, already, less than an hour after this went live, Tom registered RebootMyLife.org and has it pointing to this page. So feel free to point folks to RebootMyLife.org!

I desperately need to get back to art. Technology is fun, and is a fantastic tool, but I’m just not happy with only that anymore. The IT industry isn’t a pioneering one anymore, it’s mature, and is more business and less exploring new frontiers. That’s ok, it had to happen eventually. But my real passion has always been more artistic than anything else. I want to die not looking back at decades of regret, and it has to start here. And there’s another thing I have to do, as terrifying as it is, or I’ll be miserable forever. I just hope I still have a chance…

At a time when terrorists are blowing up bombs all over the planet, and the US is being invaded by millions of illegal immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is on the job protecting us from… pirated copies of Star Wars workprints. Yes, when our borders are more porous than cheesecloth, when terrorists are trying to hijack planes and kill thousands of Americans at a time, DHS and ICE are there keeping a few kids from seeing bad copies of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. What’s that? You think I must be joking? I’m afraid not. This is the original DHS press release in PDF format. This apparently an ongoing policy at ICE. Rather than protecting our borders and enforcing immigration law, they’re busy being the movie police. Osama Bin Laden was the best thing to ever happen to George Bush. Bin Laden has given Bush a blank check from the idiotic American public to destroy the country. If a magic genie popped up and gave me the choice between preventing 9/11 or preventing Bush’s election in 2001, right now I’d go back and undo Bush’s election. He’s FAR more dangerous to the US than any terrorist.

Update: It seems there’s ambiguity in my post there. Let me amend it. “But you think Bush actually cares about Star Wars workprints?” No, I think Bush cares about protecting big busness more than the people. He wants to replace the Constitution with an End User License Agreement. You will purchase your rights from USGov Corp for a limited period of time, subject to approval by DHS and your local Identification Verification Center. If you are found in violation of your license, you’ll be sent to a Repatriation Center for whatever training is deemed necessary by the Board of Patriotism Regulation.

We’re not the lead dog yet, but we’re definetly part of the pack…

Via Pictures I Like For A Variety Of Reasons

Thanks to Sander, Tristor, and Jesse. I have been smacked upside the head with a baton. A musical baton that is, not the kind the cheerleaders or majorettes have. It’s an interesting moment for self-analysis though…

Total volume of music files on my computer:

1,905 Files, 8,341,171,980 bytes (7.77GB).
The vast majority of which is legal, ripped from my own CD collection. This still only represents about half of my CD collection. Roughly a hundred files are singles, half of which I ripped from CD collections, leaving about 50 or so of questionable origin. I do not recall how they got into my collection, I swear.

Last CD I bought:

Hmm, I’ll go one better. Well, three better.

• Latest artist repeat-buy: U2’s How to dismantle an Atomic Bomb.
• Latest artist-first-buy: Dido’s Life for Rent (then No Angel shortly afterwards)
• The actual Latest CD purchased: Sequentia/Choral Ensemble of the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis Chill to the Chant, although this is a replacement for the original I bought in 1995 that has been lost in the mists of time and moving, repurchased April 30 for $1.96.

Playing right now:

Tony Bennett Unplugged

Five songs that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

• Depeche Mode’s One Caress – I’ve sung this for exactly one person, although I’ve sung it in front of many more. It’s just four minutes of purple velvet from my soul.
• Frank Sinatra, It Was A Very Good Year – So bittersweet and honest, it tells a story with no regrets.
• Samuel Barber, Adagio for Strings (Opus 11) – It just rips my heart out every time.
• The theme from the original The Legend of Zelda – Why? if you need ask why, then you also need to listen to an orchestral version. To me, it’s a soaring theme with a simple but bold melody. It brings to mind being eight years old playing in a lush, verdant field and rolling hills, and infinite adventures beyond the horizon.
• Phantom of the Opera, Music of the Night – Again, for exactly one person. It’s a sweet pain that reminds you what it is to live life to it’s fullest.

Five albums that mean a lot to me (also in no particular order):

I’ve added this section because coming up with those five songs reminded me how I feel about albums. I agree with the artists that still cling to the artistry that is an entire album. With these five choices, the album is a masterwork of flowing moods. For me, choosing one song from these would be like picking a single color from a Van Gogh, or a single word from Shakespeare.

• U2’s Achtung Baby – The entire album just fits me like a second skin.
• Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes – Incredibly revealing, you just can’t turn away. You’re forced to share yourself in return.
• REM’s Automatic for the People – A long look back at the life you’ve lived so far, coming to terms with it, accepting it, holding on to it, and finally accepting who you are. And that’s ok.
• Depeche Mode’s Violator – Peeling back the veneer of civility to reveal the base desires in us all. A cool yet smouldering passion.
• The Cranberries’ Everyone Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? – A time of many firsts and many loves. The memories attached to this are so strong I literally couldn’t listen to it for about seven years. And yet I could never forget it, or let it go.

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton (still in no particular order):

• ct^ – He’s just freakin’ cool.
• MightyMu – The second best non-native-Pennsylvanian you’ll never meet.
• Wil Wheaton – I hope I can get Uncle Willie to reply in his “Big Willie” style…
• Nosebleed – Don’t drip on the carpet, it’s new!
• Asa Dotzler – Just to see if I can get him to reply. About as likely as Wil…

Now it’s your turn. (Some linkage below if you’re interested…)
» Continue reading “Follow the bouncing baton…”

Every week PostSecret has a new batch of confessions sent in from all sorts of people from all over the place. I read it every week (I may have even sent one in, but if I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret any more). I find it far more interesting and far more cathartic than group hug because it takes more time, energy, creativity, and effort to submit to PostSecret. You have to get a post card, express yourself on it (anything from simple text to elaborate artwork), address it, and mail it. with group hug you just fill in a form and hit Submit. PostSecret is far more personal because even the simplest entries reveal something about the creator. And with PostSecret, the secrets tend to be actual secrets, as opposed to stories; plain facts about the sender.

I see a trend in the vast majority of them, and that reveals so much mroe about all of us, not just the senders. Most are either past abuse, lies we tell, or a love we wish we had. We’re ashamed by past abuses even though we’re the victims. We’re afraid to tell the truth about ourselves, even when we know it’s the right thing to do. And we wish we either were loved, or still had that one special person in our lives but are too afraid to find them or tell them.

I guess none of us is as brave as we wish we were…

<jX> Have you ever been out ghost hunting and suddenly needed a USB flash drive, or been transferring files to your USB flash drive and suddenly needed to check for ghosts?
<jX> PROBLEM SOLVED! (magic token)
<jX> Intricate diagrams in crazy moon man language here: (I can't read this)
<MightyMu> jX: make sure jwz knows about that...