It seems once a month I get the urge to write

At least write publicly. I like to write e-mails. I think I’d write letters if my penmanship was better (and I had someone to write to). I never really fashioned myself a writer. Sure, I wrote in High School, but who didn’t? Nothing I wrote was particularly memorable or meaningful, and so in my past it will stay. Today I am a reader, not really a writer. I don’t think you can be a writer without also being a reader, but being a reader requires no extra effort. Of course, writing after you read is a great way to sort out your thoughts and gleam some deeper meaning from the literary work. I don’t write enough in that respect. I don’t write for me, and maybe that is where I fall short. I write for others, like I do so many things for others. What do I do for me?

Which truly is an appropriate question (insert :, ;, or , accordingly) what do I do solely for me? Solely for my personal edification? I think I use big words, or if not big, at least words packed with meaning. I use proper spelling and, to the best of my ability, grammar. I try to keep up to date with current events so I don’t feel left out. I watch TV, not real on-right-this-second TV, but TV shows. Like CSI. I try to escape.

I’d like to be a writer. I’d like to give back, make my mark, open myself up to criticism and improve. Take a chance to suck royally. But I don’t, or at least I haven’t so far. Maybe I’ll sit down this weekend and write something. Saying this just gives me something else to avoid. I try my hardest to avoid the things I have to do. I’m just setting myself up for failure. Maybe writing isn’t something you can schedule, you just have to let it happen when the feeling comes to you. I haven’t felt that feeling in years.

And all of a sudden the urge to write here has left me. I should have told a story, stayed in the moment, but that all encompassing buzz is gone from my head, and anything I write now will be littered with poorly chosen words and….I lost my train of thought. I’ll meet you all back at the station, hopefully the next train pulls in soon. I don’t care where to, I just need to be on one.

Case of the “Mondays”

I always thought that was a dumb saying, but it describes how I feel today. I’m watching Dirt, that new show on FX. I’m surprised at how sexually charged it is. If it was HBO then we’d actually see something, but since its FX it just feels like watching a dirty show with your parents in the other room, and trying not to get caught. I don’t see it lasting very long. It’s interesting, it just doesn’t have that hook that the other new great shows have.

I thought this photo was cute. ETTF.net has a bunch of weird photos, ads, and videos that are sometimes interesting. Kittens are cute, but I’m getting a little tired of all the “I’m in your <blank> <blanking> your <blank>.” It was cute, but now its just irritating.

I can’t wait to see Heroes tonight. It’s building up to something great. I’m lucky I don’t have a lot of homework to do for tomorrow or it might cut into my viewing time. I’ll also end up watching The Class and How I Met Your Mother, but Heroes is the main dish.

I’ll probably edit this later and add more crap. Later.

Entourage

I guess I watch a lot of TV. I never thought I did, and for a while there I thought I had completely kicked the habit. The only show that I had really seen in its entirety was Sailor Moon, and that was because it used to be on at 6:30 AM on UPN before school. Maybe I had seen all of Rugrats, but I can’t really be sure.

In high school I started watching The O.C. mostly because it gave me a reason to talk to the cute girls in school. And the first season was really good. I still watch it to this day (it took me a bit to get into season 4, but i’m back) and I think it is the reason I watch so much TV now. It was the first show I watched every week. I made sure never to miss an episode. Of course, that was the only show I made time for other than fansubbed anime like Naruto.

I got into fansubbed stuff for a while, and into anime in general. I watched quite a few series during my darker days in high school. I still really cherish them, but I haven’t watched any in a long time. I liked Serial Experiments Lain, FLCL, Evangelion, Full Metal Panic!, and a few others. Those are the ones that really stick out in my mind. I guess I was pretty heavily influenced by a guy named Scott. He wrote a blog back in the day, and I got pretty friendly with him. He’s one of the reasons I got into linux and the whole open source movement. Of course, he went nuts one day, and stopped writing. I hear he started up again, but I don’t follow him anymore.

It was probably at the start of this school year that I started to watch full seasons of shows. My roommate and I were really excited about Heroes. I really liked it, so I started watching all the other new shows like 30 Rock, Studio 60, and The Class. Of course, then I started catching up on great shows that had been running for a while like Lost, House, The Office, Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, and Battlestar Galactica.

I’ve been trying to make time for more shows like Smallville, Gilmore Girls, Stargate Atlantis, Numb3rs, Psych, Rome, and Grey’s Anatomy. Of course, instead I started watching Entourage. It’s a neat show. It’s not too serious, so its nice to just sit down and watch. I’m in the middle of season 2, and I’ll probably avoid my work and finish it before the day is out. I admire HBO shows, and I can’t wait to see A Song of Ice and Fire.

The “About” Page

For once, I put a decent amount of effort into a page about me. I tried my best to cover all the common questions and attributes, and fill in most of the cursory “what do you likes?” I left out a physical description. If anything I would suggest looking at a photo of me. Make up your own mind, my words probably wouldn’t help.

I wanted to include a list of all the movies I have (over 850 titles) and so I looked for a nice online database where people could see a comprehensive list. I don’t claim to have seen all of these, and it would probably be more useful to have a list of my favorites, but I would hate to leave a good movie off the list simply because when I compiled it I wasn’t in the mood for that movie. I found that iMDB had built in functionality for this, but its not very pretty, so I would caution you against it. I think I’ll make a separate page (like the About page) for movies. Eventually.

I also decided to use last.fm for my music page. I could have just listed the myriad of artists I listen to on a regular basis, but I have a very wide range of tastes and didn’t know how to best represent that. I’ve had an account for a very long time, and I fear its a little weighted towards my tastes from two years ago. However, I’m sure that over time it will even out and give a nice summary of my tastes. I still like those bands, I just don’t have much of that music anymore, most of them have stopped making good music, and they never find their way onto my playlists. C’est la vie.

I want to do a page for TV as well. I use a nice tracking webpage, MyEpisodes.com, to let me know when new episodes of all my favorite shows are airing. It doesn’t have a nice page to list show the public, but compiling one should be easy. I could also check and see if TVRage has anything like that. If not, I’ll surely compile a list of my own.

A list of books couldn’t hurt either. Or a list of blogs I subscribe to (thanks to Google Reader). There is certainly a lot more information I could compile about myself, but who knows if it would even be remotely useful to anyone. I suppose we’ll see.

In a few hours (after some sleep) I’ll probably write an update about revision control software, Flyboys, and whatever else tickles my fancy. I’d quote something from Hamlet, but I’m too lazy. Maybe another time.

The IT Crowd

A friend turned me on to this show a few months ago. I wasn’t sure what to make of it at first. It’s a British comedy, and not being British I tend to miss some of the jokes. However, the level of geekiness of the show makes up for it.

It feels a little like The Office at first, but quickly transforms into a quirky geek-fest. The references are top notch, and if you get the DVD, it even offers leet subtitles. I’m not sure what else to say, except to point you toward one of the funniest scenes in the show.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

The IT Crowd Official Site

Old TV Shows

I have finally reached the age where things are “Old.” I don’t mean old as in it’s forever gone and I’ll never see it again, I mean old as in younger kids have no idea what I’m talking about when I reference old Nickelodeon TV shows.

It’s surprising that kids don’t know about Are You Afrain of the Dark, Pete and Pete, Clarissa Explains it All, etc. anymore. I want those shows back, and I recently got my hands on one of them: The Secret World of Alex Mack. I always thought that show was awesome. I wanted those powers, or at least to have Larisa Oleynik as my girlfriend (ah, those elementary school crushes).

I know I’m not the only one who wants those old Nick shows back. Every so often you’ll be in a room full of kids your age and they’ll start talking about their favorite shows from back in the day. They talk with such excitement and fervor its a wonder that these shows haven’t resurfaced. The programming today is crap, sometimes I wonder why they don’t just air those old shows and treat them like new programming.

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to stick with the memories of days gone by for now.