Bringing it on home (from work)

So the stuff I mentioned about productivity the other week is really, really working for me... at work. At home, it's crap. I think it's been easier to impose structure at work than at home. No surprise there: everyone at work also trying to create an order to things, and home is for non-productive time as well as productive time so requires more effort to keep them separate.

Pardon me while I brainstorm. Feel free to skip to the bottom of the list if you want. Possible solutions:

1. Home just requires more effort.

   I'm willing to try this one; I certainly am willing to expand more effort than I have to date, and not doing so put me in a bit of a bind when the clutch went out on my car this past week.

2. I need a place at home for non-work productive time separate from where I relax at home.

   There is a desk in Chris' recording studio area that I'm sure no one would mind me using for a bit every evening. Either way more effort is required, but I'm liking this the more I think about it.

3. I need to have a place outside of home for non-work productive time so the distraction of computer/TV/books isn't there.

   I'm thinking local coffee shop or something. This is actually less feasible than it was before, though; now that I've moved I'm no longer in walking distance to a nice quiet place where I can sit down, and this Winter's made clear I need a place to go to even when I can't drive there.

4. The system at work won't work at home

   Cross this one out, too. I'm not maintaining two systems, and what's going good at work is going really, really good.

Part of the problem with all this is I feel comfortable in clutter. I'm ill-served by clutter. It's the last thing I need, and it's gotten to the point where I don't even notice modest-sized messes any more — not consciously, anyway. And since clutter feels like home to me, naturally I'm very cluttered at home. It's tough to give that up, but I have to.

Impromptu unspoken lyrics for thurs. night jam session

Yay! Angsty free-association poetry! Imagine guitars just this side of metal; Pretend that I can carry a tune.

---

three eggs laid themselves
bear the seeds of someone else
damned are you damned am I
damned the earth your wand'ring eye

everythings the same all day and all night
all night
all night and all day
all night and all day

pardon me as I lay over
pardon me as I roll down
pardon me as I lay over
and someone else moves in to town

everythings the same all day and all night
all night
all night and all day
all night and all day

excuse me as I lay over
excuse me as I roll down
excuse me as I lay over
and someone else moves in to town

---

everything depends on
everything depends on
it all f'kn depends on

everything dissolves to shadow
every ship sails off to null
everything dissolves to shadow
from every port they sail to null

we depend on
oh we depend on
f'k me I depend on

everyone goes back to weakness
every ship runs from the wind
everyone goes back to weakness
all the ships run from the wind

three things depend on
three things depend on
the world depends on

these three things

everyone longs for power
every ship seeks good strong tides
everyone longs for power
leave port hoping for good strong tides

Productivity vs. Blogging

There's a good reason for the past week's lull.

So Frank sent me a link about productivity, and after reading that site and 43folders.com, I've adapted the method to myself and it's working. (I haven't actually opened the book this is all based on, but that doesn't seem terribly necessary now.)

But I can't honestly consider blogging as important as, say, getting all my health insurance paperwork taken care of or picking up water and veggies at the grocery store. So blogging has fallen by the wayside. As a consolation, you can have a look at the del.icio.us linkpage I've been keeping. These are all the things I've been meaning to blog about (though a few are only things I wanted to email to people).

Also, how wrong is it that Blogger's spell checker's dictionary doesn't include the words blogger or blog? You better believe that in every dictionary that comes out of Redmond, Microsoft not only includes Visio, but makes sure you capitalize it everytime, too.

SJM for SJF, self-centered bastard, likes good endings

yep, that's me.

I'd just like to say that, as much in my own little world as I am, I didn't realize that people I know beat me too the punch by no small margin and I didn't notice.

I wish I was listening just as they changed formats. The Post reported it as Jeff Buckley's Last Goodbye, and there's nothing I like more than a good, sad ending.

When MTV cut loose their video mix crew on the show AMP, which is much of what made AMP cool (the show was canceled next season), they let them go out with Rez from Underworld. Well, not all 10.5 minutes, but, I mean, look at the thing. (Yes, this is just the sort of thing I like. I don't like the video's ending, though — they should have left it purely instrumental.) They also had the first commercial contest I remember winning. I won the Amp CD, which is pretty cool. We have explosive indeed.

Cómo se dice "alt-rock news coverage" en español

tangential to the WHFS going latino post.

While looking at the Google news searches for the format change, I noticed the local ABC affiliate, while posting the shortest article, was the only one to mention that people were injured at the last big WHFS concert (not to mention seeming to rip off the NBC affiliate's headline). Why? I'm guessing the article posted was from a transcript of the news broadcast. Pictures of EMTs treating people with eyebrow piercings was the best footage they had, and if they don't have good footage for the talking head to talk over, it doesn't get on the local TV news. This is why I don't like local TV news.

Contrast the Washington Post article, which got a short quote from Damian Einstein. He may not be the most photogenic, but if Infinity and its employees aren't talking, than Damian is the best person worth getting a quote from. Someone at the Post either knew enough of the history of the area's radio stations or actually did some research.

I am an American aquarium drinker.

Anyone want to see Wilco? Speak now or forever hold your $30.

I thought my radio was broken

Either that, or it was some kind of joke promotion — Ace's Mexican Ranchero Accordian Countdown writ large or something.

So I'm driving on the beltway around our nation's capital this afternoon (this afternoon apparently being an operative word here), and I turn on the radio, and I immediately assume my radio is wrong. There's salsa where my emo is supposed to be.

Admittedly, WHFS was in decline after Infinity bought it. Their willingness to play good music that other people wouldn't was part of what made their appeal, and large media corporations are infamously risk-adverse. Just a few months back, more or less, Frank made a comment about how it was sad that the station he fondly remembered from high school now clearly sucks much more than its long-time competitor.

Here's the Washington Post's article about the format change.