[Wednesday 3 October 2001]Link

I revised the Desert Island Discs section into a year-by-year format, tracking the best platter for every year since yours truly has been on this planet. Makes me realise how dry the 80s were for good music. It's either New Order, The Cure, Everything but the Girl, or some similar incarnation. In some cases, I couldn't even come up with anything. Makes me almost wish I'd been born either 10 years earlier or later... In my present state of mind, I'd most likely opt for earlier.

Still working on the Diners page and the Not Gay page. Both are being a bit of a chore because I want them be right on when I post them. The Diners page is turning into a pretty substantial project, and considering how much time I'm putting into it, I want it to be impressive (by my standards...). As far as the Not Gay page is concerned, I'm redoing an old essay, with a lot of contemporary observations. I want to make it the introduction, and have the rest of the page flow from the ideas within it, rather than the page just being a journal of random thoughts (sort of like this page currently is...).

No links today... I haven't been surfing much. Still deciding on the iBook specs... A few more weeks... Also deciding on a new ISP. Every choice is just about equally as unattractive as the next...

Not much progress in getting the last of the stuff up yet. Next week, maybe.

The iBook will be waiting until next paycheck.

I've added a link to my Amazon.com Wish List. Buy me some shit. Now.

I spent every evening this week repainting my apartment, and now that the weekend is here, all I want to do is sleep. Sounds fine by me.

After a pretty satisfying weekend, I've managed to finally get everything up at the domain. Welcome to TheHyaena.net. And a message to the bastard who took advantage of my economic downturn earlier this year: I hope a viscious virus invades your Hyaena.org domain and that your computer kills you.

Anyway, the Not Gay Page is finally up, with my first original essay on sexual deviance and the self-destructiveness of sexual minorities.

Some general tweaking to the site. I'm working on the Diners page still. I will most likely unveil it as a subdomain when it is ready (probably as Diners.TheHyaena.Net), since I plan on making it one of the major features. We'll see just how long my current ambition lasts.

As for current events... I'm actually disappointed that it took so long for the bombs to fall, and that they weren't nuclear bombs. There is a reason humans are capable of hatred, and when one has the power to exact revenge, one shouldn't limit one's scope therein.

That's all for now.

I have been mildly obsessed with music for my early childhood lately. This weekend I went out and bought almost a dozen discs of such. America, Steely Dan, Doobie Brothers, Elton John, Simon & Garfunkel, the Eagles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, etc.

Despite the eclectic nature of such a list, they totally take me back. I think the 70s were some of the best times for pop music. These days you rarely see anything in the top 40 which is as benevolent and mild as that which hit in the 70s. It's like you can't be a star if you're not a freak. Either you're a total megalomaniacal extrovert like Fred Wurst or a pampered sex object like Spear Britney. Maybe that's just life before MTV; before you had to have both a successful image as well as a good sound. In fact, I think it's become even more of a meat market, so that now if your sound sucks your image can make up for it.

[rant]Just look at Limp Bizdick: They can't rap and they can't rock, but every teenage or 20-something sociophile covets them as if they were the second coming... And even I admit that Fred Wurst ain't too unpleasant to fawn over. I just doubt I'd have more than a few words to say to the guy, and I'm sure those would be restricted to either "drop your pants" or "fuck off". I certainly don't form my opinion about him based on his music. What music? All I hear is an endless stream of Ebonic cliches in every single one of their songs. I could probably find a complete Limp Bizdick song from any random Sports Illustrated ad.[/rant]

On a more positive note, I had an increadible dream last night - the likes of which I haven't had in over a year. And a very benevolent one at that. Very vivid colorful, and I remember it better than almost any other dream I've had in months. I don't really want to jinx it by going into too much detail, but I at least want to keep it in mind... Let's just say that it involved a certain person that I've developed an increasing interest in over the past year or so, and in a good way. Hopefully more to come.

Back to work on the Diners Site. The site is up and the links page is working, but the first actual diner pages won't be up until the end of the week probably. Things I'm interested in right now....

I've always been a fan of list-making. Ever since I was really young, I've had an OCD-level need to organise all of my possessions, passions, needs and wants into lists. Usually they were hierarchical, whether in terms of best-worst, new-old, cheap-expensive, what have you.

So today I thought I'd post the lists that are most prominent in my mind right now...

Vices which are killing me - Ordered by percieved lethalness:

1. Not getting any exercise
2. Smoking
3. Not eating fruits or vegitables
4. Eating too much animal fat
5. Drinking too much caffine
6. Eating too much fast/prepared food
7. Ingesting too much salt/sodium
8. Not getting enough sleep

My purpose for these particular lists is to evaluate how important my heart is. I've been repeatedly told by my doctor that my unhealthy lifestyle, combined with genetic hand-me-downs from both sides of my family have resulted in severe (for my age) hypertention. I know I'm killing myself, but the fact that I'm not hideously overweight or feeling close to death when I wake up means I just can't force myself to change anything.

Anyway, I saw Doc this morning, and my BP was at 140/90 or something ridiculous like that for a 24-year-old who isn't overweight. He's still threatening to put me on hormone-manipulating medication to treat the problem, but I keep convincing him that I'll change my habits... And he tells me "we'll see in 3 more months". I don't know how much longer 'til he asks me to sign a waiver promising not to sue him for failing to treat my HPB.

Well, eat drink & be merry, I suppose...

So I went to one of the most interesting 'haunts' of the Halloween attractions scene last night with Amy: Hobb's Grove. We bought the 'Combo' package and enjoyed a very scary Hayride, somewhat scary Haunted House, and somewhat cheesy Haunted Forest. We also met the real deal, Caileb - who runs the 'Museum' - which is pretty much the contents of his living room - everything from a case full of dead animals to a collection of human bones and autopsy equipment and literature, along with old victorian coffins and x-rays of his own skull with a nail jammed in it. He's a trip, and defiantely unpretentious...

I was reminded after reading an entry in David's journal that I never gave plugs to the The Big Fresno Fair, which I visited last Friday. I played the ponies, I ate all the junk food, I bought little trinkets from a silly Irish guy, I watched the 12-year-old girls push their baby strollers. 'Nuff said.

I went to get my iBook yesterday and it ended up out of stock. Ten more friggin' days to wait. That definately sets back the Diners site, as I'm not going to trouble trying to scan on my lunch break nor paying gads of money to use the Mac stations at Kinko's. O well, that means I actually will have the luxury of an additional paycheck when the thing arrives. All the better on the finance charges. So don't go holding your breath for any substantial updates to the side outside of this page until next month. But then, I doubt there's all that many visitors yet...

Went to Open Mic Night at Club Fred last night just to see if it was a viable option for me. It turned out adequately diverse to warrant my delving for material for next week's session. Hopefully I'm not so unpopular that I end up having ripe tomatoes thrown my way. Most likely I'll be reciting a work-in-progress commentary on the recent Billy Graham visit to Fresno (my lack of attendence to which makes me feel like quite the minority recently).

I'm listening to Just Desserts. I need to buy their other CD. Speaking of which, whilst at Hobb's Grove last week, one of the goulish entertainers was a fiendishly cute 20-something who was playing guitar for the crowds waiting in line for the haunted forest. His crooning voice was refreshing in the rather over-done pussy-rock/goth-punk atmosphere, and it bore an intriguing resemblance to the styles of Tom Laverack (Just Desserts' lead singer). I cornered him at the hot cocoa booth and suggested he give Laverack a listen. He seemed too cold and tired to notice.

On that note, the nights are becoming comfortably cold finally. I hope it lasts for at least the rest of the week. I've most likely got a visitor this weekend from the City, and we all know what weather pussies San Franciscans are. O, and thanks to that particular San Franciscan for helping me to improve my search utility. You can now choose gads of options which the size of the site has yet to necessitate, and I can also spy on what you're typing in. Enjoy.

Thanks, David, I'm glad someone's reading this... With a virtually empty guestbook and message board, I assumed that this site served as much purpose as most other personal sites do. I wonder; if I put up an extensive life history (as opposed to the current short one), would people read it word-for-word as obsessively as I read someone else's a while back?...

Andrea makes all these demands for a message board, then leaves a 2-word message once I deliver the goods, then ditches her internet connection in order to move. Errrrr....

So I completed my prospective essay for open-mic-night at Fred's. I posted it, in slightly altered form, in the newly-named Commentary section (formerly the "gay page" - I decided I had pretty much summed up all of my anti-gay rants in "Essay #1").

So someone may be getting fired where I work today... O the drama...

I got my iBook last night. I think I've finally found true love. I haven't slept in over 30 hours now...

Superfluid He3 show tonight at Fred's. Maybe I should call in sick Friday so I can catch up on sleep...

Visit from David this weekend. I knew I'd like him... We ate good food that was very bad for us (considering we both have health issues), explored Fresno architecture... etc. Even managed a visit to Amy's spooky halloween party Friday night. Avoided the cheesy halloween block party in my own neighborhood.

Hopefully some more hardware to be purchased this week: I really want to get a digicam, in order to take full advantage of this sexy new computer of mine, but that will be dependent upon the price. I definately need to score a floppy drive, since all I currently have is a cd-writer. Though I suppose I could always just get some RW discs...

Tomorrow's open mic night. My first shot at Fred's. Should be interesting... Bring your ripe tomatoes! Today's updates (includes Friends, Diners and Fresno pages) are the first to be uploaded from my new iBook. Ah the landmarks of one's life...

A couple good quotes today:

• In San Francisco, where gullability rules, conspiracy theories are gospel, and critical thinking is too often an afterthought...
• Great men talk about ideas, average men talk about events, and small men talk about people.

The Best Buy freaks tried to swindle me into shelling out way more money than necessary for a digicam, so I need to be more careful in my hunt. I'm gonna try raising my iBook in a 'floppy-free' environment. We're sticking to CD-RWs. I'll be working as hard as I can on getting the Fresno and Diners sites completely up over the next couple weeks, as I'm sure the anticipation of some of the stuff going in on the Fresno History page is giving David wet dreams.

If you're looking for the message board, go to the Fresno Page, a new site I'm setting up. I figured that was the most appropriate place to have the board, since my life isn't exactly the most inspiring topic for discussion, and the Diners site is more informational than community-oriented.

I performed my essay at open mic night at Fred's on Monday, to a mixed response. Most people, I feel, didn't really understand the real point of the essay, whilst others, I'm sure, were too dense to get it anyway. I've decided I don't really like open mic night as much as I thought I would...

I was originally more excited about Halloween, but I'm on the verge today of deciding to just stay in tonight. With so much reading and work to do on the site, as well as lots of research to brush up on in order to get teh Fresno site going, I just can't get into the whole Haloween atmosphere; especially considering I've been getting insufficient sleep lately, and I really don't need another reason to go out drinking or partying on a worknight. I'm kinda becoming a prude lately. Deal.

Combine that with the fact that now I've fallen ill. The first freakin' rain of the year and I have to stay in my room drinking tea and SunnyD. Had a cool electrical storm last night though, and woke up to a pleasantly foggy morning. Now if only I could swallow food without wanting to scream in agony...