Phew... it's been an awfully long time since my last update, I know. Sorry about that. Here's a random sampling of the things that have been going on in my life:

I've quit smoking. Thank god. For those of you that didn't know I smoked... good. The less the merrier. At any rate I've been free of that habit for over a month now. I can't say I miss it... although the first few weeks were really a bitch. For those of you wondering how I did it I wish I had soemthing helpful to tell you. In the end I just decided I was tired of my throat and lungs hurting, I was tired of smelling like a fire in a compost heap, I was tired of wasting money, and I was tired of having to shower 4 times a day so I didn't reek at social/family engagements.

I hate Christmas shopping. I'm just no good at it. I haven't really even started yet this year.... I think I'm in trouble.

What's up with the headspace and the blogs? I don't know what to tell you, honestly. At the moment I'm frustrated. I have visions of grandeur as far as both are concerned. Making my visions reality is proving challenging, though. The blogs are closer right now. The intent is to set up a collaborative content-oriented environment (pfe3r my le3t buzzword skills). The problem is ugly code. The blogs test a lot of new ideas but god the code is a nasty snarl. I'm trying to figure out what I want to do. I think XML may help. We'll see.

The biggest problem is extricating markup and associated baggage (forms, etc) from the code. All of the canned solutions I see at present are even worse than what I've written, god help them. I'm sure there is a pattern or something that fits this but for the moment I can't see the forest for the trees.

I just finished a book called Galatea 2.2. I recommend it highly. It's an interesting read and I enjoy his writing style. The topic is near and dear to my heart, as well. My next reading project will probably be The Tao of Physics... I've been remiss in waiting so long to read it.

I haven't been doing much lately. EQ has sucked me back in. I seem to go from one bad habit to another.

I haven't been listening to a whole lot of music lately. I need to get back in there and see what's new and interesting. Ted mentioned the Gorillaz to me ages ago... and I finally got a chance to hear them. Cool stuff. Different from most of what I normally listen to. I like it.

Just in case you weren't aware there's another format war (think VHS vs. BETA) coming. Well, in all fairness it's been brewing for a year or two now. DVD-Audio vs. Sony's SACD. Both are better than CD's 44khz/16-bit, both are multichannel, etc. The only important technical difference is that Sony has deviated from the traditional PCM encoding. They are using something called DSD which is, in and of itself, kind of a neat technology. The problem, of course, is that SACD is Sony proprietary. Way to suck again Sony. Unfortunately my initial experience suggests that SACD sounds a little better. Of course, in reality, CD is prolly good enough. Oh well.

The holidays always make me want to get in touch with old friends. I'm so bad about keeping in contact with Folks. I'm sorry everyone. Don't be surprised if you hear from me soon.

I guess that's it for now. I apologize for the random nature of this entry but it's going to take me a while to get back up to speed.

Love,
-Loop