To those of you who've been having trouble accessing BME and so on today, sorry — Cogent appears to have been (”have been” is an “I hope” statement) trouble with their routing in the Toronto area which of course is where we are. Anyway, in the good news department (well, for me anyway), I finally got my first cheque from Google. It's not much money and I haven't optimized Zentastic and the other sites with ads on them (basically everything except the BME-family of sites, because they're not permitted), but I still feel kind of a geeky thrill getting it…
Yeah, so it took me like four months to make $193, but it seems to go up a little bit every day, and I guess there's another one on the way. Woo woo! Hope people who clicked the ads and paid for the ads found it mutually beneficial.
…and now off to my doctor!
The day's been relatively productive in a relaxing sort of way. I've been so down (doctor tomorrow; I'm going to see if I can get him to risk another manic state because I feel at my best by far when I'm hypomanic) for the last little while that I'm just trying to focus on nice stuff… I finished off The Game (great ending to the book), did some work, programmed a little, wrote the proper specs for “the new BME” and some related projects, did an hour or so of yoga (which sucks a little when your knee looks like this), and cooked some lunch with the limited supplies we have here.
It's chopped garlic, lentils, onion, red pepper, and mushrooms on a bed of noodles done up in a sweet and spicy sauce (a mix of black bean sauce, brown rice syrup, and a lettle yellow thai chili). I think now I'm going to move on to doing some graphic design work and prepping things for
ModBlog later this week to try and make the days less high-stress and time-constrained.
So when we redid the original Some Things Never Go Out Of Style shirts, instead of doing a (colored) black and white print, I redid the design as a tri-tone print (a series of browns) and we think it turned out really nicely (although it's hard to catch the subtlety of it on camera):
I gave Ryan a copy of my entire “shirts” working folder which contains both the final designs of
most of what BME has printed, as well as rejected shirts and work prints — so I was surprised to see
Warning! Pierced Parts! has also made it to press. Oh, and I got some
new stickers for my laptop.
Oh, and those stickers are pretty cheap if you want to grab some, but I wouldn't advise getting them on their own because you'll pay a premium on shipping that's not worth it (just throw it in with your next order instead). I'm doing another run as well for studio memebers (become a verified pro and your shop will get a pack) and the people who had their pages damaged.
PS. PAIN SOLVES EVERYTHING is also a shirt…
So I'm just about done The Game
, and seriously, it's a life altering book in terms of people watching… Just starting The 48 Laws of Power
as well and some other analogous books. When we were at the book store a girl kept making eye contact with me so I pulled her over to us and it was weird watching the dialog and body language and understanding how easy people are to control (and then do with as you please); they're like machines, just simple geneticly driven programs that if you really want to manipulate you can. Seriously, it's so bizarre seeing it in context.
(Note: I have no interest in being a PUA, I'm just fascinated by what makes people tick, and I think I need to write an article about peacocking being one of the primary driving forces behind body modification. So if you're a PUA that uses tattos or piercings as such, let me know so I can interview you either by name, alias, or anonymously if you prefer.)
Anyway, other than that we went and played a couple rounds of trivia at one of the Firkin pubs, went to HMV to pick up Metal - A Headbanger's Journey
(and got recognized by the cashier which is always thrilling — narcissists are easy to please), and then bought some clothes (I think Saira got a dress and some pants, and I got a couple nice shirts and some boxers).
I think this looked funnier in person?
PS. Yes, if you use the links in this entry I get a kickback.
Damn, check out Rachel's car! No wonder she recently won best of show at some Lotus meet… Next time you see this car it'll be doing 145 the speed limit, plastered in racing stickers. If you live on the route, watch out for her and Olivia in the Player's Run 2006… Two hot tattooed girls in a sexy car? I'm guessing this will get some magazine coverage as well! Anyway, wish them good luck!
I'm off now to eat, get some books on NLP, and maybe see a movie with Shadhi (sorry if I misspelled your name) and Saira… And maybe some finally get some new pants, but I don't know. Oh, and my
old Porsche got pulled out of storage and with any luck got its safety and emissions check down today. Now I just have to scrounge together the cash (Jon and I need to put another server in the rack this week) to pay the transfer taxes on it (it's currently in a friend's company's name)!
Oh, and my Porsche has been “officially” clocked at 191mph (on a race track)… But the fasted I've had it up personally is 152mph (on the 400 for those that know Ontario highways). And for anyone that's driven fast, you know that 152mph is not really a big deal in a car like this, but at 191mph, life gets very scary…
Pete sent me a new toy to play with, and as you can see it had a little difficulty making it through Australian airports. That reminds me, at the end of next week Tom is doing, for the third time now, my uvula piercing. Marty is getting his done too, but we were thinking of making it silly and setting a record (“most uvulas pierced in one day”). Anyway, if you're interested, drop me or Tom a line.
“I was driven to have the uvula piercing because it reflected the mind. When you put a pair of forceps on a uvula, it feels like you've grabbed the center of the mass of the inside of your head — if you cough up a piece of rice and it sits in the back of your sinus passage, you understand that spot. Psychologically it feels like you're getting the center of your head pierced. That is so live, so real, and the risk inherant only added to the psychological imperative, and I was just driven to have it. Again, not a rational action, but that's not the point.”
