I've decided that people who get tattoos on their throats / side of the neck / (anywhere in the head region that is completely visible and obvious) have given up on being productive members of society.

Well, maybe that's a little extreme, but it seems like you pretty well limit your options from that point on.

I think it's narrowed to:

A) Work at McDonalds
B) Take up Crime
C) Play in a band
D) Become independently wealthy.

Over the years, this site has provided a number of outlets for me.
Trying my hand at humorous writing, a documentation of a life I believed interesting enough to share, a catharsis, geeky ramblings, and most recently.. Well, actually nothing recently. It's been nearly a full year between posts.

But I'm interested (at least for the moment) in reviving it as an outlet of sorts.
Perhaps the timing is bad. I realize that my internet anonymity is decidedly not. Let's ignore all that for a while and get to the point. Musing about me.

Four odd months ago, the woman previously referred on this very site as Madeline and I broke it off. Or, as she likes to point out, I broke it off with her.

I won't rehash the reasoning, or even analyze the things that went "right" or "wrong". Which is not to say that I haven't spent a lot of time evaluating these very things. But it doesn't seem necessary to use an outlet for things I've already made peace with. With regards to the end of our relationship, suffice to say, it was time.

I'm living in a hotel again. It seems that I spend a great deal of my life in a hotel. But truth is subjective, depending entirely on the viewer. Still- I've been here nearly a month, and I have another month to go. Here being Sumter, South Carolina.

I would be a liar if I said I were particularly enthused to be here. The truth is, I know (roughly speaking of course), where I do want to be. Folks, this ain't it.

I'm trying to avoid the virus of "short timer attitude", but I've already caught myself saying "It's only for a year".

Realizing that I am a social creature, even if that is entirely at odds with my cynicism and occasional misanthropy, I feel I've been left with no other choice but to find the silver lining in it all. The upshot is, I live fairly close to my cousin and her kids. And I adore them all. Of course, I also live equally close to my estranged brother, but he is, after all estranged for a reason.

For factual clarity, my brother and I are the ones at odds. I believe his relationship with the rest of the family is normal enough.

Another shining point is work. I'm getting exposure to some very cool technology that I would never have the chance to experience anywhere else. And hey, I'll be fully vested soon enough! Who knows what the future will hold, but it never hurts to have more experience.

So here I am in another hotel, listening to a generated playlist surprisingly apropos in it's favoritism of David Bowie and Mindless Self Indulgence.

this was originally supposed to be posted around April 9th, but I'm retarded and hit draft. No sense wasting bits

By sheer force of will, I finished reading A Certain Chemistry: A Novel last night. I basically hated the protagonist to such a degree that reading his sheer idiocy throughout the novel made me feel... uncomfortable.

I'm happy that the tale didn't end well for the protagonist, but at the same time, I was relieved the whole thing was over.

I've moved on to Love and Other Near Death Experiences: A Novel , which already seems to be a little more enjoyable a read. After this, I will be happily done with Mil Millington for a while.

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At the end of next week, I will be flying back to Pennsylvania to pack my house, sell my other car and close that chapter of my life.

Warped as it may sound, I can't seem to fully comprehend that I don't live in Pennsylvania anymore. I keep thinking about "going home". I'm looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, puttering around "my house", etc etc. I find myself constantly reminding my sub-conscious that I don't live there anymore. This is my home now. Or at least it will be when I get out of the hotel.

I love Growl . Odds are, if you're a Mac user, you do too. Or at least you've heard of it.

But did you realize that it can do really amazing things? All it needs it a few tweaks and an application or three.

One of the latest and awesomest things you can do is receive Growl notifications on your iPhone with Prowl ($3, app store ).

You'll need to install the Growl Plugin and then configure your system to send notifications from Growl to Prowl.

But just what sort of amazing notifications should you be sending?
What about Twitter notifications?

Go grab yourself a copy of Tweetie and sign in to your account. For reasons that escape me, the Growl notification preferences are sort of buried in Tweetie. To enable them, go to "Tweetie" -> "Preferences" -> "Accounts" -> Click your account name -> "Notification Options"

Check the bottom field marked "Growl Notification". You probably don't want to send every single tweet you receive to your iPhone though.

Go to "System Preferences" -> "Growl" -> "Applications" Choose Tweetie, the click "Configure". Change the notifications option to assign a priority of "High" to Direct Messages and Mentions (or as you prefer).

Back in the main Growl Preferences, go to Display options. Remember where you set up Prowl? Change Prowl to send notifications when Priority is at least High. I also chose to wait until the computer is idle for a period of time, since I don't need two notifications at once.

What about some other applications? While I have the excellent Delivery Status app for my phone, I really want to have push notifications. Guess what? They have a free Dashboard Widget that supports Growl.

Or (one of my favorites) HellaNZB:"http://www.hellanzb.com/ . In fact, that reminds me of another great Growl feature: Notifications don't have to be local. My home server runs HellaNZB, which can be configured to send Growl notifications to a remote machine. Back in your Growl preferences, you just need to enable listening for incoming notifications and allow remote application registration.

And then yes, you can push those updates out via Prowl too.

Remember though, it's a good idea to only send messages assigned a high priority, otherwise you are (probably) going to be swamped with mundane messages and IMs.

Oh yeah, IMs. Zachary West, author of Prowl, also happens to be an Adium developer.

A long time ago Rob told me about this wireless gear he was using from a company called Ubiquiti Networks . I of course promptly forgot who made it or the specifics. Then we (as in my company) bought a few to evaluate for a project. I'm. In. Love. I highly, HIGHLY recommend the PowerStation2 to anyone who might have use for such a thing. Awesomesauce.

I set up a Tumb/Micro/Mini/Whatever blog over here
The whole thing originated on the Mailing List .
Basically, I'm just keeping track of all the crap I buy. Too bad I didn't start this 6 weeks ago, I've been single handedly supporting the local economy.

I bought a searsucker suit. I'm really excited to have it, but damned if I know when I will wear it.

I'm going to see Nine Inch Nails several times in the upcoming weeks. At the Pittsburgh show, I've got meet/greet + backstage passes , I'm very, very excited.

Speaking of crap I bought, finally broke down and got a Mac Pro.