An (apparently) unnecessary reinstall of Ubuntu 9.10 allowed me to clean up my netbook a bit. Fortunately, the fresh install was a snap. All I had to do was copy the few files I wanted to keep into my Dropbox, wait for it to update and reinstall from my USB keychain drive with impunity.

While it’s still no OS X — sorry Linux nerds — I’m really enjoying the interface refinements and bits of polish. I can’t wait to see what improvements 10.04 will bring.

P.S. The totally awesome wallpaper is from kozyndan. If you like it, go downolad it.

Well, so long as you’re running an OS that installs Helvetica by default, that is.  Otherwise it defaults to (gag) Arial.  Still, sans-serifs FTW!

So feel free to kick the tires a bit.  And let me know if you notice anything weird.

Now I know you’ve got a thing for quirky bearded dudes. Well, you might. For all I know, that was just a phase. Hopefully it wasn’t tho — because I’m way into college educated actresses with published research papers who aren’t afraid to shave their heads for a role.

Anyhow, now that you know what our offspring would look like, you should drop me an email.  We don’t have to make babies right away, but maybe we can go record shopping or talk about Israel.  You know, just getting to know one another.  That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Okay, it’d probably be nicer for me than it would be for you.  But I swear that I’m a nice guy and not really that weird.  I mean, I might be weird enough to run your photo thru a website, but I’ll never send you a sweater made of my hair or anything.  That’s just bizarre…

follow-through

Why?  Well, to be honest, when it comes to follow-through, I’ve historically been sort of selective.  Get me working on something that I’m passionate about and I’ll concentrate on it almost purely.  But other things fall by the wayside while my OCD kicks in — and that’s a problem.

I’ve become lethargic, unhealthy and chained to my desk.

I’m letting relationships and friendships fall by the wayside while I concentrate on building a legacy.

There are places that I wanted to see and things that I have wanted to do long before I managed to get this old.

I’ve got laundry that is in dire need of attention.

So with another step into my thirties a mere month away, I find myself at an interesting crossroads.  I can either stay on my present course or temper myself and make sweeping changes in the way that I do things.  But resolving to change one’s ways is always a slippery slope.  Old habits do die hard, after all.  This is where the idea of a theme word comes in tho.

By choosing something as simple as “follow-through”, I can allow myself to see the things that need doing thru the year and work at them.  Hopefully, using that hyphenated mission statement as a mantra, it’ll keep me on task enough to make this year better than any previous one.

So, what’s your theme word?

Last night’s rain gave way to beautiful, puffy clouds and a vibrant blue sky. The mood at my local polling place was great and everyone seemed excited to make their opinions heard. Even the people who had to file a provisional ballot didn’t complain at the extra hoops they needed to jump thru.

If you haven’t voted yet, I hope that you will. I also hope that you’ll encourage your friends and family to get out there too. Today’s going to be a big day — and I don’t know about you, but I’d rather help make history than sit on the sidelines.

I like Obama for a lot of reasons — but when it really comes down to it, I’ll always be for a candidate who has a firm pro taco stance.

What I’ve realized tho is that the internet doesn’t need yet another daily t-shirt blog — it needs a better t-shirt blog. Spitting back every press release and sale notice that drops into my inbox doesn’t make for compelling content. The reason people show up and read Preshrunk is because they actually care about finding wonderful tees. What’s more, people actually trust my taste.

I know. It befuddles me too. But they seriously do. At least that’s what the feedback coming in says.

When it comes down to it, the last thing I should be doing is running something I’m only kinda feeling. Or trying too hard to make sure people have fresh content to read when they check their feeds or hit the site. When I’m up against a self-imposed deadline, I end up putting out stuff that’s not up to par. You guys seriously have no idea how hard I’ve had to fight myself to not go back and rewrite entire entries when I read them in the morning. When you realize that you’ve turned out more than one post in the past month that reads like bad Geekologie copy — which isn’t really that great to begin with — it’s time to examine what you’re doing.

So if you don’t see new shit up on Preshrunk daily, please know that I’m just trying to make things better rather than fall into a routine. As they say, it’s all about quality over quantity. Six months off won’t happen again tho, honest. Maybe a few days at worst. Expect a good excuse from me if that happens tho, alright?

When I realized my brand new Guild of Calamitous Intent tee from AstroBase Go! had a decent sized hole where one shouldn’t be, I decided to mail them about it. Fabric imperfections happen from time to time — especially on American Apparel tees.  After a little back and forth with Venture Bros. series creator Jackson Publick — mostly to send photographic evidence that the hole existed — I ended up getting this reply:

We’re happy to send you a replacement shirt which contains only the necessary number of holes to qualify as a shirt.

Hah!  Good one!  Well played, Mr. Publick…

I really wish Boing Boing would say something about what is going on with erasing every mention of Violet Blue from their site.  Blog feuds — if that’s what this even is — are fucking retarded and I seriously thought the team over there was better than that.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Violet a few years ago and I’ve hung out with Cory, Xeni and Mark a number of times.  From what I know, they’re all pretty reasonable folks.  So if there’s a beef, please squash it.  And put the posts mentioning Violet back or at least explain what’s going on.  Your readers would really appreciate it.

Update: Boing Boing has addressed what is going on.

There’s somebody who I care about and love a lot — and I haven’t been giving her the attention she deserves both on this blog and in other aspects of my life.

That person’s name is Sarah.

See?  When was the last time I brought her up?  It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Shame on me.

You know, when a relationship is fresh and new and you’re just crazy happy to even be in love?  You want to sing that shit from the rooftops because it feels so good.  That feeling of happiness doesn’t go away — but it does end up becoming something comfortable.  It becomes so comfortable in fact, that you start taking the fact that you even have it at all for granted.  The frequency of fawning blog posts drops and cameo appearances in your Flickr feed gradually slow to a near standstill as well.

Well, maybe not your Flicrk feed or blog.  But that’s what’s happened with mine.

So why did that happen?  It’s not like she’s gone somewhere.  Hell, save for a few really rough patches where I’ve been a complete jackass, she’s been in my life all this time.  And I haven’t stopped loving her or caring about her.  In fact, my love for her grows every day.  She’s a massive influence on my life and the decisions I make.  This is something she’s aware of, but most of you have no idea about what’s going on at all.

As public a person as I am, I’ve been finding that I’m growing this tendency to want to keep parts of my life private.  Mostly because the relationship I have with Sarah is just that — a private one.  Then again, I could just be making excuses.

Still, I started out talking about her every chance I could get with glowing bits of praise and adoration.  And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I never should have stopped doing that.  She still lights up my insides with an intensity that is unrivaled — and the world deserves to know that.

So everyone, say hi to Sarah again.  You’ll be seeing a lot more of her around these parts.