DRL Echobox

Today was a lot like other days: I spent some time working on Music for Dozens, a few hours working with Strength on the New Record, more time than I would have liked driving around in heavy traffic (that's unusual for me, but more prominent lately, ever since the last Clackamas River trip), and had lunch at a family owned BBQ place way out east of town.

It's feeling different, though, because Amy is far away and will be for a while. Things are a little quieter at the house, and doing all the stuff on my agenda was a little simpler, if only because I wasn't coordinating with her in our constant efforts to spend some time together.

Next week, just before Amy gets back from San Fransico, I'm going to Idaho, I think, or maybe Canada (I'm supposed to bring my passport) to hang with my dad and his friends. This should be good for me because I need a vacation, and so does Dad.

When I get back to town, I'd like to find a way that Amy and I can get enough time together without it being a struggle. I think it is going to take discipline for me not to work on Music for Dozens every waking hour, but that might be easier once we've made our big push to bring the public site up to speed with our in-house development version.

I'm down to one day a week at Bar Pastiche (kind of a surprise) but I my enthusiasm has been a little lacking there lately, what with all my other duties. Looks like its time for me to find another way to pay the bills.

I recently had a massive influx of spam to my pristine gmail inbox - on my real account, not the auto-forwarding throwaway that I give out to known bad actors like myspace or che3p-guurth-expand8r.com

why did i get all this new spam? the culprit is an invitiation I was sent by a myspace using friend of mine who didn't know I was already on there and invited me using my real email address.

don't worry, it's not your fault, Debbie, you shouldn't have to worry about whether or not myspace will steal your friend's email address when you invite them.

the take-home lesson: if you want to get bought by News Corp, owners of Fox TV etc, for $580 million dollars (this is how much they paid for myspace last week), start by scraping email addresses of people who never had a chance to read your privacy policy - and giving them to horrible spammers.

what you can do: make sure your friends know not to trust myspace or Fox with any kind of personal invitation.

what I'm about to do: fill out as many personal details on my myspace profile with false demographic information.

Over the last few days I've been putting in overtime on the site, getting it ready for the Webvisions Conference tomorrow, which hasn't left a whole lot of time for Amy and I to romance and be merry. This evening we'd planned a date for after Jem, Greg and I finished our final touch-ups, and I was really starting to look forward to coctails and snacks at Echo, when Amy learned she had to rush into work to smooth over a scheduling snafu...

Sometimes it seems like the cards are just stacked wrong. We had to turn the car around and drop me off, so she could close Pix until later than I can stay up tonight.

When I got home I decided to spend the time I would have been with Amy and eating doing some things that would make her happy. So I cleaned up a little here, but more importantly, I arranged it so we've both got Sunday night off, and there's a dinner called Artemis that we can go to. So that will be better!

The best foods and drinks you can get, outside under the sunset. All is not lost.

I've started a new blog dedicated to the two-fold task of getting anyone started on the path of Drinking the Free Culture Kool Aid, as well as imagining the future where anyone who writes a paper as a homework assignment (ie everyone literate) understands the value and significance of Creative Commons Licenses, Open Data, and cultural products that can be referred to without threat of litigation.

If what I just siad sounded like gobbldy-gook to you, you best get yr ass to FCKA.