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Right Here Waiting.
Fri.02.04.00.02.38
Why does a beautiful girl who kicks so much ass have to be on the other side of America? I wish I owned a jet, I really do.

My Cabernet Sauvignion is starting to taste funny, so I better drink it up quickly. I whipped up steak with an onion and mushroom sauce tonight, along with some homemade potatoE salad, for those of you who are keeping track. Perhaps I'll post my potato salad recipe tomorrow for all of you to enjoy. Today I've been listening to Wilco summerteeth , Blur 13 , Tom Waits Bone Machine and Liz Phair Exile From Guyville , among others

Why have 138,785 people visited Richard Marx's website in the last eleven months ? Are these people allowed to vote? Can't we put them on a glacier and split them up by sex to keep them from breeding?

To be honest, I have a confession to make. In September of 1988, at the age 11, on the night before I entered sixth grade, I was listening to "Endless Summer Nights" on WZOU, and I started crying. Bawling.

After a corporate merger, a bunch of cutomers received wonderful news. Also, Intel's gigahertz chips are here.

Astronomers have observed parts of a supernova coming together to form a star. As it turns out, time can run backwards. [via monkeyfist ]

Casio has designed a watch that plays mp3s. [via bump ]

Now that we've hired you, I bet you want to know exactly what it is you do. [via camworld ]

Email me, whoever you are. I dont even care what you say.

Drinkin' Red Wine.
Wed.02.02.00.23.03
This morning I brought Joshua breakfast in bed after a few hours sleep, and the day swung into full force. Josh gave two-hundred and fifty dollars and got his thirty year old Econoline van back. It works now. My '79 Granada is starting to sound sick. Also, I took a walk. vivacity 

What are we doing... what kind of lives are these?

Held Like Sound has a comprehensive links page full of bands and labels I've barely heard of. Hopefully tomorrow we'll find a store in Phoenix that isn't charging 18 bucks for the new Morphine album. Jeff Bridges is a musician with a simple, organic web site. The new Giant Sand album will be released on thrill jockey records. 

Punk Rock and Good Eating.
Tue.02.01.00.21.53
Welcome, everyone, to February. It feels strange to experience a warm February; and it is most certainly "warm" here in Phoenix, as it has been consistently during my month living here. Dry and clear, without one drop of rain, let alone snow. After living in the northeast for twenty two years I have come to despise this month... I can feel my instincual hatred for it welling up even now, a prejudice etched into the very biological fabric of my being: that interminable cold, the continual darkness, and streets filled with dirty, salty slush and embittered drivers. Here are a few survival tips for any of my friends and readers living in colder parts of the country:

1. For the next 29 days, avoid thinking about any goals you've been hoping to acheive. This includes New Years resolutions as well as more long term career goals and life pursits. You currently have only one goal: to survive the month of February without permanent scarring. If you can remain only mildly discontent for the next four weeks, you will then be able pick up your life where it left off.

2. Don't go outside. If you must go outside, dress in layers. Exposure to cold leads to discomfort, and extended physical discomfort isn't going to help your situation at all. Should the clouds break apart for a brief moment, try to absorb rays of sunlight by standing near a closed window.

3. Only talk to people when absolutely necessary. While you may have a limited ability to guage your own level of discomfort, you can never be at all sure just how bad other people are feeling. Communication and interaction with individuals who are having a horrible month is only going to make you more discontent. I recommend putting all local friendships on hold and making occasional phone calls to you mother or another person who will not judge you too harshly for your bad attitude. Once March arrives, re-contact your local friends and tell them you have been either very sick or very busy. This claim will induce sympathy, and sympathy will help you get back on track.

4. Get yourself an indoor hobby. This can be anything that consumes a large enough portion of your consciousness to prevent you from asking yourself probing questions like "What have I become?" or "Does humanity matter?" Historically, trashy romance novels, shoot 'em up video games and excessive amounts of weight lifting are excellent examples of such a hobby. If you still find yourself asking to many questions, try watching cartoons, a fantasy movie, or any similar multimedia presentation that will entertain you without providing realistic characters to whom you might be tempted to compare yourself and your seemingly pathetic life. Classic episodes of Tom 'N Jerry or Wild Animal Kingdom would be acceptable alternatives here.

5. If you are single, avoid all contact with the concept of Valentines day. Steer clear of theme-decorated drugstores, the greeting card aisle at the supermarket, and social interaction with friends or co-workers who are already hitched. Above all, avoid flower shops and "very special" episodes of poplar television sitcoms.

6. For God's Sake, don't make any important decisions. Remember, because you are miserable, you have litle or no ability to acurately judge yourself and your situation. Any decisions you make will inevitabley be wrong, and come March, you will regret them. Do not quit your job or move out of your apartment because your roomates are irritable. Most importantly, do not make sudden desperate social moves in an attempt to remedy what you perceive as "the underlying cause of all your trouble" (see section 5, above). In February, that young man or woman may seem like your sexy ticket to happiness, but by spring break you'll realize just how much you hate each other.

7. Don't forget: the underlying cause of all your trouble is, quite simply, February. Try developing a catchy mantra to repeat to yourself when you're not watching cartoons, such as "March on towards March" or "The month of salt, It's not my fault!" This kind of constant affirmation will help you avoid blaming yourself and others for the crappy four weeks that are undeniabley in store for you.


Joshua and I bought some groceries today, so I've been eating, walking, site-surfing, and reading Coupland's Generation X , an intensely good book that's only becoming more relevant. Hopefully I'll have time to unload 'n upload some thoughts regarding these tonight in a casual journal entry .

Creative Ways to Avoid Starvation .
Mon.01.31.00.03.07
Thanks to Metafilter, I spent quite a bit of time today exploring the world of Douglass Coupland, which features a baffling but engaging interface of kitchy Flash animation and collages that remind me of the Beck and Al Hansen Playing With Matches exhibit. Coupland is winding up his continental tour, and unfortunately I wasn't home in Boston when he passed through. He certainly aint coming to Phoenix. At least I was able to check out his tour diary, a casual glance into the daily life of a brilliant writer.

I've read two of Coupland's books, Microserfs and Girlfriend in a Coma , and I loved 'em both, so you can imagine my dismay this afternoon when the library down the street wanted proof of residence before letting me borrow three more of his books. The nerve of some people. I have half a mind to go back there and pluck all the fruit from their citrus trees.

I hear that the Rams won. Not owning a television, Joshua and I spent the evening drinking tea, playing chess, and discussing Christian fervor. What bohemian poverty.

In The Tiny, Tiny hour.
Sun.01.30.00.04.24
it's hard to believe i'm still conscious at this hour. tonight joshua and went out for mexican food at a swell restaurant called garcia's and ate our fill of refried beans, chimichangas, and corona with lime. it's a good thing we went out to eat, too, because there's nothing left in this apartment but plain yogurt and stale wonder bread. but hell, that's what life is like in the ghetto southwest.

i finally finished that sitemap i've been promising. i decided to toss in an extra bit of self-indulgence as well, so see whacha think.

i've been fooling around quite a bit over at Metababy a site where anyone is allowed to edit page content. it's great fun if you have at least a basic understanding of html. clicking on the edit button allows you to edit the code of an existing page directly, and linking to a non-existent local page causes a new page to spawn on the server. this is a great place to fool around and watch web-savy people goofing off.

as you may have heard, all of the major record companies united with the RIAA to file suit against mp3.com for alleged copyright violations. My recent artist's newsletter included a link to mp3.com's reply to the RIAA, which raises some interesting questions.

blah.. damn, boy i sure am am i ever tired gosh. What? mmm that was me shouldnt have dranken all that absynthe oh...

Way Across the Sea.
Fri.01.28.00.22.51
it's friday night, my party people, and where am i, you ask? on my computer, as always, making plans to take over the southwest by carjacking well-respected politicians. once i capture them and usurp their regional power, i can start working toward creating that warlord state i've been promising you all. and the best part is that the families of the politicians will pay money to get them back!  it's simply a brilliant plan, and i can't believe i never thought of it until last week. i think this might be the connection i need to break into the west coast hip-hop scene, as well.  with solid "street" experience like carjacking and forgery, my freestyle-fresh rhymes will be that much more heart strong. i'll find my way onto TRL in no time. My dream is to work with Juvenile.

Is imagination dead? Find out for yourself by visiting imagination.com The answer will either make you laugh or cry, depending on your mood.

My friend Andrew was hopping around the web using Etour and when he found The Unofficial Small Wonder Hompage he just couldn't resist sending me the link. I have forgiven him, however, because the site is comprehensive to the point of complete absurdity , as you will discover when you visit the Cabinet of Contents . We find this page title clever, of course, because the robotic Vicki, "played by a remarkably bright and plucky young lady, Tiffany Brissette," is kept in a cabinet when she/ it isn't causing trouble uprooting mailboxes and giving extra firm handshakes to unsuspecting family friends. Ahh, remember those innocent Saturday nights of yesteryear, as you sat staring at the television, slurping up spoonfuls of the Beefaroni your babysitter microwaved in a Tupperware bowl, wondering if the befreckled Harriet would ever discover the Lawson's horrible animatronic secret? 

If only we could turn back time...

...Well, we don't have to! Visit the frequently updated bulletin page and you'll learn about the current plan to create a new Small Wonder series that "will be far beyond what it used to be!" All right!  Finally, good television is back!

Ugh.

Other People's Lives.
Thu.01.27.00.21.30
Joshua and I agree that we miss snow. Eh. The grass is always greener.

I've been fooling around over at Blogger.com , trying to figure out if its worth the trouble to convert this page into a full-fleged automated web log that I can update from any browser window, anywhere. I was excited about the prospect for a while, but now I'm starting to think it just doesn't suit my needs at this point, since I make changes to the style of this page and to the links on the right so frequently. It might turn out to be a great resource for some kind of a music discussion forum, however, so I've been wrapping my head around that idea for a couple of days. It remains to be seen whether anything becomes of it, as is the way with all my crazy schemes.

Thanks to Jack Saturn, who mentioned sixfoot6.com in a recent update to his weblog over at Saturn.org , another site I've been visiting frequently as of late. He suggested that I add a sitemap page to sixfoot6 with a break down of each section, so I've decided to start building one. It's something I had been considering doing anyway, since my friends keep telling me that they are getting lost in all the clicks. At some point the words Site Map that you see on the top of the sidebar will take you there. I'm also in the process of redesigning the WORDS section, so Aren't I Just The Busy Fellow? There should be a new text-rich journal entry tonight, as well. As usual, visit MetaFilter if you're interested in spending some time exploring some of the recently unearthed treasures the web has to offer.

Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'.
Tue.01.25.00.23.13
The Future is now, and the future is starting to make me think crazy. I don't normally do this, so pay attention while I get this out of my system. I think Butterfly had the right idea when he sang " We're just babies man, we're just babies ," on the first Digable Planets album. Kubrick knew  what he was doing with the image of that giant newborn hovering in space at the end of 2001. And only somebody like Beck can handle the literary implications of something as absurd as the lives we will soon be leading now that the twenty-first century is upon us.

We like the boys with the bulletproof vests.

The internet has barely learned to walk. It has caught on and spread faster than any other technology earthlings have ever been presented with, and we're still in the terrible twos. Gone are the glory days of never-ending messy sites designed by college freshmen using Netscape Composer, cross-linked and full of pictures of friends, useless biographical information and a seldom updated Site of The Week. Some of that stuff still hides in the corners of the web. But the college students and the kids who used to champion their uninteresting pre-fabbed AOL homepages are growing up to become clever and artsy. And some of them are getting paid for being clever and artsy. I don't thing many people understand where this crazy-web-thing is headed. Part of me wants to rant on about the internet as the driving economic force of world economy, as a realm that will spawn unheard of forms of artistic expression, as the tool that will ultimately end prejudice, as a medium that will create new kinds of happiness and inconceivable forms of psychological disease. History will look back on the 20th century as the tail end of the dark ages. There will be a huge anti-net counterculture movement that will last a long time but ultimately fail. Children wont understand how things "used to be". Our ever-increasing comfort with and need for instantaneous data-retrieval will completely redefine the institution of marriage. Individualism and capitalism will evolve into an unrecognizable hybrid. Most importantly, we are going to continue to encounter better, more powerful ways to access information and to access each other. So to help you understand where I'm coming from, here's some of the stuff I have recently been investigating that got me all wrapped up in this rant in the first place:

Metafilter Community Weblog is one of a new generation of frequently updated log sites allowing users like you and me to post curious news stories, sites to check out, and opinions on these things. It costs nothing , it's free of advertisements, it's bringing people together, and it's the way we are going to get our news in the future. Who needs AOL-Time-Warner telling me what's important when I can join a news community that shares my interests like Metafilter or Slashdot.org ? 

To see which of the many log sites is getting the good stories first, visit the Web Log Scoop Index . It tells you which sites are scooping most frequently, and also provides links to the scooped stories, listed by popularity. Now not only do we have constantly updated log sites, we have a constantly updated page to tell us who's updating most efficiently. And WebSoup lumps all of the zany Sites Of the Day that you could ever want to see onto one fast loading page of text.

Visit A List Apart to see a recently published list of the best designed sites currently available on the web. The winning sites are truly remarkable: fast loading, engaging, and beautiful. Kaliber1000 , a crazy fresh web-mag, took grand prize.  Photomontage packs some great art into a very small space.  And the most beautiful web-site I have ever seen, Eneri.net , uses Flash animation and Shockwave to express the personal feminine sentiments of its author as no other medium can. The sleek efficiency of the web CAN be emotionally touching.

Instant messaging and live chatting may be the most important Net resource of all, because it brings strangers together and helps keep friends in touch. I've been using ICQ for a year now, but the next step has arrived: rush right out and download the recent version of Odigo .   It is compact, sleek, colorful, and completely compatible with ICQ (but less convoluted), so you can hold on to your current buddy list.  It lets you find friends with similar specified interests. It lets you choose a face. It lets you declare your mood. It uses skins. Most impressively, it lists other Odigo users who are viewing the same web page you are viewing. Or, if you choose, only those users who share your interests. You can contact these people and chat with them. It's non-stop community. 

The people who came up with InfoRocket believe that people are interested in paying money to get the answers to various questions.  It's basically an eBay for people seeking information. This sort of small time financial transaction sure would be easier if we all used electronic money.

Don't forget to stop by The Simpsons to download a 700k program that gives you free dial up internet access from almost anywhere in the country, as sponsored by everyone's favorite dysfunctional cartoon family. The only catch is that you have to keep a banner thing at the top of your screen and click on it once in a while. It's actually a small price to pay for dial up service. I connected at 46000 baud on my first try. Then, since you still need an email account, surf over to WhatTheFuck.com to get ad-free web based email as programmed by a couple of clever 18 year-olds. I grabbed r@whatthefuck.com . It's gonna catch on. Join the movement before it becomes old hat next month.

Speaking of WTF, finally there's a way to tell a woman she has facial hair without hurting her feelings. A way to subtly tell your boss that he has a flatulence problem. A way to send a friend mouthwash and a gentle hint . WTF?? Am I drunk? Has humanity lost its edge?

Yes. We like the girls with the cellophane chests.

At DaveNet , you can read some much more coherent commentary on the growth of the internet, changes in technology, and life in general.  Dave's writing is honest, and he updates the column frequently.

There now, do you see what I'm getting at? Something is happening out there. I'm nearly positive that it's all for the best, put goddamn if I dont have fun trying to puzzle it out. The web has grown to a point where you can surf sixteen hours a day, constantly discovering things you never knew existed,  never reading the same thing twice. I hope I'm not driven to post this kind of update again anytime soon. I am trying to remain part of the solution, after all. Sombody please email me and let me know how I'm doing.

Here On Earth.
Mon.01.24.00.22.02
On Saturday, Josh and I took a day trip to Tucson, which turned out to be a great little town, not quite a city but close. We walked around for a few hours looking at buildings and people. I brought my camera, as usual, so check out the twenty-one pretty pictures of southwestern beauty.

Turn the light up louder.
Sat.01.22.00.00.45
It's always hard for me to choose, but today I'm pretty sure that most of the time pictures speak louder than words.

Life in the Desert.
Thu.01.20.00.21.43
Well, I managed to get the page to behave in Netscape, and I feel good about that. Joshua and I drove to Tempe today and managed to find a beautiful part of the greater Phoenix area. We talked and talked.

These are the days, I tell you .

One Hundred Percent Homegrown
Wed.01.19.00.22.23
If this page looks peculiar it's because you're using Netscape and Netscape sucks. I got sick and tired of FrontPage producing bad code so I abandoned it. You heard right: this page is now 100% home grown. I have been tweaking and tweaking for hours now, but this page just wont load properly in Netscape 4.5. So, you lose. I'm sorry. I need to get on with my life here. I have plans to put together something that, as far as I know, has never been done before...

Send Me Money!
Wed.01.19.00.03.15
Get yourself a Real Player and start listening to 3WK Underground Radio.   It's probably the best thing ever to happen to the internet. Just check out their playlist, packed with about 80 percent of my CD collection.

Also, For a limited time only, I am giving YOU, the Web Surfer, a chance to send me money! Just email me and I'll send you my email address where you can send me the dough! The exact amount is up to you, but remember: the more you send, the more money I get! So choose carefully!
 
Help, I'm trapped in a web site!
Mon.01.17.00.21.26
A great day of chess and barbeque in the park. Josh asked me to put up some of the photographs from the Giant Sand show that we went to last Saturday.  So there you go.
 
Pictures to Prove It.
Sun.01.16.00.00.34
Well, after the Sedona pics I got real motivated and decided to put together slide shows of the New Year's weekend that Andrew, Joshua and I spent together following our Cannonball Run to Arizona. I even packaged all of these recent photos into one delightful page entitled Winter Way Out West. Why? Because I'm fresh like that. Never let It be said that I spend hours on this electric thingamajig for no reason.... I do this for you, the real people--the people who are out there, day in and day out, getting your hands dirty. I've ridden that horse, my friend. Hey, my dad bought me a car after my free ride to college too--so believe me, I know what you're going through. But, just forget about all of that for a minute. Let me hold you.


Javelina, Among the Trees...
Sat.01.15.00.20.32
Today Joshua and I drove a couple of hours north to Sedona, a little old town in a beautiful part of the country. Arizona really is a pretty rad state. We checked out a giant chapel built into the red, red rocks and took a casual walk along Little Horse trail. Joshua's back has been bothering him a lot more these past couple of days. We had a good time, though, and you can see it all for yourself in the Sedona Slide Show.   There are fifteen photos and a few captions.

Ryan Gets a Haircut.
Fri.01.14.00.23.26
About time, too.

Tow Truck Guy Drops Bike.
Thu.01.13.00.15.04.
Joshua got some imitation narcotics and the tow truck guy brought his motorcycle back. Then the guy let the bike fall over. The bike is pretty roughed up, but Josh seems to be pleased. Check out a bunch of pictures showcasing its condition.
 
Joshua took a spill.
Wed.01.12.00.21.04.
Joshua was in a motorcycle accident last night. He stayed in the hospital for 16 hours. He fractured a vertebrae, and his left shoulder hurts, but he will be okay. Have trouble trying to figure out what happened by reading this.

I'm not gay or anything.
Tue.01.11.00.18.21.
Here are a couple of high-res photos of tonight's sunset here in "the best run city in the world", Phoenix, Arizona. It was pretty warm today--perhaps close to 70 degrees at one point. Click: One Click: Two . Sunsets are like this almost every day, my friend. And I haven't altered these pictures at all, by the way.

Anything for Eyeballs.
Mon.01.10.00.22.45. 
I've been getting quite a few Project Omni submissions from folks who heard about the site from radio stations in Philly, PA and Trenton, NJ.  So let me kindly extend official sixfoot6 props to the DJs in question, whoever they are, for helping to promote goodness and well being to the mid-Atlantic area.  Also, you'll find some new stuff on the left.

My Big Break?
Fri.01.07.00.22.10
I received an email this morning from a Tom Kief, who does a morning radio show on WRVE in Albany, NY.  HE expressed interest in interviewing one of us about the Project Omni site. Could be fun. I wrote back and told him I would do it for no less than seven dollars and one of his female interns.  Haven't heard back yet.

Road Trip Photos.
Fri.01.07.00.21.40
Do yourself a favor and check out the twenty-one images I have just tweaked and captioned and mounted and posted. These photos casually document the 48 hours of fun, beauty and movement that was our non-stop journey from Plymouth, Massachusetts to Phoenix, Arizona. Enjoy these Road Trip Slides as you would enjoy slides of Christmas 1959 in the Florida Keys at your old Uncle Jimmy's house.

Slap Ma Fro!
Thu.01.06.00.23.21
This has got to be one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.  Check out The Dialectizer at Rinkworks.com.  It converts any text you enter into one of several dialects: jive or redneck or the Swedish Chef, etc.  But what's cool is that you can use it to load up ENTIRE web pages.  Try it with sixfoot6.com, its friggin' hilarious.  The Dialectizer changes syntax, spelling, diction, and occasionally inserts unexpected interjections.  Sweet lord, this will amuse me for hours.

Suburban Christmas
Thu.01.06.00.20.56
I put up fifteen pics of Christmas at home with the family here .  I'll be keeping the photos small from now on so you should be able to view them quickly, should you happen to be interested. I'm going to start putting together the road trip pictures, since that's the good stuff.

1.06.00.17.14 Site news: i like this new format but at the same time i dont want my life to look like a business, so im trying to find a happy medium. i ran into a content soothsayer, but he didn't quite do the trick.  horrible joke. sorry. hell, somebody please email me.

1.05.00.19.01 Journal entry: so many things are this color in the desert.  joshua and i live near a ranch park something place where we pulled up a picnic table to play chess yesterday, and as we played, chickens and peacocks and pigeons approached us and made funny bird sounds.  there were rabbits, too, and josh said "i wonder why the cats don't try to kill the bunnies," and i laughed and then he laughed, the sun screaming across in parallel from low to the horizon because here nothing grows both tall and wide. the sky maintains a hue of true blue and even as we speak it is sixty-one degrees outside.  bass-heavy cars stream by the front window, tricked out to the limit, without a spot of rust.  hmm, i had better start at the beginning...    [more]

1.04.00.23.39 site news: Well, as you can see, my neat-o web site has grown a bit sleeker and faster and let me assure you that these changes are all for the better and all to benefit you, the user and me, the web guy.  It's a new Millennium, now, and things have to be better and faster and more efficient and also better.  Fewer errors and mittakes.  Mostly I just needed something to do and I figured it might be a good idea to integrate some of my compartmentalized nonesense into a tight home page front end thingy. I will post journal entries and site news and links and other random stuff here, so you can expect it to grow longer and longer.  I'm living in Phoenix now; Joshua and Andrew and I drove out here in my '79 Granada without any trouble and we spent New Year's Eve in the desert around a campfire.  I promise to spill my guts soon about everything that has happened since before Christmas.

the archives the blog