Oh poop, has it been 9 months since I posted something, here? You know, I thought I’d get my annual blog-post in early.

My buddy satyr asks me if Spoonfighter is dead. It probably is. Hey - lots of things died in 2009: Michael Jackson, Patrick Swayze, the Democrats ….

I’m actually bothering to blog because I have to tell someone (i.e. the readers of this blog, i.e. no-one) about my goals for 2010. (I’m sure I’ll have others, when I fail at these.)

1) Goal numero uno: Stop thinking until March

This goal was suggested by my buddy Chris. You see, I have a problem. I am addicted to constantly thinking about life’s big questions. Over and over and over and over. Were it not for this goal, I would have already spent most of this morning tallying up the pros and cons (once again) of such questions as, “What do I really believe about God?”, “What is the point of my own existence?”, and “Will anyone notice if I don’t wear underwear today?”

Secretly, you see, I believe I’m a genius, and that I’m smarter than all those other people who have tried to answer these questions, unsuccessfully. (Buddha went commando. And everyone could tell.) Although I’m getting close to the answers (which I will publish in the form of an eBook), some people have suggested that my “obsessive-compulsive over-thinking” (OCOT) might actually be interfering with some of my other goals, like “enjoying life”, and “not being an angry jerk to my kids.”

My buddy Chris said, “Why don’t you try not thinking for a month?” I told him I’d think about it.

2) Goal numero dos: Read everything on the internet

As 2009 was coming to a close, I realized that I only flirt with the internet. I never commit. I don’t jump in at the deep end. I don’t get the big, extra-value, 20%-more free, bottle o’ internet, and slather the entire contents over my whole body.

What a disgusting image. Anyway, this goal grew out of one of last year’s goals, which was to figure out a way to make some money off the internet. I soon noticed that several other people already seem to have had that idea. That’s when it dawned on me that I have almost no idea what’s actually on the internet these days. I don’t have a list of blogs I read. I don’t hang out at YouTube. I don’t Tweet. I only just found out about Lala.

So, in the interest of setting attainable goals, and with all the extra time I have now that I’m not thinking or wearing underwear to work, I will explore the internet, page by page, link by link, NSFW-video by NSFW-video. A journey of a 7,943,567,328,293,335,110,832,477 miles begins with a single step. Those who say it can’t be done should get out of the way of those who are doing it!

At least I already know about lolcats. That’s about 15% of the internet, right there.

Interesting quote from Timothy Ferriss (author of the 4-Hour Workweek), from his blog, on why he doesn’t do much stock-market investing:

Here’s the deal — to beat the market consistently, you have to: 1) have better information than most people, 2) have superior analysis of the same information, or 3) have better luck than a Leprechaun.

Discarding luck as a strategem, and personally discarding better analysis because I don’t want to spend my life poring over annual reports or evaluating algorithms, there is a simple conclusion: don’t invest in anything that you don’t know inside and out better than most of the world.

I’m spinning off a new blog. For the past month, I’ve been trying to build a working Sun Cluster using VirtualBox on my laptop. If I just lost you, don’t worry about it. However, I know there are other people out there who might be interested in doing the same thing, or something similar, and so I’ve decided to start blogging about this and other technical endeavors at http://spoonfightergeeksout.blogspot.com/. Most of the progress I’ve made has been facilitated by the blog entries of other geeks, and I figure that what I’m learning might be helpful to someone else.

As an added bonus, you won’t have to read about it here.

Men will appreciate this. Women will appreciate that men are mentally ill.

Link

I don’t know why, but graphs charting ordinary stuff are really funny. Maybe it’s just me. Or maybe its a geek thing. I’m not sure.

Meme’s are so, like, 2 years ago. But I haven’t done one yet, and my friend Alwen tagged me with one. So here goes.

7 random things about me you may not know…

1. I crave hot dogs. I put them in soup. I role them up in tortillas with a little cheese. I eat them cold. I will eat them until I feel like barfing

2. I hold a white belt in at least three martial arts. No kidding.

i. Kun Tao - A variety of Kung Fu practiced in Indonesia. (The teacher told me I’d earned a green belt in this one, but I couldn’t have fought my way out of an angry preschool with these techniques: so, I still think of myself as a white belt.)
ii. Muay Thai - Our school didn’t have belts. So my belt is still white.
iii. YMCA Karate - I have no idea how long I was actually in these classes, but somehow I missed all the belt tests. I was like totally the most fearsome white belt in the class.

3. I hate doing things I suck at. I grew up with modest talents in a number of areas, and got accustomed to being good at things without putting in much effort. It’s a curse, because later in life I have a hard time staying the course when things get hard. And everything gets hard, sooner or later.

4. I pierced my own ear once. It didn’t hurt at all, but I suspect that’s because I was more than a little drunk at the time. Sadly, I didn’t have an earring to put in the hole, so it was rather pointless.

5. I take one heck of a long time to finish a meme. Seriously. What’s my problem?

6. Pet peeve: People who keep large, aggressive dogs in their front yards. I’m running along, minding my own business, enjoying the peace and quiet of my neighborhood, when suddenly 100+ pounds of bad doggie charges out of nowhere and throws itself at me. Yes, I realize afterward that I’m perfectly safe on my side of the fence. But why should I have to wear two pairs of super hero underwear when I go running?

What really pisses me off are the people who only have four foot fences. Are you telling me that a 100 pound Rottie, moving at 25 mph, can’t clear a four foot fence? And don’t even get me started about the a__hole who uses some invisible sonic collar thing instead of a fence. The next time his wife decides to run her hair dryer and the toaster at the same time, some little kid is going to be puppy chow.

7. I used to play a pretty mean blues harp (harmonica).

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Rules:
A. List 7 random things about yourself that people may not know.
B. Link the person who sent this to you, and leave a comment on their blog so that their readers can visit yours.
C. Post the rules on your blog.
D. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, linking their blog. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Link

Thanks for all the feedback, both in comments to this post and in meat-space. (Ie., the real world, First Life, etc.) I’m pleasantly surprised that so many people actually read this blog.

The votes were generally 50-50. Friends who had the misfortune of observing the years of navel-gazing which ultimately led to my decision to go to law school favored staying. (Reading between the lines, I think they were begging me not to put them through it again.) Those who were more acquainted with my current grumbling favored quitting.

I have made up my mind, I think, to stay. I wasn’t satisfied with what I was doing before law school, and there was some gut-level reason I decided to go to law school. If nothing else, it will open up a wider range of life experiences. The adventure lies ahead, not behind.

Thanks for all the thoughts. Sorry for all the belly-aching.

My new favorite web comic!

http://pbfcomics.com

You know, I have to admit that I’m not a very *good* blogger. I’m inconsistent. I’m required to be consistent as an employee, as a husband, and as a father - that’s about all the consistency I can handle.

Recreational activities (like this blog) don’t get that level of commitment. I guess that’s the difference between me and Will Wheaton. That, and the fact that my part on Star Trek, The Next Generation, was cut during the pilot.

All of which is to say that I don’t think I’m going to do any more cartoons for a while. When I drew the first three, I thought, “Hey, maybe I can draw a lot of these and have a successful web comic and/or submit them for print syndication.” (Eight years ago I did, in fact, submit 6 weeks of a daily comic strip for syndication.)

But doing that really doesn’t gel with my other goals at the moment. Drawing isn’t, actually, all that much fun. It’s the initial creative process, and the positive (usually) feedback from the readers, which make cartooning enjoyable. So, right now, it’s not the thing to do. Oh well. That’s not to say, of course, that I won’t change my mind.