Wow, what an incredible couple of weeks. It’s definitely been exciting, to say the least. Sadly, I won’t make it out to CES 2011 in Las Vegas this year, even though I’m registered: the numbers just don’t add up and I have a few other reasons I need to be near home, but I’ll miss heading out there for the event and the spectacle. I’m pretty sure I’ll make it next year though: I just need to register good and early and get my travel plans out of the way early too, so I don’t waffle on the idea until it’s time to make a decision. Regardless, Raevyn and I talked about it and we’re thinking it might be fun to do something else since I didn’t manage to get to Vegas. Maybe Vegas at a different time of year. Or even Seattle, since I’ve always wanted to visit.

In the interim though, I’ve had to deal with much more worldly and and irritating issues. First I get wind that someone’s impersonating me over at the ZDNet blogs, and then I get word that someone’s claimed – in their effort to try and figure out who one of their more annoying community members really is – that their troll-in-residence is actually somehow me. Now, prior to this fiasco I’d never set foot in the ZDNet blogs unless I passed through because I read an article and summarily left – I certainly never left a comment and I didn’t even have an account. It was pretty apalling to see the whole spectacle. I railed about it at Gears and Widgets, and here’s hoping the whole thing blows over soon.

No sooner than I was past that did I find out about The Great Gawker Hack of 2010, and sure enough after digging through the hashes myself I learned that yup – my account information had been compromised. Now I use strong passwords everywhere, so the encrypted database meant that luckily it would take a good long time for my password to be uncovered (I hope, anyway) but that didn’t stop me from changing my password over at Lifehacker and io9, not to mention just about everywhere else on the Web, just for good measure. Just one more annoying thing, eh?

Still, aside from those two annoyances, I’ve been trying desperately to get into the holiday spirit. The office holiday party was last week, and I think it was a lovely affair, even if it was held in our office building (usually the corporate bigwigs rent out a fancy hall or something) – but it went off smashingly. The food was fantastic, the music was great, and even though I didn’t win one of the raffled off iPads, it was still a great time. I think part of the reason I haven’t really gotten into the spirit yet is because I haven’t started my holiday shopping. At all.

I’ve even published holiday gift guides at The Classy Geek and at Gears and Widgets, but I haven’t bothered to take my own advice and go shopping for the people I have to buy for. I don’t want to be a last minute shopper, but…urgh.

In wonderful news though, World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is out, and has happily rekindled my love for the game. I still don’t have as much time as I’d love to dedicate to it, so leveling is slow going for me, but considering the huge gaps between levels and the fact that our guild – even with the expansion – is woefully quiet and largely silent, means I can take all of the time I want and need. The collector’s edition I picked up is gorgeous though, and the art book is especially fun to flip through.

In other news, I’ve been pleasantly trying out Diaspora and rather like it, frankly. It’s definitely an alpha, but the polish and features in it so far give me faith for what the service could be – and how much unlike Facebook it makes me feel. It’s cleanliness and focus on privacy makes me want to share with friends, as opposed to Facebook which makes me terrified to post anything. Still, I don’t want to give too much away: I do have to write up Diaspora for Appscout.

Now then, back to playing Poker Night at The Inventory for me. I never thought I’d have so much fun playing a poker game – and it only cost me three bucks. Maybe a few hands will perk me up to the point where I can do some holiday shopping. Maybe I should hang some Christmas lights this year too, that’d be festive!

Or maybe I should start thinking about New Years’ parties…

Lately I’ve been absolutely in love with a couple of different anime, although I’ve only been able to see snippets of both of them because they haven’t been widely released in the United States yet: ToraDora!, a series with a plot that could very easily be a standard anime plot, but in reality is absolutely fabulous, different, and original in a very familiar way. It’s clearly a slice-of-life story, but sports a nice guy everyone thinks is violent because of the way he looks, a violent girl everyone wants to be next to because of the way she looks, and the unique friendship between the two of them and the way they handle the rest of their circle of friends. I want to be someone’s Ryuuji to their Taiga so bad. Now where will I find a short, sassy, powerhouse blonde? I have no idea….

That’s the bulk of the opening sequence of ToraDora! with some added characters and longer effects – I love the opening sequence, but this one’s just a bit more fun to watch, and it’s in HD! Or…YouTube’s version of HD, anyway. When I hit Otakon this year (and it’s probably about time to start thinking about rooms and such) I want to see if I can find anything ToraDora! related, maybe DVDs of the series, even if they’re fansubs.

The phrase “vanilla salt” comes from the incredibly catchy ending theme:

Which is adorable, but doesn’t tell you as much about Ryuuji’s character as the end theme for the 2nd season does – Ryuuji loves his friends. And keep count of how many people come to see him, and then how many slices of cake are missing at the end there. He reminds me of me a little.

The other series I’ve been a little ashamed to admit I really love the idea of is Maria Holic – another story that’s incredibly unique but clearly for adults. A poor girl retreats to an all-girl school after realizing that dealing with boys not only makes her ill (she’s clearly a lesbian) but gives her hives. At her new school, she meets a boy who’s masquerading as a girl – a girl who’s not just the central character to the series, but is an amazing, brilliant, sadistic character with a world view that I can definitely appreciate. I almost want to pick up the Manga, but I’m worried that anything released in the US would probably be sanitized, and I don’t want to miss the gender-screwing nuances in the Japanese version. Oh, and before I embed this? You…might not want to play it at work. There’s nothing blatant about it, but the floating 3d female figures are indeed nude, not that it’s not obvious.

That’s the opening sequence. You…can see how awesome the series would be. The end theme on the other hand is adorable by comparison, and definitely a pick-me-up kind of video that i turn to whenever I need a little 8-bit happiness.

Anyway, this has already been a pretty video heavy post, and if any of you follow my exploits over at Plurk you’ve probably seen them all already, and I apologize for the repeats. If not, you’re in for a treat.

In other news, it’s been a pretty hectic week; I haven’t had time to really get back to the things I’ve been making a habit of quite yet like exercising every night when I get home and picking out records to spin into a mix at the end of the week; but I’m hoping that I can get back to it pretty quickly. I have managed to get myself back to the regularity of cooking my own food and doing some light exercise in the morning, both of which are lovely, refreshing returns to normalcy for me after the holiday traveling. That’s not to say I didn’t like the traveling, and that’s not to say I couldn’t have put more effort into exercising while I was on vacation and when I was in Vegas working CES, but I just didn’t – now that I’m home though, I’m happy to get back to it.

Speaking of CES, I did my taxes and I should be getting a very pleasant surprise back from Uncle Sam this year because I can claim my home office and travel expenses for freelancing as deductions. The hilarious thing though is that while I can claim those things and I clearly upped my withholding far too much last year to compensate for my freelancing income, and the federal government is willing to pay back my interest-free loan, the state government on the other hand wants a little cash. Not much, but something. The best part is that I was due a refund until I put in the county in which I live.

Besides that, I still have so much stuff from CES that I want to write about and photos I want to upload. CES really was like a treasure trove of experiences and sights and sounds, and that was only partially because it took place in Las Vegas. I’m definitely planning on going back next year. Considering there’s something like 28 inches of snow on the ground outside, I might have the time to post those pictures, and those products I haven’t written about just yet. I already took the time to dig myself out today, so tomorrow I can relax and spend some time uploading pictures – including those of the snow.

I’m glad I went shopping before the snow hit though, I should be good in here for a good while, curled up where it’s warm with a hot cup of coffee. Now, to move the space heater over to my computer.

Today my “Secret Project” is no longer a secret project! I’ve been working on this little side-project for months now, writing and writing and writing long-form articles and how-tos and segments and putting them all together offline and then building out the perfect design for it all, and finally, FINALLY all of my work is complete, systems are ready for launch, and I’m pulling the tarp down.

I give you: The Classy Geek.

Your weekly dose of all things geeky and classy, and proof the those two things don’t at all have to be mutually exclusive. If you want to read more about what the whole project is about, check out The Classy Geek about page.

I’m really excited to see where this project goes – I have a list of columns a mile long and some additional articles in the hopper to publish over the coming weeks, and I’m even thinking about doing a video podcast, if there’s interest around it. In any event, head over, take a look, leave a comment, and let me know what you think!

Last week was food week over at Lifehacker, and I picked up a whole world of tips that hopefully will prove themselves useful now that I’m doing a lot more cooking. One article that I think is worth sharing but that I already pretty much know and love and agree with is the editors’ five must-have tools for any kitchen. I’m on board with this one a hundred percent – when I unpacked my knife block and set I realized how superfluous the majority of the knives in that set really are – I mean, I have a huge butcher’s knife that I haven’t used once since I bought the knife set. I think it might have been used to crack into some kind of melon once, but I don’t even think it was successful then. One good, sharp santoku is more than enough for me. The trick is keeping it sharp.

Solid pots and pans, and the one that entertains me the most if “at least one good Asian supermarket.” Ah yes – where I live now is closer to a number of really good asian markets than where I used to live, so it’s a short jaunt over to one to pick up some delicious snacks, spices, and fresh produce and fish. Another pair of articles that address the hardest meals of the day for me are the whole how to make your brown bag lunch more appealing, which essentially tells me I wouldn’t mind so much if I had a decent lunch container, and the venerable make breakfast burritors in bulk article that I’ve been sitting on for a while now. At least I picked up tortillas on my last grocery shop.

In the same vein, I still make sure to catch A Lyon in the Kitchen on Discovery Health in the mornings, and absolutely love Chef Nathon Lyon and his approach to food. He’s the guy who makes me glad I live close to a farmer’s market…when it opens agiain. I have every intention of strolling the booths, talking to the growers, and filling my basket with fresh deliciousness. Then I just have to figure out what to do with it all.

On the other hand, NPR wrapped up a series a while ago called How Low Can You Go? where they encouraged listeners to submit their meals that they could make and feed a family on a budget of $10 per meal. They had some really high profile chefs talk up their own solutions, like Pat and Gina Neely from the Food Network, making their classic “macaroni and cheese” that I can only encourage you to make yourself, and the chef I love the most but see the least on television these days, Ming Tsai.

Speaking of Food Network, since it’s definitely grilling season, Food Network aired a special called “Dear Food Network,” where Alton Brown (whose book I’m studying again and who pretty much says what Lifehacker says about what you definitely need in your kitchen) drops in on a number of fans to show them how to make delicious food on the grill. On the show, a woman with pink hair who definitely knew her food stood out to me – she had huge personality, knew what she was talking about, and all in all seemed like someone I would love to hang out with. Sure enough, a Google search later and I had found her blog, Foodival, where Stephanie makes the most delicious food I’ve ever seen. (and takes pictures of them with remarkable skill – seriously, the way to my heart is through my eyes and my stomach. Food and photography: two things I absolutely love.)

One comment later on her appearance on Food Network and she sent me an IM. I have a new friend! Aside from following and commenting on her blog, now I just need to work up the nerve to IM her again, what with her being a TV superstar and all.

Between Stephanie and my man Gary Vaynerchuk, I have a lot of people to learn from and talk to when I’m curious about food and wine. And judging by Stephanie’s photography skills, photography too. Now that I’m all settled into my apartment, I can start reaching out to people again, commenting on blogs again, making new friends and getting back in touch with the old ones. Forgive me for being antisocial the past few weeks guys – I’ve had a lot to do and a lot to get over before I felt like I could put my face to the sun again.

In other news, I’m starting to whittle down the stack of books next to my desk. I have the time to do a little reading here and again now, and it’s come just in time now that I’ve found Flashlight Worthy Books’ list of classic steampunk titles. Some of these books are already in my own personal stacks, but some of them I think I’ll have to pick up. I’m really happy about the inclusion of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s Girl Genius, because it all but really defines the genre to me, even though I know the genre predates their comic.

Now if only I could find some steampunk titles that draw on influences from other parts of the world than Victorian or Eduardian England, I’ll be happy. Seriously, there’s so much elsewhere in the world ripe for a steampunk interpretation – there’s no reason we need to limit ourselves to one particular country, nationality, or (more personally) ethnicity. Maybe I should write some of these ideas down.

Speaking of writing, I’ve been plannig to buy a Moleskine – I just don’t know which one would be best for me – I’ll have to hit the bookstore to to touch a few so I can get a feel for which ones I wouldn’t mind carrying from meeting to meeting. Besides, I have tons of pens at JetPens that I’m dying to buy, but I want to give them a proper writing surface first.

On the geek front, I’ve barely been playing World of Warcraft lately, which explains why the poor Azeroth Metblog has gone un-updated since I wrote about the Cuddle-Me-Yoggy. I tried to write about something tonight, but frankly I just don’t have enough to talk about right now. Maybe I can get back into it this week.

I’m looking forward to Otakon too. I think I’ll only take my Lelouch costume this year – it’s so much easier to get in and out of than the Kaname Tousen costume, unless I get the urge to sew between now and the con. More importantly though, the lovely Kittyhawk, of Montrose Academy and Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki will be there, and I have an obligation to go let her know how much I love her and her work, and spend money on prints. I have some more wall space now and it’s begging for framed prints. I have a little more space for figures now too, maybe.

Aside from that, I desperately need to do something about my home server – I’m all but out of space, and the Windows 7 RC that I’m running in VM on Europa (my Macbook Pro) is sucking down the gigs. I need to offload some music and photos, but I don’t have the space. I’m thinking maybe buying a barebones case, loading it up with 1TB hard drives, and slapping a TV-tuner card in there so I can play the movies that’ll eventually live on the box on the TV.

And that’s a whole other thing. I have a guest room now, and no TV in the guest room. An excuse to buy a new flat-screen TV? Perhaps – my expenses have dropped quite a bit lately, I might be able to. Maybe I’ll wait till the holidays and pick up a deal on something that’s more expensive now.

But right now, I should be abed. Thanks to the lovely Veronica, I’ve been shattering the writer’s block that’s been standing in my way the past week or so – she knows what’s up. And Veronica? That e-mail will live in my mailbox forever. Thank you.

…you don’t know how absolutely, incredibly right you are. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

I know I had said that I wouldn’t say much more about the shakeup in my personal life, but Veronica is too on point not to share this. Let’s take a look at Type 2. Likely moved into Type 3, although I think I caught it in time. Possibly.

I don’t need to re-paste the description, but here’s what really got me:

If it were the affair I described in the second example, that’s much more than “a mistake.” It’s purposeful deception. An affair someone has with a person online, or a coworker, or some situation where sex doesn’t happen but there is an intimacy and sharing of emotions and thoughts, is a much deeper thing. The idea that your partner spent time with this person, thinking about them, planning to be with them, having conversations and secrets, laughing and crying… to me this is much more important than one drunk night where someone’s pants fell off.

Another point to be made about this, is that there is no way in hell your partner didn’t know they were breaking your heart. Whatever they say, whatever they claim, they had to know it was wrong or they wouldn’t have kept it secret. You would have been included in those long conversations or chats, you would have been invited to those meetings, if there really was nothing to hide.

This is not only a betrayal of your vows and promises, it is blatant disrespect to you as a person. They cheated with their head and their heart. To many people, myself included, this is much worse than cheating sexually.

And moving on to what hit me the hardest – perhaps the hardest since then, is her advice – advice I particularly agree with, but am very glad to see elsewhere:

The healthy thing to do is not spend time and energy and heartache on a marriage that isn’t worth it.

There are reasons as to why your mate cheated. Maybe you married young, maybe he has real emotions for this other person. Maybe she’s fucked-up, maybe he’s just a coward. Maybe the marital sex hasn’t been all that. Maybe kids, finances, illnesses, work pressures, and a million other things are involved.

The problem isn’t that “problems” cropped up.

The problem is your mate’s CHOICE was to handle the problems by lying and cheating.

A person that promises their life to you, then chooses to be a coward when the going gets tough, is not a person you can have a healthy relationship with. This person demonstrated in the biggest way possible that they do not love or respect you.

And so we move on.

So there I was, sitting at the office, grumbling to myself about how tired I was and how much I want to go home, and then I decide to check my email. I see this (click to embiggen):

Which led to the predictable shock and awe. I had to leave – I had to hurry home, I had to tell someone! I managed to keep it in until I picked up Raevyn, just to see the look on her face.

Got home, and that message led to a little of this:

And now I’m downloading the beta client. It’s slow enough that I doubt I’ll get to play tonight, but tomorrow! Oh tomorrow, there will be Northrend. And likely all this weekend.

I might need some time off. Perhaps “working from home.”

This isn’t the first day I’ve come here, opened up the editor, and thought desperately about what I should say. There’s a lot to cover, if I wanted to do one of those historical-type posts, going back to the last update and recounting everything that’s happened since then, but that’s not really what I’m going for – maybe a little bit, but not totally.

Frankly, what’s gotten me going is telling myself that I don’t need some epic story every time I update here. Sheesh. It’s better to say something every now and again than say nothing at all, right?

So anyway, Plurk has eaten my soul, and my soul is quietly chipping away at the teeth in its maw, methodically trying to escape. And escape it will – I’m not going to be that guy and fall complete victim to a microblogging service. I’ve just got too much to say, whether I like it or not.

So Otakon has come and gone, and as promised, I did both the Kaname Tousen cosplay that I was kind of skeptical about (it turned out fantastically – now I just need to find someone who took pictures of me in it…) and the Code Geass cosplay that I wanted to do as well (and I’m pretty sure that no one took my picture in that one…).

I decided to go semi-local for both costumes and buy them from Moon Costumes, who had something of a bad rap with some of the cosplay boards I read because of shipping delays and such, and the fact that when I wanted a custom fit costume, they wasted a week getting me an estimate and then came back saying it would take longer than I had to make and ship the costume. I was about to give up on them entirely, but I just ordered the largest size they had (thinking if it were too big I’d just get it tailored, and if something were too small then I was just screwed) and not only did they ship earlier than I expected, I had the costumes a full week ahead of the con and they were WAY too big. We managed to work some magic with safety pins to tighten them down a bit so I didn’t trip over myself wearing them, but I’m definitely getting them taken in a bit before the next time I want to wear them. Anyway, mad props to Moon Costumes, for coming through when it counted, and getting both Raevyn and I what we needed in good time and at a good price.

The con itself was fantastic; we didn’t see as much of it as we would have liked, but I have to say that the lovely Hannah and Rachel made the best con roomies ever, and I’m totally looking forward to rooming with them again next year. Now we just have to book the hotel room, and I’m kinda interested in trying the new Hilton that’s connected to the convention center that they just finished building.

We wound up coming out of the con with less schwag than normal, but what we did get was great – it was certainly a box set Otakon, and I picked up everything from the entire freaking Robotech series on DVD (Amazon says that’s 21 discs – sheesh, no wonder it’s so big) – it’s called the Robotech Protoculture Collection, and it was huge. I paid a little more than I would have at Amazon, apparently, but hey – it was a con.

I also picked up the Tenjho Tenge box set, since it was a Geneon title and is subsequently out of print. Just as I predicted, there were a lot of Geneon titles (now out of print) available at the con, and that made me happy – I picked up what I could, when I could, and I was also happy to find out that a number of other distributers like Bandai and Funimation had picked up some of Geneon’s titles. I snagged a few more box sets; Solty Rei, Speedgrapher, Cowboy Bebop because we didn’t own it, and a few others. Good times, all in all, and we have definitely have plenty of anime to watch.

The unsung hero of the con however is definitely Lucky Star – Raevyn picked up the first two DVDs, and they’re absolutely hilarious. I can’t believe I haven’t watched this earlier.

The one thing I didn’t see at the con this year were some of the JRock and JPop music vendors that are usually there. There were a ton of weapon vendors (I picked up a replica of the Master Sword), but I didn’t have a chance to look for Jinn albums like I wanted. I’ve been enamored with the band since I found out they were the folks behind both the Blood + Season 4 opening and the Code Geass Season 2 opening.

The song behind the Blood+ opening is called Raion, and both the song and video are glorious:

The song behind the Code Geass opening is called Kaidoku Funou:

After I saw the two original videos, I started digging a bit more into the band itself. I’m actually remarkably surprised at how the lead singer has such a raw, almost raunchy voice – I absolutely love it. She’s not dolled up, she’s not made up to be a superstar, she’s really just..herself. And the rest of the band are themselves as well – the whole band collects to make an incredibly harmonious and cohesive sound. Without any one of them, it wouldn’t be the same, and I think they like it that way – no single one of them stands out incredibly, but together they’re absolutely incredible.

Yeah, I’m going to have to pick up their albums on Amazon, import or no. And to think, I wouldn’t have connected the dots if I didn’t have what I think is now a firmly unhealthy obsession with Code Geass. Without getting into a probably way-too-detailed analysis of the characters, lets just say there’s a part of me that desperately wants to be Lelouch inside – and a part of me that’s just as damaged and jaded, I think. Maybe next year I should give Lelouch’s casual clothes a try, if I don’t try to find a way to do a Zero mask.

In other news, things have settled a bit on the job front; my boss is still who he is – there’s no denying that – but I think he’s becoming a little easier to deal with; either because he’s calmed down, or because I’m just gotten used to dealing with him. We’ve hired a new person to work directly under me, now that my friend (and former lackey) has moved to another group to do some less challenging but probably career benefiting work.

We’ve moved the mail for all of my domains over to GMail, which is a huge relief – my only problems with spam these days are legit messages winding up in the spam folder. Ah, filters, labels, and the Better GMail extension. How I love thee.

Speaking of geekery, Raevyn and I are thinking about building new rigs. I mean, it’s not that there’s a problem with our current ones, it’s just that if anything were to happen to any critical components in them, parts would be hard to come by because they’re getting old. We built them what – maybe going on four or five years ago? The problem though is that I’m a little out of practice when it comes to updated components, and it looks like the build vs. buy debate has only gotten hotter since I had to worry about it last, and decent components haven’t gotten any cheaper. That and I’m having a hard enough time settling on the case that I want for my new rig. I have a bookmarks folder full of ideas.

If the weather weren’t going to turn cold in just a month or so, I’d think about picking up some new Science! t-shirts. I’m particularly in love with the first two – scientists know how to rock out too, you know. And who hasn’t wanted to ride an amoeba? I also love the Teach the Controversy shirts too, but I worry that some creationists and conspiracy theorists wouldn’t get that the whole line of shirts is a jab at their ridiculousness. The whole selection is brought to us by the fine folks at Amorphia Apparel, whose other shirts are fabulous as well. If they sell some hoodies and long-sleeved shirts as well, I just might pick those up; the designs are too funny (or ironic) to resist, even for the office.

Now then, time to see if I can find a way to embed a Plurk widget in my sidebar. I mean, if I’m over there so often, I may as well use it to keep poor Millennium Winter fresh too, if I don’t remember to come back as often as I’d like.

For anyone interested in hearing what I’m hearing:

I just moved mail hosting (and I think inadvertently some hosting functionality) over to Google (and subsequently got Google Apps) for a few of my domains. Let’s see how that goes. If there’s one thing that’s bothered me to no end, it’s the squirrelyness of SquirrelMail and their up/down webmail functionality. I mean, it normally doesn’t bother me terribly much; I tend to use Thunderbird at home, and when I can use my Macbook Pro at the office, I use it for mail as well. But I have to admit, I’d love to be able to get rid of my many many filters, get rid of Squirrelmail, and get used to GMail’s interface for my webmail needs. The way Dreamhost manages their mail services is pretty much the only thing I don’t like about their services. Everything else though? Totally rocks. But I just made the changes, and sheesh if waiting isn’t the toughest part. I’m waiting for DNS to propagate, and while I know it can take days, sometimes it takes minutes, and well – I’m holding out hope. I probably shouldn’t, I should go to bed and let DNS take its course. The Net works in mysterious ways.

In other news, I’ve become inexplicably addicted to Plurk. I mean, Robert Scoble hates it, so there’s no reason not to love it, frankly. I still love me some Pownce, but man if Plurk doesn’t have a ton of really cool features. The ability to microblog (you’re limited to 140 characters, so keep it short, buddy) and then respond to other people’s plurks and participate in a discussion is a real win. The horizontal time line view is also really cool, as is the mobile page that has a more vertical linear view; and the way the service makes gaining “karma” kind of a game is also fun. At the same time though, it could definitely be easier to plurk – they have a mobile page sure, and the site isn’t hard to use, but I could use a desktop app or something. Maybe I’m just missing the Pownce app that uses Adobe AIR that I generally keep running in the background. I shouldn’t complain about having to go to a website, really. Either way, if you’re curious, here I am at Plurk. It’s kind of scary how addictive the service is.

I still haven’t picked up my costumes for Otakon. I really ought to do that, especially since it looks like something like half of the people who were excited about coming to the con a few months ago are actually bailing on us now, which drives up the cost for everyone. I kind of expected it, but I’m still a little disappointed. Even so, I think it’ll still be a good time, and here’s hoping some of them change their mind.

Next week I get the office to myself without my boss’s presence. It’s something of a vacation. Unfortunately, my direct report is moving to another group because he’s the best candidate for the job, and while I enjoyed managing him, we’re already on the lookout to hire someone new. The trouble is that I and my boss disagree on who that person should be – big surprise. Without getting into all of details, we have a fundamental difference on what their most important skillset should be, either technical or administrative. Ten bucks to the first person who can guess what I find more valuable in an IT group. Anyway, he’s already trying to strongarm me into talking to someone whose resume he found – and frankly, whose resume I don’t think is a good fit. We’ll see how this turns out, but suffice to say my plan “b,” as it were, is taking shape.

Anyway, I’m wiling away the evening thinking about what I could make my first post over at the Azeroth Metblogs should be about, and rather enjoying a Sam Adams Boston Lager – mostly because I finished the Black Lager last night. So far, so good on the relaxing weekend front. The only thing that makes me sad is that it’ll be over oh too quickly.

Oh! Before I forget. I seem to have fallen in love with an instrument I’ve heard a number of times but only recently pinned down; the Celesta. Listen for the glassy, almost xylophone/bell-y sound in this funky disco house track, and you’ll know what I mean:

Noise canceling headphones were some of the best things I’ve purchased since I started werking here. The only trouble really is that the person sitting in the cube next to me demands my attention so often that it requires me to take them off frequently. She’s gone now, and out tomorrow, so at least I have some solace in my podcasts and such. Don’t get me wrong, I like her enough, it’s just harrowing when you’re trying to werk to be interrupted so often. So in order to stay sane, I’ll put my headphones back on and enjoy some back episodes of Freefall.

Speaking of music, I can’t talk enough about how much I’m in love with TheSixtyOne. I haven’t had this much fun just listening to internet radio in a long long time, and I had an off-and-on relationship with Pandora (one that abruptly ended when every electronic music channel I created got beat over the head with remixes of Kelly Clarkson’s Since U Been Gone and terrible remixes of Britney Spears’ Toxic. I don’t know how either of those could possibly be related to an artist like Hybrid, but apparently they are, according to the Music Genome Project).

Anyway, If you dig what I dig, I’m here at thesixtyone. I posted some more thoughts up at AppScout a while back, and then again yesterday at Gears and Widgets(updates? No wai!) if you want more justification. But you shouldln’t need it! Join up! Listen to what I’m listening to!

In other news, things are changing at the office, like I’ve described, and it’s got me thinking, like I’ve described. I think I need to get my hands around the situation and update my resume. I don’t think I’ll be leaving in the immediate future, so no worries (especially after my promotion!), but I do like to feel like I have control over what’s going on around me, and when I know I don’t and I know things are in flux, I like to take what I can control and get my hands around that at least. We’ll see what happens.

Speaking of things going on at the office, I think I need to be a little more organized. I know, I know; people who know me are laughing their asses off right now – I’m often referred to as one of the most buttoned up people in our group, and others have told me they’d kill to be as organized as I am. I regularly keep my inbox at zero messages (I’m a huge follower of inbox zero) and I file things regularly and only keep items in my inbox if they’re actionable. Still, I feel like there are a few things missing from my project management methodolgy; for one, I don’t really use MS Project or any other project management tool. I should probably start. On top of that, I don’t do anything for myself like a “weekly review.” I wouldn’t really care, but my boss (and subsequently his boss) tend to ask me things like “what went right/wrong in the last month, and what should we look out for next month?” Taking a little time every week to review my progress and accomplishments and schedule for the past week and the next week would help make those questions easier to answer. Heck, I could even use the time to work in a bit more work/life balance, something I think I’m sorely lacking.

Anyway. Ever since visiting my parents over the holidays, I’ve been jonesin’ for Whiff Roasters’ Aztec coffee blend. It seriously smells and tastes like cocoa puffs, I absolutely love it. Their coffee candy is delicious too – I’m gonna have to order some more. We’ve been rocking the Trader Joe’s Winter Blend coffee these past couple of weeks, and that’s been tasty too, but the flavor is wearing on me. I think we might buy another can or two, but save it for a brisk day next fall or in the spring when we want a different flavor.

Oh! I don’t believe I haven’t mentioned this before, but WoW fans will love the fact that Illegal Danish 2: Escape from Ogrimmar is out! If you haven’t seen the original movie, Illegal Danish: Super Snacks, you haven’t LIVED. Go waste a good half-hour to an hour watching them both. You won’t regret it.

I love Blood + far more than I should. Even the English dub is good! I think a box set might have to be an Otakon purchase next year.

Aside from griping about the state of affairs these days, there are a number of things going well; I shouldn’t forget that, and I shouldn’t forget to mention it. I am, for as much as I’m the type of person who’s bemused and annoyed at the early beginnings of the holiday season, I’m happy that the holidays are here. I love the bright lights in the city and all of the decorations, the warm drinks and the company of family and friends makes it more than worthwhile.

In other news, and around the web, I was thrilled when I found out that the guys behind Applegeeks has released an action figure based on the robot girl that Hawk, the main character, created with some mad science and a Mac earlier in the comic. There were a few available at Otakon last year (which reminds me, I should book our room for next year!) but she finally made it onto the online store. Of course, she’s been sold out for weeks, but when she’s in, I’ll have to pick one up. Speaking of action figures, when ThinkGeek turned out their World of Warcraft figures, both Raevyn and I were excited. Suffice to say those’ll be somewhere in the house during the holidays.

Anyway, as far as griping is concerned, one of the things that annoys me to no end at the office is unnecessary communication. You know what I mean – if you work in an office at all, you’ve probably become used to what I’m talking about – people who respond with messages like “ok” and “sure” when in all honesty they didn’t need to say anything at all, and so on. Personally, I’ve become something of a mail filter-fu master when it comes to things like that – making sure I’m not on mailing lists that have nothing to do with me, and making sure I filter things like calendar appointment responses and automated messages directly to a specific folder or to the deleted items folder. Still, it’s tough in the workplace to escape the person who sends you an email and then immediately comes over to talk about it, and then sends you another email about what the two of you just discussed. It’s enough of a pain at the office, that I certainly don’t like dealing with it outside of the office. Outside of the office, spam is the big problem for me, but Lifehacker has some tips on how to deal with things like that. Personally I think most of them are good.

In the vein of unnecessary communication and information overload, I just installed NoScript this weekend (I know, shameful that it took me so long to try it) but so far it works fabulously. Highly recommended.

As for other projects around the house, I’m torn between this one to turn my home theatre PC into a Media Center PC (Polaris, the home theatre PC, is also hooked up to my turntables and the ShoutCast server) and this one to turn my old XBox into a killer media center. I was thinking about getting an XBox 360 after the holidays (or during if the sales are good) and that would free up the original XBox for a project like this. And the other thing about building a new HTPC was that I didn’t want to add even more computers to our electric bill – it’s already awfully high. We’ll see though, I’l keep them both in my back pocket. If we move out of here and into a new place at any point soon, I’d still want a dedicated HTPC.

Hm. And people wonder why I don’t have a Facebook account. It’s bad enough that I have an atrophying MySpace account that I never look at. I should just delete it. The history of social networks entertains me to no end, even though I have no real love for Facebook and MySpace – I miss the Tribe and Friendster days – back when Friendster was actually good. Still, maybe I’ll toss something together about that history for Gears and Widgets. I haven’t posted there in a while.

Finally, thanks to the lovely (and saucy, despite her objections!) Pastilla, here are 15 Unfortunately Placed Ads. Cheers!