rianjs.net

Which OS are You?

Could be worse, I suppose.

And it's growing old quickly. Particularly over the last couple of days. But let me explain.

Since I've been home from school, I've basically done nothing but work, come home, sleep, and work again. I've got what amounts to no friends that live around here. Coupled with an irregular schedule, I feel like I'm working 60 hours a week, with no friends. My phone does not ring, I do not get emails. At first it was nice to decompress for a good long while on my own with no one to bother me at regular intervals, but now it just sucks.

My mom left Sunday for a week in Mexico, which was nice for about six hours, and then that too promptly started to suck. The main reason it was nice wasn't the fact that she was gone, but rather because I'd worked a bunch of days in a row and it was nice to have a day off. Her presence or absence was largely irrelevant. I didn't think I would ever say this this summer, but I'm glad to be going back to work tomorrow, and for the several days after it. I don't care that I'm working 9-hour days back to back five days in a row (working a 9-hour day in retail is a lot more trying than a 9-hour office day). I'd rather be there than at home, though I suspect I'll be eating my words in 3 days.

So anyway, I don't have a social life, and it's starting to wear me down. Especially now that I literally have no one to talk to at the moment. I've done a fair amount of writing for polyscience.org, but after a while, that starts getting boring. Not that I don't enjoy it, but I simply don't have anyone to interact with in person, and so I get restless, and that means I don't write. I've basically been sitting at my computer for the last 3 days, with the exception of reading Harry Potter cover-to-cover in one sitting, and going to the library today in an attempt to get some new reading material. (All the books I wanted were all checked-out or the library simply didn't have them at all.)

A pretty boring life right now, though I have made certain to eat well, and I'm not avoiding work which I usually do when I get depressed. I'm not depressed, but I'm acting like I did when I *was* depressed, so there's a weird sort of conflict going on upstairs like my brain can't figure out if I'm depressed or what. (I'm not. Really.)

Anyway, I need to write two or three more things tomorrow for polyscience.org, and that's basically it. I wish I did have homework or some other responsibilities to give me something to do. Weird, I never thought I'd say that this summer. But anyway, yeah. That's my life in a bubble, in a nutshell.

Did I mention that my mom will be home for a week next week, and then she'll be gone for 5 weeks to Mexico again? I have no idea what I'm going to do with myself.

Does anyone want to go see Fantastic Four with me?

In this entry, I mentioned that I had emailed the BBC to see if they would allow me to continue distributing Beethoven's symphonies. I knew they wouldn't, but it was still cool to actually get a reply:

Dear Rian

Thank you for your email to BBC Information regarding your enquiry relating to The Beethoven Experience.

Sadly, we are unable to grant permission for your request. This is because the BBC has very strict copyright laws, not permitting any images, sound files, video clips, characters or character names to be used or reproduced in any way.

I am sorry that I cannot offer you a more encouraging reply; nevertheless I would like to thank you again for taking the time to contact us with your request.

Regards
Ann Kennedy
Publicity & Research
BBC Information

That's better than most large corporations will do. Generally emails disappear into a black hole, even if it's in a company's best interest to respond if not to the sender, to the issue the sender raises.

I wrote four posts for polyscience.org tonight. Four in a row without stopping. I published two of them, the other two are sitting in the queue until tomorrow. Posting a blast of news is great, but it doesn't help retain readership.

I did a shitload of reading today on making money blogging, and it actually seems quite easy. I don't really want to make money from what I write here on rianjs.net, but I would like to turn polyscience.org into a real publication with its own readership independent from my personal blog. I wish I had more time and energy to devote to it: often when I work I come home to burned out to do a good job writing something that's newsworthy. In the meantime, though, I do make a few pennies here and there, mostly right now to offset the cost of webhosting. What I get from the few other users sharing the server with me helps cover some costs, but not all, and I'm not really willing to take any new people on board unless I really like you or you're super cool. I don't like to share. :p

Anyway, I must have read every ProBlogger.net article on making money blogging, and most of it's pretty reasonable and doable, if you have the time to devote to actually writing. I hesitate to use the word "blogging" because it's so damn overused and carries with it an negative cachet to a great many Internet denizens. I would like to think that I'm providing some unique insight into some of the issues that I write about on polyscience.org. Sort of like what Ars does for technology and its social impact. Time will tell if I succeed or not.

This is my second day in a row that I don't have to work, and it's been great. I have one thing that I need to do tomorrow morning because, once again, I didn't succeed in getting it done today. I have to ship out the goddamn pool filter. The people at FedEx/Kinkos suggested that I go to Manchester where the main distribution facility for FedEx in New England is to see if they had something that could accomodate something so large. If they don't, I'll have to find a U-Haul center to buy a box or something. I'm still shocked that no one has a box large enough. They apparently don't exist for consumers. :rolleyes:

Oh yeah, work. I was originally scheduled to work 12-9 tomorrow, which is the worst shift known to man because it's like you've got two full days in one: your morning and then your afternoon. Who likes eating two meals at work? Not I; it's also happens to be a logistical pain in the ass, having to bring two meals. But instead I'm only working 5-9 because the new girl is doing my 12-5. I don't think I could have planned it any better if it had been my own idea.

What the hell?

I was reading an Australian IT article, and I apparently get more traffic than one of the prominent bloggers listed there. 3-4x as much, even.

That strikes me as wrong somehow; I don't get that many visitors per day, several hundred usually, except in rare cases (see my zeitgeist post below).

My dad took this today for no reason. And it's funny because it's so utterly pointless.

Right click -> Save as (36MB)

I crack myself up sometimes. But only when I'm not trying. :p

And here's another funny video you can download from WildBill's site.

Check it.

Today was my sixth day in a row working; a 9-6 shift. Given that it's a Sunday, that's quite alright, except that almost as soon as I walked in this morning, I was ready to leave. It's very easy to get burned out at a retail job, particularly one as high stress as pharmacy. Today wasn't particularly stressful, but it's annoying having people stand and watch you all the time, because you're constantly under scrutiny. As far as Sundays go, this one was fairly mild. Nonetheless, the things that most employees take for granted, I do not have: a chair to sit on, a computer with Internet access, an uninterrupted 30-minute lunch break. These are all things that contribute to personal burnout for me, and I've sorely wanted a break for the last two days. Working five days a week is easy for most people because they don't work retail, but you'll rarely find a person in retail that works five days in a row. Nevermind six. Particularly in management. And there's a reason for that.

Anyway, I've got quite a lot of catching up to do on the things that I enjoy. Reading and writing are the big ones. I've got a million phone calls to make tomorrow, which I'm not looking forward to doing: calling Cingular to try to get a $270 bill wiped out; calling Beth Israel to try to get a $250 hospital co-payment erased. I don't like talking on the phone as it is, and it's even worse when it's about money that you owe people. It's amazing how the things that normal people do and take for granted pile up so easily when your brain is too smooshed to cope with it by the time you get home.

The new Harry Potter book was released and I haven't even had time to take a look at it or be excited about it's being out, huge Harry fan though I am. I have two drafts for things saved here in WordPress that I haven't been able or motivated to finish. I have four articles to write about for polyscience. I need to call Kim and my father. So many demands on my time; it's hard to catch up when you're behind.

That's not to say I haven't accomplished little things which wouldn't have been so little even three months ago. I say this because I would never have been able to accomplish things like getting Planet Ars Lounge set up a few short months ago: my ADD would have precluded it. Now I discovered that it was remarkably easy if you know what not to do when you're trying to be productive. These things include listening to the right music, having no chat windows open — or any other windows that can suddenly steal your attention at a moment's notice for that matter. Here's short list of things because when I'm feeling out of it, because I like to remind myself of the things I have done so I can remain focused on the things that I want to do. All of these things would have been nearly impossible three months ago, or I would have done them in a half-ass manner:

• Researching and purchasing a dedicated webserver
• Paying my credit card down substantially on a relatively low wage
• Setting up polyscience.org
• Balancing work and play
• Writing full length articles on the spur of the moment, like I did the other night.
• Gotten more visitors to my websites in the month of July than I have in all the months since their inception combined. Yes, I am endlessly proud of that.
• I'm not as judgemental as I used to be. I've noticed that it's easier and less stressful if you don't judge people as stupid when they do or say something that might seem that way. Chances are, they're just ignorant, and that's not necessarily their fault. (By the same token, I also feel that it's not my job to educate everyone when they're ignorant on something, because it's easier for me not too, and chances are, they know about something that I don't, and so in that way, we're even.)
• Many other small things that I've forgotten.

And some things that I will do in the future, or need to work on:

• Create my own WordPress template for polyscience.org
• Continue Learning Python
• Read the new Harry Potter
• Not burning myself out or getting upset when something I want to have a wider audience for falls through. (Slashdot rejected one of my submissions again)
• Sleeping better: I haven't been letting things go, and as a result I haven't been sleeping as well as I should. (Like what happens when I'm waiting to see if slashdot rejects or accepts something.)

Some changes I've noticed in myself along the way this summer:

• Empty things hold little appeal to me. I'd rather read and write than watch movies or get drunk
• I'm more patient and things don't get to me like they used to

If I were going to school in the fall, the summer would be right around halfway over. Instead, it's nowhere near the halfway mark for me, because I'm not going back until January. The more this summer progresses, the happier I am about this, because so much cool stuff is going on, and I'm busy doing the things I love. Granted, I don't have as much time for them as I would like, but this makes me utilize my free time better when I do have it.

The more I accomplish in my personal life, the more I look around me and think "Yeah, I could do that." Like, I was watching Mona Lisa Smile tonight, and some things happened in the movie that made me think that I could do or be something that a character in the movie was. For instance, all the Harvard boys with their letter shirts on… I could be that if I really wanted, but I don't. But there's no doubt in my mind that I could be a Harvard student if I wanted to and I applied myself, but I don't think I want that either. I like where I am and where I'm going, even though I don't know where or in what direction the road leads. I'm just enjoying the journey along the way.

I could be a physicist if I put my mind to it. Or a chemist, or teacher, or professor. I don't think there's a single thing that I couldn't do if I really wanted it. Well, except be a pro athlete or something like that. And for once this isn't my ego talking, though it may read that way. It's just me talking candidly to myself out loud on the Internet where everyone can see and judge me. So, judge if you must, or if it makes you feel better, but I'd rather you just read and say "Sure, why not?"

And to Mr. Sha… yeah, you could do it too, so why don't you?

Hooray, it's that time again.

Totals:

• Page impressions: 9,429
• Bandwidth used: 9.25GB
• Most popular day: June 10 (956MB bandwidth used)
• Most popular file: lindsay_big.jpg

Search queries I thought were cool:

• planes trains and plantains
• vetericyn
• sa goon
• lindsay lohan
• taste perversion
• fecalization
• fecalization of small bowel
• unihumans
• narnia trailers
• net medic
• christian interpretation of movie what dreams may come
• testicles ice
• rian blog mcphs
• bitches
• mcphs
• drupal wordpress
• zillions of other search queries

Browser roundup:

IE has roughly 2/3 of browser market. Firefox has about 1/3, and Opera makes up the rest.

Top referrers:

• No top referrers because most of them are spam sites and people leeching images from me.

Hopefully more detailed stats for July. I can tell you that I'm approaching 200GB in traffic, and that the total number of page impressions for just the first two weeks is more than all of rianjs.net from its inception.