bixworld.com

Sites like glassbooth.org (that let you take a simple quiz and see which presidential candidates you are similar to in ideology) are a dime a dozen. But glassbooth goes a step further and lets you see *why* you are similar or different from any given candidate.

Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, it’s a useful tool.

Today my task was to “write a bestseller,” with the goal being fame and fortune. However, in my research I’ve found that these typically take more than a day to complete, so I feel that this is entirely unfair. However, that same research turned up a type of bestseller that I believe I can achieve. It’s the “unread bestseller.” That is to say, a book nobody else has read. Granted, the type of unread bestseller that the wikipedia entry talks about is one that everyone buys but nobody reads. But that’s not all that different from one that nobody buys and nobody reads, right? So that’s my angle. Trust me, this book is great. You should read it. It’s a bestseller.

As instructed by my new “This Box Will Change Your Life” calendar, I was to test a proverb today. The results were troubling… I decided to test “look before you leap.” I figured that the best option would be to find a tall building, and leap off of it twice (each time recording the results)… the first time leaping without looking and the second to leap only after a prolongued optical investigation. I decided that I would conduct scale model tests before I went ahead with full scale testing. BOY AM I GLAD I DID!!! I found a stairwell that I had never walked down before, and lept from the second step from the bottom without looking. Other than a loud thud when I hit the ground, I noted little affect. I then took a long hard look at the ground before leaping again from the second step. The result was that there was no difference. I then ran a few numbers… taking into consideration gravity, the shock absorbtion of my chuck taylors, and the rotation of the earth, it turns out that one will break their neck regardless of how long they look before they leap off a large building! Clearly this means that spending time looking and considering one’s actions before doing something is a waste of time.

I was sitting in my apartment watching a movie tonight when I had an odd thought. Lately it’s been rare that I’ve let my mind sink into itself. It seems to come harder now. I used to find myself having a hard time *not* doing it, but now… the method… the practice… seems to have escaped me. When the moment settled over me, and the thoughts poured into my head, I found that I’ve been ignoring things. I’ve been ignoring things that I should do, that I need to do, but haven’t. Routine. Habit. Familar. They’re all the themes of my life, and I can’t seem to shake them. Even in my desperate struggle to grab onto something different, they abound. I look at the place around me. Everything I surround myself with is artificial. Everything I interact with is a facade. I live in an apartment that artificially attempts to re-create a feeling of ‘home.’ My apartment complex is built in conjunction with a mall to give the feeling that one is in a giant town center, when in fact, it’s really just a mall and an apartment complex. The company I work for argues that we don’t, in fact, produce a tangible product, but rather, we produce an image or ideal. I spend more time interacting with tiny icons on a computer screen that are supposed to represent my friends than I do actually talking to my friends. I’m more accutely aware of the pattern in the cracks on the walk in front of my apartment than I am in the wants, desires, or needs of any of my friends or family. I can tell you that it takes precisely 143 steps to get from my apartment to the dryer in the laundry room, but I can’t tell you the date of my best friend’s birthday. I can still recall roughly half the subnets used in the dorms at Denison, but I can’t tell you what most of the people I hung out in college with are doing. When people ask how I’m doing lately, I say ‘fine’ because I have yet to have someone ask and actually get the sense that they care about how I, or anyone else that they might ask that question of, are doing. Just like them, I feel like I’m part of a routine that I haven’t scripted… that I have no control over… and one that I can’t escape. The calendar tells me what to do, and the clock tells me when to do it. And rather than doing anything about it, I wait for change.

I bought some new clothes. A lot of clothes. To be exact, I bought the following:

3 ties
7 bracelets
4 necklaces
2 hats
1 scarf
5 long sleve tshirts
9 tshirts
12 shorts
4 cargos
7 pairs of jeans
3 boxers
1 sweater
3 jackets
9 hoodies
1 denim jacket
2 coats
6 ls button down shirts
16 ss button down shirts

It was all part of the sample sale, where the anonmyous trend setting company I work for cleans it’s warehouse, and I get a new wardrobe. I actually volunteered to work it, which came with the added perk of “first dibs” on clothes.

Anyway, I learned several key things:

I should never… ever… ever… work in a warehouse.
Always defer to people who *do* work in warehouses when it comes to stacking boxes.
Girls who can work a pallet jack are hot.

It occured to me that I haven’t properly shown any of you where I work.
It isn’t exactly the “huge office” that I had at my last job, but it
gets the job done. I recently moved to this desk, so I haven’t bothered
putting up the network diagrams yet, but you get the idea.

A fesh batch of scooters arrived today. I think this is as close as
I’ll ever get to the dot com days.

…for my car. =]

…since I’ve had a conversation this good. =]

Who’s sexy hands are in that photo documenting how to install a router
at a store?