Slap/Pop

You may have noticed the rather empty-looking ScratchBack widget to the right of this. Notice how it's never had anything donated/whatever? Yeah... I believe that it's time that I get rid of it. Why? There's a few reasons...

It seems that I'm never happy with this site... I go through phases of what I think it should be, what I think I need, ways to increase traffic, ways to make it more enjoyable for readers... And then it just all gets ripped down in my head a month or so later.

The lame part is that I don't have time to work on this site like I'd like to. Partially because I have a full-time job and a wife and a house to take care of, and partially because I'd rather play Guitar Hero/Rock Band or WoW. So, some of it's my fault, some of it is just life. That being said, I really do need to prioritize my web-based ideas a lot more, and try not to minimize attention on other things that are more important.

I really need to avoid information overload. Maximize screen real estate, minimize clutter, and make the best out of the promotional tools that are at my disposal. That's something that I've been attempting to do here and there, but since I haven't made a completely focused attempt at overhauling my blogging practices, it's fallen to the wayside. As you can tell.

So hopefully within the next month I'll have this place refined, redefined, and much more efficient. As well as a couple of other web venture ideas I've had stewing around my brain for the past few months. We'll see what happens there.

I don't know wtf is going on over at Kotaku Tower, but it seems like their entire staff today is completely incapable of publishing a single story without a typo (or more). I blame it on lots and lots of Bigfoot-DNA-sniffing. Examples? Lian-Li became "Lan-Li" in many spots, Sprite became Spite, and a handful of others that I can't remember. Either way. C'mon guys, shape up!

I was re-made aware of the infamous line from Fight Club the other day in a discussion, but it wasn't related to what this post is about. But yet it is. The context of the source conversation was in the more Fight Club-ish context about material possessions, social status, et al. But there's definitely a positive and necessary need for self-improvement. Improvement in your job, in your relationships (creating a more healthy environment), improvement in your hobbies, and improving your physical health (and mental health, I'd say). It's important to life to seek improvement in these core components of one's life. So, what am I doing to improve myself?

I've recently become pretty into Coheed & Cambria's epic-ness. Not just the music, but the lyrics and the universe that is the source material for the albums, Claudio's comic series, The Amory Wars. While I've been a huge Coheed fan for a while now, I've only just begun to delve into the canon of their story, revolving around Coheed Kilgannon, his wife Cambria Kilgannon, and their son Claudio (aka The Character). This story has the epic scope of Star Wars, but I'd venture to say it's a bit more dark and introspective. And the band will be performing all four albums in the Co&Ca saga live, in their entirety. And it's sold out. I would do pretty much ANYTHING for tix to all four nights and hotel stay for the trip. I'm serious.

Some key personnel from Google have left the Mountain View, CA tech haven in search of their own Valley Gold. Again. This one, however, has a decent chance. Cuil is purported to be the largest search engine in the world, claiming to index three times as many pages as Google, and ten times as many as Microsoft's engine. But... Something here doesn't look right. Or at least, is a big tech bug that is screaming to be fixed. Cuil doesn't seem to know a lot about a lot! What do I mean by that? Pics after the jump.

I've been around the CMS block a few times. From more "old-school" solutions such as PHP-Nuke, PostNuke, and their ilk, to Wordpress, Joomla, and now Drupal. I'm always looking for something better, easier, slicker, nicer, and more powerful yet easier. And I think I've found that in Drupal. However, Joomla's got some pretty nice features and capabilities as well. Although both seem to have one glaring omission in their power and flexibility: social dating sites.

To preface this post, I'm a huge Harmonix fan. That being said, when Activision/Neversoft and Harmonix/MTV squared off for Guitar Hero 3 vs. Rock Band, it was pretty easy to pick which game would be more fun for whom. Rock Band would be more accepted by the guys/gals looking for a whole band experience, classic tracks, and that classic HMX vibe. GH3 would be for the shredders, the mainstreamers, and those who are scared to touch a drumset or let loose a few vocal licks. I actually enjoyed both games a lot for those different reasons. Now with Guitar Hero: World Tour vs Rock Band 2, those lines are severely blurred.

Checking my Yahoo mail, delete some stuff, and this is the ad I see... Maybe it's just me and I'm lame, but it made me chuckle.