i think i've managed to write more in the past two days than i have in the past two months. no wonder my daoc character is still languishing at lvl 34. speaking of daoc, the consensus seems to be that shadowbane will be the next big mmorpg. especially from a pvp perspective. although, star wars galaxies is high on peoples' lists, i'm completely uninterested in a sci-fi rpg so it doesn't count. 01:11 pm

Samurai Romanesque is a mmmrpg - mobile massively multiplayer role-playing game. it sounds like an interesting game and i'm sure there's a future for them here in the u.s. the only draw back i see is the cost, paying for the game and the air time adds up to a *lot* of money for hard-core gamers. then again, there's the satisfaction of getting a fix while away from the pc. via cam. 01:07 pm

while in the shower, i was contemplating why i wished to make another comment about annoying weblog content. i truly adovcate the principle of write what you want and if others don't like it, instead of whinging about it, they shouldn't read it. it occurred to me that there was a problem with the "just don't read it" part. yeah, it works on the level of "if you keep going back every day to read a weblog that you think sucks, you don't have a right to complain about it". but, when you follow a link from a good weblog and the content is less than desireable, you feel that you've wasted 5 minutes and have a right to complain about that waste. usually in the form of commentary about the content or poor writing. if i had followed that blog sisters link from doc searls website, i would have been considerably more irritated at the time waste. each weblog has a certain trash factor, the better the weblog and the more your interests coincide with the author's, the lower the trash factor. blogdex and daypop have inherently high trash factors. doc searls has a lower trash factor. i'm not sure i'm making any sense. maybe i'll come back later and try to reformulate that thought more clearly. 11:24 am

oh wait, nevermind. i have my explanation. it's the "it's in a popular weblog so it must be interesting, important, exciting, new, attention worthy, <insert word here>" phenomenon. Doc Searls linked to blog sisters. presumably for the catchy tag line. sigh. 2 days of reading weblogs again has made me realize why i cut back so drastically in the first place. 10:38 am

i need to go back to not looking at daypop and blogdex. i'm not sure why things get so high on the lists. of course, i'm not helping things by linking to them in my confusion. first, yesterday their was the whole "i lost my job" thing. i linked to it because i'd been through it. before i realized that it was the hottest topic on the web (i'd found it through ev) and that people were acting like it had never happened before. it's hardly the precedent setting, unheard of occurence that people seem to be making it out to be. today, i look at Blog Sisters. at first, i thought it's purpose was to link to all the current female webloggers. but, i couldn't believe that someone would be attempting to list ten's of thousands, if not hundred's of thousands, of people. so i spent the next 15 minutes scanning through all the posts trying to figure out the purpose of the site. all i could gather was that it was a weblog devoted to women's issues. why is this so highly linked? there's 2 day's worth of content. half of which are posts about who linked to them and how high they are on daypop. what am i missing? or have i just not used daypop and blogdex enough to realize that they're not very useful indicators of interesting items? 10:23 am

.blog is a new weblog directory. except for the ratings and the comments, it is very similarly structured to my portal. only much better organized and laid out. i think it might be time for some improvements. 09:54 am

reading why google loves weblogs got me thinking about google bombing. specifically, in regard to keyword searches. take, for example, my dad. he would be in heaven if his site came up #1 on a search for santa cruz real estate. he would be willing to pay for that. someone needs to set up a google bomb service. weblogs sign up and reserve page space for the "google bomb link of the day". the service then sells it to customers and divides up the earnings with the weblogs. interesting concept anyway. 06:05 pm

my dad finally got an roi on his santa cruz real estate information site. he got a phone call from someone who found him through a google search. now i don't have to feel so guilty about making him pay me so much money to build it. we weren't actually sure it was working for any of the contributors, but he talked to one of them the other day who had been getting lots of phone calls. go figure. 05:54 pm

reading about heather, it occurred to me that my former employer no longer exists anymore. therefore, i present, better than life - a journal _ uncut circa 1999. 03:04 pm

i got fired because of dooce.com. yeah, well i got fired because of eatonweb.com. back in 1999. (talk about reliving the past today.) very similar situation, except i knew who ratted me out. california is an "at will" employment state. you can be fired (or quit) for any reason at any time with no notice or compensation. whether or not this is right or fair is moot. you have no recourse. putting things in public with your name attached puts you at risk in a variety of ways. come to terms with it and it'll make your life much easier. 02:26 pm

while looking for the latest recurrence of the bumper dumper meme, i ran across this vote to make write a better weblog required reading. the phrase "from now on i will do better, for i have a weblog creed." made me feel rather nauseous. i've consciously been trying *not* to to write about this topic. namely, all the latest "weblogging" articles. frankly, it's been rather trite. so, 1999. only this time it's "real" Journalists. be sure to note the capital J. i'm still going to try very hard to not mention them too much, but if you need background: go here or here.

anyway, back to the new weblogger's creed. the premise behind the article was to create a list of things that should be encouraged. as opposed to the quite amusing - but less valuable - things that should be banned. i have no problem with articles on improving peoples' writing. god knows, most people, including myself, could use some improvement. but this one is "aimed at people trying to improve the general appeal of their weblogs." despite any valuable advice further in, this article just became "how to make your weblog popular in 30 days by following dennis' opinions on what makes a successful weblog." ugh.

profession vs. amateur. ok, so there's a difference between professional writers and amateur writers. unsurprising. professionals tend to have honed their skills over time. but wait, the work of someone who writes as a pastime always evidences the "hallmarks of the beginning writer" and this "atrocious writing is entirely preventable." since when did amateur = beginning = atrocious?

offer something new. what has this got to do with writing a better weblog? instead of doing what interests you "consuming and critiquing other peoples' work", you should go out and write your own stuff. assuming, of course, you've already reworked yourself into a Professional writer. otherwise, this could just backfire. all the people who come to your site for the critique of other peoples' work now find atrocious writing by you and go somewhere else.

beyond wired. yes, seeing the same story on ten different weblogs gets old, but that shouldn't stop someone from linking to it. it's your opinion that counts. if you have something to say about that article, link to it and say it. if you want to find that article later, link to it. contrary to some beliefs, most weblogs started out as glorified bookmarks for personal consumption. how else could you find that bumper dumper link when you wanted to share it with your office mate? sharing great discoveries - big and small - was what got weblogging so hot. it has nothing to do with whether wired "need[s] your help as much as undiscovered sites" it has to do with what you find interesting. that could be an article in the ny times, or it could be the bumper dumper. and remember, not everyone reads all the other sites that are linking to that article. if your weblog is the only one they read, they may never see it. think about that before you decide *not* to link to a really interesting wired article. by avoiding the things you find interesting, you reduce the quality of your weblog. you don't improve it.

successful weblogging. follow these suggestions and you'll be giving up weblogging within 6 months. "you ought to write as if your readership consisted of paid subscribers..." let's see, paid subscribers are a pretty demanding bunch of people, especially on the web. (a place where paid subscriptions have never worked.) that's an awful lot of pressure to put on yourself. making sure you update constantly, always ferreting out new content, god forbid you should skip a day of posting, they might not re-subscribe. btw, that weblog that you started because you thought it might be fun just became a full-time job. a full-time job you don't get paid for and doesn't make you very happy.

the closest thing to accuracy that this article has is the second to last sentence. "More than ever, you’d better be doing this to satisfy yourself, because it could be your only reward." it's also the most contradictory. if you're doing it to satisfy yourself, you won't be following this creed. you'll be creating something that makes you happy at the end of the day. despite the poor grammar, run on sentences, "can't post today" posts, and links to wired. 01:10 pm

omg. eatonweb's 3 year birthday slipped by without any fanfare. i didn't even post anything on the 3rd. the least i could have done was post what i linked to on this date in 1999, 2000 and 2001. unsurprisingly, my first forays into weblogging are broken. however, on day 2 (2/4/99), i linked to the bumper dumper. it's good to know that some memes are still fresh and exciting today. 11:44 am

Depressed? Got tech blues? it's funny because this article describes the burn-out happening in mid-30's or 40's. many people i know experienced this in their late-20's or early 30's. it's interesting because i've done step one - getting off the treadmill. i just haven't made it to step two yet. thanks very much sanj. 10:09 am

jason and kirsty were talking about me on the drive to see shane yesterday. i guess kirsty didn't understand why it was half an hour into our phone call before i told her i'd been feeling depressed. she seemed to think that i didn't want to talk about it with anyone. except jason and writing here. for all intents and purposes talking about it to millions of people, but that's besides the point. i'm surprised that she didn't realize that i just didn't care enough to tell her i was depressed. it's not a reluctance to talk about it. it's purely that there's no reason to talk about. it's called apathy. i don't care about anything. it's not selective. sigh. just another example of how people fail to understand depression. 11:16 am

despite having a cold, i started to feel a change immediately. my sleep friday night was different. crisper. clearer. hard to describe really. i woke up frequently during the night but without the usual grogginess and exhaustion. friday and saturday evenings' seizures were different too. the tremors were more severe. yet the distraction and lack of focus was much less pronounced. through sheer force of will, i managed to make it through the seemingly endless hour at the end of which i could take my pills. it gave me a sense of control. rather than going off and doing something mindless, enduring the seizures, i managed to continue playing. not as well, but at least i could play.

the keppra is definitely the culprit behind my depression. i'd been feeling better since i cut back on the dosage several weeks ago. but, i was still apathetic. sunday morning i had an odd sensation. i was dozing on the couch while jason and kirsty chatted off the balcony to barry (our neighbor) about the overgrown potato vine on our front fence. while telling jason what it was and telling him to let barry know that he can cut it back if it's on his side - tony actually wants to plant some - i thought that i really should go out and tie it back. not an "oh god, there's another chore that i'll never be able to force myself to do" thought. an actual "that would be a good thing to do tomorrow" thought. i even started thinking of other "chores" that i should do.

that sense of *wanting* to do something had become so foreign to me that i had truly forgotten what it felt like. the beautiful, sunny day actually was a bright, happy day. i still couldn't deal with visiting my neurotic sister-in-law, but i managed to do laundry and empty the trash effortlessly.

writing that last sentence, emphasized to me the vast gulf in perceived effort that a person who has never experienced depression would probably never understand. i'd like to try and describe it. but right now, i feel like i have such a tenous hold on these non-apathetic emotions that i don't want to look too closely at what i've been feeling for the past few months. i have no idea whether thinking about past depressing feelings can make you depressed again. i'm afraid to find out. 10:09 am

when is being highly intelligent and having full brain functionality a bad thing? when you're contemplating brain surgery. the doctor had the results of my neuro-psych exams back. apparently, if an average person loses functionality, it won't bother them so much. they might not even notice it at all. in someone with a high iq, they're more likely to notice the deficit and have trouble dealing with that loss. it makes brain surgery much more scary. how do you know how much you'll miss something until it's gone? how much brain functionality do you take for granted that other people don't even have? the 3-5% risk of stroke/blood clot/infection seems negligible compared to this.

so, i can keep hoping that a new medication will beat that 10% chance and control my seizures, or i can go through with the surgery. something that has 70-90% chance of controlling them. i've decided to move forward with the surgical option. in the meanwhile, i'm trying (another) new drug - zonegran. maybe i'll get lucky.

on the not so fun side of things, i have to go through phase 2 where they place intracranial electrodes. sitting around for a week with wires sticking out of my head sounds distinctly unpleasant. 09:43 am

well, i went to the gyn last tuesday. despite my pessimistic conviction that the cyst would still be there, it is gone. thankfully, i have one less thing to worry about. and i'm glad that i didn't worry unnecessarily.

monday i went to have an m.e.g. at ucsf. i think jason got more out of it than me since he got to watch all the monitors and get descriptions from the techs on how things work. it's kinda cool that they'll take their data and superimpose it over the mri data and create an image of your brain. too bad i can't get a copy. hopefully, when i go in on thursday, i'll get to see my doctor's copy.

kirsty's back in town this week. six weeks seem to fly by so quickly. 09:50 am

romeo and juliet for l33t. 11:25 am

i'm very relieved. today was a very good day. i almost felt like myself again. despite having a couple seizures during the day. i don't know whether it will last, but i'm very happy to be taking an interest in things. even if it is temporary. 11:05 pm

consumption. 11:14 am

blacksnow sues mythic. i'm not sure whether this is real or not, but if it is, i will be interested in the outcome. 05:24 pm

i'm not sure whether Nutshell will replace my google toolbar but the amazon and dictionary.com searches in addition to google make it highly likely. via jason. 04:58 pm

i take it back, climb the tree for a dollar is much more entertaining. 04:43 pm

stupid man. you'd think he'd at least be smart enough to do it at night and not in front of a train. poor goat. 04:28 pm

challenges. i particularly enjoyed the cinnamon challenge. thanks liz. 04:25 pm

i called my doctor on monday. of course, i only got to speak to his nurse. but since she appears to know almost as much as he does, that's not really as bad as it sounds. i called because i'm depressed. well, more apathetic than depressed, but one is just a symptom of the other. i was wondering if my medication might be causing it.

being depressed is a weird feeling for me. logically, i know that there's no reason to be depressed. i'm fully aware that i shouldn't be depressed and that my depression is disturbing jason. both because he's worried about me and because nothing gets done around the house. but, that knowledge doesn't actually do anything to make me less apathetic. it actually starts a cycle of being depressed because you're depressed. i will say that apathy is much preferable to other kinds of depression. at least i'm not hating life.

anyway, the nurse said that anything could be causing my depression. medication, increased seizures, contemplating brain surgery. apparently, it's very common for their epileptic patients to be depressed. who knew. so she dropped the dosage of my keppra a little. told me to stop napping in the afternoon in order to improve my "sleep hygiene" (a rather odd phrase) and have jason drag me out for a walk 3 times a week. when i go in 2 weeks from now, they might put me on anti-depressants. unfortunately, they would also want me to talk to a psychiatrist while taking those drugs. ugh. i think i'll pass on that one. not that i have any objections to the psychiatrist and his usefulness, but because i don't like talking to people. it would make it a little less fruitful.

we'll see. i do feel slightly better today. i managed to do some work and pay some bills without too much effort. things may be improving. 12:22 pm

anti-bloggies. heh. thanks sanj. i needed a laugh. 09:29 am

statbuilder. 01:12 pm

HOWTO: RTFM. heh. 01:01 pm