Little did I know when I awoke Monday morning that by the week’s end my entire web presence would be so transformed. But here it is. Welcome to MurderingMouth. It’s basically the same as my previous site at TheHyaena.Net, except this site includes only the Journals and Essays (eg, the most popular parts) from TheHyaena. TheHyaena now houses my biographical section, the Fresno section and the Road Trips journals.

I know it will mess a lot of people up, having moved the more frequently updated and more popular sections, but I actually like this domain name better, and since the journals and essays (and dirty stories) are what I spend more time on anyway, I thought this would be a better place to park. 
But the whole decision was quite unexpected…

I woke up on Monday to find my mailbox stuffed full (I mean full - to where incomings were being bounced) with spam. I quickly blocked all incomings and took down the site as a precaution. Further research traced the problem to a suddenly reactivated but previously dormant prior account which had forwardiing turned on to my main box. Apparently the dormancy had not meant that messages were being bounced in the interim, and thus when it came back to life, it came with all the messages. I’d already made major realignments to the site, since I first assumed that the influx was to be blamed on the site’s contact form.

Anyway, I figured since I would have to do some work to get the site back up, I might as well make use of this domain and separate the more-updated and more-popular parts of the site from the more archival and less read areas. Most people would question the intelligence of moving the more popular sections to the new (unlinked, unbookmarked) domain, but it will probably stay here longer, since I like the name better, anyhow.

So there you have it. I shall be spending the rest of the evening working on a much-delayed dirty story. Once again, if you don’t know where I keep them, you have to ask…

So what’s going on at TheHyaena.Net? Good question. Even I’m not sure. All I know is that I’ve been very slow at getting out and getting new content for that site, and I doubt my apathy will change any time soon. I have wanted to start getting back into tape/CD trading, and start having some more substantial content on Fresno and the road trips so that I can move those sections to their already-acquired domains.

And yet, and yet and yet… I just can’t really find the motivation. I’ve had a bit of atrophy in my infatuation with Fresno, due primarily to the facts that I’m tired of my job and that my significant other isn’t here. I want to eliminate both of those problems, but I still think that Fresno has a lot to offer me, and that I have a service to offer it via my web-work. We’ll see.

I love Fresno, but I need to change my scenery soon, otherwise I may grow to see this place more as a prison than a playground. I may return, but only if the break is amicable. The longer I stay, the less likely that is to happen.

So there you have it - I haven’t abandoned my previous home, I just don’t really know how much I care anymore… Maybe I’ll get around to caring again. Just not now.

Seriously, I do plan to post a trip journal over at The Hyaena. I’m just still working on the motivation to do it…

While you’re all waiting for that, you should head over to the Message Board , where a cute little tiff is going on. I was briefly thinking of axing it, but it’s amusing me right now, so I’ll let it go for now…

You’ll notice a few small changes (in terms of font size, I mean that literally). I also now have that nearly-annoying blog appendage: the “song of the moment”. 
I know I’ve ranted about him before, but I don’t think I’ve done it here, so I’m gonna get a snear in about a recurring hate fixture for me: Andrew Sullivan.

Have you ever seen or heard a more pathetic piece of you-know-what? Every word that trickles from his disease-infested oral oriface is more hideous than the next. He has no reasoning skills, and the mystically-twisted sense of non-logic he follows makes me want to puke.

Trying to sound patriotic, Mister Sullivan crams his slimy Catholicism down our throats, trying like every other slimy pseudo-conservative to make the worship of gawd equal in importance to worship of the constitution. He twists Catholic morality to match his own perverted insensibilities, and then gets on a moral soapbox in critique of the country and society he emmigrated to. Give… me… a… break…

New and improved navigation, thanks to some stolen code and a few hours of experimentation. I think it looks much better.

Not that this week has been all that exciting anyway, but don’t expect much in the way of updates until Monday. I’ve really been slacking on my web work lately, and I just can’t seem to change that right now. I’m now more than 2 months behind on my trip journals, and I’ve only partially completed my media/tapetrade stuff over at TheHyaena.

But I’m off to see David after work, and this is a very good thing. I hope I don’t injure him in my friskiness, considering it’s been 2 weeks.

I say once again that I simply cannot let that happen so often…

I wish that little faggot Erwan hadn’t ruined the whole message board idea. Ever since I nixed his little squatter settlement a couple months ago, no one has really been interested in posting. I’m not planning on pulling the board down, but I thought I’d at least encourage people to try to use it again. Just keep in mind that it’s more of a “community forum” for people who visit my sites, and not a place to nag me. I allow dissent, so long as it is well-thought-out and not soiled with emotion. I’ve only removed 2 threads before, and it was because the individuals involved posted remarks which were blatant personal attacks against me, rather than against what I’d written, and the remarks contained nothing approaching critical thinking.

Anyway, there’s my pitch at getting the board going again. Today is not going especially well. I’m having my bi-weekly bout of stomach discomfort, and the chunk I bit out of my lip last weekend is still not healed. In fact, now it’s all swollen. Damn skin…

I think I’d make a good columnist… Anyone have any advice on that number?

Work’s slow today, so I’ve been using the time to do some more tweaking of the navigation. I also refurbished the contact form and reverted to the old hyaena colors. Now I just need to find a new picture.

I will also be starting what will eventually be the dissolution of thehyaena.net and the elimination for the most part of the “hyaena” handle. Also, since the majority of my site tweeking tends to involve reoganization of pages and renaming of documents, I have started to hard-link all hyper refs. I’m sure the former habit pisses my linkers off to no end, but that’s just the way I am.

Speaking of reorganization, I notice that I tend to run this site similar to the way I’ve been running my FileMaker media database. I have probably spent more time on the visual aspect, the navigation and the set-up than on the actual content. Come to think of it, that’s sort of how I run my life as well. I’d be a horrible screenwriter: lots of exposition, very little characterization, no climax, no resolution.

I’m going to be moving my site hosting to Pair over the next couple days. The site may be down for a few hours while I get everything transferred. If you want to get in touch, use my contact form rather than my email until the switch is complete, sinc my email accounts will also be down during the switch.

One thing I really miss about Net Nation was their very nice and comprehensive Statistics tracking. I could log onto my account and not only see how many hits I was getting, but how much of my bandwidth was being taken by which files, and my referrer logue not only showed where people were coming from, but which actual link they were clicking on which web page and when they clicked it. It also showed which exact files were being directly accessed from an off-site address, rather than just a site pointer, like many stats packages seem to do. Pair is good in the service and price areas, but I guess I get what I pay for in terms of actual product. Alas, I can’t seem to locate any service which provides such a great statistics package, and I’d kind of started to rely on it always being there with Net Nation… Any references to a good stats tracker would be appreciated. Ideally, one that does all the work on its own, via the web, so that I don’t have to store my stats on my computer.

Have I mentioned lately how much I miss my NetNation account?

More apologies to those who have been trying to send me email since the move. I finally got the kinks cleared up today (I think).

But I still can’t seem to get motivated about updating my site…

Whilst I try to maintain a maximum of 10 days worth of entries on the front page, I realize it’s been more than ten days since my last entry. Time sure drags on when you’re having fun.

No real excuses on the lack of updates. They’re definitely wanting. I’ve been busy and lots of stuff has been happening. I should update the “about me” section just to bring it up to speed with the new location/situation… I should get back into the swing of advertising my trading section (by the way, a few more have been added over the last week)… I should pull down the message board, since no one really seems to care anymore… I should write a new essay (the one I’ve currently got brewing is “Our Castrated Military”)…

And yet… Motivation is my need du jour. I did manage to revise my “anniversary essay” and post it in the Essays section, rather than in the journals. A short recap of the past couple weeks is all you get right now: Still trying to get myself situated and cozy; a few bits of major housekeeping are still required before I’ll be there. The internet connection is a source of constant frustration, and it’s like pulling teeth just to get SBC to do anything about it. Then there’s the idea that I’m suppoed to be doing a portion of my work from home, which is constantly frustrated by a lack of facilities for such a task.

The method of escape from the Annual Sunday (weekend?) of Terror was a trip down the coast to Monterey. Staying at the Motel 6 in Marina allowed us the opportunity to get thoroughly creeped out at the Nearby Ruins and experience the true wonder which is the commercial strips of old cities. I love Monterey. We treated ourselved to a super Indian meal, which included belly dancers and spicy food out the wazoo. Long walks through the tourist traps, without really feeling horribly touristy. Cool little used bookstores and even a couple stops at the local big box chains. Hell, we even managed to get the laundry done in Pacific Grove. All in all, a far far far more pleasant weekend than would have been experienced had we been required to hunker down in the trenches South of Market.

The next few weeks will feature my attempt to tackle the refurbishment of the bathroom. It will be a tough task for a relative novice handyman, not to mention the task of keeping the place useable so that David doesn’t kill me in the process. Things are still going better than I ever imagined they’d go.

Yeah, September was a rather dry month for journals. Sorry to those who have endeavored to keep up with me the past month. I almost feel guilty doing a journal entry when I’ve got so much email I haven’t answered…

But at least this way I can send an impersonal update to everyone at once…

The past week was mostly about work work work. Thursday involved buying a router to eliminate the ugly cords hanging over everyhing in the office (but didn’t resolve the other DSL-related issues, alas…), Friday was new tires for David and new pants for me, along with a gluttonous trip to Oakland/ Emeryville for dinner and desert with Dan, Jamie and the landlord. Yes, I actually have a likeable landlord still. I’ve been lucky thus far.

Yesterday David & I took a trip on his new tires, scoring me a few more pairs of pants (I actually have 5 pairs that I like now!), a few more DVDs (as if we need more…) and a trip to Treasure Island. The Island was a bit on the creepy side, similar to the ruins of Fort Ord, with only a fraction of the buildings in use. The population seemed to be very wealthy ethnic minorities, at least from the samples visible in the late afternoon. I’d be interested in seeing what the place looks like in another few years.

I know, it’s been a week. I’ve finally hit that wall…

My energy needs to be refocused right now. I’ve noticed lately that I get too complacent with just updating the blog, and lose sight of my more complex and in-depth writing, to my detriment, I feel. I want to change my focus on this site to my subject writings and try to become a bit more thoughtful and coherent about what I write.

I also, soon, want to make more use of the other domains I own. There’s a few experiments I have up my sleeve, but again, they keep getting vitually thwarted by my self-imposed need to blog. I think the answer is to end my blog-dependency and let myself concentrate more on what I enjoyed when I fist started all of this: experimenting with my web presence.

The constant maintenance of a journal-style site is what I want to get away from. It becomes too comfortable and starts to feel like a trap once I’ve got a design and format that I’m relatively comfortable with…

Feel free to check up on me. I will unveil new material as it materializes. Until then, this ends this incarnation of my online journal.

I decided to bite the bullet and start the whole journal thing back up. It has been simmering in me for months, I just needed that combination of free time and something to talk about. This afternoon, the former was available, but the latter was not. Instead, I just thought I’d relate my afternoon to y’all.

The husband was away on a research trip to the City (eg, San Jose) for the afternoon, and I decided to take a little walk. The weather channel was predicting sun, but the reality was much better: a grey haze which turned to drizzle as the day went longer. I took a stroll up toward downtown, specifically desiring to visit a little newsstand in Union Square and see what kind of exotic Sunday newspaper offerings may be available. I was disappointed to find it closed, and had to settle for a Chronicle.

The Chronicle today featured its rebirthed “pink” section (the Datebook, or entertainment section), which seemed to be the only major story said section could come up with this week. I walked a few more steps and popped into the Starbucks to read the paper and consume a couple gingerbread lattes.

I enjoy Starbucks. I don’t especially know what about Starbucks is so much more enjoyable than other coffeehouses. Maybe the decoration. Maybe the mass-marketing of a “cultural attitude”. Who knows? Something has always drawn me to them. Of course, back in Fresno I would easily given preference for the independent little coffeehouse at which most of my friends hung out, but Starbucks has an unbeatable prodct line, and its ubiquitous nature makes it an easy, comfortable place. The genious of the fast-food model transferred to the warmth and ease of coffeehouse comfort.

I don’t want to get long-winded in this my fiirst entry since my more than year-long hiatus, so I’ll stop now. Not sure exactly which direction I’ll be taking this incarnation of my online journal, but this was a start…