I have spoken word audio I want to record. Chapbooks I want to create. Books I want to read. Poems and stories to write. Masks to make. Shows to watch. Chairs to buy (long story). Letters to write (longer story). Clothes to donate and Ugly Shirts to buy. A house to clean and organize. Photos to edit and post. Posts to write. Lots of mundane chores and personal hygiene tasks (my bathroom needs cleaned, my sheets need washed, and the beard needs shaved. Aren’t you glad you asked?). Poker to play and study. Work to do. Dishes to be washed. Trash to be gathered and taken out. Data to be backed up. Floors to be vacuumed. Exercise and food to be bought. Taxes to be done and passport paperwork. A catbox to empty. Bills to pay. Technology to learn. Places to take my girlfriend. Goals to be attacked. Finances to be organized. Organs to be stolen for donation (hey, it’s a quick buck. Don’t pretend like you’ve never done it). A cat to be taken to the vet. Oil to be changed in my car. Jerks to off (wait, think I got that one wrong). And so much more.

Thing is, a lot of times when I am doing one of these things, no matter how industrious I am being, I always feel like I should be doing something else. Knock the fun stuff off the list (like reading and watching TV) and I am still left with a lot of things I enjoy and that really do need done. But when I am, let’s say, playing poker or reading about it or watching it (poker is a need isn’t it?), I know my time is probably better spent learning new tech that actually applies to my work. Or before doing this I really should be cleaning the bathroom (for the love of gog!) OK, so poker doesn’t need to be done, but all work and no play…makes me cranky.

I know it’s all a matter or prioritizing my priorities, but I tend to flit from task to task regardless of what I am doing. If I am washing dishes I will do a sink-full, then move onto getting the trash together, then sit down and watch 20 minutes of some drama, then get a load of laundry in, then back to the dishes, chat at people online for a bit, then maybe read a few pages of one of the several books I usually have going.

This is just a long way of saying, Thursday is chore night and the girlfriend is coming over tomorrow after work. So we’ll see what gets done. I know what has to be done, but we’ll see what I get to. She’d say I have to do nothing, but then she’s the first one to make sure her place is all nice before I come over, and I tell her she doesn’t have to do anything special. Ha!

OK then, the list:

1. Pay Bills. (done)
2. Data Backup. (done)
3. Laundry. (in progress)
4. Catbox. (done)
5. Trash. (done for tonight)
6. Bathroom. (mostly)
7. Dishes.

In the end I’ll probably just watch Tudors and end up doing some organ running.

Got this in email Tuesday night:

Attention,

I am Mr John Jasper in South Africa, our client died Three years ago
leaving behind Capital amount (US$14.6M with interest) in our bank,
as his account manager, till date nobody has come forward
or put application for the claim.

During the bank private search for the relative recently your name and
email contact was among the findings that matches the same surname as the
deceases who died interstate with no Will or next of kin with our bank
record.

To maintain the level of security required I have intentionally left out
the final details. please, come forward since we can provide you with
the details needed for us to claim this Funds so that I and my colleague can be
gratifed by you.

To affirm your willingness and cooperation, please do so by replying me at
my private email stating your mind and also on how we should share the
funds and also send your private telephone number to us or call me if you
can.

I do expect your prompt response.

Thank you,
Mr. John Jasper
+27 7419 38219

Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

So, I promptly sent this reply:

Was your client’s last name Jorgensen? I am not aware of many  
Jorgensens in South Africa. This isn’t one of those Nigerian scams  
I’ve read about is it? What do you need from me?

I’m not so sure I am willing to gratify anyone at this point. I think  
I would need to meet the person, or at least see pictures. Send me a  
photo of who I am dealing with, and I might send you mine.

My mother told me not to give out my number, and I think yours is long  
distance, so if for now, we could keep this in email that would be  
great.

I hope to hear from you soon. I could really use some extra money, and  
$14.6 million sounds like a lot!

Please write back. I am having trouble paying my bills and this could  
be my salvation! I was just praying about this tonight and then your  
email arrived. Are you the answers to my prayers?

Thanks for getting in contact with me on this important matter. I  
really hope your client is a Jorgensen. Otherwise, once again, my  
prayers will go unmet.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

Christopher

I’ve already started to spend the money, so hope this isn’t a scam! John Jasper sounds like an honest name doesn’t it? If he writes back, I’ll be sure to let you know. I’m still not going to gratify anyone from Africa, no matter how much money they offer. Well, maybe for 15 million, but 14.6 million just isn’t enough (especially since it’s him and a “colleague”). I have standards.

Ok, maybe not. 65 isn’t that big of a deal. I just actually got around to looking and that’s the number I am at. A bit over two months of posting. Seems to be going pretty well so far, and judging from my weblogs I get more readership than I would expect. I think it’s from people googling various search terms and finding out I wrote about this author or that movie or a certain band. What would be interesting to me, and I don’t know if there is any good way to figure this out, is how many people are return visitors? How many come back on a regular basis? I mean once you knock out the obvious friends, family, and stalkers.

I am glad I decided to revamp this site. It’s been pretty fun and I have learned a lot. And by doing this I have been able to reshuffle the other domains I have ownership of and start working on them as well. You can pop over to thisflapfirst.com for a preview of how I want that site to look. I am just waiting for a certificate from paypal to set up my little shop. Then I will be seeing chapbooks of poetry, indulgences, and other knickknacks, bric-a-brac, and widgets.

I think things over there are pretty ready to go. So I am going to be making some small changes to the ads on this site. Not exactly more, but more variety, and hopefully more along the lines of items I believe in. You know, celebrity endorsements and all, I have to decide carefully where I will extend the christopher.jorgensen brand. Can’t just go having any old product out there with my name on it. Well, unless they want to give me a big enough check. I’ll sell out to the money truck in a heartbeat.

Seems like I often know what I am going to write about before I start hitting keys. I have many half finished little essays in the wings, and even one or two that are completely done. Then there is always poetry when I am at a complete loss (or is the beginning of a week). Hell, I can even repost something from one of my older blogs that I still find interesting. I seldom have writers’ block (unless I am writing fiction). But today I have no idea what to write about. Not idea whatsoever.

I’ve been trying to make daily posts, and for the most part have been doing fairly well. A missed day here or there, but few of those. I don’t think this is my record for consistently journalling, but it’s getting to be close. Maybe I have just run out of all the good ideas. See, that last line was sort of a joke, since with the exception of a few posts, I would say there is little here of interest to the general public, but then again, they’re not my audience. I am my own best audience. If I only worry about making myself laugh I can go to bed at night convinced I am clever.

Seriously, if others out there find amusement with what is written here, or find my pages through some google search on some random topic, great, otherwise I don’t really care. I don’t want to sit around writing in here full time, don’t expect the site to even cover its own expenses. This site isn’t about or for that. All I am trying to do is record some meanderings and maybe in a few years I can come back and be amazed that I once thought…well, I guess it will be a few years before I can finish that sentence.

Sometimes I don’t think people think these online journals through. With traditional journals (you know, the paper kind) a person can hope the journals will outlive them. Your grand kids’ kids will know what it was like to live during the 80s. “Dear Diary…” But with these database backed hosted sites, well, they take money to keep going. After you are dead your hosting company will stop being paid and eventually shut your site down. Then what? Nothing preserve for posterity, nothing to pass along to future generations. No one gives a rat’s ass about your myspage now and in 10 years no one will even know what a facebook was. Can you digg that? All these places you participate in online will most likely be either gone or in a form you cannot imagine in 10 years from now. As proof, I offer up 10 years ago. In 1998 if you were talking about a device like the iPhone, people would have called you crazy, and at best it they would have thought it would be the size of a small microwave and have a hard drive of 800 mbs. Go back to what people were writing back then. Try to find one prediction that comes close to online gaming, handheld video that imagines multiple movies on one device, or the speeds of computers or networking, or that kids would kill themselves over something someone wrote about them on their personal page.

You know, the idea that these journals are ephemeral is actually appealing to me. People can put forth opinions about the stupidest things, can place deep meaning in an online community, can consider the people they meet in these places to be greater friends than any ever made in real life, and it won’t matter to anyone other than a digital archeologist in 25 years.

My head hurts, my neck hurts, my throat is sore, but external to the throat, so sort of the neck I guess, but not like a normal neck ache, instead causing me difficulty in swallowing and a feeling like the muscles are all tired. I also have major light sensitivity going on. Everything in the world seems bright. I’m not wearing my glasses, so if there are typos or poorly constructed sentences I blame my lack of vision. Well, blaming lack of vision is usually an obvious thing to do regardless. It’s why I’ve ended up where I am. Ha! Metaphor.

Anyway, I have the aches and pains of a man twice my age. Maybe I should make a run at getting some professional painkillers.“Doc! It’s killing me!” I would, but don’t expect this to last and doubt I could summon an adequate level of drama. A lot of times when I get this way the only thing that really helps is a long hot bath, a nap, and lots of darkness. Or morphine. And damnit, fresh out of that.

I don’t think this can be classified as a fullblown migraine, mostly because I still seem to be slightly functional. (I’m sure there’s an obvious joke there, but this is a family friendly journal.) On the rare occasion when I actually do have a migraine, I tend to have it be on one side of the head only, and I get light flashes. This is nothing like that, but then, I haven’t had a headache like this before. I did finally decide to take an OTC, which seem to be helping. Joy joy joy (down in my heart)! Ok then, now I need to decide if I am going to be hungry at all today. I think so, but at this point it also seems like too much effort. Maybe I can just get an IV drip? Ha!

I make it sound like I am dying or something, but honestly, if it was that bad I wouldn’t be typing here, and like I mentioned in a previous post I have a fairly high tolerance for pain (I once watched all 5 seasons of “Angel”). I think I could make this all go away with some decompression time. Yeah, that’s it, I have the bends!

I’d fire up WebMD to see if I actually have anything of concern, but last time I did that I convinced myself I had yellow fever.