6 Months In: Goal Check

Let’s do it again.

-Get English Degree
If all goes as planned I’ll be done by June of this year.
Well, it’s June now and I’m done in two weeks. One more class snuck up on me, but it’ll all be over soon enough. Then I’ll be official and magna cum laude.

-Zazen 3 times/week
3 times a week is a reasonable goal, I think.
Still no dice here. Schedule inconsistency is still an issue, as a result of “this one last class.”

-Continuous reading
Years ago a teacher told me “the best writers are always reading. Never stop reading literature.”
I’ve worked my way through three novels since the start of the year, I’m in the middle of the fourth, and I’ll hopefully have read at least twelve by the end of the year. I’ve got a nice backlog waiting for me.

-Reduce car debt to below $3,700
Self-explanatory.
Gettin there.

-Save $150/month
Need to build up an emergency fund.
The emergency fund has been nicely jump-started by the tax refund, the stimulus check, and gift money from graduation. I’ve got a high-yield account set up with ING Direct, and I’ll be setting up automatic monthly withdrawals later this week.

-Keep weight below 140
I haven’t weighed myself lately. I should do that.

-Submit 6 short stories for publication
Q: What do you call a writer who’s not trying to get his work published? A: A diarist.
I’ve gotten a bit behind, but I’m submitting 4 more pieces in the next couple weeks. On top of that, I’ve started a writing group to keep myself working.

New Goals (Altered or Brand New)

-Write a novel
I’m due. I’m (gonna be) done with school, I’ll have the time, and plenty of my contemporaries are already working on their second or third genre novels. Why the hell shouldn’t I start working on my first book?

-Submit Portfolios to various MFA Programs for entrance in Fall of 2009
Yes, grad school. I’ll have a separate post on this soon, but I’m looking at a couple nearby and a couple far flung.  I’m excited.

Outmoded Goals (Completed or Abandoned)

-Teach by 9/1/08
-Reduce CC debt to below $500

Belated Quarterly Goal Review

So this is about two weeks late, but I figure I’m do for a review of the goals I set for myself at the beginning of this year. What’s the use of making them public if I and everyone else have forgotten them by the end of the year? This is a reasonable point for a progress report too. Let’s dig in.

-Get English Degree
If all goes as planned I’ll be done by June of this year.
Ahead of schedule! I’m done in two weeks!

-Teach by 9/1/08
I can be teaching by this fall.
There’s been a slight change of plans here. I’m delaying teaching certification until after graduate school. Yes, I’m doing graduate school. Fall 09.

-Submit 6 short stories for publication
Q: What do you call a writer who’s not trying to get his work published? A: A diarist.
I’ve submitted 4 so far, and will be submitting two more in the next two weeks. Rejection file is growing! That’s OK though.

-Zazen 3 times/week
3 times a week is a reasonable goal, I think.
Still no dice here. Schedule inconsistency is still an issue, but in two weeks that should mostly be solved. Then all I have to do is do it.

-Continuous reading
Years ago a teacher told me “the best writers are always reading. Never stop reading literature.”
I’ve been working on the same (relatively short!) novel since February. Difficult to make the time. Soon!

-Reduce CC debt to below $500
-Reduce car debt to below $3,700
Self-explanatory.
Goal #1 is already met! I overshot pretty significantly on goal #2 because I forgot to take interest into account (duh). A more realistic goal is to reduce car debt to below $5,000. Goal adjusted appropriately.

-Save $150/month
Need to build up an emergency fund.
I haven’t done this, but I’m planning to use my tax refund, stimulus check, and a piece of freelance work to help jump-start my emergency fund.

-Keep weight below 140
Weight climbing, but still below 140.

Overall I’m happy with these results. There’s obviously some habit building and goal adjustment that needs to happen, but I’ve still got 9 months in which to do it and these are generally flexible. I’ll check back in with these signposts at the end of June.

conversation about social networking

me: btw i have joined the twitter

and man am i beating myself up about it
apotheosis of web 2.0 narcissism, here i come

7:46 PM iambilldoor: i signed up for an account when i read you signed up for it

but i haven’t messed with it yet

me: oh yeah i forget i announced it throughout the internetsphere

haha

7:47 PM i was talking to a friend the other day about how with all this social networking stuff, if everybody gets connected conversation will be hilariously extraneous

“hey dude did you hear that new mountain goats–”

“yeah man i saw it on your last.fm already”

7:48 PM “oh. i saw this cool article on the nytimes–”

“i know man you shared it on your google reader”

“did i tell you i got a cat”

“yeah you put the pics on flickr SHUT UP DUDE I KNOW EVERYTHING ALREADY”

13 minutes

8:02 PM iambilldoor: haha

8:03 PM i try to keep a little extra something set aside for actual conversations

me: comforting

8:04 PM iambilldoor: oh

case in point

8:05 PM there is a spider living in my bathroom

i just tell people about that

me: hahaha

iambilldoor: when i can think of nothing else to say

me: the spider is not going to friend you on facebook any time soon is what you are saying

iambilldoor: exactly

FriendFeed, Fragmentation & Access

Michael Arrington has a thought-provoking post at TechCrunch where he discusses the fragmentation of user’s identities across the web (listening habits on Last.FM, photos on Flickr, etc), FriendFeed’s goal of bringing it all back together, and the competing impulses of data centralization & decentralization. He asks an important question: do users want a “home base” where friends can find all their data, or do they prefer the decentralization?

Do we want aggregators like FriendFeed & Plaxo? Or maybe something more like Multiply?

Waaay down in the comments section, though, David Hersh articulates an even better point:

Seems to me that this is a problem that the vast majority of internet users simply don’t have. They don’t have a decentralized me. They’ve got a facebook me, or a myspace me, or a shutterfly me, and frankly, not much else. The question of whether or not this will change over time is certainly valid, but with people’s propensity towards simple, easy to use, one-stop shops, I think it’s far from a given.

In the Web 2.0 bubble we tend to forget that (generously) only 20% of the world population regularly uses the internet. Of those, how many are using/have the need for something like Flickr? Of those, how many are using so many web services that they need an aggregator to tame the chaos? We need to keep in mind that this is very much an invented “problem” that only a sliver of the web needs to deal with.

All that having been said, it’s true that there’s an audience looking for a one-stop shop for their fragmented web presence. FriendFeed faces an uphill battle since Facebook is allowing users to add third-party site info into the newsfeed, and Facebook has the publicity and the massive user base.

rebooting

Vincent Horn at Numinous Nonsense says that if you had to summarize his meditation practice in one word, it would be “ordinary.” I might summarize my practice as “mobile,” which is a generous way of saying that I haven’t made the time to sit in months. With school finishing in four weeks, though, I’m in the process of giving my life a hard reboot.

I’m making some changes to my online presence in preparation for my job search. I plan to update Never Sleep much more frequently, and you’ll notice a slight change in direction: away from politics (which are still very important to me) and towards emergent technology and productivity.

The most important part of this Reboot Project is coming back to my practice with a beginner’s mind. From there I can rebuild fresh.

SXSWi and “The Next Twitter”

SXSW Interactive aka “Spring Break for the Internet” is over, and the dust is starting to settle. Everybody’s playing speculator, trying to spot “The Next Twitter.” Nothing really broke out of the pack with a barrel of momentum the way Twitter did last year, but here are the two biggest contenders:

+Bitstrips: YouTube for comics? Users create characters & strips starring their creations. Since this is SXSW we’re talking about, a lot of the best stuff so far has been about the conference. See above for the Zuckerberg clusterf*ck, and take a look at some good one-panels of SXSW Music Fest acts–here’s a Vampire Weekend schematic, and a cartoon version of Lou Reed’s money quote from his keynote.

+Sched.org: Nice scheduling app that the developers took the time to fill with SXSW’s panels & shows. It’s not gonna replace my GCal anytime soon, but the social aspect of it (”367 Cool Kids Going to Vampire Weekend 11pm @ Antone’s”) is pretty cool. Makes me feel kind of bad for Moby though: “119 Cool Kids Attending Moby 10pm @ Vice.”

Twitter’s launch seemed as much a “right place/right time” thing as anything else: what better launchpad for a narcissistic attention-defecit “microblogging social network” than a conference for narcissistic ADD social networking geeks? Both of these guys are fun and appropriately social, but neither has the immediate gratification or “let-me-txt-u-abt-my-rly-cute-cat” factor of Twitter.

most insightful exchange about the daily show in ages

Stewart sucks up to all the pols when they’re guests. The only person he’s slapped around in the last year (that I’ve seen) was Jonah Goldberg.– Dr Morbius, Monday, 3 March 2008 20:42 (Yesterday) Link

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In Stewart’s defense, I can understand why he’d go soft on interviewing people he routinely ridicules on the show. He’s always emphasized that comedy is job one when people try to evaluate TDS as a news show, and it’d be pretty much impossible to cut through the bullshit and ask really tough questions, and still be able to turn it around a minute later and spin a joke out of an offhand comment. I think he’s more afraid of a tense 5 minutes on camera without a single laugh than offending or making an enemy out of an elected official.– Alex in Baltimore, Monday, 3 March 2008 21:03 (Yesterday) Link

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^^^on point; its not like he feared making enemies of crossfire dudes– deej, Monday, 3 March 2008 21:17 (Yesterday) Link

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it’s totally true, it just feels like such a missed opportunity– Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 00:03 (19 minutes ago) Link

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and that — as stewart is assiduous in pointing out — is an indictment of the national news media, not the daily show– Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 4 March 2008 00:04

teo macero, r.i.p.

1926-2008

The greatest jazz producer of all time.

I’ll be playing In A Silent Way nice & loud tonight.

It really goes without saying, but in case you don’t know: Hank Shocklee, Timbaland & pretty much any big-name hip-hop/pop producer you can think of owes Teo a major debt of gratitude.

The NYT obit suggests that Teo wasn’t fond of Columbia’s huge box set reissues that took the work he did with Miles and presented it in its unedited, pre-Teo-cutup form. For my money the box sets go a long way towards proving how essential Teo’s work was in relation to the finished product.

Here’s what you need:

Let My Children Hear Music - Charles Mingus

A Tribute to Jack Johnson - Miles Davis

Teo Macero with the Prestige Jazz Quartet - Teo Macero

In A Silent Way - Miles Davis

lcd soundsystem tops idolator poll

a-huh-huh-huh-huh

Idolator’s second annual critic poll is online, and the results aren’t all that surprising save a couple placements I might quibble. I’m pleasantly surprised to see LCD Soundsystem’s wonderful Sound of Silver top the list. Battles, M.I.A., Spoon & Kanye all squeezed their way into the top 15.

I was shocked at how well Miranda Lambert’s Crazy Ex-Girlfriend did. I knew it was getting lots of love, I didn’t realize it was getting enough love to land it #12.

Da Drought 3 made it to #26, which is crazy to me. A mixtape in the top 30 of a critic poll? Not to say it isn’t deserved, cause it is, it’s just raising my eyebrows a bit.

Read Jess Harvell’s great essay on Sound of Silver here.

complete text of the shobogenzo online

All 1,100 pages of Dogen’s brilliant, beautiful, opaque text Shobogenzo are now available online for free.I can’t claim to have read the whole thing, though I know a guy who has and a guy that’s trying for it, but I can personally recommend Genjo Koan (and Jundo’s talks on it).

Rejoice, homies.