Nate Beaty's Brainfag

Bah Humblog*

posted in Home Jabber on January 14, 2006

Reason number one for not updating forever: BMXmuseum.com launched after over a YEAR of development/procrastination (and is steadily getting post-launch, guilt-induced special touches & treatment & rubs on the belly from ye olde cranky webmaster), and Literary Arts launched following a good SIX months of testing and fine-tuning. Literary Arts was my second project with Needmore Designs, another local Portland webhaüs de luxe -- I did the Box Office-related elements of the site, including a brain-bending ticketing system with fancytastic AJAXian admin interface. HA! How's THAT for a bunch of effing gibberish! What does it mean? It means hours and hours and hours (mostly done when Soon Bok was in KOREA ferchrissakes, last.. August?) of PHP and MySQL.

Reason number two (besides holidaze): despite both of the aforementioned sites launching SIMULTANEOUSLY soon after new years, I found myself scrambling to finish a submission for creativeskin.net (which I assume will be up soon). I ended up just handing over 15 pages of Brainfag #10, so you'll get a sneak peek into the still-not-really-rollin' final hurrah issue of BF. The last two pages I drew were JUST starting to feel good, and then the pressure was off, so I started computing again, haha!

Reason number three: I just hate that Brainfag looks like a blog, even though it's a handrolled site (with handrolled backend), and even though it's chock full of content beyond my personal blathering. I been trying to think of a new homepage layout, with the ubiquitous link to my blog buried in the menubar. Nothing came to mind, so here's another blog entry.

I'm also ankle deep in a sorely needed redesign of clixel.com, which I really shouldn't be working on, but I really need to.

I've also been sick which makes me cranky as hell and not too interested in sharing. But I'm finally getting better, so here I am sharing.

I had my third encounter with the Outside In acupuncture clinic a few days ago, and it was amazing. The woman seemed to be more experienced and professional, and it made me wonder if the students who had previously poked me were giving me a poor representation of acupuncture. Because this time it didn't hurt AT ALL.. and was completely pleasant, even though she stabbed my head and ears (which I was NOT looking forward to -- the idea of needles two inches in the temple scares some poop outta me).

You know, it's completely ridiculous, but I think the stress of Christmas is what got me sick again. And by sick, in case you aren't up to date with my glorious rite-of-passage-to-my-thirties ailment, I mean ye olde inflammation of the intestinal bowel disease, Ulcerative Colitis I think they call it, which is NO FUN. It's a lot like Chrohns, but not quite as severe. I don't give a flying rat's ass about Christmas, when it comes down to it, and I didn't really feel stressed in the head at all, but I think it all just sunk into my stomach and went haywire. The fact that I'm a cancer contributes to this theory, as I tend to 1) be very stomach-oriented, and 2) emotional as hell, even if I ignore it mentally. I don't think I'll participate in the "Buy Gifts in Honor of Jesus" hootenanny next year.

Tomorrow Soon Bok and I go to our first class in Korean 2, even though we didn't take Korean 1. That should be interesting. It might even be a complete nightmare. The thought of stepping inside a classroom, which I didn't really consider when I signed up for my second college class in the twelve years since I dropped out, sounds SO unappealing (pay for SCHOOL? huh?). But we plan on flying to Korea in July now, and I'd really like to make a decent impression on her parents. You know, eat the fiery kimchi, say polite things in Korean, and give them hope that not all Americans are steak-chomping 4x4-driving meatheads who want to blow up anyone who threatens to take away their precious American Way of Life™.

Plus if shit hits the fan here in America, say the dollar becomes worth NOTHING much in March, we've got our eye on a possible new home. We'll see.

* Google does a good job of revealing that nobody is as clever as they think they are -- everything has been done. Give up hope, Nate.