I’m struck with a sudden desire to watch the old Adam West/Burt Ward “Batman.” The TV episodes haven’t made it onto DVD (legal fun - Wikipedia has a nice summary) but the MOVIE sure did! And I’ve got it right here - shark repellant batspray, (Lee Meriwether (not Julie Newmar or Eartha Kitt) and all. So I think I’ll watch that tonight.

To counter last night’s sad sack of a post, allow me to share some entertaining things. Rightfully, and to match the taxonomy and structure I’ve set forth thus far, this post should be called, “Easily Entertained, volume #” - but nah. I like the Riddler reference a bit better. So, here’s some random stuff:

• One of my favorite enjoyable fun reads (that is to day, not horribly mentally taxing, but definitely not a waste of your time) from Mr. Neil Gaiman is up on the internets for free for one month. THIRTY DAYS. You can download the PDF and read it. He and his publisher (HarperCollins) did this a few months back with another one of his books and saw a bit of a jump in sales, esp. in independent bookstores, if I recall correctly. This time, it’s his book Neverwhere. So… check it out if you’d like to read a bit of non-dragon fantasy fiction about London and people and relationships and puns. It’s one of those books I could read over and over again. Just fun.

• If you’re in the northern New Jersey area and have access to a car and are craving some delicious diner food, by all means get yourself over to Tops Diner in East Newark, NJ. I went after work tonight with a friend from work and we stuffed ourselves silly… after spending about 15 minutes just staring at the menu. I must reiterate that my heart belongs to the Tick-Tock diner. They’ve got the sweet potato fries, the strangely surly service and shiny chrome that gives it authentic Jersey diner flair… but Tops Diner is surprisingly upscale (I use the term in the diner sense), offering things like eggs Benedict with crab cakes instead of Canadian bacon. The decor is more modern and sleeker, and the menu is twice as expansive. So, yeah. Consider it for your next northern NJ diner run.
• The Shape of Song. This is just geeky fun. The structure of songs is such that elements repeat - choruses, motifs, etc. This site provides a visual representation of various songs submitted - check out the simplicity of the well-known X-Files theme song by Mark Snow, the minimal roadbumps of Nine Inch Nails’ Closer, anything from Radiohead and Pachelbel’s canon. Pretty.
  

  The diagrams in The Shape of Song display musical form as a sequence of translucent arches. Each arch connects two repeated, identical passages of a composition. By using repeated passages as signposts, the diagram illustrates the deep structure of the composition.

• My Moo stickerbook arrived yesterday (@ right). Moo is a UK-based company who’s partnered with Flickr to create these cute little sticker books from your Flickr photostream. You select a bunch of photos and they print them up in a cute match-book style sticker book. I was like a little kid when I got the envelope. I’m all excited about where to put my new stickers.
• Quick Sarah Palin round-up. I’m not watching the speech tonight (no cable) and I don’t want to listen, so I’ll hear all about it tomorrow morning on NPR. In the meantime, here are some posts I’ve found interesting (and/or entertaining): (1) What a librarian has to say about Mrs. Palin, (2) a post from This Recording which I should not even try to describe, (3) a piece from an Alaska native in The New Republic called, “Palin? Really?” (4) a little piece about Palin’s kids’ names (5) and something a bit less tabloid-ey from the NYT. There’s tons more, but that would just feel wrong.
• It’s going to be almost 90 degrees in NJ tomorrow and Friday - and raining on Friday and Saturday. I want fall to get here already. I want more than just the falling leaves with their colors changing (which is sort of happening already) but also the cool weather. That’s what I want. I also wanted to find and post a clip from the Family Guy episode with the leafers descending upon Rhode Island, but I couldn’t find it on YouTube or Hulu. Oh well.

I’ll keep it short. I still have cleaning to do. And work tomorrow. Tuesdays that feel like Mondays are the ultimate festival of suck. So much so that they deserve a banner:

Again, some days are just a festival of suck. Tuesdays after a three-day weekend fit the bill. Also, days that are full of meetings and which leave me with 30 minutes to reply to all email. Also, days when I’m running on less than optimal sleep. And the first day back after being out on vacation.

Back to the Flickr obsession. Yes. I find myself checking my Flickr photostream several times a day (or an hour) to see how many views my photostream and individual images have had, and to look at my stats graph to see if I’ve come anywhere near my all-time high of 62 views in one day.

I know there are people who get a LOT more. I know it. But that’s a number I was very proud of. As much as I was proud of yesterday’s 53 views. Today’s count of 13 left me feeling a little low. And the fact that I’m experiencing an emotional correlation to that graph is a bit pathetic. Submitted for your approval, my Flickr stats graph which pretty much corresponds with my emotional state over the last week:

Sing it with me, “Rollercoaster… of mumble*… rollercoaster! Woo-hoo-hoo!”  (* because “love” doesn’t quite work here…)

Yes, I’m spending far too much time looking at pictures, tagging them, titling them, digitally enhancing them with Photoshop and Picnik (a fairly snazzy free web-based photo editing app - they partner with Flickr) to play up textures, colors, etc. I’m spending time doing that. Time I should be spending cleaning, running on the treadmill, etc.

Though, truth be told, I HAVE been doing a lot of cleaning, and I have been getting a lot of reading done to prepare for the labor assistant duty coming up soon. And the time I’ve had has been at odd hours not well-suited to going running. Excuses, excuses, but they’re valid for the time being.

Tonight, I am calling it. I’m closing the Flickr browser window. And Google Reader. And then this one. Then iTunes will be closed. And I’ll shut down the computer. Off. All the way. No more until tomorrow night. Discipline, bitches. That’s what I have to practice.

Wow! Now I can share an animated version of what I looked like 7 years ago!

Well, she’s animated if you visit the Meez.com page the image links to. It’s not very exciting. She reads. Standing up. How uncomfortable.