Wordpress ate my post.

I don't have the energy to rewrite it, so I guess that will have to be another day.

This morning I went to send a Bullet Sunday dedicated to the concert last night and it wouldn't post. I tried to login to Wordpress to see what's going on and couldn't. My guess is that one of the security plugins I'm running has once again gone off the rails, which means I have to go through a bunch of files and deactivate stuff until I figure out what the problem is.

Which is a pain in the ass, but if the alternative is having my blog hacked every week, I guess I'll take it.

Hasn't anybody told the spammers and hackers that blogging is dead? They're just wasting their time.

My decision to skip sleeping last night was probably the best decision I could have made. A meager three hours would only have only served to put me in a coma for my three-hour-fifteen-minute commute to work. A coma from which even 5-Hour Energy would not let me escape.

As an insomniac, I never get much sleep anyways. But no sleep makes me very stabby indeed...

Driving sleep-free was the least of my worries though.

The reason I always drive to Spokane at night is because driving it in the morning results in about two-and-a-half hours of staring into this...

I-90 runs due-East directly into the rising sun. And on a day like today, it obliterates everything on the road. I really need to get me a sun-shield one day, but until then all I had was some notecards and clothespins hanging from my visor to cut down the glare as much as I could. I also had sunglasses, but they don't really help when it's this bright.

Work was a brisk 50 minutes, at which time I should have turned around and headed back home.

But there was no way I was going to come all this way without having some of the Best Pizza on Earth courtesy of David's Pizza Spokane...

Waiting 25 minutes for them to open was torture, as I was totally falling asleep after finding a spot to park. I ended up setting the alarm on my iPhone to wake me up, which was probably the smartest thing I did all day.

David's Da Vinci pizza was amazeballs as always.

Then it was time for the three-hour-fifteen-minute drive back.

Which was awful, but at least I didn't have to spend the majority of it staring at a giant ball of flames on the horizon.

I stopped to pick up some crap at Costco on the way because I'm stupid that way. Then I drove to work because I'm incredibly stupid that way. Eventually I managed to get home... at which point I passed out for two hours.

Since waking up I've been wandering around in a haze, my mind still in a state of exhaustion from serious lack of sleep.

Which is why I decided it's the perfect time to post an entry to Blogography... this time I have an actually excuse as to why my incoherent ramblings are incoherent and rambling.

My plan was to spend all day at the office so I could get caught up from time lost during my whirlwind week of working in Maine. Alas, instead I spent almost the entire day stuck in bed sick. My guess is that lack of sleep has finally compromised my health, and I ended up vulnerable to a bad case of food poisoning around 3:00am.

The bad news is that I managed to get zero work done.

The good news is that I stumbled across my Tumblr that I never use and had a bunch of questions waiting for me! Here are some of them...

What's the scariest thing you've ever done? I'm tempted to answer "skydiving," but I get more scared in tall buildings than I ever did skydiving and parachuting. Being in the middle of earthquakes in both Seattle and Tokyo were pretty scary. Getting held up at gun-point was definitely scary... but that wasn't something I did, so I honestly don't know. Blind dates are terrifying to me, so let's go with that.

What was the best sex you've ever had? Any sex I'm lucky enough to have is the best... but, if forced to choose? Cologne, Germany, February 2008. Came out of nowhere. Took me completely by surprise. Was the amazing culmination of an incredible day.

How do I get these numbers off my television? I am not familiar with your television, but the "DISPLAY" button usually takes care of that.

What sites do you use for travel advice? Where can I get the best airfare and the cheapest hotels? For specifics, I like TripAdvisor quite a lot, but you have to take some of the absurd reviews you see with a grain of salt. For general travel advice, Nomadic Mike is about as good as it gets (he has great tips for cheap airfare as well). Cheap hotels depend completely on where you're willing to say and what class you're comfortable staying at. I use Priceline a lot. When there's a specific hotel I want to stay at, I've saved money with Trivago. Surprisingly, I sometimes find huge savings by using my AAA card (and, as a bonus, all AAA rates seem to let you cancel them, unlike Priceline and other bidding sites which are non-refundable). My general advice for saving money is BE FLEXIBLE! Some times are cheaper than others. Some destinations are cheaper than others. So long as you are flexible, you'll be best able to take advantage of deals you can find around the internet (signing up for fare alerts from FareCompare and Airfare Watchdog is a good start, but you should sign up for everything you can find!).

Where do you draw the line? I try very hard to draw the line when my actions will negatively impact others.

Where did you go to art school and what advice would you give sombody wanting to have a career in art? I didn't go to art school and an entirely self-taught. When it comes to advice, I honestly don't know what to offer. Now-a-days, getting started in a profitable art career seems more about who you know and what connections you have over anything else. That being said, crazy-talented people always seem to find a way to make a living at it. Problem is, most people who think they're crazy-talented (sadly) are not. This is not to say that you can't make a living doing what you love, it's just that in a day and age where clip-art makes everybody think they're an artist and there are sites offering $5 logos and such... well... it can be difficult. That being said... keep working at it. Get yourself out there. Let your work be seen. Don't be discouraged by negative feedback but instead use that feedback to better your craft.

Why are you still blogging? I have no idea. Except... a lot of "unique visitors" drop by every day which means people are still reading it, so there's that. My guess is that it's become habit. I just do it without really thinking about it. And then there's nostalgia. I've met a lot of amazing people through blogging, so ditching it isn't that easy.

   
And... time to try and get more sleep...

Every once in a blue moon...

...I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to write in this blog. Today was a crappy day and just when I thought it couldn't get any crappier, IT DID. Then it was crap on crap on crap, which meant I had to spend most all of my time trying to dig my way out of shit.

Perhaps on days like today I should just skip blogging entirely.

But I don't want to kill that streak I've got going on just yet, so here you are having to read about crap.

Which is to say it's just another day at Blogography.

The little photos that accompany each entry on this blog are 15 years old today! Thanks to my friend Meagan for creating the custom-made photo booth that made it all possible.

I should probably update them one of these days, but I can never seem to bring myself to get rid of something that's been a part of Blogography since it began in 2003...

There were originally 25 shots. I whittled them down to 17 for my blog. An 18th image was added of me flipping the bird in late 2003 when I found out I desperately needed one...

     
     
     

Last week when I realized that the 15th anniversary of Meagan's photos was coming up, I pulled all the photos of me posted to this blog and arranged them in ascending date order.

A whole lot of Dave can be found in an extended entry...

→ Click here to continue reading this entry...

Updated WordPress.

Ended up with some kind of permissions problem for posting. Again.

The quick fix that's worked every other time didn't work this time.

My ambition for tracking down what's wrong and repairing it is hovering somewhere near non-existent.

No blog for you.

Back in the good ol' days where blogging actually mattered, I refused many an offer to host ads on Blogography (I still do... on those rare occasions somebody actually bothers to ask now-a-days). Not that I was turning down any massive dollar amounts or anything... I would have earned well under $100 a month... but the money wasn't the point. I simply did not want to have my entire blogging life revolve around driving clicks to my website.

Which is what you have to do in order to make ads worth it. Just ask the fine folks at TVBlend...

In order to find out the answer to their burning question, you have to click through to their website.

A.K.A. "clickbait."

Whereas Super Hero Hype has a different, arguably less douchey approach...

Super Hero Hype doesn't make you click through to get the answer, they try to create a post that will have you wanting to click through to get more than just "the answer." Kind of a big difference, though the end result is the same... if you're a fan of Constantine, you'll be clicking through to the site in order to get the deets about the fate of the show.

And while I prefer the Super Hero Hype approach which doesn't hold a gun to my head for a click-through, TV Blend's tactics don't bother me enough to stop following their newsfeed... I just don't click through as much as I would if they were a bit more creative in how they go about initiating it.

But lest you think Super Hero Hype isn't above allowing others to put douchey clickbait ads on their site. Well...

ZOMFG! WHAT DID SANDRA BULLOCK LIE ABOUT?!??

Who the hell cares?

A lot of people, apparently. Because this kind of clickbait is rampant on the internet. You can't escape it. Everywhere you look there's something UNBELIEVABLE and AMAZING that will LEAVE YOU SPEECHLESS... but it requires a click-through to reveal what it is.

In some cases it's more than figurative... you literally can't escape it. Because an increasing number of websites... "ZergNet" for example... spawn infinite new windows with every click so you never leave their site. You're trapped in a maze of clickbait from which few break free.

Until you fall asleep at the computer.

Or close your browser window.

Or die.

Which is the only true escape from clickbait once you're on the internet.

Which reminds me... DID YOU KNOW THAT THESE COMMON HOUSEHOLD ITEMS COULD KILL YOU?!?

It just occurred to me that I totally forgot about blogging today.

Guess that's bound to happen from time to time.

Here's a photo of me as a baby with a monkey...

There. Blogging done!