I don’t like skittles. They are like fruity little lies told to M&M lovers. They aren’t for me.

I’m not sure about their website though. Have you been to skittles.com today? It has been redesigned. It is now just a screen shot of twitter search results for the keyword skittles with a couple of small widgety looking boxes on top.

I can’t decide if it’s a brilliant marketing strategy, the laziest web design job in computing history, or a flat out theft.

On the one hand, what a great idea. Put the phrase, “there is no such thing as bad publicity” to the test. Why pay some one to write your ad slogans when you can just have a few million average folks on the street do your talking for you. Great idea.

Then I look at it from the point of view of some one who knows a tiny (0.000001%) bit about web designing and I think that some one got paid for one seriously shitty piece of lazy ass work. I mean really, did it take them like 25 seconds to throw that ugly piece of crap together?

Even worse, what about all of the people who put the word skittles into a tweet? Shouldn’t they be getting a cut of the profits in exchange? I mean if I were going to appear in a skittles television spot I most definitely would get paid. Likewise if I wrote a skittles television spot I would also want some cash in exchange. But what about this? They use our words and in many cases our images to sell their product and we are not reimbursed at all. Screw you skittles!

Of course, after reading about this earlier this morning I immediately went to twitter and posted a couple of tweets to get myself onto the skittles page. I should be paid for both the use of my likeness and the words I wrote. In fact, I’ll post a screen shot of it so that I can get paid twice! WOOHOO skittles money!

On an unrelated note… the current snowstorm that is bashing the hell out of Massachusetts sucks ass. I hate it. I want it over. Go away winter, no one wants you anymore. You suck, Winter.

This page just received it’s 1,000th hit!

It was from some one on the Ameritech network in Illinois I think.

Just over three months to get 1,000 hits. Sure, in the real world folks get that many hits an hour. But for me and my piddly little brain droppings (we miss you George Carlin) it feels pretty impressive.

Welcome to March 2009.

We’re about to get absolutely clobbered by a snow storm. Yip-freakin’-eee.

RPM officially ended at midnight this morning, although mail submissions to the headquarters will be accepted with March 2nd postmarks.

But officially it’s over, and once again I came up short. I was much closer than I’ve ever gotten though and I enjoyed it.

However, unlike past failures I am not quitting. I was up at 5:30am today recording rhythm guitars for lame songs #4-8. The last two will be done tomorrow and then I have to start the agony of writing lyrics and melodies so I can record them on my vacation day on Wednesday. After that it’s 7,963 guitar solos (saving the most fun part for last this time) and then bad mixing.

Over the summer I am buying a Mac Mini because my ADAT has had it. I keep having to re-record parts because of occasional bursts of extraneous noise that magically appears on the track. It’s annoying.

I might also try to re-record these 10 songs at some point in the future with a real drummer and a real bass player and maybe even a real singer. That’d be cool.

For now though… ADAT, Pod, direct inputs, and bad singing…

…and for this immediate moment… Time to Make Waffles!

This photo was taken at noon on Saturday February 28, 2009. Exactly
ninety-one days before our wedding.

My tax return figuring out sweety.

I hate this light. Routes 126 and 27 crossing route 20 in Wayland, MA.

This is a milestone post.

This is my 100th post.

Not my 100th post over all, just my 100th post in… February. 100 posts this month. 26 days. That’s an average of almost four posts a day 3.846 to be exact, and there are still two more days left in the month.

Man, do I need a hobby.

Just watch this and hope I don’t post again…

Today is one of my favorite days of the year.

Everyone hates winter… at least everyone who lives someplace cold and dark and dreary hates winter, if only a little bit.

One of the many, many, nearly countless things I hate about winter is that it’s dark when I leave work. For a chunk of the season it’s actually dark when I leave home at 7:00am and it’s still dark when I get home at 7:00pm.

But today is the day when the darkened evening commute starts turning around.

Today is the day that the time the sun sets is the same as the time I go off the clock. I work until 5:30pm. Check out this image from weather.com…

Check out the time the sun sets. 5:30 babie!

It will still be dark by the time I get home, but those days are officially numbered!

Happy Days are (almost) here again!

First things first:

You might have to click on that to blow it up so you can read it, but it might be the best comic ever.

Hairy Fishnuts?

Second things second:

Cinematic Titanic. It’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 without the robots, but with some of the robot voices. There are six episode DVDs. We have the first three. We watched “The Oozing Skull” almost as soon as it came out. Over the last couple of nights we’ve watched “Doomsday Machine” and “The Wasp Woman” (still working on that one) and we’ve been laughing almost non-stop.

Even better… if you’re lucky you might be able to see them do it live. We missed them in Boston last week, but I am hoping this becomes a somewhat regular thing and we get another chance in the future.

Third things third:

As the producer, engineer, record company president, songwriter, guitar player, bass player, vocalist, and percussionist of my 2009 RPM Challenge attempt I have decided to make a command decision. It isn’t going to be finished by 2/28. I am extending my personal deadline by a week or two. I’m going to finish it, just not in one month. So now the album-in-a-month challenge is an album-in-six-weeks-or-so challenge. I was much too beat this morning to get up early, and I was much too interested in just hanging out with Jen to work on it last night. The same will be true tonight and every night. I will stick to mornings. Also, I don’t want to miss time with Jen and the kids on Saturday. All along I was expecting to take a day off from work to record the vocals. (the day off from work allows me to do all of my terrible singing while the house is empty of potential listeners.) I’ve had a little too much going on to miss a day this week, so I will put in for a vacation day early in March and nail it all then. When it’s done I’ll post it at alonetone, and maybe virb too, and probably a song or two at myspace to go along with it. Then no one can ever listen to any of it at their leisure and all will be well.

Fourth things forth:

Jen and I have a date scheduled for tonight. A pick-the-songs-to-be-used-during-the-various-important-dances-at-the-wedding-reception date. Send your suggestions as comments. Thanks!

Fifth things fifth:

I want to go on a vacation. I have the itch like you wouldn’t believe. We have a two week honeymoon coming up in a few months that will take us to three different vacation destinations, but I want more. I want to go somewhere and do something, even if it’s just going somewhere and doing nothing. I don’t want to spend money on it though, which poses a dilemma. Maybe an overnight trip some weekend? Something simple? Maybe just a get away day trip or something? I don’t care. I want to go somewhere. I have discovered that I like traveling. I like stocking up on batteries and taking thousands of pictures that are meaningless to everyone on Earth except for me and Jen. Post comments with day trip/overnight trip ideas here too.

Sixth things Sixth:

President Obama (still like the sound of that) is going to give the State of the Nation address… why not State of the Union? I know we’re all about change now, but that seems rather a piddly thing to change. Anyway. CNN and Facebook are going to do another joint broadcast deal. You may see the little twitter feed thing on the right side of this page go through a ton of updates. Just in case you’re watching. Both of you.

Seventh things seventh:

There is no seventh thing. That’s all for now folks.

Mmmmmmmm baptism cake