i thought i’d try one of these blog-in-a-can muses and see what comes of it.. so without further ado, monday’s mission:

1. have you ever had, or known someone who has had, a “mid-life crisis?” what happened? is there such a thing or is it just an excuse?

– i remeber when i was in grade 8, a teacher in my school, mrs somethingorother’s husband left her, and bought a porsche. at the time i didn’t know it, but that figures out to be a mlc. my opinion is that it’s just an excuse, someone gets bored with their life and decides to change radically, and in the end doesn’t get any better (and often worse) in their situation.

2. have you ever had a dream so vivid, that you woke up with certain emotions towards a person for what happened in your dream, even though they didn’t do a thing to deserve it in real life? what did you feel and and what was the dream?

– i don’t remember my dreams very often, and when i do, i forget them within a few minutes of awakening. although in college, a friend of mine once walked in and slugged me in the shoulder for something i had done in *his* dream.

3. i think everyone is creative in some way or other. some people draw, some play music, some write, some cook, some build or sew. how do you express your creativity? have you ever made money from it?

– i try to write, but don’t succeed very well. i also play guitar and do that passingly well, i’ve been playing professionally (well – bar bands and busking) since i was around 17 or so.

4. speaking of creativity, i display some of my artwork on my website. it is there for everyone to view, but if i learned it was stolen and used commercially without my permission or being paid, i would be furious. has anything you created ever been stolen? how did you handle it?

– i haven’t ever had that happen, but i think i’d be angry a bit at first, then shrug it off as a cool thing. anytime i did something that was good enough for someone else to steal, that would be really cool. also, i really believe that information (art & music included) should be free. if we had the choice, i’d pay for things that i really use and want to, not have to.

5. i imagine the question above is similar to what the music industry is going through with file sharing. do you think downloading music via file sharing is “stealing?” is taking songs without paying for them any different than someone taking your work without your permission?

– no, it’s not any different, but that’s the thing.. i’d probably be ok with it in the long run, as long as it was reciprocated. if someone wants my stuff, they can have it for free, just give me credit for it.

6. how do you feel about the riaa targeting everyone (parents, teenagers, grandparents) who share songs over the internet with expensive lawsuits? should they be selective in who they subpoena, or should all who violate copyrights be treated equally? or are they going too far? should the music be free?

– since i don’t want to swear too much, i won’t get started on the riaa and how imbecilic, insipid and idiotic their whole approach is. in the long run, all they are going to do is piss off a ton of people.

7. on the same thought, what do you think pay-per-song concepts such as imusic and buymusic.com? will they succeed? is this the solution? if not, what is?

– i think they are fantastic. if i have the choice to buy only what i want, then i will. they will succeed, and metamorph. i don’t know if it’s *the* solution necessarily, but they are a step in the right direction. now if we can get around the limitations that even they have…..

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one of my favorite movies is called the paper, starring michael keaton and marisa tomei. michael keaton is the metro editor of the new york sun, working hectic schedules, and marisa tomei is his wife, trying to vie for any little bit of his time, and trying to tell him that it’s not ok. telling him that he needs to put his priorities in order. all through the movie she gives him hypothetical situations and asks him to choose something, and near the end she gives him this one: ” a man breaks into our apartment and puts a gun to my head, and says he has planted a bomb at the ny sun building, and he has to choose: the paper or your wife. choose.” and he goes ballistic and says something to the effect that he won’t choose because it’s a ludicrous situation, and it would never happen. then she points out that that’s exactly her point, that life isn’t one big life or death choice. it’s a thousand tiny little choices that you make every single day. one of my favorite literary characters is tasselhoff burrfoot. (if you know who this is, let me know that i’m not a nerd alone ;). in a certain book, he talks about something his father told him, to the effect of: big things are really made up of a lot of small things. the same thoughts & reasoning, no? makes me wonder how often we stop and think when we make a choice ‘is this something that might have larger effects in the future?’ i know i don’t, but maybe i should.. at least once in a while.

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hello. my name is tom, and i’m a windows user. (chorus: hello tom, welcome to windows anonymous).

i’ve been a windows user since my first 386, maybe 10 years ago. 3.1, 95, 98, 2000. by ‘user’ i mean it’s been my primary operating system, the one that i interact with most. i’m pretty familiar with linux, and have been running a linux server for various tasks at my house for a couple years, but didn’t use it for the day-to-day things. until a couple months ago, that is. right after i got my powerbook, i decided that i was going to do it. make the big switch. so i moved my e-mail and ide over to the idle linux machine in my cube and started coding.. and haven’t looked back. the only thing that i miss is trillian, the integrated chat client. i tried to use a couple open source ones that i found, like gabber, but couldn’t get them to work, they have reliance on too many 3rd party rpms that don’t seem to want to play together. i think i’m going to install abiword since staroffice word kinda sucks. and probably gnumeric since i’m going to remove staroffice entirely. but by and large, my transition was pretty seamless (except for the hours waiting for my mp3’s to copy over ;). and now that i’m on linux, i can’t even remember why i used windows. free updates! a n amazing package manager. free applications. who needs to pirate stuff when open source stuff is better than any commercial applications? now if people would start porting their games to linux, that would be the last step for me eliminating windows entirely. i must say, however, that the most recent 3 games that i have bought, (myst 3, safecracker, undying) were all for my mac. and diablo 2 runs on mac too. sorry microsoft, you’ve lost another.

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i have gotten a lot better about this, but i used to have to read for like an hour before i went to sleep, or i was unable to doze off. sometimes, however, i’ll get really into a book, just before bed and not want to sleep, so i’ll stay up “just a bit” and read more of it.. the last time this happened, i was reading ‘the cuckoo’s egg’ by cliff stoll – it’s a real-life tale of capturing a cracker. it’s a very compelling read. this weekend i picked up the 5th harry potter and started it, and when i started to read last night at around 10pm, i was at about page 500 or so (the book is ~860 pages).. and before i knew it, it was 1am and i was finished it. i dozed off immediately when i went to bed, but was plagued by potter dreams all night. i don’t usually dream, or if i do, i don’t remember them. oh well, i’m a little tired this morning, but not really any the worse for wear. yay for caffeine.

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i was thinking about one of my favorite movies on the way in to work today: throw momma from the train. there’s so many interesting little subplots and things to think about in it. and one thing that i think about often is owen, and how he wants so desperately to be a writer. so he takes a creative writing class, and one of the things that the teacher says to his class is: “a writer writes… always.” and different things i’ve read about becoming a writer say the same thing. if you want to be a writer, write. write often, about anything. that makes me think of 2 things: 1) practise. i guess that writing is like anything else, you need a lot of practise at it to be good. this kind of kills my romantic views about people who pour out a novel or poem from the heart, and replaces it with someone who sketches out an outline and then revises it over the course of days, weeks or months, crafting it into a moving piece of literature. i wonder about some of my own favorite poets and authors, like ginsberg and frost, and wonder if they worked like that? it almost seems to tarnish the emotion that their work evokes in me. another piece of my innocence lost i guess (that should be the topic of another one of my entries.) now on to #2: does a writer write constantly because they’re driven to? or do they force themselves to do it? my friend titus is a painter, i’ve talked to him, and he says that sometimes he just has to paint or sketch, just *has* to, like he’s driven to do it. he has to carry a sketchbook around in case he gets struck by something that he needs to get down. are ‘real’ writers like that? (i guess i don’t even know what i mean by ‘real’ writers – are they people who are extremely gifted? or people who are, for a lack of a better term, good wordsmiths?) are people driven to document, report, create, and write for some reason? or is it just a desire to share with others? does it act as a catharsis for your brain, heart or soul? sometimes i feel like i have these urges to write or draw, or create, or make music, and can’t find the right form, melody, or words to express the idea or feeling, and too often i’m just left with a feeling of frustration that i can’t get it out of me. like now. i re-read what i’ve just written and it’s ok, but doesn’t really say what i’m feeling. i guess i’ll just have to try again.. and again.. and hope that eventually i’ll get it right.

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