Progress Through Jealousy

I am a Webhead. I don't mean to overclaim, because I'm not, really, not compared to Sasha or Elric or the folks who work for me, one of whom will check in to chide me despite my brutal honesty. But my day job involves a lot of knowing what's up with Web technologies and content and strategies. One of my adorable little gifts--or not, depending on your perspective and the given value of "adorable" and "gifts"--is that I speak fluent Web, understand how things should work, know something about the place of the Web in communications strategies, sort through hours of technical blahrg from actual Webheads, and then distill the whole mess into something that actual Webheads can run with, rather than getting endlessly trapped inside their engineer-like minds.

Wow, that got unnecessarily dense and self-serving. Anyway, the point is that I have reason to be jealous when my friends have cooler Web toys than I do. I commented sort of obliquely, sort of approvingly (but not recognizably enough) on BFF's dynamic blogroll toolio, back when I raped his aesthetic sensibilities. The thing has really grown on me. I like it at BFF's place, and I like it at other places whereat I've seen it. I am jealous that he has a toy that I do not.

Well, enough of that shit. I rearranged the furniture and now I'm dynamically blogrolling, because I didn't realize how easy it was. Sorta puts the lie to the whole first graf, huh?

So there are goodbyes; some friends haven't updated their blogs in months. If they tell me they're not done, I'll relist them (lest you think I'm a complete idiot, I kept the wife, who posts about three times a year, if that). I said goodbye to an insufferable celebrity prick (I'll bet you don't miss him). And because of the dynamic nature of the blogroll toolio, some people who don't have update feeds ended up in the "Just Links" section, which is not dynamic (I may revisit this--Elric doesn't look bad in BFF's dynamic buddies section). I think I might've dumped one or two other sites that I almost never visit.

There's also a hello. Jack is a decent enough fellow who's perfectly willing to trade gratuitous unkind suggestions in a spirit of theoretical discourse. Until very recently, I've sort of shied from him and his blog, engaging him in conversation once or twice at BFF's place. But I noticed a little while back that Minions was appearing in his dynamic toolio, and I've since been contemplating returning the kind. Jack frightens me a little, because he's one a them deep thinkers, and as I like to remind you, I ain't. I can cope with deep thought from BFF; it's the habit of years, and I don't find it threatening coming from that vector. On the other hand, Jack's been blogrolling me, so he is obviously a man of varied, and sometimes low, tastes. Recent events sealed the deal. Welcome Jack.

Another lil thing opened up the time to do this facelift; I'm stuck in rural Sucktucky. That's becoming a regular event--this is the second of three trips in four weeks, with, it appears, more to follow. Now, it's possible that good things will result from all this travel and sturm und drang and weeds-level management of a business line with which I am only familiar enough to blow some pretty decent smoke (not Web, FTR) and a contract type (fixed-price) that's way riskier than what I'm used to and a customer (I can't tell you, because I've already said more than enough for some folks to figure out who I am) that's way different from my usual comfort zone. Good things for me and mine, professionally, I mean, and like many of you, I do not have the luxury of doing what pleases me for a living--I work to be a materialist oinker (unlike, I suspect, some nontrivial number of you), which includes, of course, feeding Ilse, Databoy, and Bam-Bam. Anyway, rural Sucktucky breeds time, because I've been in planes and cars all day and working at this point in the day is beyond possibility. Hence: change! No hope advertised or promised. Ciao.