- Knock, knock.
- Who's there ?
- Me.

No, it's not a joke, I'm still alive, even though I haven't been updating for 2 months (-8 days). I've been busy, yes, busy. I need to say it aloud to convince myself I was though, because I felt I mostly wasted my time as usual, partly thanks to Mr. Slowdown aka my dear old computer.

The day before yesterday, I launched a new site, on which I've been working for 2 months but at a very irregular and slow pace. And as for every site that I make, I never feel it's really completed but just done for now. I'm such an underachiever. Here is the site, it won't interest anyone because it's for people living in Finland and paradoxically it's in English, but I made it anyway:

link: http://www.luomu.org

It's also a display of what I know and can do with various web languages because I had no site that shows efficiently some of my modest skills. So I hope it would look interesting in a resume, if I ever write one. The site use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, MySQL and even some Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript XMLHttpRequest - yeah, I love to write it all), soon I'll add also some RSS/Atom feeds so there'll be some XML too. The site is not W3C compliant for now, it could have been but it would be such a slow down, I might do that later.

I'm proud of a few things with this site, first, except in some areas, it has a rather consistant design. Some pages are too dull, such as the page for updating a profile, but it doesn't matter so much and I might change it later. It has a member area based on cookies and not just sessions, I wanted to handle cookies by myself, not through sessions, it was interesting to do, I learnt a few things.

Ajax is used 4 times in the site, I don't want to explain how, but it was another enriching experience too. For such a simple site, Ajax is easy to use although my code is probably quite poor. The two things I'm the proudest are the way submitted articles are handled and how you can sort the latest news with drop-down menus. Just with them you can search the whole site very quickly and efficiently I believe. It's impossible to check now of course, because the site is empty, but later I hope it will become a useful feature.

This site was particularly interesting to make, I learnt a lot about many important things, especially about organization. I knew for a very long time how much it matters when programming, but with with this site I realized how much more organized I needed to be to work efficiently and the code to remain clear.

In addition to this site, I've also updated Samurai Nintendo and published 4 reviews for 1UP:

link: Samurai Shodown (Neo Geo)
link: Populous (Super Nintendo)
link: Gaiares (Megadrive/Genesis)
link: Cliffhanger (Super Nintendo)

That's what kept me busy for the most part and it's not as much as I would have liked to. But now here's another chance to catch up, I have a few important projects for the coming weeks:

- I've already started working on a new site, this one is focused entirely on making money. Yup, but it's not a greedy site, you'll see what I mean when it's completed. It should be more simple to make than luomu.org therefore I hope it'll be ready somewhere near around the end of next month, though what worries me the most at the moment is the design (always a pain with my old computer).

- Probably before, and as a way of experimenting with design, I want to finally revamp this blog. New name, new look, etc. Hopefully this can be accomplished pretty quickly and the result be convincing.

- Improving luomu.org gradually and working on the RSS feeds.

- Writing reviews for 1UP. I wonder how long I'll manage to keep this weekly publication rhythm, but so far it's working and it's pretty satisfying though it takes a lot. Next review on friday ?

- Keeping Samurai Nintendo alive. A modest but difficult ambition with the four other objectives I set.


I would also like to improve many things about Chat (link: http://chat.bbsig.com) but I have too many priorities at the moment, hopefully it can survive on its own for a little while. If time permits (feel the irony), I will also do my best to update this blog more often. The good thing about not having any readers is that at least I don't have any pressure either.

Shitty miserable day today as usual. I get up at 10, think I'm going to do many things, end up doing 1/10th of what I wanted to do, plus doing things I wasn't supposed to do. My eternal concentration and motivation problems.

What do I even remember of this day anyway ? Just bits and pieces. I wrote some html and some tiny wee php code for a new project, if I keep this pace, I'll have the site ready by 2031. I read about Paris Hilton chosen to play Mother Theresa by an Indian director, and other funny news in this site. I found it thanks to their hilarious headline about Daniel Craig losing two teeth during a stunt on the set of Casino Royale, the headline was: "James Bond Loses His Teeth, Gets Defended By Dracula" (because Christopher Lee gave his support to Craig).

Then I prepared some articles for 1UP, "prepare" is hardly the word since all I did was playing. Well, later I did write but it didn't last long, inspiration wasn't at the rendez-vous today. After this, it gets worse, it's the blackout, I can't remember what happened the next few hours, I suppose I just browsed aimlessly whle eating crepes. Or not exactly, my aim was to check some web designs, so I went to CSS Zen Garden but when it was time to go back home, I guess I lost my way and ended in some sites where I shouldn't have been. Hey, I'm not talking about THOSE sites !

Library (the real one) was my next stop. And I couldn't find a book, believe it or not ! There were plenty of books of course, but nothing that I needed or felt like taking, so what did I do ? I went to the computer and to the Internet. O, shame of a life. It's good that I write all this down , it'll make me feel ashamed next time I'll read it. In the evening, before work, I finally tried to do some design, fearing the slow computer, my worst nightmare, but it behaved today. It's not that bad that it couldn't handle a 500x500 pic and 10 layers, thankfully. Accidentally, the design tests I was doing turned into something completely different and as a result I published a new deviation, which had not happened for more than a year, and which had not ever happened if you consider what was my first deviation.

Now it's almost 1 am and I'm wondering if within one hour I could still save the day and do all the things I was supposed to do today, well, yesterday. Let's ponder about this (but not too long because time is money) while listening (well, reading, I don't have music) to Harry Belafonte's Day O which inspired me today's entry title:

Harry Belafonte - Day O Lyrics

Day O Day O

Daylight come and me wanna go
Day me say day me say day Me say day me say day o
Daylight come and me wanna gohome
work all night and a drink a rum
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
Stack banana till the mornin come
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
Come mister tally man tally me bananas
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
come mister tally man tally me bananas
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
lift six foot seven foot eight foot bunch!
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
six foot seven foot eight foot bunch!
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
day me say day o
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
Day me say day me say day me say day o(daylight come and me
wanna go home)
A beauitful bunch of ripe banana!
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
hide the deadly black tarantula!
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
lift six foot seven foot eight foot bunch!
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
six foot seven foot eight foot bunch!
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
Day me say day o
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
Day me say day me say day me say day o(daylight come and me
wanna go home)
come mister tally man tally me banana
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
come mister tally man tally me banana
(daylight come and me wanna go home)
Day O Day O(daylight come and me wanna go home)
day me say day me say day me say day o
(daylight come and me wanna go home)

Why is it, that everytime that I decide of something to do, I don't do it ?
Why ?

It's been two or three days already that I say I have to take some time for practising web design or even just drawing/doodling with the computer, as well as focusing damn hard on the design of my next site because it is very important this time that I make it right.

But no, no, all I do is to waste incredible amount of times on message boards and other useless stuff so insignificant that when the day is over I just sit here and wonder where my time is gone.

I did only one relevant, important thing today beside working, it was to write two articles for my luomu site. Nothing grand, but nothing too bad either, I think there might be pretty interesting articles for people living in Finland, especially the latest one. Hee hee heeeee ! I put a link, just for the search engines:

Ingman or Valio ? — VALIO !

Well, I'm bloody tired now (3 am, you bet) and I should get up in 6 hours. Oh damn, and I did not even eat... lame ass me. Yeah, so lame ass that it'll be the title for this new pointless entry.

I finally started to change this blog's layout. I didn't do much so far because I don't really know what I want it to look like, I mostly reorganized stuff and trashed all the things I don't need. Now it's a bit more pleasant to read.

The next step will be to find a name (I thought of one, but I'm not sure it's good, though there's no match on Google surprisingly !) and to decide of the feel I want to give to this blog. It's not so important, I don't really care about it, it's more a matter of experimenting with design and trying to achieve an attractive result.

At this point, I sincerely wonder if I'll succeed...

So I finally changed the name, no more "Weary Unicorn", now it's "Metaphorink". I don't even like this word much, but I couldn't think of anything else and I thought I should use it anyway. We'll see how long it'll take before I get truly sick of it.

As I was telling in the past entry, there's no result in Google for this word. That's good. Now there'll be one and I'll be all alone. I still have a few things to change, but no so many actually, it went pretty fast. It's far from looking great of course, but that'll do it I guess.

And again it's past 3 am...

Oooo-kay, it's 1:10 am. Can I finally manage to hit the sack before 3 ? Today was a rather busy day which ends like any other rather busy day, with the feeling that I haven't accomplished anything important. I'm not talking about saving the world or making $100 per hour, but just of this little tickling sensation of satisfaction that should show up when you've been using your time wisely.

I haven't fooled around too much today, yet I don't feel tickled at all. My head is actually bending towards the computer screen because my eyes are so tired, I don't manage to keep them open wide enough to see what I'm typing. If a mole could type, I'd be a mole.

I slept less than 6 hours yesterday night, that might explain the tiredness. Today I had time to start writing an article for 1UP, make new link buttons for Luomu.org and this blog, update Samurai Nintendo (damn, just realized I forgot to update the charts, three weeks in row !) and even to do some programing for Luomu.org and make a short graphic test for my next project.

Not too bad, but all this amounts to so little. How can a 15 hours day contain so little room for action ? Of course I wasted a lot of time with the damn computer and its slowdowns. I thought perhaps I should make a site like the millionhomepage, something like buymeacomputer.com or ineedonemillionforanewcomputer.com. That sounds stupid but the idea is serious. After all, as the millionhomepage has proven (also Jackass and Crazy Frog), stupid ideas in a stupid world are bound to succeed !

If I want to become rich, I have to think of something REALLY stupid and do it. Well, I already have one hell of a stupid blog, it's one step in the right direction ! I go to work (play actually, but playing is work) now for one of my websites and then go to bed, probably dreaming of how stupidity might make me rich someday. Having abundance of it, the odds are high my dreams come true.