I’ve been getting headaches at night on a regular basis lately. This is an entirely new phenomenon and one with which I am not at all pleased.

I’m testing the hypothesis that these headaches are caused by spending entirely too much time staring at a computer screen. So it’s time to purify.

Step 1: Reduce the pressure to “keep up.”

As of the start of this effort, I had 201 subscribed feeds. Time to make some tough weeding decisions. So goodbye slashdot (one of my very first feeds). Goodbye digg. Goodbye kottke. Goodbye various Netflix blogs. Already down to 163 and dropping. Can’t quite cut the cord on Boing Boing though…yet.

Step 2: Back away from the desk.

We are painting the room where my desk is located. This will require me to shut this computer down and move furniture. It’s a great opportunity to create some separation between myself and the keyboard. I plan to take full advantage.

Step 3: Read more books.

This is long overdue. Reading for me goes in phases and this would be a nice opportunity to get back into it. Maybe I should try large type.

Never one to avoid an opportunity to talk about myself, I will take on the 4 Things meme that Nicole so kindly foisted upon me.

Four jobs I’ve had:

1. Sales Associate
2. Kitchen Manager
3. Assistant Branch Manager
4. Supervisor of Electronic Services

Four movies I can watch over and over:

1. Dazed and Confused
2. This is Spinal Tap
3. Short Cuts
4. Caddyshack

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Burlington, VT
2. Boulder, CO
3. Eugene, OR
4. Champaign, IL (notice a theme?)

Four TV shows I love:

1. Family Guy
2. The O.C. (my guilty pleasure, but aren’t they all?)
3. The Amazing Race
4. Scrubs

Four places I’ve vacationed:

1. Hilton Head
2. Redwoods
3. Alaska
4. Amsterdam

Four of my favorite dishes (I’m excluding desserts here):

1. Tempeh Reuben
2. Philly No-Miss-Steak Sandwich (from the defunct Herbie’s Garden and Juice Bar in Eugene)
3. Veggie Fajitas
4. BBQ Ribs (a nagging vestige from my more carnivorous days)

Four sites I visit daily that might not be totally obvious (sorry Google and Bloglines):

1. listology.com
2. cbs.sportsline.com
3. netflix.com
4. pbwiki.com

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Firenze
2. Bali (in more favorable political times)
3. In bed
4. Seeing Fiona Apple in concert

Four books (or series) I love:

1. The Magus
2. Jitterbug Perfume
3. Snow Crash
4. Portnoy’s Complaint

Four video games I can play over and over:

1. NHL 2002
2. Baldur’s Gate I and II
3. Web Sudoku
4. JigZone puzzles

And in keeping with precedent, I’m not tagging anyone…so there.

Ok, fine:

Total volume of music on my PC:
11.72 GB, which includes approx. 1 GB of podcasted material

Last CDs simultaneously purchased (for myself):
Tenacious D - Tenacious D
Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams

Last song purchased at iTunes (with gift card - You didn’t think I’d spend my own money on DRM’ed music, did you?):
Such Great Heights - The Postal Service

Song playing right now:
Speak, See, Remember - Pavement

Five songs/CDs I listen to alot - This will be hard as I don’t really do a lot of repeat listening these days:
1. There’s Nothing Wrong With Love - Built to Spill
2. The Band - The Band
3. Waiting for Columbus - Little Feat
4. The Harder They Come soundtrack (or the Tougher Than Tough box set)
5. American Water - Silver Jews
6. (Sorry, couldn’t leave this off) Hunky Dory - David Bowie

Five songs that mean a lot to me - I offer no explanations and could easily have picked twenty others:
1. (Don’t Go Back to) Rockville - R.E.M.
2. Taste - Phish
3. Broken Arrow - Robbie Robertson
4. Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me) - Steely Dan
5. Into the Mystic - Van Morrison

First concert:
Either Kenny Loggins (with my summer camp) or Air Supply (with my parents) - not sure which came first.

First concert by choice:
Steve Miller Band

I know I’m supposed to tag three people at this point, but everyone I know has already done it, so I’m gonna let it die here. If you’re dying to share, just do it already.

Oh, my apologies for the lack of audio lovin’. I’m just tired and don’t have much to comment on at the moment. I haven’t forgotten about you.

The Leather Boys

Originally uploaded by planetneutral.

For those of you Flickr fans out there, they’ve finally announced the new pricing info that comes about as a result of the purchase by Yahoo. Pretty good deal if you already had a pro account and now only $24.95/year with twice the upload bandwidth (2GB/month).

By request, I endeavored to work out a smaller file for my screencast. After numerous attempts, I produced an acceptable Flash file that weighs in at 17 MB. I had no luck compressing the audio to mp3 in Camtasia (final video would play without audio) and the other PCM compression option proved unacceptable. So the sound is uncompressed, but the change in video format makes a huge difference. I hope that this compels some of the bandwidth wary to take a look. And again, apologies to the podcast feeders. (The Flash file is not handled as an enclosure, so it will not download automatically. In fact, if you want to download the file, you’ll have to right click and “Save Link as…” or whatever is comparable in your context menu.)

Update: Thanks to the tireless work of Blake Carver, my comment form is again in working order. By the way, this inglorious post is my 400th.

It appears that my comment form has not been working properly for a few weeks. Unfortunately, I had no idea and anyone who sent me a comment wouldn’t have either. This depresses me to no end. I have never intentionally not responded to a comment, so my apologies to people who sent comments in the past two weeks.

I’d be grateful to anyone willing to actually reiterate their feedback. Until I figure out the problem (and even after I do), why not IM me at planetneutral on AIM or Yahoo? It may say I’m away, but send your message anyway. I have a bad habit of forgetting to set my away message, so I leave it up by default.

Again, my sincerest apologies to those who took the time to comment and received no response.

Update: It works! Thanks Blake.

I downloaded the Camtasia Studio trial version a few weeks back and figured I better do something with it before the 30 days expired. So I decided to give you an inside look at how I create my show and get it ready for podcasting. If you are so inclined, take a look at my first (and probably only) screencast.

The file is quite big. My eight minute movie weighs in at nearly 40 MB. I’m sure that there are ways to compress the file and I probably could have done some editing, but I’ll save exploration of those avenues for future efforts. Consider this a test (with apologies for those who subscribe to the podcast feed, who will receive this whether they want to or not).

Camtasia provides a number of options for what actually gets recorded: a fixed area of the screen, a specific window or the full screen. Because I was switching between applications, I recorded the full screen. This leaves you with a cluttered and unattractive web page sitting next to Audacity the entire time I was recording. Too bad, as there’s a beautiful picture I took of jellyfish at the Monterey Aquarium on my desktop. Oh well, next time.

Jon Udell, who continues to be my online hero, has posted another genius screencast entitled “Content, services, and the yin-yang of intermediation.” This is a must-view. Do it now. Seriously. And if you’re not convinced, read what Richard Akerman has to say about it.

Looks like the next space for folksonomies will be in the music sphere. BBC Radio 6 is in a pre-alpha demo of Phonetags which will allow users to “bookmark” songs played on Radio 6 via text message and add keyword and rating tags. Tod Maffin of CBC notes that this could have interesting implications for the way both DJs and listeners interact with the music.