Barely Concealed Narcissism

I badmouth this town a lot. I’m not from here, so it’s easy.

The weather is cold (like I grew up in a tropical paradise?). The sports fans are near sycophantic (and no, that’s not better than the bitterness I grew up with). The drivers are schizophrenic (ok, sure, there’s reason they called I-76 Schuylkill Expressway the “Sure Kill Expressway“). I won’t complain about the politics though…there’s really no contest there.

But the truth is, it’s a beautiful city. It’s got a skyline that defines but doesn’t smother. The river and harbor weaves through the town, providing water views to nearly every window above five stories. And it is, I admit, my home of eight and a half years.

So when I saw the NYTimes put up a great travel review of the harbor front, I found myself getting chills (and not, for once, due to the temperature). From the neighborhood in which I live, to the path on which I run, and even the place at which I’m going to get married (to a home-town girl, of course) – I like it here.

I could try to write reasons why I haven’t posted here in a while.

I could also pretend I have an audience.

In fact, over the past six months of near blog dormancy, I have had quite the audience – at least if the comment moderation queue is any indication. These dear readers have been very helpful. Many offer free drugs. Some provide sex advice. But perhaps the most valuable comments come in the form of a free joke (followed, of course, by a link to ch3ap v1agr@!!!11).

Over the next few weeks, as holiday schedules hopefully provide a slow down to day job related chaos, I’ll be posting some work and other notes. I’ll cover Digital Out-of-home, Arduino, some photography work, and some other topics. I may even add a captcha to my comments form.

For now, however, here is as complete a list I can compile of the jokes left in my comments over the past few months…after the break.

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Dear WordPress,

Remember that time I spent days getting you just right? Remember how I tweaked every little pixel, molded your PHP, your CSS, your JavaScript? I gave you my heart. And you’ve completely thrown it on the floor and stomped on it.

Ok, I realize I may have stopped updating you for a bit. Maybe I should have paid more attention to you, and less attention to my new job, or my new fiancée. Maybe I should have traveled less. But that’s all behind us now. I am looking at the future.

Or am I? How can I consider a future with you, my dear blogging software, when you keep screwing me over here. First your iPhone app loses posts randomly, removes UI elements when it feels like it, and ultimately breaks. That was hard to take. I wrote out a nice long rant about it. But I hit delete. Why? Because I felt it wasn’t worth the anger. It was time to move past it.

But now – now I must speak up. You ask me to update you to 2.8. Easy! I click a button, I wait a few minutes. Just like that, you’re as good as new. But perhaps you’re TOO new! Where is the overly-muted black and white theme? Where is the skinnier-than-necessary Chalet Nineteen Sixty typeface (implemented via sIFR)? I spend all this time morphing you in to what I want in a blog, and you go off and do your own thing.

Of course, there’s nothing I can do but go back to the beginning now. Pick up the pieces. I won’t be switching to MoveableType or Tumblr or the like. They may be better. But I will never know. I’ve commited myself to this relationship. My only request is that, this time – please – get your shit straight and behave.

Because I love you. I do. But only when you do what I say.

Lovingly yours,

Gabi.

I’ve been waiting a while to write this. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I wanted to make sure I told the story of my trip once the “magic” of the whole thing wore off. But I promise – that hasn’t happened yet. I could also blame it on all the work I had to catch up on when I got back. Meh. Too easy.

The truth is I think I’ve been avoiding this because I was nervous I’d get it wrong. The entire trip was only 48 hours long, but from the moment we arrived at the airport in Boston, we knew this was something important.

Anyway – here we go. Feel free to skim, just watch the videos, leave comments (regarding the event, my vanity, or your disappointment in the Eagles).

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The good news is that this is not a site about self love. Or self loathe. Or making yourself better through any means available.

The bad news is that this site is about me.

This is a place for me to gather and showcase what I do, be it a new site launch, a new video, a solution to a problem I find worth sharing, or just general flotsam and jetsam.

But one cannot provide such miscellany without a hook (or else you have hook-less miscellany, about as good as cheese-less ravioli). As such, I will be establishing a new challenge for myself every month, each revolving around a “self” term:

January: Self Improvement
February: Self Sacrifice
March: Self Preservation
April: Self Affliction
May: Self Indulgence
June: Self Assessment
July: Self Interest
August: Self Contradiction
September: Self Correction
October: Self Control
November: Self Defense
December: Self Reflection

This doesn’t mean every post in that month will revolve around the theme, but hopefully it help keep me in check a bit.

So that’s that. If you have any questions (or recommendations on monthly challenge themes), be sure to bug me here.