brykmantra.com

Yeah, yeah, it’s been almost a week since the Irish Festival and all I’ve posted is this video, and it’s just related to the venue and not to the festival itself, and I didn’t even post it here until now — I haven’t even put any of my festival photos on Flickr!

Hey, blogging isn’t what it used to be. Diminishing returns is the name of the game. I blog in short form these days, on Twitter, Facebook, and Blip.fm (as well as Flickr & YouTube & Tumblr and whatever else) and route it through here.

Anyway, here’s this, more to come:

You may recognize the music as Aaron Copland’s Hoedown, better known as the “Beef: It’s What’s For Dinner” music, and as the song covered by ELP in about 1971.

Anyway, enjoy, and check back.

Just found this person/band on Facebook, and I’m using my Press This bookmark bar app so I won’t forget to go back to it: Thistle Radical Music Home Page, an original-folk-music band out of Madison, Wisconsin.

Plus, this counts as a blog post, right?

Yes, it was seven years ago tonight, back in that medieval year of 2002, that I first started a blog, back when 80% of the country had no idea what a blog was.

Oh, those were heady times for us brave pioneers! Networking with other foolhardy cyberdiarists, catching a glimpse of our blog names in a screen shot of a blogroll on local TV news, trying to explain to clueless coworkers and family just exactly what a blog is, posting every stupid little thought that popped into our heads (but without the competition of half the country like on Twitter these days).

Yes, it was almost exactly a year after I started my blog that ABC News named Bloggers their Person of the Year; coincidence? Oh, sure, keep telling yourself that.

My blog was originally on Blogspot, which apparently got hungry and ate the thing, but you can still download my archives in their entirety from a link in my sidebar on the right.

But of course, blogging is passe now, replaced by “tweeting” and “status updates” and “life”. Even I have my Twitter & Facebook & Blip.fm posts funneled into my sidebar here, but I still keep this blog as a central hub for my domain name and blogroll, and of course my “content network”: Original music, photography, video, t-shirts, etc etc etc, plus my own Twitter posts (”tweets” will someday be looked upon as one of the most idiotic words of the early 21st century) and Facebook updates.

Still, it was extremely worthwhile for me to have a blog. It finally gave me daily practice in writing and web page creation skills (HTML and graphics, for instance), opened up several new friendships and networking opporunities, and provides me with a written history of my life for most of that time.

Bonus points: It also gave me a nagging sense of superiority for the first time in my life, as well as bragging rights and a notch on my resume.

One of the most interesting things about blogging was that most of the people reading my personal little blips and rants were all over the country, and even the world. My own family and coworkers were never that interested in my blog, and most of them only read it after they deliberately did something stupid that they knew would tick me off.

THEN they would read it, to see if I was griping about them, but only temporarily.

But seven years is a long time, and the MantraSphere (i.e., my life) is a vastly different place that it was back then.

Probably the biggest event in those intervening years was the discovery, in early 2006, that the bronchitis and pneumonia that I’ve suffered from all my life was caused by a neuroendocrine tumor in my right lung — a tumor which began before I was even born and had grown to 5 centimeters in diameter.

So, long story short, after teetering on the brink of death from pneumonia and losing half a lung to surgery to remove the tumor, and after a long recovery process (mostly because of the havoc that the surgery wreaked on my back and ribcage), I’m now in better health than ever, and haven’t even had bronchitis or a serious sinus infection (much less pneumonia) ever since.

The second biggest change from back then is that I have finally made good on my long-time threat to compose and record music, even being one of the winners of a local music contest this past October! (Did I fail to mention that? Hey, I announced it on Facebook and it showed up in my sidebar. Keep up.)

But you can listen to my music on AloneTone (for free! And get free downloads and ringtones! For free!)

So do that, won’t you?

And there are more changes, but for now, I have to cut this short so I can go DJ in Second Life (another change! Huzzah!).

More later.

Check out this cool technology blog, Underdog of Perfection, by Room34, one of my RPM challenge friends. The latest is No Design is Good Design, a list of sites that make the best of minimalist design — and includes a shout to my Twitter persona regarding an obscure Simpsons onomatopoeia joke.

Yes, I haven’t posted in a while - I’ve been working on lyrics for my music, taking piano lessons, giving computer lessons in return for piano lessions, working part-time, trimming tree branches away from the house, helping my wife cope with her evil step-siblings who are bullying her mom, DJing on Second Life, DJing on Blip.fm, posting things on Twitter and Facebook, and last Friday I cooked a huge pot of my signature beef vegetable soup, as is traditional on the first cold weekend that I have time.

Eh, who am I kidding — I could have posted but I was just dragging butt.

And besides: Look over to the left of the page: my Twitter & Blip.fm posts show up in the sidebar, as well as on Facebook, so it’s just as good as blogging, except you don’t get to listen to me blather on at length about things of no importance.

Like for instance.

Come to think of it, that makes it BETTER than blogging.

ANYWAY:

I have emerged from semi-exile to wish Happy Birthday to two of my readers (which means, to about half of the reading audience that I have left): Former co-worker Todn8r, and longtime blogging friend in Norway, RennyBA

Hope you two make the best of your respective days!

Okay, okay, I haven’t posted a real post since July 4th, but it’s one of my favorite days of the year - the day that the hellish Texas summer is given its eviction notice - so I’m going to try to get a wrap-up posted without murdering 30 minutes to do it:

I actually have been posting on my blog — if you’ll look in my sidebar you’ll see my Twitter feed, which also includes my Blip.fm posts, which are also routed through Facebook. Those things are mostly how I blog these days, so if you want to follow me on those, click each of the links in this paragraph.

But keep coming back here too, of course. Not all of my thoughts fit into 140 characters.

All summer they’ve been tearing up the street in front of our house, but it hasn’t been as bad as I’ve feared (like it was on another street 3 years ago) and the end may finally be in sight. Still, it’s been awfully blasted inconvenient.

I made Employee of the Month for August at my job! Not bad, considering I’m just part-time and I’ve only been there 8 months.

The astounding thing is that this is the first job I’ve had where at least some level of management doesn’t have their head up it. Seriously: first job EVER. I was at the point where I didn’t realize it was possible for management NOT to have their head up it.

At this one place I worked once upon a time, the person who kept getting Employee of the Month was the one who was occasionally known to sit on the assistant manager’s lap. I’m not saying there was any connection between those two facts — hey, maybe it was statistical clustering — but I do know that she was lazy, incompetent and tended to spend all day playing on the computer, so …

But I digress: My point is that I’m amazed and thrilled that my skills and my diligent efforts were actually noticed - and shocked that they were rewarded! Wow. A small sliver of Life actually makes sense.

And for the record, I didn’t have to sit on anybody’s lap.

Another reason I haven’t posted much is because I’ve tried to dedicate September to try to get to the next plateau in my music projects. I haven’t been totally successful so far, but I’ve brainstormed more lyrics in the past 30 days than in all the years since I was in a garage band in Lubbock.

And by “brainstormed”, I mean “come up with a lot of stupid crap that I would never want anybody to see or hear”, but if you don’t do that when you’re brainstorming, then you’re not doing it right.

But there is one musical advance I hope to get out of this month: Tomorrow I start my piano lessons! Yes, yes, old dog, new tricks, shut up. I’ve been piddling around on keyboards for some time now, but this will be my first exposure to actual educated training. I’ve found a music teacher that’s looking for some very basic computer lessons, so we’re doing a swap.

I’m still occasionally Djing in Second Life, including tomorrow night at Belar Inshan Social Club. Drop in at 8 Central if you’re in the Metaverse at the time!

Our big screen TV went out in early August, so we were without it for like 3 weeks, but fortunately it was still under extended warranty, and of course we DO have other TVs in the house.

But that was the BIG one.

Anyway it’s back now and we can breathe again.

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OK, that’s all for now, and I ended up slaughtering MORE than 30 minutes.

But now you’re fed. So follow me on the other things, and keep coming back here.

Um … that’s all I’ve got, really … It’s been a sad week, I lost a very good friend from Second Life, and that’s why I haven’t posted. I’m working on a long, thoughtful post about her, and in the meantime, nothing else seems worth posting except for the colors of the holiday.

But I’ll leave you for now with something from Presurfer: The Fourth of July Celebrations Database.

It was about four years ago that I started becoming fascinated with Iceland in general, and that bizarre crazycakes entity known as Bjork in particular.

Today I remembered that SNL recently did a news segment with Her Wackness (played by Kristen Wiig) explaining Iceland’s economic crisis, and I realized I haven’t checked out Hulu in a long time, so hey: Two birds, one stone, no waiting:

The absolute bestest part: “Right now, Iceland gets all of its revenue from three sources: Fishing, dragons, and screaming.”

Ha ha ha haaaa! That’s pure comedy genius!

Because it’s Bjork all over.

Don’t believe me? here’s her “Bachelorette” video; discruminating film enthusiasts will detect Michel Gondry’s fingerprints all over it:

No one thing worth posting, so here’s a bunch:

Thanks everybody who welcomed me back in my comments! I’ll really try to post more.

It’s June in Dallas, so of course it’s HOT AS HELL, plus it’s miserably humid.

Just worked six days in a row, finally get one day off tomorrow.

Last night I rented “He’s Just Not That Into You” for The Wife to watch while I was at work today, but I didn’t watch it.

I repeat, I DID NOT WATCH IT.

If you want to see more of my posts, friend me on Facebook, because I got my screen name now: facebook.com/brykmantra , of course.

And the only reason I’m active at all on Facebook and Twitter is because I got a widget to make my Twitter posts show up on Facebook. Two birds, one stone, no waiting.

But as it turns out, thanks to Facebook I’m in touch with old high school friends and acquaintances, most of them for the first time in MANY MANY years.

But not many relatives, for some reason, just my cousin’s daughter Sherilynn.

That reminds me, my wife said that my cousin (Sherilynn’s aunt) left me a message today, something about a bunch of other cousins getting together in the Dallas area. I guess I need to listen to the message …

Speaking of cousins, our old blogging pal Gigglechick has been having some intense cousin problems …

Anyway, here’s a cool video I discovered during the winter when my blog was busted. Put on your headphones, turn off the lights, and enjoy!

Okay, I finally got my WordPress upgraded to version 2.7.1, which means my blog FINALLY shows up again! As you’ll recall, I couldn’t even edit anything on my blog for 6 months, and for much of that time, the thing wasn’t even readable. The folks at Lunarpages helped me fix it, but just over 6 weeks later, all that was showing up was my shamrock background and the photo of my cool metal logo at the top of the page.

This time they told me that it was because I was using a really, really old version of WordPress … and, well, BUSTED! Yeah, I haven’t upgraded my WordPress since my first installation, which was, oh, about 4 years ago. So I guess I was due for a change. But backups and file replacing makes me nervous, so I’ve been putting it off.

So I finally did it. So shut up. And so maybe it’ll be a while before my blog fails to show up again.

Or not: As soon as I got 2.7.1 installed and I logged in, the admin page says, “WordPress 2.8 is available! Please update now.”

Sheesh. There’s no stopping this damnable treadmill of blog “progress”.