Rest in Peace, you magnificent animal. We hardly knew ye. Complete story here.

There are several different tartans for each clan, for different occasions, but this is the one I liked best.

But anyway: I have a tartan! Happy Tartan Day!

My gallery of memories of that time of my life is here.

Man oh man oh man …

This year is going to radically different: I’m actually writing lyrics, and — you’d better sit down for this — I’m actually going to sing them. I know, scary thought.

Almost as frightening is the fact that I’m actually going to be playing the guitar this time around.

But enough explanation. I just checked in to announce my progress, which is that I just completed the (very) rough draft of my first song, Little Pink Flash Drive.

Yes, this new approach might actually work.

But I need to get back to work now, so further chatting on the subject will have to wait.

And now, here we are, on the cusp of 2012, and blogging isn’t what it used to be. If somebody these days identifies themselves as a blogger, they’re usually focused on a topic — and an agenda, be it profit or propoganda. The word has become synonymous with Gawker and Gizmodo and Huffington Post — sanitized, soulless, bloodless, professional, churned out several times a day by people you’ll never chat with. The Wild West Frontier of blogging is over, but I like to think that there’s a little of blogger spirit in everybody that posts on Facebook every day.

And even corporations are catching on: The national company I work for started an internal social network a couple of months ago, where each employee can start a “blog” of sorts, so today, on the ninth anniversary of this blog, I started my blog, and thus launched myself into our corporate blogosphere, and immediately felt the familiarity rush over me, like I was once again behind the wheel of a machine that had years ago become an extension of myself.

So look out, Corporate Social Network: The Bryk is back.

And for the future of BrykMantra.com, I resolve in the coming year to better integrate my blog into my other social sites and media projects (and vice versa). For starters, I think that surely there must be a way to have my Facebook posts automatically publish to WordPress, or the other way around … anybody out there know how to do this? Anyway, I’ll find a way to harness all the energies I’ve got going on, and then … well, I don’t know what then, but I figure that out when it happens.

And in closing, I don’t think I can say it better than I did last year:

Yes, it was eight years ago that I started my blog on Blogspot: I wrote an initial post that was something like, “I started a blog! I’ll post more tomorrow”, then I went to the local laundromat to dry my wife’s beauty shop towels (our dryer was on the fritz). While at the laundry, I hand-wrote a two-page post (while fighting against carpal tunnel syndrome), which I typed in and posted the next day.

It was a humble beginning, but the start of a major phase in my life. That next year, 2003, was when blogging really began to take off (Bloggers were named People of the Year by ABC News), and I was there on the ground floor. I had readers from all over the world, I made several friends among my fellow bloggers, at least four of whom (Gigglechick, RennyBA, Pamibe, Kim Novak) I’m still in contact with (mostly through Facebook), and I even got some measure of recognition for my blogging. More importantly, I felt part of a huge movement that was bringing the power mass communication to everyday people.

Now, though, the Golden Age of blogging is over, replaced by the shallower but more pervasive medium of social networking. I still keep my blog around, partly to anchor what I like to call the Brykmantra Content Network — my videos, photos and music — and partly as a base through which to channel a feed of my social networking posts.

A lot has happened in the eight years since I started blogging: The tumor and its removal, my establishinment of the brykMantra.com domain in 2005, the beginning of my ventures into music, the loss of three dogs and the acquisition of the two we have now, my job loss and subsequent new career (such as it is), and, most recemtly, my struggles with a detached retina. And, through it all, I have a record of my thoughts for each event.

And that alone makes it all worth it.

PS: Just in case I don’t get my Facebook page channeled through here, you can check it out here.

But I’m hanging on to my blog — and my domain name, of course — as kind of a hub for all my other creative activities (photography, music, etc.). Plus, as soon as I feel a little initiative coming on, I’m going to try to get my Facebook and Twitter updates to cross-post automatically to my blog, or vice versa.

In the meantime … see you tomorrow night when I do my obligatory blogiversary post!

Spook’s Cowboy Bebop Blog.

(And no, it’s not THE Spook, my old college buddy that I’ve mentioned here so many times. No connection whatsoever.)

So anyway: Check it out!

While we’re there, here’s a recent interview with the Go-Go’s:

And while I’m at it, let me just say for the record that I’m currently in a great surge in my musical creativity, and that for the first time in my life I’m successfully able to put aside (most) distractions and work on music. My guitar skills are getting back up to their old (pitiful) levels, plus I’m studying a wonderful $20 music theory book that I got myself for my birthday (my wife let me pick out my own gift!).

I would tell more, but this already counts as a distraction, so I’ll save details on the book for some other time. And I’m going to go play guitar.

As a reminder of how epic the previous game was, here are my screenshots from Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

Remember back in December when I had the pneumatic retinopexy in my eyeball? Long story short, it didn’t take, and surgery was required. Here are pictures of the enviroment surrounding that event here.

Oh, and it was exactly five years ago last Thursday that I had my tumor surgery in which I lost half my right lung (I’m better now). I don’t have time to look up my blog posts from that era, so here are those pictures.

Eight!

It was a humble beginning, but the start of a major phase in my life. That next year, 2003, was when blogging really began to take off (Bloggers were named People of the Year by ABC News), and I was there on the ground floor. I had readers from all over the world, I made several friends among my fellow bloggers, at least four of whom (Gigglechick, RennyBA, Pamibe, Kim Novak) I’m still in contact with (mostly through Facebook), and I even got some measure of recognition for my blogging. More importantly, I felt part of a huge movement that was bringing the power mass communication to everyday people.

Now, though, the Golden Age of blogging is over, replaced by the shallower but more pervasive medium of social networking. I still keep my blog around, partly to anchor what I like to call the Brykmantra Content Network — my videos, photos and music — and partly as a base through which to channel a feed of my social networking posts.

A lot has happened in the eight years since I started blogging: The tumor and its removal, my establishinment of the brykMantra.com domain in 2005, the beginning of my ventures into music, the loss of three dogs and the acquisition of the two we have now, my job loss and subsequent new career (such as it is), and, most recemtly, my struggles with a detached retina. And, through it all, I have a record of my thoughts for each event.

And that alone makes it all worth it.

It still beats being at work …

Brutal summer is OVER! But it’s still hotter than it should be – close to 90F on Monday. Here at the end of October.

Only watching a few current shows on TV this fall: Community, 30 Rock, Venture Bros., America’s Funniest Home Videos, Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole (though that’s in reruns … just 10 original episodes so far), SNL, Attack of the Show, Infomania … and that’s it. 3 NBC, 1 ABC, 2 Cartoon Network, 1 G4TV, 1 Current TV. That’s all that’s worth watching. On the other hand, the dearth of worthy programming — seriously, there’s not any decent filler any more to just have on while doing chores around the house –frees me from the tyranny of network scheduling, and allows me to focus on things outside of the tube’s reach.

I’m still not getting anything accomplished, but it’s the principle.

Most of my posting is on Facebook these days, so go friend me other there, ‘kay? ‘kay.

And on Twitter too. I often “live Tweet” the shows I mentioned above, so if you want to join in, send me a comment or IM and I’ll show ya how it’s done.

And oh yeah, I still DJ occasionally in Second Life, although not as much as I once did:

Okay, that’ll do for now.

Yeah I’ll post something else soon …

But that’s the easy way out, so let me just say that … I washed my work shirts today, went to Home Depot and got some tree fertilizer spikes and a washer to finish installing the brackets for the new drapes for the computer, stopped by a new restaurant that just opened today (Flat Iron Grill, a local catering company that decided to put down to roots, I had a steak wrap), picked up some prescriptions at Walgreens, cleaned up a 20 square foot section of the garage, aired up my bicycle, listened to Thistle & Shamrock on NPR, and am currently live-tweeting SNL.

Man, I need a nap.

Anyway, the most recent episode of Community was EPIC EPIC EPIC. The whole episode was a spoof of postapocalpyse/survival/action movies, and they totally nailed it. But don’t take my word for it. Watch it and marvel.