I'm back! Heavy week at work, as we finish up our top-secret project. I finally got the Quote of the Day script working, so for those who are so inclined, hit the Refresh button as often as you please to get a random quote in that little box. There's about 100 in the collection at present, so it shouldn't repeat too often.

Went through all the books and CDs tonight, for the final time. I have some to sell and whatever's left over will go in the Goodwill box, I guess. I've begun stockpiling boxes and packing up little stuff I know I won't need. And given that Mercury's in retrograde (according to those astrologically inclined), I decided tonight would be a good time to back up the old hard drive and burn some stuff to CD.

I have fond memories of the brief clubrat period I enjoyed in my mid-twenties. I still like to go dancing, but I rarely do it anymore for lack of energy and basic fitness—I'm out of shape enough that gasping for 10 minutes to every 5 of dancing is my usual ratio and not often worth the trouble. But I still love the music—house, funk, and acid jazz get me going like nothing else.

I used to think it was just my body that it got going, but I've noticed as I work on sites at home (like this one) that it makes great music for coding. Probably not news to most folks, but it was a nice surprise to me. I'm used to working with talk radio or folk music in the background and always found more high-energy stuff distracting before.

Around the same time I figured this out, I was in an airport newsstand lookng for something trashy to read on the plane and happened across Revolution magazine. It chronicles the dance music scene with articles on DJs, the drug war, CD reviews, etc., and best of all, comes with 2 CDs of music in each issue (or at least the two I have). Very cool read, put out by the same company that does MacAddict.

So, thus inspired and acting on my usual vague musical ambitions, I bought a copy of Mixman last night to start playing with creating my own tracks. After about 1/2 hour of fiddling with the small sample set included in the downloadable version, I came to two conclusions:

• I need to upgrade to the full version to get the extra sounds included.
• I will have to ration my use of this product very carefully so I don't forget to go to work. It was a lot of fun, and everything you do can be recorded and burned onto CD.

Someday, I will have my musical empire. Muahahahaha!