If you’re looking for some edgy Irish folk, look no further than Flogging Molly.

The Dropkick Murphys are a Celtic punk bank from Boston. Van Diemen’s Land or your money back!

Dallas’s Brave Combo are the bad boys of polka, soundly kicking weak and bland Lawrence Welk into next year.

Last but not least, Sydney’s spectacular Monsieur Camembert plays gypsy music like you’ve never heard.

I’m taking today off from meaningful activity.

We took a trip out to the art supply store to pick up framing supplies and brushes, and were hoping to pick up some Indian food. The last time we tried this, the restaurant was closed due to heating problems, and this time it was torn up and closed for renovations. I wonder if I shall ever get my Saag Paneer.

Finally, I would be remiss if I were not to mention the passing on of Webmonkey. It was one of the main places I turned to when I first learned to code for the web, and I was still turning to it for esoteric javascript questions as of last week; it will be missed.

Well, I’m finished. I finished my last meeting, checked in the fix to my last bug, turned in my keycard and walked out the door. I’m more relieved than anything else at the moment.

I’ve got a few days to decompress and relax a tad. Monday will come soon enough as is, and then I can start to adjust and refocus on what lies ahead.

I had my last full day of work today; tomorrow I’ve got a lot of meetings and a goodbye lunch, so I’ll only be getting in a few hours of quality work. It will be very strange to walk away from the code that I’ve been tending for the past few years. There’s one final bug that I want to hammer down before I go, as a matter of personal pride.

Two more days of work. It’s been a lot busier than I was expecting, but I shan’t complain, for in a matter of hours I shan’t have to deal with it any more. I could slack, but it’s a matter of personal pride.

I was horrified to discover that the Mei-Tung market in Chinatown has closed! I fear that when current stocks run low, I’ll be scrambling for a new supplier of chili-garlic sauce, noodles, inexpensive china, and Varia’s favorite hot drink, Milo.

Google has righted itself, as it always does; my moment in the spotlight as one of the few “live monkeys” resources on the web has passed, and I’ve moved 70 places down the charts. I think back fondly that when I published my research paper on minimalism in music back in 1996, I really was one of handful of available resources. Of course, that was back when Geocities was the coolest thing to get in on…

I know that many people buy iPods to conspicuously show them off, but the thought is quite repellant to me. In fact I’m almost afraid to show it in public, lest I catch a “ooooh, you pretentious little git, you, with your oh-sooooo-superior iPod mini! What is it, Rockerfeller, CD players aren’t good enough for you?” sort of look. I ought to transcend this issue, but there’s a lot of social conditioning at play, and I have somehow gotten it ingrained into myself that being in public has certain rules that must be followed, and not drawing attention to yourself is one of the big ones.

I have enshrined the banjo-rave music into the gallery, just because I can. I’ve gone link crazy!

I think that’s quite enough.

There’s a lot on my mind right now. Most of it is very interesting stuff, and I get the feeling that it is constantly vying for my conscious attention. What usually happens is that I get absorbed in whatever wins the cage match, shutting out the other activities until the matter at hand gets weak enough for another idea to make its move. The uninteresting things don’t stand a chance.

While I suppose I could continue on with the pro-wrestling time management system, as I’m in the neighborhood of improving my work process, perhaps I can do better. To this end I picked up Getting Things Done by David Allen, a book has been recommended as being a bit better than most of its ilk.

It seems that the big concept in the book is figuring out what needs to be done, taking the time to think about how do it, and to organize the results of that thought process in a way that is useful. To wit:

I’m going to need a big bucket.

I spent pretty much the entire day working. Today’s project was one of those fascinating and infuriating maneuvers involving ripping away a vast amount of the existing work and rebuilding it better. I’m not quite finished, but already I can see the fruits of what’s been done, so I’ll be able to sleep confident that I did the right thing.

I’m in a good place. Going forward in the next few months I’ve got the opportunity not only to improve and hone my development process, but to expand my knowledge and familiarity with Information Architecture and related disciplines. In other words I can afford to get better at what I do.

In the job I’m in, existing process is deeply ingrained and almost entirely inflexible. I attempted, in vain, to get my project team to use a collaborative documentation system (such as Wiki) instead of passing around hundred page Word documents. Change like that comes not from the developers, but from the gods, people such as my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss. Frustrating, but not surprising; it’s a big company.

And perhaps I am not a big company worker. The analogy that always comes to mind is that put forward in Pete McBreen’s Software Craftsmanship. The image is of coding not as science, but as craft; the programmer’s skill is in large part based on his choice of tools and his ability to deftly manipulate them. There is a lot more in this book that’s worth discussing; perhaps while I’m in the headspace over the next few weeks I’ll ramble a bit more about tools.

On a completely different note we watched the Return of Spinal Tap last night. It was brilliant; I’ve never heard a power ballad about euthanasia before.

I succumbed to newandshinyappleproductitis and picked up an iPod mini today. It is, as the name implies, small and slim. It’s hard to describe the absolute rightness of the design; it is an object that not only works, but brings a great deal of satisfaction through its mere existence.

To Varia’s great sorrow, the pink model was sold out and she has to settle for staring forlornly at it until we get hers.

Aragorn kindly volunteered to model it, Ten Commandments Style.

Varia spent a large portion of the evening looking at pictures of owls. She especially liked this one. I’m not entirely sure why she spent the evening looking at owls, but I’ve done things more eccentric so I shan’t say a thing. Besides, they are cute, and eat small mammals.

I officially have five more days of work in my current job. Not that I’m counting.

I picked up a copy of Tinderbox today to help me churn out as much documentation as possible in the next few days. The hunt for a replacement at my current employer hasn’t gotten very far, and as such the only knowledge transfer will be between myself and the document.

I decided that instead of delivering a hastily organized monolithic Word document, I’d deliver a nicely organized set of hyperlinked HTML pages, which can then be organized into a hastily organized monolithic Word document after I’m done.

Tinderbox is really amazing, and a little bewildering (this does seem to be the season for bewildering applications). It can be used for outlining, visual brainstorming, project planning, read and write data from the internet, and cook a mean souffle. It’s doing a great job at the first task I’ve chosen for it, and I’m sure that using it more often will suggest more things I can do with it.

It is ironic, if only in a Alanis Morisette way, that during the time the site was down I had at least two postworthy thoughts an hour, and the moment it returned my mind was wiped clean of any and all interesting content. The answer to the immortal question “Don’t you think?” is apparently not.

I’m due for a few more hours of Adventures in Dentistry tomorrow morning. By rights this ought to produce another epic waiting room limerick (”There once was a man named Aeneis, who had a very large …”) except it’s at the crack of dawn and as such I’ll be sent straight to the drill. If you listen carefully you can hear the literati breathing a sigh of relief.

I believe that 7/8ths of today’s food intake was some form of pastry.

I discovered the “Rural Banjo 5″ sample hiding in the Library today and decided to finish off the triptych. One might notice besides the accelerated tempo (171 BPM) the elegant arch form so treasured by Bela Bartok. Using loop-based composition makes endings even harder than they are normally, which is I suppose why most people don’t even bother. I can’t believe the day has come when I am longing for a John Williams-style ending.

A load of Hildegard books arrived today, and the presence of every single chant she ever wrote in the appendix of one of them caused me to dance like a madman. If you need me, I’ll be in the 12th century.

Everything is back to normal. Three cheers for the unconquerable MaxieZ for his help.

The site has been down for a day or so now while the server is being upgraded/repaired/etc. We’re almost back in business now.

Sorry about that!