I’m probably leaving enough clues for you to figure out what this is.

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I have a number of things on my plate. I have some posts I’ve been sitting on because I’ve had more urgent things to work on in the time when I’m not completely distracted trying to catch up on feeds. I’m trying to make a big finish to make sure I pass one of my classes, for one thing.

I also have a decent-sized series I was planning to start tomorrow that would have served to maintain a consistency of posts into the fall, and combined with other projects, the RID, and webcomic reviews, maintained my 5-post-a-week pace well into next year. But because of procrastination on my part, I entered this past week with quite a bit of work to do to get that project ready. It was already somewhat doubtful I’d be able to get all the requisite research done in a week and might have needed to go to backup plans.

So naturally I get zero of that research done, or much of anything else, personal project or no, during the past week, and now I have a mountain of makeup work to get done, and I’ve been spending the past weekend catching up on seven hours’ worth of TV shows as a result of missing two before last week. TV Tropes has ruined my life again! (Or in this case, introduced me to the Nostalgia Critic. It takes a lot of doing to get me to actually laugh out loud, and this passes with flying colors.)

So I feel I have no choice but to delay this project for a year until 2010.

I’m not particularly pleased with this decision. It passes up a once-in-six-to-eleven-years opportunity to start the series on a Monday, and by doing it next year I’m starting it on a Tuesday, which is… awkward. I could have the second part still be on Wednesday, or delay it two years to 2011 and start it on a Wednesday, but the latter might be too long for me and the nation and the world, and it would be most useful if I could get it out before the 2010 midterms, so the short notice a postponement entails is dicey enough.

But I feel it’s probably for the best. I don’t want a repeat of the mess that was the October of Politics, where the work I get done is of significantly less quality than what I had in mind and derails my life. Perhaps by waiting a year, I’ll have a larger audience and the series would make a larger impact. Also, I originally envisioned the global warming series being mostly over at this point, and it’s barely getting started, so the two mega-projects would be running concurrently for most of the time, complete with the research needed for each. There’s some research I still need to do and fast to move on to the next part of the global warming series, and two posts I was hoping to get done over the weekend that I’m unlikely to get either done today, even with this postponement. Basically, I have way too much on my plate already for the next week without this little distraction.

With luck I can focus on the problems I have now, and hold off on this problem for another twelve months.

This week in Questionable Corporate Decisions:

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Recently I wrote a paper for my communication class on the local Tully’s, which I frequent for its Wi-Fi, as a social space. One thing I remarked on was the weird blend of easy listening and lite rock playing on the sound system.

It appears they’ve switched to 90s hits.

Now I find it significantly more distracting. Not what I would call the smartest decision in the world.

A question for Twitter users.

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Does Twitter allow you to change the time display so it shows the exact time a tweet was posted regardless of how recent it was, instead of “X amount of time ago”?

(Geez, you’d think someone would put up a comprehensive guide to the settings screen somewhere. Maybe that means it’s really intuitive, but it sounds like that’s not necessarily the case.)

Hate to ruin the party, but…

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Daryn Kagan via Fang’s Bites links to an “inspirational” story of a small newspaper that’s doing well in the face of a tough market for newspapers – maybe it’s a model for other local papers? – and…

…it’s incredibly depressing. If Fang thinks this is the way to save bigger papers, he’s incredibly naive about the issues surrounding newspapers. Do you realize it basically amounts to a blog in print form with a price tag attached?

Random Internet Discovery of the Week

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If I had decided exactly what strip I was running today, let alone actually made it, the strip would be posted about now. Instead it’s probably not going up until after 3 PM PT.

Still no votes on the RID poll? Do you people care that little about it? Well, this is probably hardly the first time I’ve linked to some vegetarian site, and it’s definitely not the first time I’ve linked to a recipe site…

Blog of Webcomics’ Identity Crisis: The End of “Free Content”?

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A “case in point” on the thought-provoking nature of the Floating Lightbulb: Today Bengo argues that webcomickers should stop thinking of themselves as giving content away for free.

He makes some good points but since he emphasizes preparing comics for later print distribution, I suspect that Scott “Infinite Canvas” McCloud would scream bloody murder at him…

I desperately need a real job, so naturally I’ve put in zero effort towards that for months.

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I’m pissed at myself, I’m pissed at the library, and I’m pissed at timing.

I wouldn’t ordinarily hate the University District Street Fair. I’ve strolled through it myself on occasion, taken in sights, seen and tasted interesting things.

But when the vast majority of the decent Wi-Fi spaces near my house are right near the fair, I don’t particularly want a big booming concert when I’m trying to do something, and I certainly don’t want the library to make it hard for me to work under those circumstances.

(It didn’t help that I lost my keys right before I left the house.)

So I’m really pissed that all this conspired toaln dfjhkrqvkaflhalsbwvnfhushwimowbtjwo ybiofvhqepg35nogv2g3qv[ delay posting the strip until not that long before 5.

Tomorrow’s strip will be no earlier than noon PT.

A message to ESPN.

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I am currently subscribed to this to get Bill Simmons’ columns. I’m pretty sure you can replace “Bill Simmons” with any ESPN.com writer for the below until the solution.

When ESPN redesigned their website, they changed things so those RSS feeds, instead of just pointing to the guy’s columns, points instead to the guy’s search results.

I don’t need to sit through a gazillion things that just happen to mention Simmons by name.

So I’m actually considering switching to this.

Two drawbacks:

  • I still have to sit through links to the “BS Report” podcasts, which I’m not interested in. I’m not a fan of podcasts in general, but that’s a subject for another post. Podcasts are always boring as hell for some reason, probably in part because everyone’s voices are so ordinary.
  • After making fun of Twitter in his last mailbag, Simmons has taken to Twitter like a sponge, meaning I probably have to sit through a gazillion updates every single day, way more than I’m getting from ESPN now. (This is my one major ambivalency about Twitter, which I’ll go into more detail on later this month.) But at least those updates actually come from Simmons himself instead of being “Hey, Bill Simmons said this in a column you’ve already read…” if even that.
  • Oh, one other thing. For whatever reason, links don’t work in Twitter RSS feeds.