9rules

3 comments (closed), posted on june 28, 2005, tags: 9rules, announcement, site

I've joined the 9rules network.

A month ago, when I was talking to Colin about 9rules, I was curious why anyone would want to create a network of weblogs. And, even more important, why would anyone want to join? I assumed it must have been about making money or world domination. But I watched the network over the last month and as they added some really great sites I started to realize what it was actually about: great content. A lot of great content.

That there is actually a cohesive network system in place (e.g. the 9rules website) is almost unimportant. What 9rules is, as far as I'm concerned, is just a formal way of linking to other people you find worth reading. It's a guide, if you will, to a group of great sites full of great content. And, in the 9rules network, content is king.

So I joined.

One extra benefit of joining for me is finally getting to meet Garrett Dimon who is, as far as I'm concerned, my internet doppelganger (although, based on his popularity, I'm definitely his). In the past few months, I've run across more and more instances of people talking about how great this guy Garrett is. Things like, "Garrett is great!" and "Yeah, wow, what a great guy that Garrett is," and "I'm in love with and want to marry Garrett." At first I assumed they were all talking about me. But they weren't—they were talking about Garrett Dimon. Now that we're both in the 9rules network, I'm pretty sure everyone will love me as much as they love him. I mean, for the love of god—two Garretts? This was truly meant to be.

The Egregious Meatball

7 comments (closed), posted on june 13, 2005, tags: entertainment, filmmaking

It's with great pleasure that I finally announce the public release of our latest short film, The Egregious Meatball. We worked really hard on this film and it is our best work yet.

There were a lot of people involved in this project and we got a lot of really great help and support along the way. It didn't win the Amazon short film competition, but we still love it. And now, finally, you can go watch it.

We hope you enjoy it.

Becoming an Early Riser: Day Seven

5 comments (closed), posted on june 13, 2005, tags: me

So far, so good. I had one of my wisdom teeth pulled last Thursday. It took nearly two hours to get the tooth out of my face, mostly because the roots were all curly and they just wouldn't come out. After it was finally over, they stitched me up a bit and sent me home. By the time I felt like going to sleep, I was having a decent amount of pain, so I took a Tylenol 3. When I tried to get up the next morning at 7:30, I felt like a zombie, so I pushed back my time until 8:30AM.

I did the same thing on Saturday too, because of the tooth, and Sunday as well because we were out a little late on Saturday night. So I woke up at 8:30AM the last three days. But this morning I'm back to 7:30. I plan to wake up at 7:30 every day it's possible, but in situations where I don't go to bed until 3AM, I obviously have to tweak my wake-up time a little.

I must say—I'm loving this morning thing. I really enjoy the extra time I have all to myself, and I feel a lot more productive. I'm definitely going to keep it up. On Saturday, before Katia and I met up with one of her friends, Kristin, at The Cloisters, I was able to shave my head and face, shower, do a sink-full of dishes, check my email and browse Flickr, watch some Futurama and do a bunch of other stuff all before we left for the day—and we left around noon. Two weeks ago, I probably wouldn't have even been awake at noon.

Becoming an Early Riser: Day Two

2 comments (closed), posted on june 7, 2005, tags: me

So this is day two. I had a dream this morning—one of those really vivid, feels completely real kind of dreams—that I slept through my alarm and woke up at 10:45. In the dream I was really pissed off—it was only my second day of trying to become an early riser and I had overslept by 3 hours. I ran into the bathroom and showered like a crazy person, constantly yelling about how late I was and how it only took one day for me to completely ruin any chances of success with this 30-day trial.

Then I woke up and it was 7:15AM. That made me feel a lot better.

Last night I fell asleep at about 1:15AM, which seems too late, but here I am. I have a problem where if I'm doing something on my computer, I can seemingly stay up all night without blinking an eye, so I have to be careful about that ruining the method. After all, how can I go to bed only when I'm tired if I'm on my computer and never feel tired? I've decided that from now on, my cutoff time is 12:30AM. If I'm not tired by then, I'm going to stop doing whatever I'm doing and lie down and read.

7:30 feels too late. There isn't much time after showering and getting dressed, et cetera. I'm thinking I might need to move the time back to 7. I'll give it a few more days.

Becoming an Early Riser: Day One

11 comments (closed), posted on june 6, 2005, tags: me

Ever since I was in high school I've wanted to be a morning person. I've always been the guy who couldn't get up in the morning, the guy who had to be poked and prodded for 45 minutes each morning before he would actually get out of bed. Katia has spent the last 3 years dealing with this, and I've spent the last 8 years being annoyed with myself.

But no longer! Today is day one of my 30-day attempt to become an early riser. I'm using the method described by Steve Pavlina, wherein I go to bed each night when I'm tired, and only when I'm tired, and I wake up at a set time every morning. I've chosen 7:30AM as my daily time, since that's 2 hours before I have to be at work each morning. I'm considering changing the time to 7AM, because I feel I might not have enough spare time, but we'll see how this goes first.

This morning was easy, but it was cheap. Waking up one time is doable—the real test is waking up at 7:30AM each morning for the next 30 days.