Random snippets

Nothing says “suave” like an accordion and a fun-fur leopard vest.

The work involved in giving my career a kick-start while maintaining some semblance of a social life has meant that the blog entries aren’t as regular — or at least as substantial — as they’ve normally been. I intend to make this situation a temporary one. In the meantime, thanks for your patience.

The Save Joey’s Christmas sale still has a number of items up for grabs, the best ones still being Logic Audio and Reaktor going for (ahem) a song. If you’re a studio musician looking to save some money, I believe I’ve got a nice deal for you.

Once again, thanks to everyone who bought something.

Does anyone out there know of a reasonably inexpensive hosting service that does ASP.NET? I’m looking for a place to host some example Web applications and services. Please let me know either in the comments or e-mail me. It’ll also be a good home for my other domain, the currently unused-but-mine justafreakinminute.com.

(Please, no recommendations for Brinkster unless they’ve upgraded their service. I used them as a testing platform and found that their server folded like cheap furniture most of the time.)

The Atkins thing — I know they no longer like to use the word “diet”, and I can’t remember what word or phrase they’re using in its stead — is going well. I’ve lost six pounds and my clothes are a little roomier now. The only downside is that I really miss my beloved Yeung Chow Fried Rice.

I’ve signed a contract for a small little Web programming project with my friend Jay Goldman. It should earn me a little money and give me a finished product that I can put in my portfolio.

Six months later, I’m still a regular attendee of Body Attack at my gym. It’s a nice change of pace from the weights, and more fun than the stationary cycles or the rowing machines.

I’m still the only guy in the class. This is a plus for many reasons, not the least of which is what happens when I run into people from Body Attack outside the gym. Oftentimes, they introduce me to their friends by saying “He’s in my Tae Bo class (remember kids, Tae Bo is a registered trademark of Billy Blanks Worldwide Enterprises, or whatever the company that owns it is called). He kicks ass.” So far, no one’s given me static of either the “yet another male encroachment on womyn’s space” or “You know what we call guys like you? Chicks!” variety.

I didn’t really give much thought to the payoff of hitting the gym regularly until last Saturday. I was on my way from my house to the subway, accordion on my back, when I thought “this is too easy. I should switch to a higher gear” when I realized I wasn’t on my bike, but on foot and running. Six months ago, that kind of run with an extra 30 pounds of weight strapped to my back would’ve winded me well before I made it to the station. I’m pleased.

Thanks to everyone who sent in ideas for software that they wish existed for the Palm. They’re all quite good, and I’m going to try to implement as many of them as I can. I can’t guarantee that I’ll develop all of them any time soon, but I’ve already started preliminary work on a couple of them. There’s no time limit for you to send me your ideas — if you have a concept for a Palm app that either doesn’t exist, or if you have any ideas on how existing ones could be improved substantially, drop me a line!

I have been informed, this time by my Mom’s co-workers, that my episode of HGTV’s Love By Design — the dating-game-meets-interior-decorating show — was shown again. And once again, I missed it, this time because they’ve moved the show to the Monday night time slot.

Of course, even if you caught the episode, you missed some of the best stuff, which I’ll have to write about later.