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Site is making the permanent switch to Wordpress.com, but it's still available via the same domain (olinbg.com) and has all the previous posts and comments.  Might review the switch later.

After looking at a steadily growing mess in my apartment, I did some serious cleanup this past weekend. It's not the topic of my post, because frankly I'm not writing to cause severe boredom. But tidying up has been a theme in my life (and another post) recently, as I try to control the tangled mess of tools and distractions that have rooted themselves into my daily routine. Life is about having fun, that's absolutely clear. But it's also about being productive and getting the most out of each day. To that end, I need a clean apartment. I also need clean habits.

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I've finally recovered from my eight day Florida adventure, and returned to work. But in the land of full-time sun, I learned many things. Being within walking distance of a beach is absurdly nice. Having time to power through a whole book makes reading more fun. The Wii is an ultra-portable system when on vacation. And Disney World is built for adults.

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First of all, who doesn't love a spider monkey? And a shocked one at that. Now, for the real story, which is my near-perfect escape from the 920-pound software gorilla in the room, iTunes. Yes, that iTunes. The one that runs multiple applications in the background when it's not serving a purpose, the one that grinds 300 MB of RAM in a heartbeat on my PC, the one that doesn't use the standard ID3 tag structure, the one that works so much better on the Mac it frightens me. I simply needed the Windows iTunes experience to end.

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Big changes were announced Tuesday (3/17) for the iPhone and iPod touch. New firmware is currently in beta for the devices that will bring a host of new features (link here). Copy/paste, MMS, A2DP, push notifications; these features all mean improved Apple products and continued development. I'm excited by the news, but the press conference wasn't particularly captivating, as many of the upgrades were predicted beforehand by insiders. The fascinating part was the media coverage itself. In short, Twitter is changing the news world, and quickly.

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I've listened to over 9,000 songs and podcasts that've been scrobbled to Last.FM, a social music website. Scrobbling involves letting the Last.FM software record what music you've listened to and save it to a profile. I have stats going back through July '07, which is an impressive run. My tastes have improved significantly since I joined the service. I've really enjoyed my forays into new music, most of them courtesy of Patrick and other college friends. But those benefits come from listening to music, something that I (almost) never do on the Last.FM site itself. I listen on portable music players, my phone, my computer, my stereo. But if I don't listen to the web stations, what has recording all my listening habits actually given me?

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Let me make one thing immediately clear. I have never used any performance-enhancing substances. Unless you count coffee. Or Advil. Or other painkillers after a few sports injuries. Or chocolate milk. (It's really good for you.)

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Hey, this is just a notice that my site has been moved to my own domain name. Not surprisingly: http://olinbg.com (Don't bother with www, though it'll work if you do.) Make sure to update links and/or Google Reader as the old site won't go directly here. Also, a new post is coming this week...and it's time to talk sports. I wonder what it might be about? Hint: Juice.

Are you not entertained? I've had the chance to see a couple of great shows over the past few days, and I also wanted to include a movie I watched as well. For different reasons, each one captured my imagination and brought out emotions rarely tapped in my daily routine.

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Two things that don't work. 1. Torture. 2. New Year's resolutions. I'm going to do neither. Instead, I'm going to keep up with some of my projects. Eating better, exercise, Guitar Hero World Tour, hard and productive work, cooking. Guitar Hero was a gift, so it made it in. I swore I wouldn't go back to the rhythm games after my last foray (GH3). "It's just not my game...I'm too competitive...too much of a time-sink..." Screw it. I opened it on the 25th, and I'm going to dominate the game.

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