music and feelings and broccoli

1. Mixtape recommended by one of the many food bloggers that populates my Google Reader. Mash-ups. Iz good. Download it naow.

2. Website: We Feel Fine.

How it works:

At the core of We Feel Fine is a data collection engine that automatically scours the Internet every ten minutes, harvesting human feelings from a large number of blogs. Blog data comes from a variety of online sources, including LiveJournal, MSN Spaces, MySpace, Blogger, Flickr, Technorati, Feedster, Ice Rocket, and Google.

We Feel Fine scans blog posts for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". This is an approach that was inspired by techniques used in Listening Post, a wonderful project by Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen.

Check it out. There are a few different ways to visualize the results, as well as limit it to certain populations of authors. I may throw up an "I feel" statement every so often, just so maybe it can become part of this design project.

Right now:
I feel unfocused.

3. Things with "the guy who likes weirdos" are going pretty well. I'm finding that I have to be a lot more explicit about what I want and need than maybe I'd like, but he seems to be a pretty fast learner, and open to some change. So I'm going to continue to ask (a little at a time) and see how it goes. If nothing else, I'll leave him better than I found him, right?  

4. I hurt my neck. Either at the gym this morning, or within the last hour. It hurts all along the right side. I want a massage.

5. My birthday is in two weeks. I don't really care. I'm not excited about it. I feel a little inadequate when I think about what being 32 years old used to mean to me - as in, my mom had my younger sister when she was 32. What about all the shit that I thought would have happened by now... like a house, a job where I have an office with a door, a husband, a child...It's like I need those things in order to "be an adult."
Which, is bullshit.
A. Why do I want to be an adult? and
B. Of course, there are plenty of things I've done that I never would have thought I would do... get my MBA, live in San Francisco, get rid of my car, essentially be Kirby 2.0, triathlons, own a pet, live alone.
C. 32 is not that old.
D. Really, what I want is to be happy. Whatever that means for now.

6. Looking forward to travel this year. Alaska and Peru. Plans have been kind of stalled, but I am going to make it happen.

7. Half ironman is less than two months away. I am nervous.

8. I have a head of broccoli and half a head of cauliflower in my fridge that should get cooked tonight. But I'll be getting back home pretty late. Any fantastic ideas? Also - and more importantly, how on earth do you cut either of those vegetables without getting little bits of cauliflower/broccoli all over the place? I cut up half the cauliflower last night and have cauli-crumbs on the floor, the counter... wtf? HELP!

9. I decided to write nine things because it's the ninth. Hmmm... I love Easter candy.