Kinda.
Speaking optimistically, progress would be, like, getting something done around here. Probably involving the site. Or another site. Any site. Any project. Remembering to grab the razor at least once a week. Something like that. Progress.
I guess this kinda counts: I got a new coffeemaker.

Click for Biggerness

It's a shabby victory, I suppose. But it's done now. And sorry about the PhoneCam shot; I had this kooky idea that I could just snake it in through the USB cable and BitPim, but that didn't actually work; of course, the real DigiCam's sitting right here on the shelf, with its nice large Sony MemoryStick instead of the phone's stupid little MicroSD thing I'm always afraid I'll slip and accidentally inhale somehow; but anyway....
I've still got the Senseo, but that's in the kitchen. Hunter's developed this amusing obsession for tea now. Also, the SenseoPods are happier in the fridge; the DoubleMochaFuckFuck coffeebeans I've got here are okay at room temperature until I grind them up in that stainless thing next to the new machine [and behind the fiveyearold gremlin.net mug of notnewness]. So: progress. Provided that I stop every ninety-six ounces [approximately once an hour] to go get more water, this thing is every bit as rapid on refils as grabbing another Pibb outta the carton. And, since it actually takes less time to walk over to the supermarket than to drive there, one case of soda is about the same mass on the way home as fifty gallons of DoubleMochaFuckFuck. I'm sure that, somewhere out there, Al Gore is smiling just a little less dimly.
Now about progress progressing.
Uh...I got nuthun. Yet. But the hypothesis remains: with this virtually endless supply of DoubleMochaFuckFuck thing going on, and provided that I can get people to stay the hell outta my office for at least a day at a time, I should be getting more things finished around here. Maybe. If I stop playing videogames all night. Which is unlikely. See the Nintendo DSLite, above, understanding that the Sony PSP is sitting on the tower itself, snaked by a different USB cable than the phone.
Okay, so I haven't been that progressless over the last ten weeks or so. As such. There's some stuff going on.

Athiel lurks in a pub, with the same expression he always gets when a chick's in his lap like that [click for biggerness]

Deophagy is both coming together and falling apart. A couple people split on us; but those of us...both of us who remain are getting more done in less time now. Go have a look. And follow the link you'll find there to the MySpace.com thing too, where some of the music is now; being at MySpace.com, we're at least as cool and professional as every other luser on that damned plague of a site.
Speaking of MySpace.com, after a fashion, I'm in the process of rethinking the hell outta NewsoftheStoopid.com at the moment. Which is kinda funny since, of all the things I never do around here, adding new articles is among the least likely to start happening. Though a huge reason for that is that the site sucks. I mean...it might suck anyway; but the process involved in adding anything to it really, really sucks. It's not, in fact, unlike adding something to MySpace.com. So I'm currently building up a totally different MMS [Malcontent Management System] for the thing, since it's now a matter of federal law that everything's gotta be Web2.0. Meaning that the 'net needs to be all dynamic and userdriven, totally unlike, say, the messageboard, guestbook, and chatroom I had here ten years ago, and the BBS systems we were using back in 1983. But that's okay; we can pretend that the 'net has just recently gone all userdriven and Web2.0, and then charge imbeciles three or four figures for a dismal cookiecutter MMS template which it turns out won't actually work at MySpace.com. Darwin prevails.
What else is new....
I smoke. See above. Not that it's news; but it does irk the living shit outta activists who wish I didn't so they could maintain their intellectually lazy belief that cigarettes kill on contact. It's amazing how similar the nazis are to the creatards: show them someone surviving a cigarette, or show them that influenza evolves semiannually, and they go all batshit on you. I dig that.
Actually, I guess there is a point to this one. I was thinking about it, looking into a few things, and generally being evil again [read: awake]; antismokers aren't a protected group. Not that I care about protected groups. But, while genders and nationalities and whatever other piddling details of humanity all qualify for special superfragile civil rights, antismokers aren't actually an organised bunch of morons. Thus: I don't have to care about them. I don't have to hire them; I don't have to charge them the same rates for things as I charge smokers; I don't in point of legal fact have to acknowledge that they're scared brainless of cigarettes. And that's good for me, because I wasn't in a hurry to make them feel all happy and important anyway.
So: to hell with antismokers. They don't count. They're a meaningless, overinflated pseudoclass of the status quo. Not my problem. More progress.
Ooh. Here; wait: watch this...outta coffee; more coffee. Quick&Easy. Yay.
Ouch. Hot. Medic....
So. Other news. I dunno.
I've been playing with the guitar lately. Which is different than just playing it. That would require some understanding of the goofy thing. Though I am actually catching on a bit now. The problem for years was that I play piano. So everything is a certain way. It's all based on C, and your portside thumb will hit a higher note than the fingers next to it. Then there's guitar, which is upsidedown, based somewhat on E, split into roughly four notes until you hit the fourth string or so and drop to three notes...it makes no sense. Except that, suddenly, it's starting to make sense. I have no idea what chords I'm supposed to be using, or which fingers they'd require; but I'm getting which strings do what in advance, and making the thing sound kindasorta right after all. So that's cool.
Loosely related, it occurred to me to wonder something, look it up, get disappointed, and start looking for alternatives. Turns out that, about twenty years ago, they stopped making keytars. Either because they sucked, or because they also stopped making jarts and sportscars and everything else of inherent coolness in this country. Either way, I'm looking around, mostly at eBay.com, for a YamahaSHS10 or something. Because I actually could play one of those, instead of playing with it and getting it to make weird noises.
I dunno. I might get one. I might not. I'm not sure it would count as progress either way.
Oh yeah. This is almost like progress. I waited about a year and a half [read: put it off then forgot about it] and went back to read Paroxysm as though I hadn't written it. Which is almost the case, really. I knew I'd cut half the book out before releasing it; but, reading it through all quickly without the bits I'd slashed, it's not much like the thing I'd actually written anymore. A couple of things really do suffer from the lack of explanation; otherwise, Hunter was right: as it is, at 240,000 words, it's seriously rapid and relentless. Which is probably good. Especially when it's 769 pages in its tiny, castrated form.
I'm pretty sure I used to be able to finish a book in less than four hundred pages. I can't guess how I did that; but I'm sure it used to happen. Now, four hundred pages seems like some throwaway knockknock joke.
A priest, a paedophile, and a drunk walks into a pub; barkeep looks up and says Just one tonight?
Bahdumdum.
Oops; wait; and...more coffee...ah....
In other news...I guess there might not really be other news. Probably there is, but I can't actually think of any at the moment. Which is okay: I'll think of it eventually, and maybe write another one of these things before June. Maybe.
More later....

Forgot to add tags for this stupid entry.