I try to be sparing about linking posts just for the sake of linking, but sometimes a juicy nugget comes along I’d love to share with people.  The blog  Skelliwag is one I just added on my Google homepage under the column of “self-help”.  I really like it (the layout is posh!)  The articles are really well written, but this list of crazy lovely links around the internet to inspire creation was one I had to link to.

110+ Resources For Creative Minds

I hope you enjoy!  Oh, and here, look at this.  I can’t stop giggling!

Yay, the new theme is up and running, thank you Edgar, the protector God of the Flog forums and a savior when it comes to confusing glitches in Wordpress themes! I’ve been drooling over this theme, inspired by Smashing Magazine and designed by Design Disease, for a while, but there was a glitch in the sidebar that Sir Edgar came in and fixed for us all to enjoy.

Of course, now that I downloaded more widgets, I have a mighty task ahead of me in getting the Now Reading widget to work. It’s showing up on the sidebar fine, but when you click on the library it’s an utter disaster. So, I’ll be banging my head against that for a while. Just don’t click on it and your eyes won’t be assaulted. I’ll let you know when it’s safe.

On another note, my push to get organized is being helped mightily by the cutest, bestest thing I’ve bought since my Prius: To-Do lists by Knock Knock. These have to be the YUMMIEST pads I’ve ever seen. I mean, I do this anyway with the post-its I stick everywhere all the time to keep my brain together, but this has….little check boxes :O Check out the other pads too, the Hour by Hour one would be valuable for me, to show me how much of my life I waste on a daily basis

Here I am all excited to play the Hellgate beta for only the second time since I got a key, when I run into the deadly re-download. NOOOO! Why they make me redownload 4 gigs and not patch it, I don’t know. But, I started the download, and promptly ran into a problem I haven’t had in a while: Speed Envy. My brother, with a cable modem, is outclocking my download by 3 TIMES! I can’t get over 93 kb speed, and he’s over 300! Now, I’m supposed to have the middle speed DSL from AT&T, fastest isn’t available in my area :(, and I’ve noticed that my connection is REALLY slow compared to other lines I’ve logged onto. So, in a fit of outrage as my speed stalled and his whizzed ahead of me, I called tech support.

Why, oh why, did I bother. I disposed of 49 minutes of my life as a semi-helpful man read from a manual and told me to do asinine things to my computer, at one point blaming my laggy connection on a single piece of DoubleClick spyware. He tried to pawn me off on a variety of other departments at the end, only to find they were “experiencing high call volume”; translate to “asleep or not picking up the phone.” So, what did I end up with? Having to start my download ALL OVER AGAIN because he told me to restart my computer, and had absolutely NO INSTRUCTIONS after that, like a restart would magically solve my speed problems.

So, can anyone give me tips to speed up my connection? I would even switch companies, I swear. Too bad I don’t have the budget for a T1 line. Oh wow. If I were a big movie star, I wouldn’t buy Prada bags, I’d get a T1 line into the house.

Sigh. 16%.

There’s a lot of self help stuff out there, motivating people to slough through their natural indulgences and lethargy to achieve the most out of life.  But I haven’t seen much more inspiring than this talk.   It’s by Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University computer-science professor, who has led an amazing life, and at age 47, faces terminal cancer, with 3-5 months to live.  It’s a LONG talk, almost 2 hours, but really worth it to see the whole thing if you have the time.  A Wall Street Journal article on Randy and his lecture can be read here, with a 5 minute abbreviated video of the lecture, if you don’t want to watch the whole 2 hours.

It’s surreal to watch a man who is dying be so inspiring, all with such a wonderful sense of humor.  What is so inspiring about it?  Well, it’s basically a story of his life framed around his childhood goals, and how he tried to achieve them in his life.   What really struck me while I was watching it was that I don’t think I’ve ever really written down what I want to achieve before I die.  Seems silly that I haven’t, I mean, this is my only life, but how many of us are that focused and driven?  I’ve always had a vague direction I’ve pointed myself in, but concrete, written down goals that I want to see checked off before I die?  No.  But after watching this, I definitely will be drafting something.  Because as Randy has found, life can take unexpected turns at any moment.

I also loved a few quotes from his lecture.  First, that “experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”  And, “…brick walls are here for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us  chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”

A full written transcript can be found here.