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As another week draws to a close, I turn once again to Kristine for interesting ideas for things to photograph. This week's Stuff Portrait Friday is about muses.

Something that that inspires you to do what you do

I dunno if it's cheating that I took this picture in 2005, but is honestly one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken, and it really gets to the heart of the matter. I am a college student at Virginia Tech. While this is a fantastic experience all by itself, there are days that I question why I'm here. I could be working less and for the same grades in another degree, or at another school. The thing is, I love animals. I want them to be happy. I may not think highly of every individual at every moment, but in general I want to improve their situation.

Something you don't like to read about in blogs

I'll get it up here eventually.

I hate reading politics in blogs. This doesn't just mean governmental politics. I don't like reading about company or institutional politics, and I certainly don't like interpersonal politics. Eric Meyer recently wrote a very well thought out and articulated series on reforms he would like to see in the W3C. I think his discussion was very reasonable, and to my (admittedly limited) understanding the ideas he suggests would be helpful. Still, it's not the type of thing I choose to read most of the time.

Something that inspires you to write on your blog

I like to blog about everyday things that I find amusing. This blog is about my everyday life. I am pretty easily amused (I mean, come on, I blogged about my iron) so almost anything is fair game. This picture is a mailbox I saw in Brooklyn. I try to keep my camera on me and take photos so I can remember amusing things to blog. I saw a girl eating corn-on-the-cob on the bus yesterday, but I completely forgot to mention it because it would've been rude to take a picture of her. Yeah, pretty strange, but I was amused.

Did you play? I try to comment back within a day.

SPF this week was about challenges. At least that's how I perceived it.

Something I Have Outgrown

My license is expired. It also says I'm under 21. I really have to work on getting a new one. I have to get a eye test to do that.

Something I Have Overcome

I used to consume amounts of Mt. Dew that even I would admit are unhealthy. I now consume considerably less, though some would consume that it is still a bit excessive

I need help with...

I'll get it up eventually

...the cutest pup in the world. He is oversubmissive towards me, and it makes me sad. I just want him to be my friendpup.

I stumbled upon a neat little meme that I think I'll try for a while. Every week Kristie of Random and Odd gives three items to photograph and post in your blog. I'm hoping that it will help me to take more pictures, and to blog more regularly.

This week's subjects are:

1. Your Freedom
2. Your Hope
3. Your Wish

For your appproval I submit:

My Freedom

There are two rights guaranteed to you when you join an open source project: the right to fork, and the right to leave. I love that concept.

My Hope

I hope I never lose my wonder for the nature right in my own back yard.

My Wish

I wish I had a herd that wasn't made of plastic and plush.

It's amazing to me, looking back at my first foray in writing on the web, that I am still with you today. I was a messed up kid, depressed before I knew it was cool. Then I found this little tidbit, which as far as I can tell is my first acknowledgement that I'm gay. The earliest surviving acknowledgement, anyhow.

Anything you write on the web has the potential of coming back to haunt you. Luckily for me, I have no reputation to protect.

I'm a sucker for filling out forms. I don't know what it is, but it has always been there. My mom is a nurse, and when I was younger I'd have her bring old forms home just so I could fill them out. Naturally, I was thrilled to learn that my propensity for form-filling could actually help somebody with his doctoral thesis.

via Dougal

I'm trying something different here, to keep myself from going insane. Today was my second full day without internet, and I don't know what to do with myself. I suppose I should qualify that statement. Today is my second full day away from school, and between not being able to see my friends and not having the internet to keep in touch with them, I'm kinda rocking back and forth in a fetal position whistling to myself.

What I'm trying in order to keep myself from going insane is writing little entries like this in notepad, to be copied and pasted in once I get back some rudimentary form of internet connection. That way I can still keep up writing, even though you've had a gap in reading by the time this post goes live. I think it's easier for me than trying to remember everything that I've done by the time I get dialup set up here

ugh. dialup.

I was curious, so I went ahead and looked up how to cook up a sideblog in WP. The task didn't prove too terribly difficult once I stopped looking for people who've done it and just did it. I managed it in hours so late in the morning that they can no longer be called wee, so it couldn't be that hard. It'll probably change here one of these days, but I gotta feel it out a bit.

Now all these little link posts with no new content can live over in the sidebar. It may turn into a pure linklog, with no actual commentary at all. We'll see how I feel. I like the idea of taking empty posts out of the regular flow though.

I've also installed a plugin that I wrote myself, modified from someone else's XML parsing function. That's the WhatPulse thing living in the sidebar. I'll make it available once I clean it up, and the WhatPulse admin said he'd put it on their downloads page too. That'd be neat.

I always told myself "Self, when you get a blog you won't be like all these other people. You'll remember to update when you should." I lied to me. I definitely don't update as often as I should. Be sated with a picture of my cat.

I actually have some shocking pictures from spring break and some other stuff to talk about, but right now it's quarter to 2 in the morning and I should be asleep already. Mostly though, I'm still alive. Alive and kicking. But only if you're mean to me.

And here's a little oddity that is bothering me. If you don't start an entry in WP with a <p> it will insert one for you, regardless of whether you actually need one. What I want to see is a checkbox for "I write my own damn XHTML, don't do it for me." Maybe a plugin, or maybe in a future version. Overall though, it's a good package.