I don’t know why I do, but I sometimes get a kick out of the random text that spammers plunk into junk emails to make them appear legitimate to the spam filters. I guess there’s a good side to spam after all. (Though I’d gladly give up that occasional chuckle to get rid of all that freaking spam.) There are times that it actually starts to resemble absurdist poetry, and I start to look for meaning in the jumble, just for fun.

Here’s the one that got me tonight, in lieu of the weird and far too introspective post I started to write. That will have to wait for another time, when I’m not feeling quite so strange.

each, the wrongful that!!! skeptic skipper stodgy elf… laborer, PA system moonlit ringlet Mr…. unbutton
frigidity hail, generation gap but
equinox, radon, to prudish beacon bumbling that guided shorts in innovative and legibly hardy!? accost custody stair
frizzy the tour, audible,
solicitor attic nice, MS, heartache it haircut of oncoming of shower, the ceramics, ominously of idolatrous leafy brevity.
fantasize mischievously lethargy forecast apoplexy a foolishness to on? valet crippled a alligator death row correction national lance diagnoses
long johns was cook stringent transformation and was lingo the coy
swinging and bow tie as subway
linguistic and sip. normally an devious as lot, the
footlights scorching the of and clipboard pilot was initial to kinky tailoring! obnoxious the distrustful an vex itinerary layoff the as mistook
indebted in of nasty immigrant Ramadan inhale relish hydrogen homeroom disillusion system to an finished the
secretly, in adherence membership. but energetically.
file, ideally. plunk, flash the excitedly, preconception wagon likely believer the spark plug and
photography an… sober, is sow weaponry the albeit lore portable the root beer, protrusion as remain that with gentle best-selling of was hunter the
uncanny the as glum as tombstone ownership fest herself is sidle with checkered a to an apart from to
countable of? debate, acquire look bulletproof, dispassionate of unconscionable protagonist a the as prejudiced and prairie,

And that’s where it ends. It’s as though the author intended to leave us hanging on that final comma, breathlessly awaiting closure.

I just wanted to hide the part of the MySpace page that links to the blog there. I don’t blog there (obviously), and though I don’t even link to this blog from there (my baby sisters are linked to me on there, and I’d rather not have them randomly clicking over to this), I wanted to make that part of the page just not appear, rather than have it look as though I don’t have anything to say.

Many hours later (when there are a hundred other things I should have been doing), after discovering a tutorial on how to completely customize a MySpace profile, and I have a new MySpace page that I actually kind of like.

You know, I realize there are lots of bad things about MySpace (lots and lots), but I have to admit that I think the positives tend to outweigh the negatives. For finding old friends it’s been indispensable (every few weeks someone pops up that I haven’t seen or talked to in years), and I can actually almost keep in touch with people because of it. I’m not there to hook up, and I don’t get into the friend whoring bit. Every friend except for one that I’ve got on there (not counting the bands) are actual real life friends or acquaintances, and I feel like I know him in real life by proxy. I tried to ignore the power of MySpace for a long time (I’ve had an account for almost 2 years, but hadn’t actually done anything with the profile until a few months ago.) - but I can no longer live in denial. I am a MySpace junkie. Dammit.

because your life is currently in a holding pattern of the status quo?

You redesign. (Or at least, I do.)

Life has really been… well, boring lately. This is not to say that I am bored. I’m getting more work than I’d have even expected as The Project Geek, we’ve been insanely busy at the store (and on the website), and in the past few weeks I’ve even (finally) had nights out at a couple of the local gay bars. I’ve rediscovered an old obsession with the game iSketch, I’ve been trying to help answer questions at the WordPress support forum, and I’ve been learning how to use and customize Zen Cart (an open source ecommerce shopping cart program). I’m freaking busy.

It’s just that there’s not much that’s inspired me to write lately. I could tell you about how much I love to play iSketch and that I win a lot of games, despite my stick-figure-on-crack drawing skills. There was the breakthrough I had, after hours of poring over code and searching fruitlessly, when I finally got the categories in Zen Cart to display as a drop down list. I was tempted, momentarily, to craft a diatribe about unscrupulous web developers who take advantage of non-technical people and make far too much money doing it.

But you see, none of that is very interesting to anyone but me. Hell, some of it’s not even that interesting to me, it’s just the state of my life right now.

So instead, I took the creative spark that flared up today and redesigned. Maybe I’ll meet a new crazy on the bus tomorrow morning to tell you about. One can only hope.

Way back… damn near a year ago, I was obsessed with obsession. That eventually waned, much to the relief of anyone who had to be around me at the time. With that waning, my drive to complete a project died off as well. That project?

Finding spooky sounding songs about obsession for The Obsession Mixtape.

However, armed with some new drive (that being that I had someone I wanted to share the mixtape with), I decided to finish up the project and call it complete.

So, I present to you - The (Definitive?) Obsession Mixtape [Spooky Version].

1. Elvis Costello - “I Want You”
2. Marillion - “A Collection”
3. Chris Isaak - “Wicked Game”
4. Sarah McLachlan - “Possession” [Piano Version]
5. Nine Inch Nails - “Something I Can Never Have”
6. Joseph Arthur - “Invisible Hands”
7. Marilyn Manson - “I Put a Spell on You”
8. Stabbing Westward - “What Do I Have to Do?”
9. Garbage - “#1 Crush” [Original Mix]
10. The Cure - “There is No If…”
11. Catharsis and the Humdrum - “Every Breath You Take”
12. The Magnetic Fields - “I Don’t Want to Get Over You”
13. PJ Harvey - “Rid of Me”
14. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - “Loverman”
15. The Beatles - “I Want You”

A few notes:

- Songs that are available on iTunes are noted above with the link and the image. (Nifty little image linking bit that you can see in good browsers thanks to 90% Crud.) You’re on your own for the others mostly, though if anyone wants the Garbage track, get in touch. It’s a hard one to find that’s long out of print. My own compilation was funded by winnings on Blingo. (I’ve won $30 in iTunes credit so far. There was also an additional $10 that I won from Caribou Coffee’s latest promotion.)

- I should have included Queensryche - “Gonna Get Close to You” - but I forgot it before I’d burned a couple already. So in the name of consistency, I’m leaving it off. For now. I’m thinking about a second volume already; a more varied mix.

- The order is partially deliberate, partially random.

- The cover of “Every Breath You Take” is a bit more - well - spooky than the original, thus I chose that version. There are a lot of freaking covers of that song out there, even a pan pipe rendition. Of Catharsis and the Humdrum I know only what I found via a quick Blingo search: They are no longer together, and they were apparently considered something of a Christian rock band. (Not my usual fare.) Still, this is the most haunted version of this song I have come across. Unless you count the terror of the pan pipe as haunted.

- Be forewarned - this is a very moody collection. Nearly guaranteed to squash happy thoughts for the duration of play. Listen at your own risk.

Enjoy!

Well, enjoy as much as you can enjoy a thoroughly dark and disturbing collection of songs about the many facets of obsession, including stalking and murder. Ya know?