Author: Aaron Weber

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday. It’s a milestone. The number itself doesn’t bother me. But it’s a good time to reflect: If I’m lucky, I’m about a third done with my life. If I’m not lucky, more than a third.

Conveniently, I also did a lot of reflecting when I turned 25, and made myself a five-year plan. I don’t know where it is right now, but I remember at least a few things from the list. It included having some poetry published in a major national magazine (duh, nope) and moving in with my ex. I never did achieve either of those.

But there’s a bunch of stuff in there I did achieve, or things I did which are close to things on the list: I had an article published in a major technical website and shacked up Bookdwarf. There was freelance editorial work, and getting a promotion and a raise. Of course, after the raise came the layoff, but whatever. I’ve got a job I like now, and I’m saving my pennies so when I’m too old to feed myself I can pay someone to do it for me. I seem to be on track for the usual yuppie goals. (How old do you have to get before you’re no longer a yuppie? Forty? Fifty?)

Living the dream, whatever that means:

Earlier this month I made a list of goals for 2007. It included getting some more tattoos, learning to shoot a gun, and getting a vasectomy. It’s looking like I’ll be oh-for-three on that, though: I don’t know what the hell I’d get for a tattoo, the gun thing seems like a total dumb waste of money now, and the vasectomy seems like more trouble than it’s worth. So, my current goals seem to be “keep on truckin’.” I guess I could do worse.

Bookdwarf, or at least her chest and arms, are featured in the Times this week as a backdrop to John Edwards. Now that’s fame:

Back when they still called it “techno” I was just entering high school and James Brown Is Dead was not a song you could just find on the radio or something. I heard it because I knew a guy with an extensive collection of LPs, and I thought it was brilliant. Of course, I was 14, so I thought all sorts of stupid things. Regardless, I expect LA Style’s 1991 club hit will get some play this week, since its shock-value sample has finally come true. Here’s the video:

Renters Gloat Over Housing Slump: WSJ.com. I’ve been looking forward to gloating about this for quite some time. But to be honest, it’s not all that pleasant. Gloating rarely is. I don’t like to see other people in trouble, even if they took some part in creating the mire they’re in– whether that’s someone who took out a loan they can’t afford, or someone who ordered the US military into a desert quagmire.

And while a steep drop in house prices might let me afford to buy one, it’s not as though my rent is dropping right now. In fact, shrapnel from a housing collapse is as likely to hurt me as it is to help me.

In California this past summer Bookdwarf and I had the chance to try a lot of wine we’d never heard of. One of the best– and best values– was Shooting Star Blue Franc. It’s made from a weird grape called Lemburger, which I think is from the same area as the stinky cheese, but is otherwise unrelated. Anyway, some guy from Washington State thought it was fun and makes some great wine with it. When we got back to the east coast we were glad to find it at the Wine and Cheese Cask in Somerville for about $13/bottle. Now, if you buy twelve bottles of wine at once, most places will give you 10 or 15 percent off, so that’s effectively in the under-twelve-dollar range. We stocked up on it– a twelve-buck bottle isn’t an every-day wine, but it’s not a giant expense.

With a value like that, people will eventually catch on. Shooting Star has since been endorsed by blogs (Dr. Vino) and journalists (New York Times) and cooking websites (Star Chefs), and social shopping networks (ahem, StyleFeeder). Today at the wine shop, the price was up a dollar.

That moves it in my mind just across the line between “nice” and “special,” so I only bought two bottles instead of six.

Thanks to Gethen, I’ve got the header image and RSS issues sorted out. She showed me how to redirect the feeds using a .htaccess file, and edited the header image so that it’s a smaller download but looks infinitely wide. Although it’s now just 626 pixels wide, she adjusted the image to repeat without obvious seams.

Now, to think up some kind of content or something.