Throwin' some aimless Kleinballs

It's strange. For me, writer's block is usually accompanied by a certain sense of complacency towards wanting to write anything, anything at all. I have nothing to write about, and I don't care to write about anything. And historically, that has generally sorted itself out; one day, the urge (and content) strikes me. So I write.

With my current bout of writer's block, however, I really do want to write. Yet I feel like I have nothing to write about. That's not to say that I have nothing going on in my life -- I'd like to think I've been keeping myself pretty busy recently -- it's just that the urge isn't striking me. Who knows.*

But I've had enough of this. I'm just gonna write. We'll see what happens. I guess it's some sort of ill-conceived, haphazard throwin' of some aimless Kleinballs. Not that they're not all like that, anyway.

*Upon rereading these last paragraphs, it occurs to me that I think I DO know what's going on: Twitter, and the Twitter-ization of Facebook. Before those two platforms, blogging was the best way for me to broadcast my thoughts, my ramblings, my HILARIOUS takes on life. But now... well, they say that Twitter is "micro blogging". For a while I didn't really grasp what that meant. But I think I do now, and they -- whoever THEY are -- are absolutely right. I have a funny thought? Twitter. I've come across a link I want to share? Twitter. I want to randomly share the opening line of All Along the Watchtower? Twitter. And then there's Facebook doing all it can to imitate Twitter's success.

Put it all together, and Twitter and Facebook are cannibalizing the content for this blog. Do I therefore need to redefine how I use this space? Maybe. And it might necessitate the cessation of the Kleinballs series. Because if anything was suited for Twitter, it's those little thoughts that don't deserve a whole blog post on their own. But let's not let this ruin the moment; for now, the Kleinballs live!

Went 3-for-4 on my picks for the divisional series of the playoffs. And glad that the one series I was wrong on was the Dodgers! Although I'm still really wary of that starting pitching. Looks like the offense is getting it together, but you can only put so much trust in a rotation of two incredibly inconsistent, young guys and two old farts that are using smoke and mirrors.

For those of you out there who like your statistics represented visually, Information Is Beautiful is a great blog that I've been reading for the last few weeks. Especially like the visualizations for caffeine and calories, the death of the music industry, the walled world, time travel in popular film and TV (takes a few minutes to wrap your head around that one, but well worth the effort) and how safe is the HPV vaccine. The guy who does the blog also has a book out now... I'd get it but for the fact that I don't have a nice coffee table to let it collect dust on.

You may remember my posts about the Melbourne Cup the last two years. And while I still haven't grasped why this race holds so much cultural significance, I've stopped trying to figure it out and have just accepted it as fact. It's really a HUGE day -- think the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont all rolled into one -- and in no place more so than Melbourne, where it's actually a public holiday. So this year I've decided to go! I fly down on Monday morning, go to the race on Tuesday, then fly back on Wednesday. I'm pumped. Much more to follow, I'm (kinda) sure.

The Socceroos -- that would be the nickname for the Australian national soccer team, of course -- played the Netherlands in Sydney on Saturday to a nil-nil draw. It wasn't a very exciting match.

That is all.