Now I have alot of addictions really … some healthier than others … most harmless.

You all know that I’m addicted to Diet Coke (or more specifically the caffeine within it). In fact some of you once held a bit of an intervention (never mind the fact that those same people routinely encourage me to drink beer/liquor until I’m at the brink of death). You all also know that I’m the first to admit this addiction. For me, there is nothing’ as comforting as a 32 ounce diet coke within arms reach.

The other night was rough. It was a long hard day at work and hadn’t had a diet coke since lunch. I took the L home (something I’m trying to do more often, Gina) and so suffered the 40-some minute ride with no diet coke. I walked home from the L and about half way home I realized I was going to have to make a very difficult choice when I got home. Do I immediately chug a diet coke (my mouth watered just thinking about it and I could barely resist the urge to start jogging back to the refrigerator waiting at home)? Or do I fall directly into bed and crash for a few hours? The rough day at work (and lack of caffeine to top it off) had me beat. The thought of pillows and sleep nearly inspired me to stop at Water Tower and take a little nap on a bench. I was between a rock and a hard place.

When I got home I chose the latter. I crashed … hard. Hours of blissful peace passed and I woke up sometime after 9pm.

Upon getting out of bed I instinctively set down at the computer and checked the email, turned on the IMs, and started an instance of SWG. I had planned to turn on these programs and get a diet coke as they loaded. But an unexpected email, and IM, and then a series of in-game transactions, which required my attention, kept me at the computer.

About an hour and a half later I was going thru some serious caffeine withdraw. My head was pounding my hands were shaking and I thirsted no matter how much water I drank. I took a few Excedrin (not so much for the headache but because they contain caffeine) and finished my dealings in game. I couldn’t put off the diet coke anymore. The Excedrin slowed the progression of the withdraw but only slightly and it was wearing off now … comin’ down would just be all the harder now.

I go to the fridge and reach into the diet coke ‘fridge pack’ and immediately panic. I can tell as the cardboard box moved as I reached in that it was empty.

I rip out the box and pear into it … confirmed empty.

I actually whimpered. I’m not sure that I have ever whimpered in my entire life to date … but I did that night. I let out an involuntary vocal whimper.

I stood there for a minute trying to not break down into tears. I could here the crisp beeping of the SWG client telling me that I was receiving messages in game. “Bah”. I ignored them. I knew that it was crunch time.

I’d been sleeping and sitting at the computer for hours. I was in no shape to leave the apartment. Further it was midnight. I wasn’t going to walk 5 blocks to a Walgreen’s at midnight for a desperate diet coke run.

This little illusion lasted about 10 minutes before I was combing my hair and putting on my shoes.

5 blocks later, I purchased a new case of Diet Coke, and also a 20 ounce bottle … I had no time to let the diet coke case get cold … and drinking warm diet coke is like cutting off your arm … you just shouldn’t do it unless you will die otherwise. Thankfully a refrigerated case of 20 ounce bottles was available.

Still I couldn’t drink it. If I had cracked open that bottle I would have chugged it like a vampire downing a goblet of blood after a 350-year nap. I couldn’t put on that little performance in Walgreen’s no matter the hour.

On the way back from Walgreen’s I was thankful it was so late. My head was killing me and the scowl on my face would have frightened most tourists.

I finally got home and tore off the bottle cap. Took a swig … Immediately my hands stopped shacking and an “Aaaahhh” just as involuntary as the whimper before was heard. All of those Coke commercials suddenly had a whole new layer of meaning to me. Another swig and my eyes started to stop hurting. By the end of the bottle my headache was gone.

Now I’m not saying this story isn’t more than a little telling of a problem … but until they have a caffeine patch … I’m screwed.

Gotta run … I’ve only had 1 diet coke so far today and the cafeteria is about to close.

Yes, that’s right folks… 2 blogs in one day! Firstly, let me say that although I am exhausted, I’m feeling much better – thank you for asking.

Secondly I wanted to let you the davidmeade.com readers know about a couple of suggestions I’ve gotten for the site, get your feed back, and let you know about an upcoming feature I hope to implement soon.Gina has requested that we all get code names. She herself will be Thor. Barrett has chosen the brilliant alias of “Barrett”. Their concern I believe is that the number one google result for either of their names is the davidmeade.com quoteboard. Personally I take a great deal of pleasure in that. MWUHAHA But FYI I’m currently entertaining the idea of allowing the search engine squeamish to use code names. No promises… after all it kinda defeats the purpose of a quoteboard if you don’t really know who is quoted.

But the 2nd feature request, which I’m very excited about, is that Gina would like to be able to rant in a blog on davidmeade.com. I’m thinking about calling this “The Thor Chronicles” … stay tuned. In the meantime post your comments here as to the code name you would choose … should davidmeade.com allow their use.

Today I’m about as hung over as someone can be and still be able to pretend to be a contributing member of the world around him. Last night was the going away party for John Wheeler who is moving to Atlanta. There was pizza, beer (lots of beer), several bars, and even some Karaoke. (I still have “California Dreaming” running through my head)

It was a good time, but John says it wasnt good enough to make him stay…so I guess we failed. (Perhaps Karaoke was a mistake)

Have I mentioned that I have a headache today?

At some point it of course boiled down to the rock stars. The fearsome threesome: Me, Pat, and Kimberly – and if we didn’t close out the bar we were at it was only because it no longer held our interest. It was 4-somthing AM before I got in bed. I woke up at about 8 AM … I’m waiting for the wall I’m bound to hit … it’s not gonna be pretty.

Anyway, I think the “blast from the past blog” went over well so you can expect a few of those every now and then. Thank you one and all for finally giving that past blog the attention it deserverd. In the 2nd round of user comments I think we learned some things.

For example. Audra shared a revolving door with the BeeGees. Personaly I’d like to hear this story… so Audra write it up. You can add it as comment or perhaps I’ll feature you as a guest blogger.

…ouch…my head….

Well I had a great idea for a blog the other day but I’ve forgotten what it was…so you’re getting this one while I recover.

So upon the relaunch of davidmeade.com I posted my first blog in some time, and it broke the davidmeade.com record for the blog with the most user comments! It wasn’t even that entertaining of a blog really.

But that got me to thinking … I had some killer blogs in the past with very few user comments! In fact I some of my favorites have no comments at all!

I’ve said this before people, and I’ll say it again: “Blogging is a two way street”! The relaunch blog just goes to show that you can do it! I know you’ve got it in you! And aren’t the blogs that much more entertaining when we are all chit-chatting about it via user comments? I think so.

So I’m going to use a little known feature of davidmeade.com and give you all a second chance. I’m going to “sticky” an old blog – and thus bring it back to the main page. Here is your chance to review a past blog that just didn’t get the user feed back it deserved.

In this “blast from the past blog” you’ll revisit the time I met The Lord. (… that’s got to be worth a comment or two!)

Blast From The Past Blog #1: hob-nobbing with deities

I WON! davemeade.com is MINE!!! BWAHAHAHAAHA

Ah… for those of you who don’t know the whole story:

Back when I started up with davidmeade.com, I tried to also get davemeade.com. But it was stolen by a bunch of dark souled domain squatters. Realizing I wanted the domain, the squatters were nice enough to offer it back at a mere $500. I told them where they might shove their offer and they conceded to $300. Again I told them it would be a cold day in hell before I paid them a dime … but not to worry … I’d get the domain sooner or later.

“What does that mean?” they asked.

I explained to them that I was the only person in the world who wanted davemeade.com. That the only person in the world who would ever pay for it…wasn’t going to. So eventually they were going to realize this and have to cut their losses on renewal and hosting fees. And that then I’d get it for $20 from the registrar directly.

I suggested that since they’d had the domain for about a month already… they should check the logs. I assured them that they’d see less than 20 hits … and all of them will be from the same subnet … mine. I’m the only person who wants it or will ever visit to see your insaine ads.

I told them that they needn’t spend so much money on this domain that wasn’t going to get them ANYTHING in return. I offered to give them $100 (5 times the cost of a domain at the time), so that they could cover their costs and get out of a bad deal early.

They declined.

Years passed … emails were sent … phone calls were made …. threats were issued … and if I had to guess … they had to have ended up spending about $250-300 on the domain before they finally cut their losses and canceled it’s renewal. (They should have taken my offer of $100 the idiots)

Anyway … they did release the domain, and shortly afterward Everest (a faithful davidmeade.com reader and a webmaster himself) noticed that the davemeade.com domain was no longer resolving and he sent me an IM.

Within minutes I’d had it registered!

Now today marks the first day that davemeade.com is both mine and actively pointing to my servers!!

A HUGE Thank you goes to Everest for noticing it was available before another squatter got it.

Well I’ve finally launched the new DavidMeade.com! This article will tell you all about the new site and what to expect in the comming weeks and months.

There are some features that have not been rolled over to the new site yet, and some features that have been may still have a few bugs in them. Please help me by letting me know of any problems you find.

The good news is that the most popular features are in place and working (at least for the most part). The Blog, guestbook, News, and of course the quote board are all operational. Still this site is considered in “Beta” as many thing are probably broken, and there are many features I have yet to impliment.

Please take a look around and let me know not only about any bugs you find, but also your general impressions and thoughts on the new layout and design of the site.

With the new web site I’m going to make a very dilligent effort to blog more often than I have in the past…6 moths or so. So I hope you come back daily for your dose of The World according to David – as you do you can expect to see many things added/updated/changed.

To help you know what to expect, I’ve created an “In Development” page where you can read the development plan for DavidMeade.com.

All the exciting things listed in the Development page and much much more will be changing as I get time to work on the site. I actually hope that these features will be implimented much faster than described in that page… but those dates are the safe bets.

If there are new features you want to see added, or existing features you think should have a higher priority please let me know. And please keep visiting DavidMeade.com … i’ll be bloging much more often.

Well DavidMeade.com is finally back!

I know it’s been some time since the site was live and I was actively blogging, but I’m making a decided effort to get back into the swing of things. I reread some of my old blogs and man … I had some funny stuff. I’ll try to get back to posting the day in the life of David Meade more often.

I’m going to break one of my blog rules and talk about the web site instead of me in this blog. This is only because at the moment … the site is far more interesting.

As you are no doubt realizing the site and the manner in which you navigate thru it have completely changed. I consider the site still in “beta” mode. There are some features that haven’t been moved over to the new style/layout, and frankly … I’m not sure how I feel about the new style/layout yet. Add your comments to this blog, and let me know what you think of the new look and feel!

If you’re a member of TAG you no doubt notice a familiar layout – the TAG point site was a test template for this site. If you are a TAG member this is no doubt your first experience on DavidMeade.com – welcome! For the rest of you, you may be feeling a little lost … Currently, the blog feature is working, as is the Quote Board, News section, and Guest book. Each of these features however is still in need of some tweaking and development to get back to where it was and for some cool new features I’ve got planned. So please be sure to check them all out, let me know what you think, and check back often as new features will be added soon.

I wanted to post this site information in the blog because the site is now much more focused on the current blog. In the coming hours, however, I will post a news article that describes the new site more fully and lays out the development plans for the coming weeks. Be sure to check that out once it’s posted. Once that’s done and the News section is again taking the role of “posts about the site” the blog will revert to its normal state of “it’s all about me”. I promise I will start posting the good stuff again soon. This blog is more like an “under construction” sign to let you know the site is now coming back up. Please check back daily! And be sure to tell me what you think of the new design … is it a keeper or should I head back to the drawing board?

- Dave