Today is World AIDS Day. This is only one out of the 365 days of the year. AIDS IS EVERY DAY. I cannot stress that enough. It’s fine to ask “what can I do, where can I go?” I’ll be listing these links below.
What I’m asking people to personally do is to reach out, to get to know people who are aware of the virus, who have seen the ups and downs, and know what it’s like to see the deaths of more than a few, but have also been able to celebrate life itself.
I do not take this lightly, and you shouldn’t either.
Reach out, everyone, please. It’s the least you can do.
Do not sit back in your chairs and merely read, sympathize, and just pull out your wallets. Do something, touch someone, communicate. Its out there, and it’s not going away.
Reach out.
Email me.
Instant message me.
I’m here for a reason.
And I’m not going anywhere.

Thoughts in my head this morning:

My music. I was called a "musicbot" by a couple of people,
and that really made me angry. A majority of me is about the music, and considering
that I work a lot (60 hours is no joke, people) and have various things going
on in my life, music is what keeps me sane. Never mind that I read lots of other
blogs and public spaces (around 200 at last count), and express myself to them
by comments and personal contact, it’s said that I don’t express myself very much
here. It’s okay that some people don’t get it, but music is what’s happening here,
since that’s more me. My moodswings can easily be put in a mixtape, trust me.

I’m all about personal contact. If you really want to know what’s going on, email
me or IM me. It’s just that simple.

Colin out, Condoleeza in. I think I insulated myself from all
of the Bush re-election happenings of the past couple of weeks and focused mostly
on music. The doctor’s appointment from hell didn’t help either, but I’m seeing
my way through. Although I’m getting over the resignation
of Colin, I’m not quite ready for the Condoleeza Rice takeover as Secretary
of State. I haven’t seen any feedback from that announcement, but it’s not something
I’m looking forward to. In my opinion, Condoleeza has the most creative way of
saying absolutely nothing and not addressing any issues, if at all, she has with
the administration. Does anyone else have a sense of dread about this too? Puppet?
Cheerleader? You decide.

Old School Wednesday / Musical Melodies Friday.
I’m pretty sure that purchasing/acquiring lots of CDs this week will more than
likely result in a Musical Melodies Friday, because I already have a playlist
in my head. That is, if I can balance work and making travel arrangements for
this weekend with actually putting a list together. All that being said, however,
OSW is a different story. I won’t be able to do it this week due to all the other
commitments. . I’m sure someone out there has an OSW in their head. If you’ve
got one, let me know.

The Negro Weekend. Know any Negro bloggers out there that aren’t
doing anything on the 21st and happen to be in the Atlanta area? Let me know.

See, now I’m officially worried.

I have this little
hometown which I never go to because there’s not much to see and not much
to do. Figuratively.

Well, that was before. Now it’s literally.

As I’m driving my car, I get a call. "Yeah, well, Person 1′s house’s
roof just got ripped off, and then the back of Person 2′s trailer got ripped
off, so everyone was hoping to stay with her, but it’s not as if she has the
back of her trailer, so they can’t really stay there, and a tree fell on Person
3′s trailer, so her house is totally destroyed. It’s hard to get around because
there are trees everywhere in the middle of the road….."

To make matters worse, there’s no water, and electricity? It won’t be on until
the 25th. That really sucks. The town is now a disaster area. The huge plus
is that some of us have relocated and can assist. The huge minus is that we
have exactly 48 hours before we have to be back at work.

And of course, a certain
blogger lives down there and of course, her phone doesn’t answer.

Geeze.

Exhibit A:
Sometimes I Blog Slow from J. Brotherlove.
Exhibit B:
Sometimes I Blog Slow by Khary.
Discuss.

If you’re hangin’ out at the house and it’s too hot outside, cool down and check
out the new exponent
[rss feed]/[xml
feed with comments].

I’m sure you were wondering what the heck was going on with the
old exponent. Well, me too. I’ve been doing a little revamping lately. First
thing’s first. I decided after all of the MovableType
3.0 drama, I felt it would be more beneficial to move exponent from Typepad
to a subdomain of yours truly. That way, I could centralize weblogs to one location
and also take advantage of payment and licensing issues (although now, the situation
seems to have relaxed with Sixapart and people seem to be happier, but I digress). This also means that I can continue my donations in one central location as well.

Moving exponent around was no easy task. After exporting out
of Typepad, I had to import into
MT, which doesn’t work with MT 3.0. The solution? To import into MT 2.6, and then
upgrade to 3.0, which worked like a charm. I would have patiently waited until
redesign was finished, but the Amp
Fiddler concert along with Music
of the Millenium put an abrupt stop to taking a blog vacation.

With the help of Anzi,
and his
MT 3.0 excellence, the revamp- which I’m sure would have taken at least a
day- took less than an hour to be done. I’m proud of him. Major daps.

That along with the temporary blog
hiatus of Nova and Sunray,
it’s been that kinda weekend. Then again, those aren’t the only things happening.
S-Train and Tyrone are doin’
their thing, and there’s J. Brotherlove, still
on hiatus also. Good things come to those that wait, they say.

Remember, things here on exponent will change without notice.
Tell your friends, tell your enemies. I’m back.

Something happened this weekend I’d like to share.

A friend of mine found out that he had an affliction. (Let’s not call it just
"an affliction". From now on, I’ll refer to it as The Affliction).
As friends, associates, and even haters go, this is nothing new. However, what
is the most uncomfortable thing about this is that it’s been a while since I’ve
had to counsel and to just LISTEN to what someone has to say, what someone goes
through everyday, what emotions the person goes through hour by hour, day by
day. Even more striking is that this was someone that I had known for so long.

Often when speaking to people with The Affliction, they’re
concerned with one or more of the following issues:

1. Family members who need to be informed;
2. Friends and/or coworkers who should be informed;
3. Their current job status and potential impact The Affliction
could have;
4. The fear of meeting other partners for a relationship;
5. Depression or thoughts of suicide;
6. The impact of The Affliction in everyday life;
7. The medication needed for The Affliction;
8. The side effects of medicine for The Affliction;
9. Counselors and/or groups who can address worries and fears, one-on-one or
in a group setting.

I’d like to reach out my hand. If there are those that you know that may need
assistance, an ear to listen to, or contacts, please don’t hesitate to email
me. It’s often said that "the life you save might be your own," but
this time, let’s help the lives of others.

One love.

Three weeks ago:

"The doctor called again, he says to give him a call."
After the visit two months ago, are you kidding? He’s going to tell me about
this new treatment that’s going to kill me, I’m sure of it. I’ll have to mentally
prepare myself for that. I’ll go to sleep instead. That would probably work
out better.

"The doctor’s returning your call…he said to call him back."
I guess I should take my time and check on my lab results before I
call him back. Maybe I’ll just do both when I get home from work tomorrow.

Two weeks ago:

"The doctor left a message. He says that he went to a conference
and talked to some other doctors, and he has more information for you."
Is that good info or bad info? I guess I’ll wait until I go see him,
which is this month. I think. Or maybe it’s next month. I forget. Oh, well.
I have work to do.

Two days before the appoinment:

"This is the doctor’s office calling. Verifying your appointment
two days from now."
Oh, shit.

So I’m still doing my gym thing, as usual…and it’s giving really good results.
I changed up:

1. Intake of at least 3,500 calories per day.
2. Intake of at least 75 grams of protein.
3. Working out 6 days out of the week, for an hour each time.

If you, perchance, should happen to see something wrong with EJ’s blogland, do not fear. I’m currently on the Beta team for the new version of Movable Type. It allows me to be able to kick things back and forth and shake up the masses. Since I’ve already shaken it twice and managed to fix it just as quickly, if things seem to linger don’t hesitate to give me a shout out. (Blogliners, don’t mind me. I’m sure all of these massive alerts will cease after I’m done screwing around with testing the beta).
Additional note: If it asks you to sign in, there seems to be a commenting glitch where even after you’ve signed in, it constantly tells you that you haven’t signed in. While I don’t know what that’s all about, I do know that if you close the commenting window and then reopen it, it acknowledges that you have logged in. I am documenting this bug now.
Anything else you see?

I didn’t think that Kwame would win the Apprentice, and now I see that he didn’t. Not sure how I feel about that. Not saying that Bill didn’t deserve to win, but after the rumours, I had my hopes up, I suppose.
And while we’re at it…Adina Howard with yet another cut. Sexual freakiness abounds. Her nasty grind. Le sigh. I guess I expected more from her, after not having come out with an album in around 7 years, but hey…
A wonderfully placed meme, via George, JT, Karsh, Tiffany, Republic of T and Prime.
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence on your blog.
The lyrics meant nothing to him, either, but the melody was enough.
From Middlesex, by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Here’s a lesson you should know. Never give me your laptop. Ever. Let me touch it, but under strict supervision. Why? Because I will destroy your laptop. It’s almost like I have a special touch. The touch that makes things die. Your software? Well yeah, I can make it work…it’s what I do every day…but your hardware? It’s probably better to just crush it yourself than send it to me and have me do it for you. Unless giving me the power of destruction is something that makes you tingle, of course.
You see, I was laying down minding my own business when the laptop (Hermes) unexpectedly slipped off the table near the bed. Now, it only fell about 8 inches, but that’s when things started getting weird. It wouldn’t respond to the lovely brand new powercord, and when I bought another one I thought that having two would make everything okay. Turns out the second one eventually destroyed the pins inside the slot connecting the cord with the laptop and now it won’t take any electricity. Five little iron pieces later, we got it to work enough for me to make a backup and get ready to send it back and get it repaired.
I feel all lame now, but at least I’m back with Osiris for the next week. Of course, I could always find something better to do with my time. Like listen to Lil’ Jon and Wyclef do a duet or something. Kill. Me. Now.