Entry Fifty-Seven.
Thursday, 2007.11.22, 11:02 PM CST.
Costochondritis, a new site design, and more!

Happy turkey day, as they say.  Or, in my case, happy Tofurky™ day.

We had a good Thanksgiving here at Casa del Badger.  Both of Lanna's parents and almost all of Lanna's siblings (minus one brother who had to work) showed up, as did my dad.  Obviously (well, for anyone who follows my blogs), this was my first Thanksgiving without my mom, so it was bittersweet.  But, all in all, we had a good time.

Life, as a whole, has not been too horrible.  I finally got another "day job" (a temp job, but a job nonetheless), so I feel a bit better about things.  Also, X has been progressing well in his eighth month, saying "mama" a couple of weeks ago and progressing to "dada" and even "da-ey" (the same mispronunciation of "daddy" that I had when I was a baby) this week.  Even though he doesn't know exactly what those phonic patterns mean, we're thrilled that he is developing so well.

Costochondritis.
I am currently recovering from something quite awful, which I believe is the condition "costochondritis."  Last Saturday, I was driving along with my wife and I had to cough fairly hard.  A sharp pain shot through my abdomen, and as I surveyed and researched the damage I concluded that I'd abruptly pulled a muscle or ligament or something underneath the bottom of my left ribcage.  So, since then, if I've coughed or leaned over or breathed the wrong way, I've occasionally caused that inflammation to flare back up.  It's gradually healing up, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt like crazy sometimes.

The new site design.
Well, I have even more big news.  It often seems as if I sometimes have too many different "new projects" and not enough time to concentrate on any of them.  However, I am working on (yet another) pretty major project.  I am overhauling the djbadger.com site.

The entire design is going to be a lot more thorough and asthetically interesting.  The new site will include a full-fledged photo section, a rundown of my past and present events and projects, details about my influences, a full discography/mixography, and even a bit of philosophy from yours truly.  The overall design will be more "gritty," I think, and there'll be a LOT of stuff included.  However, it'll still be easy to navigate and hopefully a lot of fun for people who want to learn more about me and what I do.

The two parts of the site which will most likely not see much change will be the News/Journal area and the History area.  For formatting reasons, I would like to keep those exactly as they are, and I'll explain that on the site when it changes over to the new design.

I would really like to have the new site design completed by early 2008, but we'll see.

The Wall of Records.
The infamous "Wall of Records" is nearing completion in my home studio after a few setbacks, including a particularly scary incident in which one of the metal top corner brackets pulled free from its wall anchor, allowing that corner to suddenly "spring" forward from the wall a few inches.  The WoR has now been super-reinforced, and now has records in each of its 42 cubes.  I still have a lot more records left to "squeeze in" (not all of the cubes are completely stuffed), and I am really hoping that I end up having enough space for everything.  It's been a massive project and I am very happy about how things are turning out.

Other Stuff.
This month (or, possibly, October) marks the 20-year anniversary of the first time I ever saw the video for Depeche Mode's "Never Let Me Down Again."  I had seen "People Are People" years before, but it was this "new" song and video that led me to crave the Music for the Masses album (in the handy cassette-tape format).  It was one of the "stocking stuffers" that I received from my parents for Christmas 1987, and this, of course, sparked an insane obsession with collecting their music.  I'm sure I'll go into more detail about everything next month, though, around Christmas.

Also, I was thinking about things earlier today, and I realized that it's now been 10 years since the first time that I saw PT Anderson's classic, Boogie Nights, at the theatre.  It was during a period of my life in which I was spending a significant amount of time hanging out with friends at a local video store called Video Express.  One such night in the fall of 1997, after my friend Chris ended his shift, I went out with him and his girlfriend/fiancée/whatever Donna and saw Boogie Nights, which was quite awesome - definitely for mature audiences, obviously, but well-written, well-acted, and well-produced.

Video Express closed in 1998.  Three years later, after eight years of being together, Chris and Donna got married.  The marriage lasted a month and a half.

Anyway, that's all I have at this point.  I have other big creative project-related news coming soon, so stay tuned.  God bless!

Badger