About
Front matter, FAQ and user guide.
Last updated: 2009-07-24
NB: my discography is currently unavailable, as it is under reconstruction. My professional resume and a condensed portfolio of projects are available at my directory URL, http://toconnell.info.
Abstract:
This is the personal blog of Timothy O'Connell. Since its inception in 2004, I have written (very nearly) all of the content and done (very nearly) all of the programming myself. There is no single focus, topic or format.
The original plan for the project was to create a public website that forced me to write an essay every day. The thinking was that I would commit loudly and publicly to a production schedule and thus be forced to produced. In the beginning, I also believed that that keeping up with my drunken boasts would improve my proficiency with expository composition.
The project went on hiatus between April 2006 and April 2008. During the hiatus I relocated to Chicago. My relocation occurred just after a two year sojourn in New Haven, Connecticut and just before I invented a new life for myself. In many of those earlier posts--the ones pre-dating the hiatus--there is a surplus of the anxieties, outbursts and typographical errors one would expect from a fledgling author, a failing academic and a fish out of water. I don't mean to disclaim them (the writings, not the typos), but I can't exactly misrepresent them as creative works that are either near or dear to me: I look at them now and I see the disorganized cries for attention of a vain, misguided and arrogant autodidact whose petty polemic, while occasionally hard-hitting, generally flies wide of its mark and redounds upon its author.
In the posts from 2008 and beyond, I like to think that I demonstrate some growth, progress and, more importantly,
an increased sense of focus and urgency, even if I post somewhat less frequently.
demongin.org went on a lengthy hiatus again in the summer of 2009, when I relocated to Washington, DC. The hiatus was shorter, this time around, because it was planned: when I effectively shut it down in June, I had every intention of re-coding the site and returning from hiatus after the re-code.
Ancillary:
Other projects include (but are not limited to):
- toconnell.info: my portfolio and directory website. It contains all of my Web2.0 contact info and an index of past and present projects.
- AllNightNeonSunrise: a collaborative micro-blogging experiment upon which I have been working with certain friends; I contribute "posts" to ANNS and I also administer the site.
- Almost Effortless: the hub for web developer Trevor Turk; I contribute occasional blog posts (of a highly specialized and technical nature) and administer the servers on which some of his software lives.
- Children's Masterpiece Theatre: a former band to which I gave much of myself for many years.
- h8ter.org: you can follow me on h8ter (it's like twitter but with "hates" instead of "tweets").
- The Proscriptions: an on-going assault on good taste, common sense and basic human decency.
- The Sweetheart Brigade: is a band in which I play the drums. Currently on hiatus, there is every possibility that it will one day come back together.
- Tyranny Belle Records: free music (free like free software. And free like free beer).
"The demongin", as I like to call it, is based on a class project from high school. The setup is familiar enough: intro to graphic design culminates in a final project that requires the invention and development of a pretend company, its trademarks and logos. My company, 2000i, manufactured novelty rayguns for wealthy enthusiasts of classic science fiction. Their logo was the demongin.
I also have a small demongin tattooed on the inside of my left arm, just above the elbow, amidst a swirling night wind upon which about a dozen or so cherry blossoms drift.
All graphics/art on this website were processed with the GIMP.
Author:
I am, like most of the hyper-active, over-committed "-athon generation" to which I belong, an over-credentialed under-achiever who can hardly settle on a mood, let alone a career, a place of residence or a consistent set of orthographic conventions.
I like computers. Actually, I kind of hate computers: what I like is information systems. I like to invent new ones, optimize existing ones and study ancient ones. To be perfectly honest, computers and programming languages are something of a means-to-an-end for me.
I have a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a master's degree in religion and the arts from Yale University and have been everything from a produce clerk to a system administrator in my time. I worked at a Walgreen's for nearly a year in high school.
I have played various instruments in numerous Chicago bands, a partial list of which includes Children's Masterpiece Theatre, Dubious Moniker, The Proscriptions and The Sweetheart Brigade. I have produced recordings for Rusty Pipes, local bluesman Dan Patrevito and others. My preferred mode of musical expression and composition is percussion; I'm a capable sequencer of electronic drums and an avid player of acoustic drums.
I occasionally do freelance pro-audio and sound design work on a contract basis.
I am also something of a linguaphile. In addition to the (very small amount of) German I picked up in high school, I also know enough Latin to make fun of action movies set in the middle ages and just barely enough Japanese to read most of the wrappers when Shibuya246 does Conbini Monday.
Authorship:
This is the seventh iteration of demongin.org. Unlike each previous generation, the entire site was not written from scratch. In previous iterations, I made a point of not using anybody else's templating software, frameworks, etc. This iteration was developed entirely using Django, an open source web framework.
The first five iterations of the site were a rat's nest of HTML and PHP, the sixth iteration was written entirely in python, using vim, and relied upon PostGreSQL for its back-end.
The best (not just my favorite, but the best) colorscheme for vim is, without a doubt, elflord.
Source code for the sixth and seventh iterations of the site is, of course, available upon request.