Instead, I’ll better spend my day celebrating the 5th birthday of the iPod. Maybe I’ll just load up a handful of Science Friday episodes and be awed by the natural world. Or load up on a little Open Source Sex and, well, just enjoy… Or maybe even grab a few Webmaster Radio episodes and see if I can figure out a way to double up my online income.

Despite my recent attempts at avoiding the news of the day, I see the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was actually signed into law on October 17th, essentially poisoning habeas corpus. Oh, and it also appears to somehow allow our country to opt out of the Geneva Conventions of which our country is a signatory party. Oh, and this president now has been given a blank check to detain U.S. citizens forever and to subject millions of non-citizens to an, at best, second-class, at worst, non-existent criminal justice system. Oh, and we get to torture interrogate now just to the point before the interrogated sustains “serious mental and physical trauma.”

Two days later, October 19th, on the anniversary of Black Monday, the Dow breaks 12,000 for the first time.

And between the two, I celebrated my 36th birthday.

God bless capitalism.

Democracy — eh, not so much…

Needless to say, I’ve found myself subscribed to quite a number of internet marketers’ ‘newsletters’ AKA their sales pitch autoresponders. I’ve bought very little of this stuff so far - actually taken advantage of all of two offers for a total cost of less than $50 - but the informational freebies they throw my way attempting to convince me to buy their latest and greatest have kept my education cheap so far. I’ve been tempted by several offers; even have a few on my list that I’m considering and, very likely, will purchase in the not-so-distant future. But generally I reach the end of the pitch and the price chases me off. I consider myself a lot too green to really consider paying $297 or $497 or $xx7 for an information product right now.

But now that I’ve been subscribed to many of these marketers autoresponders for awhile, it gets a little annoying when one of the big guns is about to release a new product. Suddenly, everyone is pushing the same product, and because the product is a guru’s, it’s pretty much guaranteed the price will be through the roof. At least for anyone still within sight of being a newbie like myself.

The last week or two has seen a veritable email explosion, with just about every marketer out there almost tripping over themselves to be the last one to get you to click through their pitch, and thus grab what must be quite the golden ring of an affiliate commision, to get you to sign up for Brad Fallon & Andy Jenkins’ StomperNet. At just shy of $800, per month, I immediately priced myself out of that offer! I was tired of the pitch a week ago, but they just kept coming and coming.

As a result, a whole slew of those pitchers received an unsubscribe from this newbie, and a few of those ‘going-to-buy’ products got removed from my list as well. But, at least it’s helped me clean up my subscription list - should help that little information overload problem I’m working on anyway…

My ‘Read These‘ folder in Gmail has 68 unread items in it. These are links to articles I run into that look extremely interesting or useful, but whose content is long enough that I choose to set them aside for now, thinking ‘I just don’t have the time to read the whole thing right now, not with the other 50 smaller posts I have to look through; I’ll get back to them later!‘

My homepage is set to news.google.com.

I’ve got more than a touch of news addiction. Hi. My name is Sean Oelkers, and I’ve got a full-fledged case of information overload.

And what golden nuggets of information have I gleaned from the ridiculous amount of time I spent perusing all this so far today? Well, let’s see, what pops into the ol’ noggin first?

• Some football player I’ve never heard of (because, you see, I don’t watch football) purportedly tried to kill himself.
• A new RSS advertising service has launched.
• Anna Nicole Smith got knocked up by Howard Stern. Howard K. Stern. Her lawyer.
• The White House released part of a national intelligence assessment on terrorism, but is getting flack for not releasing the whole thing.
• New York City is trying to ban trans fats in its restaurants.
• Steve ‘The Crocodile Hunter’ Irwin’s family is still mourning.

As you can see, time well spent.

Meanwhile, I’ve got 13 items waiting on my To-Do list. Things generally end up on my To-Do list when I’ve forgotten about them once or twice, and their not-being-done has come back to smack me in the back of the head. So you can imagine there are many more things swimming around that should be on that list, but aren’t.

Plus, I’ve also got an ‘Ideas!‘ folder jam packed with all sorts of topics I’d like to delve into furthur, several of which could even make a dollar or $10,000 on if I spent a bit of time developing them. If I could just find the time…

Admitting you’ve got a problem is half the battle. Methinks it may just be time to try something new!

First up, one that pops onto my radar now and then, but since I’ve written it down, will actually get read: American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. I’ve been meaning to read this book since my brother pointed me to the creepy but excellent movie based on it many moons ago. Being #60 on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000 list is only another vote of confidence to me!

The second addition: The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. Another one that pops up on my radar now and then. I absolutely loved his I Am The Cheese when I read it - several times - back in high school, many moons ago. Enough that I may have absconded the copy from the local library back then. I bet that weathered copy may still be hidden in one of my boxes of books. I’ll have to buy a copy and send it to the library as reparation!

I recommend everyone grab a book or two off that list. Reading is never a bad thing, even (or maybe, especially) if a few think the ideas are dangerous!