In the spirit of Valentine's Day, and by that I mean "this doesn't have anything to do with Valentine's Day," I present something I love:

Open data formats.

Most of you know I've been logging my listening habits over at last.fm for several years now. Some time ago, a nifty gentleman wrote a set of scripts (available at lastgraph.aeracode.org) to generate a visual representation of a single user's listening habits over time.

2005

2006

2007

I think I have earlier data saved on files at home, but I'll have to check. Clicking on the files will take you to the larger versions archived on flickr.

Stephen has struck again. He presents LOLcards for Valentine's Day. My personal favorite? "I devour hearts"

You need this. So do your twisted friends. Spread the meme.

In the guise of aliveness, I present two things:THING THE FIRST: should you wish to continue the harmless cycle of attention-whoreness that Valentine's Day perpetuates, consider doing Valentines online. If for no other reason that if I see my friends doing this online, I'll feel less guilty about not sitting down and actually designing/printing/mailing actual creative/funny/amusing/thoughtful/touching/smarmy Vallies on my own.

"She's not a Chinese puzzle box like you."—Chris

I forget sometimes that what I write here doesn't necessarily have to come with an explanation or an easy answer. Some days and some sentiments require me to take a deep breath and trust that what I say will be accepted for what it is, no more and no less, because I am as complex as my life and as simple as my love.

Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to yahoo user cchodges, who was looking for a little fun on Valentine's Day and found … me. His profile, I might add, is listed as an "adult" profile. I submit the following transcript as evidence to the contrary:

Ok, gents, let's review! While the desperation of humanity is often palpable on the holiday this year known as Black Satur….er, Valentine's Day, just because a depth is there doesn't mean you should sink to it.

Personally, while I find it a smidgen admirable that someone could actually have the balls to metaphorically walk up to a random stranger and proposition for a threesome, I find it far more amusing and pathetic. Don't these people have friends they can call up and say, "Hey, we need to borrow you for a weekend of sex that would make your mother blush"? Surely they'd have a better success rate than contacting random net.chicks for the same favor?

One thing's for certain; they're better off asking their friends than they are asking me, because as we know, there's nothing that turns me on more than a poorly-capitalized request for sex from a perfect stranger.