Give to the United Way.
I can't believe what I'm seeing. I just can't believe it.
Actually, I can.
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?
I have no idea. Bryce, however, is in Israel and he's reading my blog. Check it out!
And a shout out to Demet in LA, and Jung who logged in from Miami. Bienvenido a Miami! Houston, DC, and Los Gatos in the house! Who's in Seattle? Bill G. is that you?
Gvisit is pretty cool--you can see where people are viewing your site. I'm assuming they combine an IP-geo match with Google Maps' Open API. There's no individually identifiable info though, so don't be scurred. Big brother is watching, but not very closely.
And a shout out to Demet in LA, and Jung who logged in from Miami. Bienvenido a Miami! Houston, DC, and Los Gatos in the house! Who's in Seattle? Bill G. is that you?
Gvisit is pretty cool--you can see where people are viewing your site. I'm assuming they combine an IP-geo match with Google Maps' Open API. There's no individually identifiable info though, so don't be scurred. Big brother is watching, but not very closely.
Some blogging basics
Here's some basic stuff that my friend Shani was interested in. Maybe you'll like it too!
Ok, you can add photos really easily (with or without flickr) just hit that blue photo button up at the top of the window where you edit you posts. It looks like a little landscape and it's next to the spellcheck button. Just pick whatever pic you want from your computer and voila.
You can add links to your posts by clicking the little link button in the same row of buttons. So if you wanted to add a link Mariah Carey as Mimi, you might type "Mariah Carey (aka Mimi)" and add a link to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6559564/ and provide more info about her name change or whatever. You get the picture. I generally write my post and then go back over it and add links where ever it seems appropriate.
If you want to add links to your sidebar to my site, or anyone elses, it's kind of complicated, but not really. But no worries. You can add a little chunk of code to your template and it will show up. I'll try to explain it via email, but you may just want give me a call or read this.
Oh, and here's a few links to blogger help pages on cool stuff:
Ok, you can add photos really easily (with or without flickr) just hit that blue photo button up at the top of the window where you edit you posts. It looks like a little landscape and it's next to the spellcheck button. Just pick whatever pic you want from your computer and voila.
You can add links to your posts by clicking the little link button in the same row of buttons. So if you wanted to add a link Mariah Carey as Mimi, you might type "Mariah Carey (aka Mimi)" and add a link to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6559564/ and provide more info about her name change or whatever. You get the picture. I generally write my post and then go back over it and add links where ever it seems appropriate.
If you want to add links to your sidebar to my site, or anyone elses, it's kind of complicated, but not really. But no worries. You can add a little chunk of code to your template and it will show up. I'll try to explain it via email, but you may just want give me a call or read this.
Oh, and here's a few links to blogger help pages on cool stuff:
- Use your phone to post audio to your blog
- Posting via email
- General Help
Thursday, August 25, 2005
What happens in Vegas doesn't stay in Vegas
Okay, I was playing around on flickr and found some of Mike Reining's photos. Interesting stuff. I searched for "GSB" tags and this one (of many) turned up. I add it to my blog and my little GSB corner of the world sees it, recognizes it, tags it, maybe even adds it to their own blg and the folksonomy grows. Very interesting.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
bingeing on web 2.0 feeds
So I've been trying to shut down for hours, but now that I only have 31 minutes of battery life left, maybe I will get some sleep. I've been on a bit of a bender with flickr and a few other fun new toys. The Personal Bee is a totally 2.0 way to keep track of what's hot--one day maybe I'll have my own bee, but in the mean time the public bees are pretty good. I'm running out of minutes, and I don't want to get out of my snug little hotel bed to get my power cord, so a few quick thoughts will have to do:
I want everyone I know to download Google Talk and call me immediately. I've had Skype for ages and I'm still walllowing in silence.
How does one get ahead in the blogosphere when all of your friends and colleagues are fully 1.0?
I'm awash in new things to explore, but top of list are wordpress and flock.
And thank goodness for bar camp. All the buzz on this anti-foo fest has led me to great reading on web 2.0 stuff.
End of binge. Need a new feed.
I want everyone I know to download Google Talk and call me immediately. I've had Skype for ages and I'm still walllowing in silence.
How does one get ahead in the blogosphere when all of your friends and colleagues are fully 1.0?
I'm awash in new things to explore, but top of list are wordpress and flock.
And thank goodness for bar camp. All the buzz on this anti-foo fest has led me to great reading on web 2.0 stuff.
End of binge. Need a new feed.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Poking the blogosphere
I feel like an early adopter that's late to a party for the first time. Dang! Well I'm here, so I may as well pontificate. Or at least point out some good sites that explain what in the world is going on in the the blogosphere.
The Truth Laid Bear is all about tracking blog traffic. The ecosystem ranks assorted blogs based on the number of sites that link back to that blog. It's sort of a way to rank relevance, popularity and relative impact on the blogosphere. Point. Click. Type. is a lowly insignificant microbe. May the Nifamatic evolve into a higher being and global influence in short order. (Tangent: Did anybody read Ender's Game? Valentine and Peter took over the world at ages 8 and 10 using blogs to peddle political influence. The top blogs in the TLB ecosytem are far left and far right political pundit sites. That Orson Scott Card is one prescient Mormon.)
So yeah, Google's search algorithm uses a sort of similar page ranking to return relevant search results. (That's probably why Google bought Blogger a while back--to have a world of blogspots in house to inform and optimize their linking algorithms.) Anywho, an interesting characteristic of the blogosphere is redundancy. The number of times a meme is repeated (i.e. a site is quoted and linked to) the higher that meme bubbles up in the collective conciousness. And the harder it is to excise an idea from the public sphere. Censorship becomes an impossibility. Of course only a certain set of ideas ever make it to the cool blue screen, given limited access the means of production. But, my favorite open publishing site Wikipedia has a cool response to this. They're looking for people to edit pages on topics like Women's Studies and oh say, the entire continent of Africa.
Get on it people. If you're reading this, you're already way outside the mainstream. Get to moving your memes from margin to center. (Note: the preceding link goes to a woefully thin wiki on bell hooks. But notice the "edit" link in the corner. It's a great opportunity for one of you feminist professor types to Point. Click. and Type.)
Woohoo!!
The Truth Laid Bear is all about tracking blog traffic. The ecosystem ranks assorted blogs based on the number of sites that link back to that blog. It's sort of a way to rank relevance, popularity and relative impact on the blogosphere. Point. Click. Type. is a lowly insignificant microbe. May the Nifamatic evolve into a higher being and global influence in short order. (Tangent: Did anybody read Ender's Game? Valentine and Peter took over the world at ages 8 and 10 using blogs to peddle political influence. The top blogs in the TLB ecosytem are far left and far right political pundit sites. That Orson Scott Card is one prescient Mormon.)
So yeah, Google's search algorithm uses a sort of similar page ranking to return relevant search results. (That's probably why Google bought Blogger a while back--to have a world of blogspots in house to inform and optimize their linking algorithms.) Anywho, an interesting characteristic of the blogosphere is redundancy. The number of times a meme is repeated (i.e. a site is quoted and linked to) the higher that meme bubbles up in the collective conciousness. And the harder it is to excise an idea from the public sphere. Censorship becomes an impossibility. Of course only a certain set of ideas ever make it to the cool blue screen, given limited access the means of production. But, my favorite open publishing site Wikipedia has a cool response to this. They're looking for people to edit pages on topics like Women's Studies and oh say, the entire continent of Africa.
Get on it people. If you're reading this, you're already way outside the mainstream. Get to moving your memes from margin to center. (Note: the preceding link goes to a woefully thin wiki on bell hooks. But notice the "edit" link in the corner. It's a great opportunity for one of you feminist professor types to Point. Click. and Type.)
Woohoo!!
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Sunday, August 14, 2005
In the Buff
He said, “Excuse me miss, do you have a moment?”
“No,” I replied curtly, moving toward the escalator without breaking my stride.
“Do you wear your nails cut short? Natural?”
I hesitated for the briefest moment. How had the wisp of a Frenchman known? My hands were buried in my pockets reaching for warmth. Was it my locked hair? My plodding gait? My men’s clothing from head to toe that gave away my nails, cut to the quick and absent any chemical coat? I had to know. I stopped and squared to him. “Yeah?” I questioned.
“I must show you something amazing. You have to know.”
If I could type in a French accent, I certainly would, but you’ll have to use your imagination. He was slim and clad in black from head to toe—save of course, his burgundy apron. “Come, let me show you.”
I walked toward him, even as Marlene and Alonzo slid toward Banana Republic on the down escalator. Marlene looked at me quizzically and I told her I’d catch up. I was in the mood and the Frenchman needed to show me, something.
I walked to him and he took my hand. “You will not believe this.” Suddenly he was swiping vigorously at my thumbnail with a spongy block of spa-tool. He rotated the tool, varied his stroke, and made tumbling declarations in broken English about blood and oxygenation and then, just as quickly as he started, he stopped, holding my thumb tight beneath the tool. “Promise me something,” he demanded. I glanced up from my hand and fell into his earnest eyes. “Promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Do not faint.”
He lifted away the sponge—my thumbnail gleamed in the waning sun. I gasped! It was shining like glass, and tingling a bit, like it had been loosed from too weighty layers of self. Suddenly I knew age and youth and pulse and freedom.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Fifty dollars later I trotted down the elevator with two bags of buffer, cuticle oil and lotion, and a bar of Dead Sea exfoliating sea salt soap. I had to know.
“No,” I replied curtly, moving toward the escalator without breaking my stride.
“Do you wear your nails cut short? Natural?”
I hesitated for the briefest moment. How had the wisp of a Frenchman known? My hands were buried in my pockets reaching for warmth. Was it my locked hair? My plodding gait? My men’s clothing from head to toe that gave away my nails, cut to the quick and absent any chemical coat? I had to know. I stopped and squared to him. “Yeah?” I questioned.
“I must show you something amazing. You have to know.”
If I could type in a French accent, I certainly would, but you’ll have to use your imagination. He was slim and clad in black from head to toe—save of course, his burgundy apron. “Come, let me show you.”
I walked toward him, even as Marlene and Alonzo slid toward Banana Republic on the down escalator. Marlene looked at me quizzically and I told her I’d catch up. I was in the mood and the Frenchman needed to show me, something.
I walked to him and he took my hand. “You will not believe this.” Suddenly he was swiping vigorously at my thumbnail with a spongy block of spa-tool. He rotated the tool, varied his stroke, and made tumbling declarations in broken English about blood and oxygenation and then, just as quickly as he started, he stopped, holding my thumb tight beneath the tool. “Promise me something,” he demanded. I glanced up from my hand and fell into his earnest eyes. “Promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Do not faint.”
He lifted away the sponge—my thumbnail gleamed in the waning sun. I gasped! It was shining like glass, and tingling a bit, like it had been loosed from too weighty layers of self. Suddenly I knew age and youth and pulse and freedom.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
Fifty dollars later I trotted down the elevator with two bags of buffer, cuticle oil and lotion, and a bar of Dead Sea exfoliating sea salt soap. I had to know.
Friday, August 12, 2005
Thursday, August 11, 2005
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Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Totally
I'm blogging in the presence of others this evening. Not a good idea, given that I'm immersed in the point, click, typing while there's perfectly good conversation right here in the room. Dave, Jung and I just returned from our new favorite bubble tea spot, Tapoica Express. "Suddenly I want some more!"
I had a watermelon icy with pearls, Dave had taro milk tea with pearls, and Jung boldly chose hot barley milk with no pearls. Hot liquid in those thin plastic cups seems like a bad idea. Seems to me that long chain polymers loose themselves more readily when heat is applied.
Jung just said, "I want to be one those people who just walks around and smells good." It's good to have aspirational goals.
Here's my aspirational goal: to create podcast out of a thirty minute unedited conversation with Dave and Jung. We crack ourselves up.
Dave just said he has reflexes like a python. Who says that? It should be recorded for all to hear.
I had a watermelon icy with pearls, Dave had taro milk tea with pearls, and Jung boldly chose hot barley milk with no pearls. Hot liquid in those thin plastic cups seems like a bad idea. Seems to me that long chain polymers loose themselves more readily when heat is applied.
Jung just said, "I want to be one those people who just walks around and smells good." It's good to have aspirational goals.
Here's my aspirational goal: to create podcast out of a thirty minute unedited conversation with Dave and Jung. We crack ourselves up.
Dave just said he has reflexes like a python. Who says that? It should be recorded for all to hear.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
BBC NEWS | Technology | Berners-Lee on the read/write web
BBC NEWS | Technology | Berners-Lee on the read/write web: "For years I had been trying to address the fact that the web for most people wasn't a creative space; there were other editors, but editing web pages became difficult and complicated for people. What happened with blogs and with wikis, these editable web spaces, was that they became much more simple."
And so there you have it from the man himself. No, Not Al Gore, but that other guy who "invented the internet."
This blog and every blog is if socio political import. So there!
And so there you have it from the man himself. No, Not Al Gore, but that other guy who "invented the internet."
This blog and every blog is if socio political import. So there!
Monday, August 08, 2005
By the Time I get to Arizona
Ok so Phoenix is naught but NASCAR and new construction. But Sedona, is something different all together. It's a veritable vortex of red rock, new age spiritualists, Christian churches, and egg shaped houses. And Jeep tours. Don't forget the Pink Jeep Tours.
Marlene, Alonzo and I are staying at a brand spanking new swank hotel called the Moulin Rouge. There are can-can dancers and surreal moments that look eerily like the surreal moments in Strictly Ballroom. I mean, wait, it's call the Sedona Rouge. It opened on June 10 and this weekend it's only 14% occupied. Translation: the sheets are still clean and the pillows are still fluffy. I'm walking around our room in my bare feet and I'm not getting that icky, "Eww, who's fluids are in this fluffy carpet?" feeling.
Yesterday I had an Ayurvedic wrap followed by a shea butter massage a the spa. Damn that was tasty. It was like being wrapped in sheets that had been soaked in steaming hot herbal tea and then, well, being massaged with shea butter. This is the life. Clearly I was born to lounge at four star resorts (only brand new ones) and pay people to rub me. Arizona is so much better than Public Enemy let on!
Marlene, Alonzo and I are staying at a brand spanking new swank hotel called the Moulin Rouge. There are can-can dancers and surreal moments that look eerily like the surreal moments in Strictly Ballroom. I mean, wait, it's call the Sedona Rouge. It opened on June 10 and this weekend it's only 14% occupied. Translation: the sheets are still clean and the pillows are still fluffy. I'm walking around our room in my bare feet and I'm not getting that icky, "Eww, who's fluids are in this fluffy carpet?" feeling.
Yesterday I had an Ayurvedic wrap followed by a shea butter massage a the spa. Damn that was tasty. It was like being wrapped in sheets that had been soaked in steaming hot herbal tea and then, well, being massaged with shea butter. This is the life. Clearly I was born to lounge at four star resorts (only brand new ones) and pay people to rub me. Arizona is so much better than Public Enemy let on!
Thursday, August 04, 2005
The Calming Glow of Being Bobby Brown
I rode the bus instead of the subway on my last night in Harlem. The high points of the M60 line that night were the ghetto fabulous albino I shared the back seat with and the chromy rims on the Ford Festiva I spied on 110th Street. Otherwise it was just hot, stinky, and slow. Beers with Bill and Betsy were quiet and lovely, just like the two of them. Betsy tried to lure me back onto the M60 to get back to the other side of Harlem, but I told her I’d rather move slowly in the wrong direction than stand still waiting for that damn bus.
I dropped down to the 1 train and headed to 96th Street. The train screamed into the station like it was riding on the backs of an army of meth-fueled rats. I tried to not to visibly recoil from the noise and reveal myself as the small-town Ohioan I still am, somewhere under my delicate timpanics. I eventually made my way back to Mount Morris and fell asleep in the calming glow Being Bobby Brown. Clearly the stuff of dreams.
I spent the day memorizing Kai and battling Nelva in broken English for holding rights. I put him down for his nap and after one last trip to Uptown Juice Bar for a ginger apple aloe elixir, I headed to lunch with Nicole and her baby cousin. Then it was the E to the Air Train to the Jet Blue terminal to San Jose. Of course, I swallowed five straight hours of Trailer Fabulous, Master Blasters, and While You Were Out on the plane. I’m ready to spackle something. But first, a long shower. It’s amazing to me how many New Yorkers wear flip flops on the subway. It just ain’t right. The stink can wear on you, but the practically crawling grime? That requires more than a thin flap of foamy plastic. I’m glad to be home.
I dropped down to the 1 train and headed to 96th Street. The train screamed into the station like it was riding on the backs of an army of meth-fueled rats. I tried to not to visibly recoil from the noise and reveal myself as the small-town Ohioan I still am, somewhere under my delicate timpanics. I eventually made my way back to Mount Morris and fell asleep in the calming glow Being Bobby Brown. Clearly the stuff of dreams.
I spent the day memorizing Kai and battling Nelva in broken English for holding rights. I put him down for his nap and after one last trip to Uptown Juice Bar for a ginger apple aloe elixir, I headed to lunch with Nicole and her baby cousin. Then it was the E to the Air Train to the Jet Blue terminal to San Jose. Of course, I swallowed five straight hours of Trailer Fabulous, Master Blasters, and While You Were Out on the plane. I’m ready to spackle something. But first, a long shower. It’s amazing to me how many New Yorkers wear flip flops on the subway. It just ain’t right. The stink can wear on you, but the practically crawling grime? That requires more than a thin flap of foamy plastic. I’m glad to be home.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Get thee to Uptown Juice Bar
If you happen to be in Harlem anytime soon and you have a penchant for tofu, take yourself to 125th Street and eustachian tubes are burning and I like it.
Monday, August 01, 2005
One day in Harlem
I woke up this morning and read my friend Donna's blog and thought to myself, "Self, you need a blog!" I had one once but I didn't use it and promptly forgot the username and password. That digital field lies fallow, so, I sow another. Grow! Grow my little blog, grow!
I'm in NYC with Nicole and Kai until Wednesday. I just put the little bit down for a nap and Nicole agrees, I'm quite good at it. Maybe it's the zen of Nifa, or maybe it's my tig bitties, but 17 trips up and down the hallway of Nicole's brownstone and Kai Aubrey was down for some well deserved REM.
My Kai-care instincts have not always been this sharp. On Saturday Nicole left me on 125th Street with Kai and the stroller. My mission was to walk one and a half blocks down to the health food store to pick up vittles for the picnic. I managed to get down the street ok, weaving Kai past mangoes on a stick and bootleg dvds, but the tiny store was a bit of a problem. There were no less than four people standing in the doorway swilling ice cold shots of miracle tonic (not Noni, but something equally useful.) I'm pretty sure I took some skin off the vendor's ankles. Kai burbled with glee as we pushed past the crowd, but I was mortified. I was tasked with chips, tofu, and any generally portable potables I could round up for $20, but the stress of stroller navigation was too much for me. I grabbed two bean pies ("Bean Pie, my brother?") and made for the check out counter, knocking packages of Spiruteen to the floor as I gracelessly steered my young charge into one wall and then the other. I paid for the pies and made for the door--leaving the pies on the counter. I didn't get far of course, what with the walls being 3 feet apart and the stroller being 4 feet wide. The teenager girling the counter just followed me to the the door with a bag o' pies and a pitying grin. I grabbed the bag and a shot of tonic as I squeezed out the door. I felt a bit better--maybe there were a few miracles in the bottle.
The picnic in Central Park went well, despite my stroller steering inability. Tyrus, Douglas, Turtle, Donna, Jes, Nicole, Ebony, Yasmina, Marlowe and many lovely others joined us on the Great Lawn for assorted treats including cookies, cheese, wine, watermelon, bean pie, and ginger candy. Richard and Raul brought chicken wings and Ebony and Needra showed up with ice cream. It was quite the blanket-oriented soire. LaVonda, we missed you and I'm sorry that I left the directions on some other phone!
After the picnic, we three traversed the subway back up to Harlem and called it a night. On Sunday we walked to Yonkers (I swear we were walking for 18 hours). Ok, so we walked just to the other side of Harlem for the beginning of the Harlem Week festivities. We bought a bottle of wine from Harlem Vintage. I think Jai Jai, the owner, should open a West Coast outlet in Oakland. Nicole went home for shiraz and Six Feet Under and I went to Brooklyn for an adventure with Donna and Jes...
More to come from the 4-5-6 line....
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