and geeks!

Are you a collector? A STAR WARS collector? Then you need the newest hasbro release Darth Tater.

And here's a question that maybe a person more well versed in Star Wars geekdom than I could answer:

If C-3PO lived with Uncle Owen's dad Lars on Tatooine, how come Uncle Owen didn't recognize him when he bought him from the Jawas in Episode 4? Were those types of protocol droids THAT common?

inquiring minds want to know. I'd like to have this clarified before that last turkey of an episode comes out so rather than struggle with continuity issues, I can sit back and enjoy Lucas's latest marketing pitch.

(booooooo, hissssssssss, boooooooo, you're no star wars fan. creep. don't take Lucas's name in vain.)

Listen up people. I'm one of those kids who had to wait in a line around the theater to see Star Wars in the 70s. I've religiously gone to see every stinking film plus numerous additional screenings and all that. I even went and saw the traveling exhibit that came to the Brooklyn Art Museum a couple of years ago. Let's face it. Lucas created a dynamite mythology and an intriguing story in the first two and he got too caught up in his own special effects and merchandising to develop the story any deeper than he had to, in order to sell his stuff. Yeah, I'll probably be there on opening weekend so I can get some closure. I'm even half heartedly looking forward to it. But don't tell me I'm not a Star Wars fan. I'll kick your ASS in Star Wars trivial pursuit. And I'll leave you with this. . .

"The fate of the galaxy would be very different had R5-D4's motivator been more reliable."

so I have taken a vow of silence regarding blogging about co-workers and I feel like my head is about to explode. gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhHhhhhhhhhhhHHHHHH!

so maybe I'll do something stoopid like type in all the emoticons that I could possibly type:

:-)
;-)
:-|
:-:-P
:-<
:->

that was dumb. but at least it made me concentrate on something else.

I arrived at work to find an email from Jason's parents in my inbox. It's hard to see anything that reminds me of him, especially a sad note from his parents. It sounds like his mom wrote it.

In it she expressed gratitude for the trees and wanted to know more about the organization, Friends of Trees. They want to participate in the planting ceremony.

I can't imagine the hole in their hearts. If mine is this big, surely theirs is unfathomable.

apparently the U2 show sold out in all three venues this morning in six minutes.

There's always e-bay.

grak. I have three browsers with ticketmaster loaded into each one for each of the shows they are playing in the area (2 @ Meadowlands and 1 @ Madison Square Garden) and I am being shut down on all three fronts.

This is when we need the jersey "guy who can get things." We've used him before. I'll ask Kristeena to call in her favors.

Dateline 1995: I was so stoked as I tabbed around on a Lynx browser looking for information on adoption for a friend of mine. Standing at a crappy computer terminal somewhere in Suzzallo Library at the U of W, it hit me. All this underlined information is linked together? What is this crazy place? Where am I? Shortly after that, I discovered Netscape and armed with a web address a professor had given me, I visited LANIC, the Latin American Network Information Center. I started looking at homepages of people in countries I might never travel to, like Cuba, El Salvador, Chile. I felt energized, like an explorer, discovering these people and these places, putting all my book knowledge and accumulated theories to the test. Where else could I go with this? Who else was out there? WHAT else was out there?

I turned to Gopher. I thought 'WOW! What if all the information from all the libraries in the world could be accessed from this crappy terminal? What if I could suck up knowledge from everything and everyone like a reverse sieve? What if it is all there for the asking?' And if it wasn't all there yet, I figured, it would be because this tool was so powerful, so dynamic, no one would be able to deny it's power.

And who? Who could I communicate with? Supposedly I could send the president an email? Or Bill Gates? I searched online through every university directory where I knew someone attending and spammed the hell out of them. "Hi! It's Kris! I just discovered email! Are you online?" Online communication was as natural to me as thinking. Expressing myself through written words rather than voice gave my voice the ability to ring out.

I started on a quest to figure out how this internet thing worked. Between learning what HTML was, reading white papers on TCP/IP, and studying web structure and design, I gradually came up with the idea to pitch a corporate web site to Starbucks, my current employer at the time. As a lowly barista, I had a slim chance of getting an audience with anyone in a decision making capacity, but I had a few contacts, simply because I was there pre-IPO. I thought, What a perfect tool for this company to communicate with it's customers, who at the time were the epitome of brand loyalists. And I thought, Starbucks has in-house graphic designers, in-house network architects and in-house programmers; surely they would easily be able to create a department, somewhere between marketing and engineering, to address this. I came up with a site map, containing a store locater, a page describing products, a page linking to the catalog department (e-commerce wasn't really flying at that point but it took off shortly thereafter), and pages talking about corporate culture.

They weren't ready for it at the time, I guess, or my presentation just didn't fall on the right ears. I brushed it off and moved ahead, learned how to make websites, learned how to make customer facing web applications, learned about database architecture, business models, systems analysis.

Here I am 10 years later, updating my personal homepage. Now it has the trendy name blog. But what it really has become is my personal communication blast. I've eviscerated myself and strewn my guts across the world wide web. I know I'm not the only one. Millions of people are out there, publishing and posting, trying to share their thoughts and ideas with millions of others. And it's still exciting. We're all still explorers, trying to connect. The ease of publishing puts us in immediate contact with anyone who can read us. The ease of sharing information has broken down barriers, making distance an abstract concept.

Oh, internet, even though you have sometimes treated me like a bad boyfriend, through the ups and downs in my career, I still keep coming back to you for your potential. Your possibilities and the inklings of what might be achieved if I stick with you are endless and looming and sexy. I still heart you, even after 10 years.

Franklin Furnace takes art into the Virtual Space. Of course they did this about 10 years ago. For some reason I was thinking about a class I took last spring called Fundamentals of Interactive Multimedia in which the instructor challenged us to think about how we as a society interact with the Internet, among other things. He pushed the way I thought about how the online world jousts with the temporal boundaries of the offline world. I have some thoughts on it in a previous post, however the site that was born of the class exists no more, as I got a little tired of paying for server space. I may resurrect it later once I translate my site into php.

So, Franklin Furnace used to actually have a physical space for Avant-Garde art in New York but after a series of many events, decided to take the show online. They no longer have a physical space to feature art. The Web IS their physical space. Chew on that. Here's their mission statement:

Franklin Furnace's mission is to present, preserve, interpret, proselytize and advocate on behalf of avant-garde art, especially forms that may be vulnerable due to institutional neglect, their ephemeral nature, or politically unpopular content. Franklin Furnace is dedicated to serving artists by providing both physical and virtual venues for the presentation of time-based visual art, including but not limited to artists' books and periodicals, installation art, performance art, "live art on the Internet"; and to undertake other activities related to these purposes. Franklin Furnace is committed to serving emerging artist and their ideas; and to assuming an aggressive pedagogical stance with regard to the value of avant-garde art to cultural life.

Franklin Furnace. Check it out.

The 14 defining characteristics of facism in a handy flash movie. See how the Bush Administration measures up.

So, I realized that I've been online for almost 10 years. It started when I went back to school at the University of Washington in 1995 to study Latin American Studies, which then evolved into lingustics, which then evolved into computational lingustics, which then evolved into just programming which then took me into the dotcom frenzy of the late 90s when I ditched school to make money. ugh. another story altogether.

anyways, my 15 minutes of fame was handed to me on the front page of the Seattle Times when I was labeled a Webaholic. I re-printed the article on the blog (hey, you don't even know how many copies of that article I purchased.) I pushed it way to the back of the archives, back when I had few posts so click on the link above if you want to laugh your ass off about the state of the internet in 1996.

There's an interseting website called http://www.designtimeline.org. It's asking people to contribute their memories of the internet "What was the first browser you used? What was the first website you went to? (http://lanic.utexas.edu/ for me) When did you design your first webpage?"

When I was at the Blog Business Summit I reflected back to the days when debate raged over whether to make pages with minimal graphics that could be delivered quickly given the current state of internet backbone OR drive up the demand for more bandwidth by making graphically intense websites. The beginning of the content vs design debate.

Okay, gotta go read The Cluetrain Manifesto as I am trying to catch up with those that have a clue. Hopefully I will be able to speak to it a little in my NYU senior thesis project. Maybe I will be presenting at some conference in the future.

I told Kristeena last night that if I ever go to Las Vegas, I don't want to go to the Las Vegas of 2005. I want to go to the Vegas of the 60s. The Rat Pack Vegas. The uber cool Vegas. The Vegas-y Vegas.

Back in the early 90s there was a little bit of cocktail culture flare up; in fact, when I first started surfing the web, I was addicted to this site called Bachelor No. 1 or something like it. It was a weblog, only the name weblog or blog didn't exist back then. It was just called a website. They had no fancy publishing tools, just hardcoded HTML, good graphics, and HI-larious content.

Back to cocktail culture and time travel. Has anyone seen my Esquivel CD? What about my Combustible Edison or Martin Denny cd's? I'd like to time travel back to 1994 and see who nabbed them from my stacks. That regurgitated trend lasted as long as the resurgance of Big Band music and swing dancing in the late 90s. I had a love/hate relationship with that whole thing. I played the saxophone in the high school jazz band and to this day, have an unholy love of Count Basie and Duke Ellington. The music that came out of that 90's blip on the musical timeline wasn't too bad. I did get a wee bit tired of all the swing kids running around in their vintage clothes, bopping and hopping as if it were 1943 all over again.

Today, I am suspicious of regurgitated pop culture. If I was extended a free ticket, along with all the poker chips I could carry, to time travel back to the Shirley Maclaine Las Vegas of the sixties, I'd probably pass. Too good to be true.

Why am I thinking about this? I was reading a fellow blogger's account of a trip to Vegas. Look for the entries around January 10th.

P.S. I still have an affinty for The Disneyland Tiki room and general all-purpose tiki rooms. Oh yes, that and boomerang formica.

I have surgically removed most of the content that deals with work from the bloggedy. I really didn't want to do it but I also didn't want to confuse fearlessness with stupidity.

my head hurts but that's OKAY because I am once again working from HOME!!!! WITH HEAT!!! YAY!

Other than that, I really don't have the ability to generate the usual bloggerrhea.

So here are some better links to look at.

Go Fug Yourself

Dooce

I don't like it. I can't read it. And if I can't read it, and I'm the one who wrote it, then something really sucks.

Bear with me (or bare with me) while I work through the blog design glut this week. Thanks in advance.

bah. . .I'm looking through blogs and websites from folks who were at BBS and I realize when I went underground in 2001, I completely fell out of the loop.

In the internet time continuum, I fell into a gi-mongous technological black hole. I have so much catching up to do.

At least it's not the same black hole I fell into from 1984 (programming my own adventure games and graphics on a TRS-80) to 1994 (Krixfort touches no computer until discovery of the web during a stint at University of Washington.)

That was a long gap in technology. I didn't want to pursue a CS degree in 84 (I'm an ass, I've said it many times) because I didn't want to take Fortran and discrete mathematics.

The web was built for Renaissance Kids.

When I grow up I want to be a Cognitive Scientist. That or a wine maker.

I heard a muzak version of Natalie Imbruglia's song Torn @ Newark Penn Station this morning.

I have 2 questions:

a.) Does Natalie Imbruglia do anything else these days besides ads for Loreal hair color?

2.) What is the time frame for songs to exist before they are co-opted by muzak?

Maybe there is an expiration date on pop music and once its shelf life is up, Muzak can come in and turn a song into easy listening.

A woman I went to high school with worked at Muzak. I should see if she still does and see what the scoop is.

I am going to jot down some random notes about what I thought was either good or pertinent at BBS. Granted, I had to cut out at lunch on day 2 so I could go spend some quality time with grandma and mom. It was so nice while I was there in Seattle. I really wasn't excited to leave. That's a far cry from last August. oh but wait, this is info that belongs in it's own post.

Note to self--posts to write:
-impressions of home revisted

-death defying trip to JFK on Sunday (or how I made the impossible trip.)

-links to fellow conference people's sites

-thoughts about the future of blogs in the corporate world

-thoughts about the impacts of blogs on marketing practices

-blog culture and the cultural phenomena that is blogging-- a global dialogue

-treastise on the evolution of the personal homepage, blogs, and the public thirst for mundane details about real people (or how reality TV and the internet compliment each other.)

ugh god. . .I can hardly hold my head up. All of this will have to wait.

I'm back from the Blog Business Summit armed with some new rules on blog etiquette that the kids were discussing at Blog-con. Most of it is common sense stuff that I know, and stuff that I've been burned on (definitely cheesed off my sister during one post.) I've been pretty fool hardy about what I post and am now having panic attacks that somehow my blog will be discovered any minute by someone in my company and I will immediately be fired.

I don't want to be fired. So, in the spirit of temporary self preservation, I've "deleted" some of the more incediary posts. I am also re-thinking what I want to get out of Krixfort. Hmmmm. I like my personal blog. But it can be full of vitirol.

there is an article in SF Gate about bloggers getting fired for blogging. It has me a little intimidated.

I'm just too tired to be defiant today so I am taking these temp measures. Blog may be a little more boring for awhile while I get it back in gear.

It's a little late to comment on this. In fact, what is there to say? That people have too little to do with too much time on their hands?

Reeeeediculous.

FYI--back in New York after a red-eye flight that was just too darn quick. Need more sleep.

10:10 am Seattle

Being at the conference makes me feel like I know what I'm doing. I mean really. When I look around the room at who's here, I know I am in my element.

I can present myself as many different things:

1.) a student studying Information Systems Management, interested in how to use this new onslought of technology to strengthen workplace communications.

2.) A web developer who works on daily data feeds and is curious about new technologies for content syndication and content management.

3.) a personal blogger, looking for a way to publish what's on my mind about life in general, my life, and life in New York.

My CV holds up as well:

Project Manager for a WAN company.6/98 - 9/99 -I was here for U.S. West's rollout of DSL in Seattle. Let me tell you about a DSLAM and what it does. Or how about how a digital and analog signal can share the same copper wire. Oh yeah, then I graduated to web programmer and DBA.

A brief and shining moment with Microsoft Software Developer's Network Web team.10/99 - 12/99 -The geek's website, metioned more than once at this conference. I didn't do much. Mainly absorbed the corporate culture of Microsoft and chased down bugs.

Web Engineer at xxx.com (an SF startup). 12/99 - 9/2000 -A San Francisco start up that helped me cut my teeth on APIs.

Senior Developer at xxx.com (an SF based tech and financial news mag). 10/2000 - 4/01 -Worked on more content feeds which is where I was first introduced to the world of online content publishing.

Content Producer at NBC TVSD division. 9/01-5/02 -Learned about the importance of monetization.

10/02- to present. . . now I work for a company-who-shall-remain-nameless.

Where am I going with all of this digression? Why do I feel the need to post my resume?

Well, for the last two years, I felt like I had nothing to contribute to the internet anymore. As I sit in this conference, and reflect on my internet experience (dates all the way back to 1995 -- Check Seattle Times for my internet addiction article from March 1st, 1996) I realize that I am a peer geek with everyone in this room. I sold myself out when I took this jay oh bee. As I sit here, I am reasessing my value and reasessing what I am capable of contributing to a company.

Back in 1999, I would spend hours in the tech book section of Barnes & Noble or Borders reading about protocols and standards. I would bore the shit out of people talking about how ISDN works. Kristeena and I would sit at Starbucks and brainstorm a GUI network mapping tool. Back then I was excited about technology. I was excitied to learn and to contribute and be a part of the internet conversation.

I made a few wrong turns technologically and a few wrong turns careerwise which led to a serious few years of WEB HATING and BURNOUT. But today, sitting here, I'm starting to feel excited again and willing to be a participant in the Web 2.0 conversation. I know how to engage in it. It's a good thing that I came.

Sidenote: I was touched by a drunk angel, ie. homeless guy. He was sitting on the sidewalk on Bell street down by Western Ave where all the day laborers hang out. I didn't have a problem walking through the throng of semi-transient guys until the one, leaned over and tried to grab me around the ankle. Before he had time to blink, I yelled in my loudest New York voice, "HEY! GET YOUR EFFING HAND OFF ME." I barely knew what happened. I think I took him by surprise. It kind of sucks that I feel less threatened in New York than I do here. My New York-ability said that I wouldn't have any issues if I walked up that street but I guess the homeless dudes are a bit more agressive. Maybe they haven't been cracked on the head by a horse cop enough times.

Got to get back to the show.

Bye.

oy. I've been all morning at the blogapalooza festival getting my head filled with all sorts of geeky stuff. Since I can't blog real time I've been taking notes so here comes the download.

---

8:50 am :: Seattle ::

I am the only jackass @ the BBS w/out a laptop. If I had a laptop I could pretend I was a cool internet rock star, writing an article for the Industry Standard or Business 2.0. Chances are, if I'd have stayed in Redmond, I would see familiar faces here but I don't. Wasn't much of a networker this morning, probably due to lack of sleep. If someone asks me why I don't have a laptop I will tell them I'm blogging the old fashioned way. Pen and paper baby. Pen and paper. (Soooooo 20th century.)

I'm just here to absorb (haha I just noticed the downtempo ambient house music playing softly in the background.) This is pretty funny. I'm sitting in a Wi-fi hotspot, in a conference room filled with Aeron chairs, having flashbacks to the Great Gatsby-esque days before April 2001. The people in this room have evidently survived the Internet Industry's Grapes of Wrath/dustbowl and are coming out armed with the technology that will drive the next wave of content publishing and business productivity.

Sidenote: Just found out there is a student rate for the Interactive and Film portion of SXSW in march. Happens during my spring break. I think I might have to go.

Brooklyn--

so far I haven't seen much of the road. . .just the refresh button. Flight tracker is very addictive. Little airplane icons hovering over a bland little map, moving along as I click refresh over and over.

Hesitant to leave the house. My flight is supposed to leave at 8:20pm which leads me to believe that we will be waiting for a plane to arrive and refuel. Other flights are going to Seattle so I know that the planes full of fuel can get off the ground. All the planes going to tokyo are diverting to Anchorage or Seattle so I know that they can't have TOO MUCH fuel. All the same, I can get where I need to go apparently.

I'm not sure why it's so important that I get on this plane. I'm really edgy about it for some reason. Maybe it's because I wanted to go back for a visit and when this thing came up I saw it as a good excuse. The homesickness has been creeping in a little. Am I done with New York? I don't think so. Not sure. I know for a fact that I will need to finish school before I can allow myself to leave and I would like to live for a year or two in Manhattan before I scoot on to other cities.

Possible places to live after New York.

1.) cave in Montana with DSL
2.) deserted tropical island with DSL
3.) jolly old London town
4.) the brutish scotland highlands
5.) amongst the pubs of Dublin (I'd actually say Belfast but I'd likely end up in a fight with someone over religion and that would be that.)
6.) Some rasta-man vibration commune in Jamaica where I'd re-learn to enjoy weed and run around topless in a sarong with bad braids.
7.) the desert southwest (las cruces??)
8.) South America (all of it)
9.) Isla Mujeres
10.) Glenwood Springs, CO.

I am killing time. One more flight check then I will put my shoes on, bundle up, and split. KB and Joe have been very hospitable, letting a displaced traveler use up all their bandwidth but it's time to move on.

Blogs away.

Yeah suckas. I'm a nerd.

Brooklyn--

Well, after hours of obsessing about whether or not this flight will take off, I've decided it's about time to get ready to go back to good old JFK. It's still pretty windy but according to weather.com the wind should be dying down by 8pm. My flight is already delayed 20 minutes but at least they're showing some activity surrounding it, unlike yesterday when I was in an information dead zone.

And how's this for obsessing. I am now signed up to receive status emails from the FAA reagrding the status of all flights at JFK. The latest email I recieved said "Departure Delays: At [ JFK ] due to [ DISABLED A/C ON TAXIWAY ] between 16
minutes and 30 minutes and decreasing." That's good news my friends. I've also been checking Flight Tracker to watch flight traffic in and out of JFK. There is traffic so that looks good too. And last but not least, I've been monitoring the Port Authority website to watch for delays and cancellations. So far nothing has been cancelled since this morning and there are very few flights that say delayed.

It looks like the planes are moving. It's in the airline's best interest to move as many flights as they safely can so since I'm already confirmed for this damn flight tonight, I'd better get my ass in gear.

Oh rainy, 50 degree Seattle. . .I sure miss you right now.

Bloggy Business Summit. . .here I come dammit! You'd better be worth it.

Brooklyn--

I'm at Joe and KB's house and the snow is up to my knee-balls. We'll fire up the digi-cam later and post some pics but for now you'll have to take my word for it. If it's still snowing it's not snowing as hard as it was. But now the wind has commenced and it is brutal.

Last night it took about two hours to get from JFK to Park Slope. The F-train was creepy with a capital C when it came up from the Carroll street stop. After that stop, the train goes above ground. The track curves a bit, and tilts, like a racetrack, which you never notice because the train is moving so fast. But last night, the train was trying to get up over the ridge and around that curve, bumping over the ice that had formed on the tracks, moving at a snail's pace. The wind was blowing and it felt like the damn train was going to bump and blow off the elevated track. Not to mention the tilt of the tracks, making it feel like we would tumble off. Uncool.

*sigh* I'm not sure if I'm going to try it again today or not. It looks grim. I AM a stubborn jackass so I will probably try it.

Once again, wish me luck.

So I didn't make it out. Like an ass. I came here (JFK) early even though I really, really knew better. But. What are you going to do?

I'll tell you what you're going to do.

Have a couple of $7.00 Budweisers, get a massage and a manicure, and take notes for your stupid blog. It's all good.

I'm confirmed on tomorrow's 8pm flight and I can go home anytime but my bags are somewhere in the Jet Blue netherworld. The Jet Blue staff has been great through this ordeal, considering the amount of people they've had to deal with. The only rough spot I had was when I cornered the baggage "specialists" and asked them where my bag could possibly be. They asked me what flight I was on and when I told them they looked at me like I was a complete moron.

"What TIME did you check in??" the woman asked me, her face looking like she was holding back a case of explosive diarrhea.

"Forget it. Just tell me when I can expect my bag to be out here."

"We'll make an announcement."

"Can I get back through security to the terminal where I can wait?"

"Mmmmmmmmm. No."

So, here I am, waiting in the departures terminal, waiting for an announcement that my bag is intact, waiting to go to Brooklyn and weather the weather.

I haven't left NYC yet. Just got out of class and I'm standing at this computer terminal trying to find alternate flights in the event that the BLIZZARD OF 2005 hits before I get off the ground.

I really shouldn't panic because inevitably, when newscasters give an exact time that some weather event is supposed to occur, it's usually off. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the snow flys after I take off.

Gotta run to JFK.

Bye.

PS Why do I not have a laptop. Note to self: rectify that situation before quitting job.

Cheers!

Mark may get a Bulldog. He said he would name it Horst which is pretty much the funniest fucking thing ever since that's his own last name.

so sometimes working from home is not that much of a blessing. The oil ran out and we're waiting for the fricken truck to get here and bring the oil to fill the boiler that makes the HEAT!

It's fricken freezing in here Mr. Bigglesworth. I'm going to crawl into my bed any minute.

Man I was going to blast my landlord but I couldn't because he cut me off at the pass.

Me: HEY SAM! It appears. . .
SAM: I know I know. The oil guy is on his way. blah blah blah.

ME: *sound of deflating baloon* Okay. Just wanted to let you know that it's the whole building.
SAM: I know I know. Mikey from downstairs called this morning. By the way, the downstairs apartment is available if you know anyone.
ME: Maybe I'll take it.
SAM: REALLY??? We'll drop the rent for you and Kristeena if you want to do that.

So we could both potentially have our own 3 bedroom apartments for less than 2400 combined. He would probably drop it down to 1100 a piece. Downstairs might be 1200 because heat and hot water are included.

That would be fat. OOOps, I mean, phat.

my radiators are ice cold today OF ALL FUCKING DAYS. It's too cold to type practically. I'm going to take a hot bath to warm up and then call the landlord and see what's up.

I am working from home again today which means that I won't go to the office until sometime next Wednesday when I get back from the bloggedy conference.

I hope that the blizzard holds off until after my plane leaves. I'm watching that bastard advance across the midwest and I'm not too hopeful.

somehow it just reminds me of the movie Training Day only different.


Bush and Rumsfeld, riding through D.C. Rummy starts in with Bush.

RUMMY
Today's a training day. Gonna
show you around, give you a feel
for the business. I have thirty-
eight war crimes pending trial. I have
sixty-three active investigations.
There's another three hundred and
fifty cases on the log I can't
clear. I've supervised five
administrations. That's five different
personalities, five different sets
of problems. You, Bush,
if you got the guts to succeed,
will be number six. I don't have
time to baby-sit or hold hands.
You have one day to show me who
you are and what you can or cannot
handle. You can't hack it,
feel free to work a pussy govenor's job
or go back to running baseball teams
or cheerleading. Hear me, Mr. President?

BUSH
I hear you.

RUMMY
Good. Gonna show you reality.
Think you can handle it?

BUSH
I I I think so. I was okay last time right?

to be continued. . .

well I got the individual post thing working by changing templates. What piece of XML did I leave out when I was trying to amend my old template? (which I loved, by the way. for its simplicity, I might add.)

gar. now I will be playing with this new thing, trying to modify it and all that. Phuck.

hey blogworld!

I was going to add the code to my template that would allow me to edit individual posts if I am already looged in to Blogger. Can't seem to find it anywhere. Anyone know what's up with that? I have it enabled settings-wise, just looking for the old tags.

Help!

Public Voicing Doubts on Iraq and the Economy, Poll Finds
By ADAM NAGOURNEY and JANET ELDER
A new poll offered a conflicting portrait of the nation's view of President Bush that was evident during last year's election campaign.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/politics/20poll.html?th

Polls. feh. good god y'all. what are they good for?

Absolutely nothing.

eeeeeek. a mouse!

the kitty snagged himself a little teeny grey mouse which grossed the shit out of me. I yelled and Kristeena grabbed a broom and I grabbed the cat and the mouse laid there and twitched and then Kristeena smashed the broom down into the mouse with a bang. I ran into the front room with the kitty and made the *gleck* noise and then Kristeena cried "Oh my god he's not dead!"

Me: Yes he is and if he's not he will be soon.
K: oooooooo nooooooooo!
Me: GOD! JUST THROW IT OUT THE WINDOW WOULD YOU????
K: I need to kill him and put him out of his misery. Oh GOD!
Me: Throw him out the window and that will kill him I gurantee it! THROW HIM!!!!!
K: I can't throw it.
Me: Think about all the diseases they carry.
K: They don't all carry diseases!
Me: That one does. THROW IT!!!!!

I finally convinced her to throw the mouse out the third story window, explaining that if God wanted the mouse to live, the supreme being shouldn't have pointed the way to our apartment. If the mouse was really supposed to live he would survive the fall, as well as his initial contact with Kitty and then with Kristeena.

"love to eat them mousies, mousies what I love to eat, bite they little heads off, nibble on they tiny feet. . ."

okay.

I've got on one pair of Victoria's secret underwear
one bali bra
one pair of Mary Green silk long john pants
one pair of patagonia long john pants
one pair of eddie bauer super deluxe insulated socks
on pair of skechers waffle stompers

it's both funny and pathetic that I know and would even list the brand names of each of these items. But hey, I grew up in the 70s and nobody comes between me and my Calvin Kleins. And I'm not through with the list yet either.

one pair of Levis
one AnnTaylor short sleeved T-shirt
one long sleeved sweater from Urban outfitters
one old navy performance fleece jacket.

And that's my indoor gear. To go outside you need to add two hats, a pair of gloves, a wool/fleece scarf, and a down coat.

ssssssssssssssexy.

prescient:
adj : perceiving the significance of events before they occur; "extroardinarily prescient memoranda on the probable course of postwar relations"-R.H.Rovere

obfuscate
v : make obscure or unclear

ignominy
n : a state of dishonor; "one mistake brought shame to all his family"; "suffered the ignominy of being sent to prison" [syn: shame, disgrace]

Skull Monkeys is here!!!! I may just have to go get myself a PS2. I saw an ad for Grand Theft Auto San Andreas and suddenly I wanted to be a gangsta. Must have been all the Big Pimmpin' yesterday.

holla.

I need this:


and this:

"Copy the list from the last person in the chain, delete the names of the authors you don't have on your home library shelves and replace them with names of authors you do have. Bold the replacements."


1. J.D. Salinger
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. Kurt Vonnegut
4. Raymond Carver
5. Leslie Marmon Silko
6. Dorothy Parker
7. Ernest Hemingway
8. Vladimir Nabokov
9. Chaucer
10. Paul Bowles

From the annals of MSNBC, the worlds most serious news source. . .
‘You’re fired!’ on hit list in word ban campaign
22 expressions make up compilation of language irritants

Among the 22 expressions on the “List of Words Banished from the Queen’s English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness” are “blog,” “sale event,” “body wash” and “zero percent APR financing.”

well I feel like one today but more than that. My roommate loves sci-fi and fantasy books and movies. Lets just say she's in love with the whole genre. So we watched Resident Evil 2 on Sunday night. It was better than I expected, considering I fell asleep during the first one and forgot the whole story. I did however, wish that I was playing the game, rather than watching the movie, which I guess is the point when you are trying to cross over like from a video game. Tomb Raider (boob raider) did a better job with keeping me more interested in its "movie plot."

oh yes. I digress, per usual.

so the thing that sticks with me about RE 2 is this one scene where one of the guys who doesn't get killed (lame spoiler) sees these chicks on the street with noshirts and g-strings on. Should I mention they had A-list boob jobs? Anywho, the topless chicks were on the street, standing with their hips jutted out just so, munching on a human arm. Oh yes my friends. They were HOOKER ZOMBIES or as I yelled out when I was watching the show, "Titty Zombies!!!"

Do we really need that in a zombie movie. I mean, they already had a ripped Mila Jovovitch (Linda Hamilton T2 style ripped) kicking zombie ASS like nobody's business. The hooker zombies should have hit the cutting room floor in my opinion. Yet, it's what I mostly remember about the film so I may be wrong.

It has happened before.

content edited

I'm bummed because some of the posts are among my favorites but in the interest of self preservation, I am going to need to censor myself, at least temporarily. God. . .all the way back to the beginning. Sucks.

I'm going to the Blog Business Summit. Who would've thought. Maybe this is something I can do my NYU Senior project on as well.

Avenues. Avenues. Opening new entreprenuerial avenues. This is going to be good. I think this will be a turning point.

Note to self: look up word prescient (sp?)

I have many ideas on how to leverage and parlay this architecture into business apps and business opps. I've worked on many a database driven website, from tech, to content, to e-com. I've also spent a majority of my time working on and troubleshooting data feeds. I really think something is going to gel with this.

on the walk to the PATH today, I was thinking about Sonya and Billy. Sonya was a friend of my mom's who was kind enough to let me stay on her couch when I needed to leave Seattle. Sonya was a severe alcoholic. Billy was her boyfriend. Billy was a crack addict. After I moved out, they moved in together, had a kid, smoked crack through at least the first trimester of the pregnacy and drank throughout.

From my layman's diagnosis, I believe the baby had a good case of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. It became apparent at about three years that she had some development issues, physically, mentally and emotionally. She was a good baby.

Billy once went to jail for driving drunk and smashing into a cop car. He woke up, handcuffed to the hospital bed. When he saw his injuries, he called the public defender and tried to convince him that the cop had beat him up. This event took place shortly after the Rodney King verdict so I'm sure the topic was hot on Billy's mind.

Sonya had managed to purchase a house and maintain a steady job, in spite of her addictions and Billy. Eventually the addictions did get the better of her, causing her to lose her job, her house, Billy, and ultimately her child.

The last I heard is that Sonya hooked up with a rehab program through the Salvation Army. She sounded like she was on shaky ground but doing better. For as messed up as she was, she was a very kind person. She would give you the shirt off her back. I believe that she drank to fill a horrible never ending void. That she never felt loved or worthy of being loved. It had something to do with her father but I can't remember what that was.

I hope that things have turned around for her. I hope that she and her daughter are together and that she has managed not to be consumed by the fire of addiction. I do think about her often; sometimes with fondness. Sometimes with disgust. And sometimes as a warning to myself that I must never, ever, let any of these things in my life get the best of me.

So I was worried about mentioning someone's full name in a recent blog post because of libel or slander or things of that nature. So I googled the guy and I saw him plastered all over the web. In his CV, I found that he not only did his job at Upside, but he managed to perform my job and KB's jobs too. And, since he is still allied with his partner in crime, he's got all the backup in the world. ARRRRGH! There is no justice.

He also said he received a BS in Journalism from the University of Oregon. If I remember correctly, a reliable source from Upside actually called to verify that info and in fact, it was false.

He and his bitch boy have moved on to porn and have done quite well for themselves.

So the moral of this story is that it is better to NOT have ethics in order to do well for yourself.

I will never get ahead.

. . .and to take this whole monkey/former-co-worker-who-shall-not-be-named(FCWWSNBN) thing full circle, FCWWSNBN told us at former-online-mag that he could get a room full of monkeys to type in News Feed Data for former-online-mag's-failed-internet-radio. He said that, or a room full of "little Chinese women." That golden nugget of shit came out of the guy's mouth in a meeting. What a jackass.

I just told my friend evertime I listen to Miserlou by Dick Dale I think of Colorado which I thought was funny, considering it's surf music.

If you ever want to hear a good surf music compilation there is one called Rock Instrumental Classics Vol. 5 -- Surf by Rhino Records. It's all that sweet seething evil guitar bending surf music; not that happy pappy crap like Jan and Dean.

Evil surf good.
vanilla surf bad.

Magic Surf Bus

All these surfing links and I don't even surf. Mainly because I'm a-scared of these.
And I'm uncontrollably terrified of this happening:
Shark attack kills diver off Mendocino coast

It was a shark, and it came out of nowhere, it came fast, and it killed his partner.

"I heard a noise, like 'whoosh,' like a submarine, like a boat going by fast. It was a shark,'' Zimmerman said. "I knew it was a shark. It almost brushed me. I saw its dorsal fin. I don't know what kind it was; all I know is, it was big. Big. It was big enough to kill.''

The shark struck Fry, and suddenly, Zimmerman said, the water was filled with blood. "It was massive,'' Zimmerman said. "I was yelling and yelling, but I knew from the amount of blood that it was fatal.

"He came in for the kill.''

It was over in an instant; no one saw the shark again, and no one saw Fry again. All this happened on Sunday afternoon, in water 15 feet to 20 feet deep, just 150 feet from the shore of a cove used by lumber schooners years ago, a place noted for abalone beds.

The grossest thing about the story which is not mentioned in the article is that the guy dove head first, the shark came from below, the two collided, the shark took the guy's effing head clean off.

fuhhhhhhhh.

someone on the rant and rave section of the NYC craigslist posed the question, what would you do with your own monkey. Not believing monkey to be a euphemism for anything other than a monkey, I posted my response. (Mark dared me to.)

http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/rnr/55530519.html

I was about a day late in responding to this thread so I don't believe there are any responses to my response. And since the post expires in 10 days, like bad milk, I'll recreate it for you lovlies below:

---

Date: 2005-01-13, 3:00PM EST


Hey. Monkeys can take pictures. Here's documentation on the subject.

Anyway, I'd get a monkey to do my job. The monkey wouldn't have any problem learning how to do it. I could probably just get a retarded monkey to fill in for me. Then I would hang out all day, riding the subways and making up little stories about people. Every now and then I'd two-way the monkey on its Nextel.

Beep beep "Hey monkey. It's me. Are you looking busy?"
beep beep "ooo."
beep beep "Well don't look too busy. You have to learn how to manage expectations more efficiently."
beep beep "ahh. ooo ooo."

Then after a hard days work, monkey and I would go for a beer. I'd get a Brooklyn Lager and monkey would order a PBR and then we would argue about the merits of craft beers, monkey preferring the mass produced canned variety.

I'd teach monkey to smoke and feed monkey doritoes. Monkey would sue me for abusing his health.

>>I'd train my monkey to do reconaissance work that I could then cash in on. Climb up your building and take photos of you cheating on your wife. Yeah, and also have him scoot around on the subway taking panty shots. When people get offended or upset I'd just lie, That's not a real camera, besides what kind of idiot thinks a monkey can take a picture. Humor him, he's a fucking primate. Sheesh.

this is in or around monkeyville
it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

that is the noise that is made when your throat clicks shut or when you throw up in your mouth a little. It is the noise I just made when I checked my hotmail account and saw an email from a-dude-who-used-to-think-he-was-my-boss (adwutthwmb). gleck.

shudder.

KB and I used to work with this guy at a San Francisco based online magazine, in San Francisco. He was such a jackass. Why am I still on his personal mailing list? UNSUBSCRIBE. PLEASE!!

God, that fruitcake used to run around with a leather trench coat and wrap around sunglasses with his thinning hair and his condescending tone. He used to try and get us to go see his asinine band War In America. His sig line in his work email was "Warren America." Ha. ha. Very clever jackass. He fired Lynn and then had a meeting with us in which he said, "sorry to break up your little clique, but she wasn't a good designer." To which I replied, "Then why did she win a Forbes Magazine Best of the Web award for her redesign last month." Jerkstick.

Jackass. Him and his jackass friend the real boss who shall remain nameless (trbwsrn). trbwsrn, who ran our department into the ground financially by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on radio station equipment for an INTERNET RADIO STATION. WTF?? Yeah, here's a great business plan: Rent an office in Times Square, buy the same kind of equipment you would use to outfit a terrestrial radio station (because in 2001, the state of broadband broadcasting was so superior), and burn through all the cash needed to run it in two months. While you're at it, try to get reimbursed for the family trip to the spa in Big Sur and for every single flight you and your family take regardless of whether it's business related (I'm sure your toddler was an essential part of your business trip.)

Ugh. They had no ethics, and they fucked a lot of people over in the process. Plus they were really, really obnoxious in that, "Oh-I-mistook-myself-for-someone-important" kind of way. Internet rock stars. Where are they now?

You know what? I don't want to know. I don't want to know because assholes like that always land on their asshole feet. And they probably snowed some other company into taking them on as some kind of internet music consultant package. They used to work for another company called xxx xxx, which they ran into the ground. Then they came and poluted my company.

Oh well, I guess if they hadn't, KB and I would still be boozing it up at the 711 or the 500 Club or something.

So, uh, thanks, jackasses.

Maybe this is crazy but I am looking over this Blog Business Summit in Seattle and I'm seriously thinking about attending. I am currently working on a side project for a film critic friend and have had several inquiries from friends who run businesses as to whether I can build them a site or not. The biggest issue is giving these guys an easy publishing interface for an area of their site that they would like to be able to update frequently. Rather than teach the world HTML (how tedious and time-consuming) I have been experimenting by incorporating the blogger interface to provide publishing capabilities. I don't have to completely understand the engineering behind it (although I have a fairly firm grasp.) All I need to take it to the next level is how to leverage it. I don't have to build a custom content management system if I don't want to. I mean, really, why re-invent the wheel.

It would be interesting to see what this Blog Business Summit is going to be about.

* side note: since I just paid my effing NYU tuition today, I have decided that it would not be prudent for me to pay for an airline ticket from JFK to SEA AND the registration fee for the blogging conference, even if it is half price for bloggers. wah! :-(

from NYTImes online:

Once a Village, Now Nothing: Even the Bodies Are Gone
By IAN FISHER
Villages along the western coast of Aceh Province in
Indonesia, where help was slow to arrive, appear to have
suffered some of the worst losses in the tsunami.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/14/international/worldspecial4/14quake.html?pagewanted=2&th&oref=login

The destruction was so complete that it is hard to find anyone who lived in Calang in the throng of refugees crowded here by the beach, smoky from campfires as they combed through piles of donated clothing and waited for food rations.

One man from a nearby village told a story similar to others along this coast: of a quake of tremendous strength, of a sea that receded and suddenly rushed back in fury. Near Calang, he said, he watched three waves from the top of a hill where he escaped with his family.

"When the waves came, the coconut trees just smashed like a potato chip crushed in your hand," he said.

The first wave, he said, came "fast and hard," destroying the trees and houses. The second was smaller.

"The third one was the biggest, and it just swept everything away," he said.

In Calang, once a jumping-off point for tourists to see orangutans, bears and tigers, geography may have been one reason for the destruction. The town rested on a peninsula, and people here said the waves had crashed from both sides, pushing some people inland but most of them simply out to sea.

so far today, I e-filed my taxes, both state and federal. Thank god for the tuition deduction. I paid my tuition. Well 75% of it. I'm still good to get started. And all my bills are paid for the month.

Whew!

When's Miller time?

it's going to get into the 50s today weather wise. The day started off with a fog, the likes of which I have not seen since my Seattle days. Ugh, all this Seattle-y winter weather is making me nostalgic for the featureless white skies of my youth.

Let's see. What's new today. Well, in the land of "Over Doing It", I have decided to sign up for three, yes three, recreation classes. Tuesdays & Thursdays will be Weight Training, Sundays will be packed with Knockout Workout and H20 Aerobics.

I love to set myself up for failure. Actually though, I feel pretty positive. Must be the lack of bar hopping. Less inertia.

Must get back to the drugery now.

Happy Birthday M!

This artist's blog is simply exquisite. His article on the Makah Indians of Neah Bay made me so incredibly homesick (I'm not Makah though. I'm Tlingit.)

When we in the sixth grade, Michelle and I went on a tidepooling field trip to Neah Bay. We were in a program for smart kids. Every morning we would come to school an hour early and study marine biology. The class has affected both of us to this day. We still remember a lot of the latin genus and species names for indigenous sea life in the Pacific Northwest. Pisaster ochraceus. Psolus Chitonoides. Katherina Tunicata. Anthopleura xanthogrammica. I cannot tell you how many times I have been in the Seattle Aquarium and how fond I am of Aquariums in general. If I were ruler of the universe I would take up residence in an Aquarium. I know that Michelle walks along the beach during low tide and looks for our long lost friends.

Check out Cryptochiton stelleri

Welcome to my world

okay when I graduate. . . I know what I want to do for about five years.

This is really important.

I want to do what this person has done. Take large format photographs and write about stuff. Only I want to circumnavigate the globe.
http://www.notesfromtheroad.com

I'm going to get these bad boys in two weeks.

U.S. Trade Deficit Hit Highest Figure Ever in November

The nation's trade deficit jumped sharply in November, rising to $60.3 billion, the highest figure ever and an increase of 7 percent over October's $56 billion gap, the Commerce Department reported today.

The dollar fell sharply after news of the trade figures, dropping 0.9 percent against the euro, to 1.3226, and 0.9 percent against the yen, to 102.43. The trade deficit is on a pace to exceed $600 billion for 2004, up from $496.5 billion the year before.

God Does Not Cause Tsunamis

There is no available perspective, little by way of opinion or viewpoint except of course for reports covering the turbulent ecology or the amazing survival stories or the massive relief efforts and the U.S.'s initial embarrassing wimpiness therein, coupled with a few mentions of President Bush's own weird and paltry $10K personal contribution. (Note to Dubya: When the spoon-fed multimillionaire WASP president of the United States won't even match the donations of the star of "Miss Congeniality 2," better to not donate anything at all, OK, George? Now go back to your nap.)

Of course it makes sense. Of course there's so little commentary because, well, what can you say? There is no one to blame. There is nowhere to protest. There is no activist group to join or pundit to throw sticks at or candidate to get behind, no issue to rally around and no action you can take besides sending your check and suddenly becoming concerned about the state of tsunami early-warning systems in places you've never even visited and probably never will.

It is, perhaps, the most helpless and disorienting feeling in the world.

And unless you're House Majority Leader Rep. Tom DeLay, a charred and black little nub of a human who actually stood up at the White House prayer breakfast last week and read a passage from the Bible that would seem to blame the tsunami's victims for their own unspeakable fate (to listen to DeLay's reading, click here), given how the majority of them were Muslim and therefore they of course believed in the wrong God and therefore got what they deserved ha ha snicker.

from the Washington Post:

Search for Banned Arms In Iraq Ended Last Month
Critical September Report to Be Final Word

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2129-2005Jan11.html

Four months after Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials, a senior intelligence official said the findings will stand as the ISG's final conclusions and will be published this spring.

impeachment hearings anyone? Anyone? hello? hello? hello? echo? echo? echo?

have you heard? the word is love.

Want some love? One Love? G love? Ants in the pants love. Go dance your antsy pants off at Turntables on the Hudson. The coolest thing in New York. . .if you like that dancin' sort of thing. Nappy G kicks percusive ass.

Friday, January 21st *Frying Pan*
TOTH returns to the Frying Pan on a monthly basis.
Nickodemus with special guest DJ Will Holland (QUANTIC)
+ a live set from ZEB + Nappy G on percussion.
Eddy Plenty turns up the heat in the Lounge.

11PM - 4AM / 21 & over
@ the Frying Pan- Pier 63 @ 23rd Street & the Hudson River
(fully heated & ready to rock)

:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
www.turntablesonthehudson.com

today's webmaster spam subject lines

blackness was quite simply
What means that?
Wendell there's no place like home
Re: The audience stirred. Fagott

poetic randomness.

Here are some random images I have accumulated.

the first is satelite image of the blackout of 2003

This is of a hurricane approach. I don't know which hurricane.

the Tylenol PM has been making me have crrrrrAAAAZY dreams.

I dreamt I made up a song about my friend's daughter and then went and performed in her class at her school in front of her friends. The song went to the tune of My Darling CLemetine but I have forgotten the words. My friend's daughter is 13(?--maybe 14) so I'm sure, in the dream, she was mortified.

I also dreamt about Jason and my grandfather, both dead now. Jason had come up to my grandma's house which was located somewhere in southern or central California (instead of Seattle.) He came with his mother, his brother, and three cousins. The three cousins took off with my mom and a posse of kids and they all went to Disneyland for the day, leaving me to entertain Jason, his brother and his mom. Kristeena was around somewhere in the house although she never appeared in the dream. We were always waiting for her. I remember worrying that we were going to wake up my grandfather who needed his rest. He woke up eventually and we had to help him to the bathroom. He kept falling, but Jason and his brother would help me get him up. My grandfather was very embarrassed because he was a really proud guy but Jason made him feel better and calmed him down.

At one point Jason and I were sitting on this couch and he was asking me if he should do it (kill himself.) And I remember thinking "NO!! That's the stupidest thing you could EVER do!" and saying to him, "Well, you have to decide for yourself but I'd really rather you didn't." And then he took this pair of scissors that were really sharp and I was in a panic that he was going to slit his throat and then I woke up.

Beer has an 'image crisis;' wine and spirits gain