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07.31.03 lucky me — my web-host has just installed webDAV on their servers, meaning that i can now publish my ical calendar to my site or mount the entire site on my desktop. cool for me! # i always feel slightly punch-drunk, after a social event. today was a going-away lunch for a cowoker; there's just something about stopping work, breaking out of the mind-set you've psyched yourself into all morning and changing your setting, your mood, the part of your brain required to perform. talking and following conversation and keeping track of a big group of people, all of it leaves me feeling out of sorts, disconnected. when i find myself back at my desk finally, like right now, it's a struggle to turn back on that part of my brain that does this 9-to-5 thing. # interesting article about publishing site redpaper. put your words, or any document really, up for all to see. get paid for it. another example of how simple, simple ideas online will help change what we do and how. i hope. most interesting application? how about the "breaking news" section, including such attention grabbers as photos of a lightning strike and first-hand account of a teen being dumped at a party # hormel foods, owner and maker of the delightful SPAM canned meat product, is suing a software company for attempting to register a trademark with the word "spam" in it. at first, this seems a little defensive, but after reading hormel's rather liberal and understanding legal policy regarding the use of their trademarked name, i think they've got the right to get upset. they've been so nice about this whole societal misappropriation of their delightfully made-up name. what good sports! # i have to admit, despite my own initial protests, i'm oddly addicted to bravo's gay-makeover show now. and it's largely because of him. ahh, tv. # 07.26.03 you know who i have a crush on? steve from blue's clues. yeah, it's a kids show. but what's not to love about that face? anyway, thanks to the seldom-read rag known as newsweek, i've learned that my beloved steve is now a musician. and he has a cute grown-up look. and some flaming lips backing him up. anyway want to go see him play cafe du nord august 24th? # 07.24.03 "Unfortunately, there's also evidence that young writers today feel imprisoned by their ethnic or gender identities — discouraged from speaking across boundaries by a culture in which television has conditioned us to accept only the literal testimony of the Self. — Expecting a novel to bear the weight of our whole disturbed society — to help solve our contemporary problems — seems to me a peculiarly American delusion. To write sentences of such authenticity that refuge can be taken in them: Isn't this enough? Isn't it a lot?" -jonathan franzen, why bother? # 07.22.03 what did i say about the upcoming radiohead concert? of course i'm going, sillies! you didn't really believe there wasn't going to be somewhere that i might find tickets, did you? (ahem, thanks thom, et al) the only hinderance is the ticket distro system the fan-club has in place. it works on this "trust me" system in which i buy the tickets and all they tell me in advance is that they'll for sure be together and they'll for sure be in "reserved" seating. hell, that's good enough for me. # i'm always a little hesitant to say it in public, for fear that i've blown the date somehow, but everyone please say happy birthday dan! # 07.20.03 business week nods to the net-centric marketing of 28 days later... as a model for low-budget payoffs. simple, clever, targeted advertising. sure beats all those hulk toys they're shilling at the fast food joints. # no doubt you've already seen hipster bingo, but just in case, i thought i should point it out. go, go scathing-social-backlash! # from McSweeney's: An Open Letter to the New York Times Style Section Photo Retoucher. it seems that there's a bit of a problem with the those pearly* whites. # i'm so frustrated with the ticket-purchasing system. there's a good chance at this point that i wont get to see radiohead when they come to the bay area in september. # visuals: our new york. # 07.18.03 "There's nothing like flying on grease," says Rachel Garlin, 29, a folk singer. "When you're on the highway doing 80 and your car smells like French fries, you realize it's seamless." much as i love to hate it, i find that i always enjoy the travel-sin of reading details magazine on a long flight. this month features an article on the grease car kit for turning your old diesel chugger into a commercial-kitchen recycler and a great big middle finger to the Oil cartel. # updated Google Toolbar brings instant blogging and, more importantly, pop-up blocking to the window's IE crowd. how nice for them! # 07.15.03 from a publishing standpoint, this is a really interesting development. finally, you can get that novel you've been shopping around printed and sold! # no, really, the garbage truck, with the dumpster and the slam, slam, slam — at 6:30 AM — it's fine, i don't mind, please. # 07.13.03 weekend movie roundup:
# 07.10.03 there are some interesting movies out or coming out that i'd like to see, but nothing right now intrigues me more than northfork. yes, i can admit that it looks a bit of a gamble, but what's life without a little risk? i can't find anything on it, but i hope it opens here soon. # did anyone see blur perform on one of the late-night shows this week? i think it was letterman. can't really tell you what night it was on. thanks to tivo, such things are irrelevant. they performed out of time which is an awfully melancholy song to begin with. still though, it was a pretty depressing performance. damon looked (and sang) like he wished he wasn't there. the whole band was listless and melancholy. i've never seen them live — is that what they're like? or was it just a bad night? # 07.09.03 anyone know why target="new" doesn't spawn a new window from inside my comments box in safari? esoteric, i know. # i've likely failed to mention to you, gentle reader, that i've made some new friends. thanks to the miracle of friendster (a new and beautiful force of goodness in my life) the dim circle of my social life has grown a few candles brighter. known to some as los muchachos pescados, matt and james are certainly two of the coolest unlink-able people i know in san francisco. and so cute, too! you should see them, really. and, as demonstrated yesterday, they've got pretty snaz taste in music. lucky me! it also seems possible that i've strung you along about this whole new york adventure. well, your patience has finally paid off! you lucky drunken ducklings. it was supposed to be a massive, emotionally exploitive picture show, but technology thwarted those efforts quickly and quietly. so i'll spare you the grueling parts and tell you only that new york is the most exquisite urban experience of my short little life. the dense, wet heat notwithstanding, our lovely host, hostess and good humor boy did everything in their powers to show us their fine city on the silverest of platters. for the most part, we avoided explicit destinations (at my request) and instead paraded our asses around town, exploring various neighborhood destinations, island and borough, tourist and non. i was in search of a good, honest feeling about new york. and what i found was that i feel like i'm in love! every moment was an exciting adrenal adventure, from subway to shining subway. i can only hope to find myself there again very soon. i'll spare you then the typical unraveling epilogue that i'm quite capable of saddling you with right now. in its place, you can expect my week in new york to color what few entries make it up here in the foreseeable future. it was definitely a trajectory-altering experience. # 07.08.03 i got the chance to see rilo kiley play at the great american music hall tonight, courtesy of new-friends matt & james. i'd never even heard them before, so imagine my delight when i found myself standing in the middle of a really exceptional show. i think i'll treat myself to a new cd tomorrow. # 07.07.03 ok, so it's less of a tan and more of a burn. # 07.05.03 the weekend in fresno. it's so warm here. if you stand in the sun for more than a minute, the sweat beads up on your brow. i'm hoping to come back with a bit of a tan. everything is a mix of familiar smells, cut grass and pool chlorine, dirt, sweat, smoke and sulfur from the fireworks and that distinct, bitter acrid stink of burning brush and farm waste. jessie points out that i haven't made this trip alone in a year or more. an interesting, if irrelevant fact. # 07.04.03 in my dream i'm walking somewhere new, somewhere i've never been. i'm walking with my friends, and i see a snake. it's head is sticking up from a hole in the ground. everyone stops and watches as the snake comes out of it's hole. it approaches me as my friends watch. i'm crazy, terrified, and i swing my arms around at it, maybe i'm shoeing it, maybe i'm trying to scare it away. it lunges at my arm, clamps it's steel jaw on my forearm. i scream for someone to get it off me but nobody moves to help. flailing my arm around, trying to dislodge it, i can feel the pressure of the snake's jaw smashing down on my arm. and i realize that i can feel it's teeth sunk into me, that i can feel inside of the snake, that i can feel my own blood pumping inside it, feel the pressure as it enters the tip of the fangs, deep in my arm, that are holding back the full wave of my blood. i think that this is what is keeping us separate, all that is keeping me and the snake from becoming the same thing. i stop flailing and push, feeling my blood push against, into the snake, until finally the pressure becomes too much and the snake bursts. and i'm left, staring at my arm, admiring the four bloody holes that it's left. # 07.02.03 i love gawker, for its biting wit as well as its unique style of new york news. who else would call my attention to a soon-to-be-published new yorker interview with doctor and misses zizmore, new york's undisputed king and queen of the chemical peel? (file that under interesting things i learned on the new york subway and have yet to blog about. thanks sparky!) # 07.01.03 so what's going on with friendster all of a sudden? it's been down and out for, like, two days now. i feel bewildered, overwhelmed, lost. how will i know who my friends are? # « June 2003 | archive index | August 2003 » built with movabletype |
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