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September 30, 2001
I started a new blog,
I started a new blog, focused on a single topic, bike riding. I don't know how often I'll update it, but I'll be adding little bits about recent experiences, hopefully some product reviews, and maybe some more photos or movies.
Posted by 10:54 AM | TrackBack
Christine's observations and writing never
Christine's observations and writing never cease to amaze me (the watercolor-esque design ain't too shabby either).
This is great story.
Posted by 01:42 AM | TrackBack
September 27, 2001
It's always a weird feeling
It's always a weird feeling to see people you looked up to from your childhood getting caught and sentenced for trafficking a load of crystal meth (via honan).
Posted by 12:45 PM | TrackBack
I beat Miss America
I beat Miss America on the US History quiz. In fact, I suprised myself and got them all right, and I didn't even resort to google.
Posted by 02:46 AM | TrackBack
Another interesting cover song found
Another interesting cover song found this week (by Lagwagon):
Posted by 02:15 AM | TrackBack
September 26, 2001
Happy Birthday, Mr. Crankypants.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Crankypants.
Posted by 10:31 AM | TrackBack
The not knowing was the
The not knowing was the toughest part. While it's bad news, at least it's fully known, and it's one less thing to worry about. Well, actually it's now a new big giant thing to worry about, but at least I don't have to wonder any longer.
I'm a free agent again.
While the job market seems 10x worse than it was just a few short months ago, I'm seeing a few contract jobs I could do, and I have an inbox of contacts to hound for freelance work I was asked to do months ago. I can also finally get to doing a long list of maintenance work on MetaFilter, thanks to dozens of great suggestions from the membership. I suppose I'll update my resume in a couple days, but I'm in no rush.
For some reason I'm not afraid. I'm not desperate. And I'm doing alright.
Posted by 09:59 AM | TrackBack
September 25, 2001
As much as it pains
As much as it pains me to say it, the new Tenacious D album isn't that great.
The thing is, they're funny and cool because they're simply two fat guys with guitars that sing funny songs. The first time I saw them perform, they did more comedy than actual music, and their bizarre sense of humor stood out in the "evening at the improv" atmosphere back in the day. Over the years, they morphed a bit, into purely musical comedy, a sort of indie Smothers Brothers. But this new record is dreck.
Gone is the endearing sound of acoustic guitars being played with questionable expertise. In its place is what I suppose is an attempt at an ironic "arena rawk" sound, much like Weezer doing "hash pipe." You can almost hear the cues where fireworks are supposed to be shooting off onstage. Isn't irony dead yet? It's like listening to their music underwater, the hard rawk sound muddies any comedic timing, and the simplicity of jokey songs over quiet guitars is no where to be found.
If you want to hear what the D are really like, get yourself some bootlegs instead. I hope to god their live gig coming up is just them, sans the cheesy studio rock band.
Posted by 09:30 AM | TrackBack
All that google action is
All that google action is paying off. When someone searches for that new stupid Fox show:
MetaFilter is number two in the results. Number one is the Fox homepage, while the second slot is MetaFilter. How insane is that?
Posted by 09:13 AM | TrackBack
(thanks jjg)
(thanks jjg)
Posted by 05:55 AM | TrackBack
frank's got some great shots
frank's got some great shots of last night's lightning storm that passed through San Francisco. The fourth one down looked familiar, and within a few moments I recognized it as the third instance of the secret symbol that runs through the underrated genius of Joe vs. The Volcano.
Posted by 03:11 AM | TrackBack
Tenacious D's new CD comes
Tenacious D's new CD comes out today. Today!
breathe. breathe. calmly walk down to the virgin megastore amoeba records and plunk down the full price of the cd.
Posted by 03:06 AM | TrackBack
September 24, 2001
A couple war-related bits: nologo.org's
A couple war-related bits:
Paul Hardcastle's song "19" (remember this?)
Posted by 11:56 AM | TrackBack
Why are there so many
Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
Posted by 11:48 AM | TrackBack
September 21, 2001
When I used to work
When I used to work at UCLA, I somehow ended up exchanging email with Phil Agre, across the campus. He seemed like a fascinating person, and asked me if I would be interested in participating in a new Information Studies class he was experimenting with the next teaching quarter. Something about ethics in the new information age. Unfortunately, I left that job for greener pastures before the quarter began, but I still wonder what it's like to take a class from the guy. His Red Rock Eater newsletters are amazing. How he finds the time to glean and share the wealth of info from the web, write fantasticly long and detailed essays, and be a professor at the same time, I'll never know.
Do yourself a favor and subscribe if you haven't already. And check out his latest essay about the New War.
Posted by 12:02 PM | TrackBack
September 20, 2001
Thanks to some help from
Thanks to some help from pb, I'm slowly getting all my books into a webapp. Here's the output of what I'm currently reading, what I've recently read, and a fraction of my book collection. This should continue growing, as soon as I can remember to stop into a RadioShack and ask for a free CueCat.
Posted by 12:40 PM | TrackBack
September 19, 2001
Poll shows support for
Poll shows support for profiling Arab Americans
Easing up on the wiretapping rules
New power to detain immigrants beyond due process
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
also see this
Posted by 10:53 AM | TrackBack
This is depressing news. So
This is depressing news. So is this, and this. This one boggles the mind as well, since it happened in my open-minded fair city.
This past week has taught me humanity will always have its ugly side, a yin to goodness' yang. It makes me think waging a "war against evil" will never have a victory either.
Posted by 02:45 AM | TrackBack
September 18, 2001
quote of the day: "Those
quote of the day:
"Those who cannot remember the plots of the '70s tv shows are condemned to repeat them."
Posted by 01:08 AM | TrackBack
September 17, 2001
Amid the current climate of
Amid the current climate of eroding civil liberties in the name of squashing terrorism, I hope this story doesn't cause free public internet access to go away.
Posted by 10:25 AM | TrackBack
September 14, 2001
I have the strange feeling
I have the strange feeling that war will start sometime this weekend. I'll wake up in the morning, and bombs and missles will have dropped. Which makes me think "can you properly conduct a secretive war in this day and age?"
The internet is all around us. Email and web sites and wire services and digital cameras and television crews trying to get the edge on each other. I thought the 1991 Gulf War was short on information, as any classic war should be. Your oppenents shouldn't know what your next move is. But if this one will be relying on old tactics like secret missions and nightly missle raids, I don't think much will be happening in secret. Unless there's a misinformation campaign bigger than anything we've seen, we'll be furnished with nightly recaps of anything and everything that occured in the region, and what's most likely to come next.
I'm hoping that we don't have to fight the classic violent wars we've fought so many times before. My hope is that the world sees that it's all of us against a small network of terrorists, and that they can be dealt with diplomatically (and physically) in a sane manner.
Posted by 06:08 AM | TrackBack
September 13, 2001
Cory says it better
Cory says it better than any other:
"The most amazing, futuristic thing about the Current Situation is the amount of civilian-generated content and coverage, from amateur photos and videos to first-person accounts to grassroots survivor-lists to the passengers themselves, making wireless calls to the ground as they prepare to rush the cockpit. The world has changed. The filpside of the Orwellian nightmare of the panoptic surveillance society is the voracious data-gathering and republishing of the distributed world, a weird utopia of ubiquitous information and observation"
Posted by 04:26 AM | TrackBack
September 12, 2001
Got Misinformation? The bunk stops
Got Misinformation? The bunk stops here.
Posted by 11:49 AM | TrackBack
I'm still numb and exhausted
I'm still numb and exhausted by the last two day's events. Keeping MetaFilter up and running has been a chore. I've done two things to give myself some relief, and some things to look forward to.
- this weekend, I'm going to the arcade convention in San Jose as an all-day escape.
- I just bought tickets to see Ben Folds at the Filmore, Oct. 14th.
Posted by 10:42 AM | TrackBack
September 11, 2001
As I sit here in
As I sit here in a state of shock, a few thoughts are running through my mind.
- How in the hell does someone (or group of someones) organize something so incredibly immense? The attack makes the worst things Tyler Durden planned look like child's play. How do you train people to fly 747 and 767's without anyone ever noticing? How could this possibly been coordinated in secret? The level of organization required keeps boggling my mind.
- I keep hearing "everything changes after today" and frankly, that's the scariest thought of the day. Any changes I can think of are definitely going to be for the worst. I'm guessing that airports are going to get much tougher to get into and out of in the near future. Personal freedoms and due process are going to slip a little, in the name of "safety" even though any sense of safety we have is just a ruse. Will herbivore-type devices go up everywhere, so the internet can be monitored for the next attack? Worldwide, we could see an erosion of trust among all nations. Terrorist acts always escalate. The next one will have to be bigger than this, and that's certainly a scary thought.
- It's far too early to point fingers at anyone, but it's going to happen, and it's going to get ugly. I've heard about "celebrations in Palestine" but I don't think that's anything but propaganda. I remember seeing "The Siege" and thinking what a goofy, ridiculous movie it was. Now I'm thinking it was almost prophetic.
- I fear the Bush-ordered retaliation, in whatever form that takes. I really, really, really fear this. I'll be questioning his motives for the duration of this entire episode.
- Thank Fucking God for the internet. Ten years ago, I wouldn't have heard from Leslie, Zeldman, Anil, Jason, Maggie, or anyone else I remotely know in NYC for days, until phone service was restored. But today, in a matter of about two hours of reading sites, exchanging email, and IMing (direct from Jason at his NYC hospital post even), everyone I know there is a-ok. This puts me at ease, to share information and experiences with everyone in real-time, and see it across dozens of blogs. It's good to see that information is disseminating well.
Posted by 11:50 AM | TrackBack
September 10, 2001
Almost every great idea I've
Almost every great idea I've had, I've gotten while taking a shower. It used to be in that moment where you add conditioner to your hair, and the bottle instructs you to "wait about a minute." Almost every great idea popped into my head during that minute. Eric Meyer told me the other day that he's had the same experience, and calls the shower "the thinking box." The remainder of my great ideas come to me when I'm alone, and driving a car for more than an hour (there also has to be no traffic).
As the world becomes more information-laden, I wonder if the moments I can think absolutely clearly and free of distraction will be fewer and farther between. If I was born 50 years ago, would I be producing twice as many ideas? Maybe this is why everything for the past ten years seems retro or derivative of earlier ideas. We're loading our lives with so much minutia that our creative thinking suffers.
(An hour after I posted this, a thought came to me regarding that last point I made. All the great artists I can think of in the last century were terrible with money. They were highly creative, but didn't worry about pointless stuff like taxes or prices or savings. Conversely, the artists that made a lot of money were pretty crappy artists or did things wildly popular yet not that creative.)
Posted by 10:09 AM | TrackBack
Cutest. Kid. Ever.
Posted by 03:48 AM | TrackBack
I feel like crap every
I feel like crap every time I break down and go to a Briazz shop for lunch. It's this chain of to-go food places owned by starbucks that values stability in choice and food, without any of the variation you'd normally find in any neighborhood establishment.
Whenever I can't find anything else to eat for lunch, I go there, and when I order I feel like just saying "I give up, I can't deal with personal choice in this city. Please give me foodstuff #a353 and a cup of #d827 soup. Oh, and throw in a grande mocha latte and a pair of Gap khaki pants."
Posted by 02:15 AM | TrackBack
Glancing into the bathroom mirror
Glancing into the bathroom mirror at work today, I spotted my first gray hairs (that's hairs, not just a single hair). I'm 28 (for exactly one more month), and I'm officially old now. Fuck.
Posted by 01:34 AM | TrackBack
September 09, 2001
This site now features
This site now features Gwen Stefani, for the obvious reason that I want to start winning some awards. You have Gwen pop in and you're practically guaranteed to win something.
Posted by 10:24 AM | TrackBack
Fray Day was fun
Fray Day was fun last night. Brad told a great story and Lance blew me away by telling possibly the funniest story ever (why is he not in (capital S) Show business?). Scott proved once again that he is far too talented and too good at being a writer, programmer, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and percussionist than any mortal should be. He is not of this earth (Laurie was no slouch either). I missed a bunch of the stories (I really wanted to hear Lance Anderson, the stories on his site are great) because there were far too many people I got to talk to in the foyer and more I wanted to talk to, but didn't get a chance to hook up with (Ed? Phil? Christopher? Were you there? Say hi next time!).
If that recap sounds like a blur, it's because that's how the evening felt. After a week at Web2001, I was pretty much down in the dumps on the whole web thing. There weren't too many new ideas conveyed at the conference, the mood of the event was sullen, and there was a fairly low attendence for such a big event (though, there was free beer).
Fray Day recaptured some of the good things the web can do and reminded me that there's an upside to spending so much time and energy on personal sites: the people behind them.
Posted by 10:02 AM | TrackBack
Jesus Christ. I just took
Jesus Christ. I just took the "who is your weblog twin?" quiz and my twin is... me.
Although that probably means Firda did a good job with the questions, it still feels wrong and overly narcissistic to pick yourself.
Posted by 09:55 AM | TrackBack
September 07, 2001
I'm going through that moment
I'm going through that moment where my favorite little band in the world is transitioning into everybody else on the planet's favorite little band. The new, still un-released Tenacious D album is Amazon's 91st biggest selling thing in their entire catalog. From pre-orders alone, the thing is in the top 100. I can't remember buying anything in the top 100 before.
Some would say this is when they sell out, that I should burn all their old stuff, and move on to find a replacement band. But I'm sticking by them. Sure, little mallrat skate kids will be wearing their t-shirts and I might someday hear "fuck her gently" in muzac form in an elevator, but I'll probably be able to catch their show in a real venue sometime soon, and I'll finally have a high quality recording of their stuff. No more dingy craphole LA nightclubs or megabyte after megabyte of bootleg mp3 recordings.
There's always a positive side of things, though I do wish they didn't go with a major record label and instead self-issued their own stuff (they certainly have the fanbase to support such an endeavor).
Posted by 09:36 AM | TrackBack
September 04, 2001
Luke and Sandy's Roadtrip is
Luke and Sandy's Roadtrip is underway and worth checking daily.
Posted by 11:46 AM | TrackBack
September 02, 2001
From what I heard about
From what I heard about Geocaching, I didn't know if I'd like it. It sounded goofy, like something geeky guys made up to pass the time. You go to a website, get coordinates and clues, and take your GPS unit hiking to find a hidden stash. You log the visit in the book, and at the site. Part scavenger hunt, part day hiking, and part map reading add up to a pretty good (and boring) description of geocaching.
Yesterday, we went to visit pb and shawnde, and he recently bought a GPS unit and wanted to try out geocaching. It turned out to be a lot of fun. We hiked into an area I probably would never have known about, saw beautiful cliffs, grazing deer, and foggy ocean views. Other people hiking said they saw whales, though it was too foggy by the time we made it to the end of Bodega Head. The cache wasn't too hard to find and I was glad we did it.
Today, Jish had a multi-cache he wanted to tackle. The cache was three parts in length, with landmarks you had to read for clues to calculate your next position. Each location had two things to use for clues, and the creator of the cache planned it very well. If you weren't paying very close attention, you'd get the incorrect coordinates and end up half a mile away from where you should have been. It was a toughie, but we finally got it all right and enjoyed great panoramic views of the Silicon Valley and Bay below.
So I think I'm hooked on geocaching. It's a great way to discover new places in the bay area, a good excuse to get out and exercise, and there are great views to be had.
Posted by 06:25 AM | TrackBack
September 01, 2001
I got a spam today
I got a spam today that linked to a user account on OuterSpace WebHosting. Getting spam is one thing, but realizing their host also happened to steal Communityzero's entire look, feel, graphics, logos, and code is another.