June 2005 Archives

As most of you probably know, I recently finished up with grad school; my portfolio and resume are more than three years old and therefore badly in need of updating, so of course the first thing I did was... redesign this here weblog. Here are a few of my thoughts behind the overhaul:

• I've been writing about food over at A Full Belly since April and I've really come to like being able to write short posts over there, which I've never been comfortable doing on here mainly because of how I'd laid the site out. So the biggest part of this redesign was switching the menu to the top and bottom of the pages to make room on the side for my new links log quick bites, mainly inspired by Andy, Simon Carless and, natch, Anil's late lamented sidebar. For those of you who prefer things syndicated, it comes with its own feeds: RSS 2.0 and Atom.
• If you read the site via RSS 2.0, you'll now get to see the comments and trackbacks for every post. If you'd like to do the same with your feeds: Simple RSS Customization.
• No more static header graphic anywhere in the near future, no matter what I put up there I get sick of it eventually! I love being able to share my life via moblog with all my friends on Flickr and so I decided I would make the photos more accessible to my regular readers as well, hence the thumbnails of my nine most recent photos at the top of the page.
• Comments are awesome, but like Heather I too hate zeros. Current solution: make a little pixelly comment balloon in Photoshop and stick that in. I think it's super cute but is it inviting enough? Do you prefer knowing how many people have commented already, or are you willing to break the ice? Please let me know, I'm more than happy to tweak with this for usability's sake.

Next two things will be reintroducing a blogroll, as I've sorely missed having one, and finally (finally!) adding tags.

Chris Anderson on our new tribal culture:

Here's my take on what the Long Tail is doing to pop culture. Rather than the scary fragmentation of our society into a nation of disconnected people doing their own thing, I think we're reforming into thousands of cultural tribes, connected less by geographic proximity and workplace chatter than by shared interests. Whether we think of it this way or not, each of us belongs to many different tribes simultaneously, often overlapping (geek culture and Lego), often not (tennis and punk-funk).

Arguably geek culture is a subset of Lego, I don't know that you can be a geek and not love those little plastic bricks! My tribes that are furthest apart are, I think, action movies and Engrish stationary. What are your overlapping and most separate tribes?

[ via ffwd: Linklog ]

"The thought of two thousand people crunching celery at the same time horrified me." - George Bernard Shaw, explaining why he'd turned down an invitation to a vegetarian gala dinner.

[ thanks, Scott! ]

You know you're a pedant when you see a photo of bowling pins signed by David Hasselhoff & Dave Chappelle at the alley you bowl at on your birthdays and the first thought that pops into your head is: "Okay, how disappointed am I that Dave Chappelle doesn't know "you're" from "your"? Goddamn."

I haven't watched basketball in eight or so years but maybe I'll have to start watching a sports show, these Charles Barkley Quotes are so good:

"I don't think there's any doubt. Anybody in their right mind knows I'm the best forward in basketball. Well, the only person comparable to me is Karl Malone, but his body is so different from mine. Even my wife loves his body, and that's the main reason I say I'm the best. With a body like that, he is supposed to be awesome. With a body like mine, I'm supposed to be a couch potato."

To a heckler that said he would never win a championship ring: "Yeah, but I've got $20 Million, so I can afford to buy one."

On Kevin Eubanks being a vegetarian: "I don't trust people that don't eat meat. Hey Kevin, you know what the difference between me and you is? When I die, I'll die because I was eating bad food. When you die, they'll say 'wooo that Kevin, he as dead as Charles'"

And lest you think he's never serious:

Summarizing Hootie Johnson's stance on keeping women out of Augusta: "Translating it into Ebonics. ... What he's saying is, 'We are golf, we've always been racist and sexist.'"

On the flak celebrities get for their anti-war beliefs: "That's part of the hypocrisy that goes on when you're in the limelight - if you say something, you're anti-American or unpatriotic or too liberal. We're all free to say what we want to, but if you ever forget your place, we'll put you back in your place."

[ via eponym.ca ]

Between bacon and Hasselhoff, I guess it's easy for people to forget just how much third world post-colonial angst I have, I know even I do at times. (Sometimes I think I don't forget enough, but that's a whole other story.) Anyway, here's an excerpt from an email I sent today:

Subject: re: have i lost the plot?!?

Here, depress yourselves further:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006435.html

When I was in college some of my pudgy middle-aged professors were capable of making nonchalant jokes over coffee about which of them had had their nipples and genitals electrocuted when they were detained, or whether pretty writer A had it worse than old writer B because she only had to let a colonel fuck her a few times to get her boyfriend out of jail, whereas the dictator himself actually required B to churn out novels and plays in exchange for freeing his nephew. I often wonder if Iraqis and Afghans will ever be able to recover from this enough to embrace gallows humor, that old friend of survivors everywhere.

Anyway, times like this are when I break out the good ol' Brothers K:
http://instruct.westvalley.edu/lafave/dostoevsky.html
http://webster.edu/~corbetre/philosophy/existentialism/dostoevsky/grand.html

> you are living in a twilight zone episode.

lia: best product name ever?
lia: "Coochy Shave - Extra Gentle Shaving Lotion For Private Areas"
andrew: haha
andrew: i shave with "taint" cream

Ah, so meta it hurts.

Also: I really miss having Alaina reachable by subway. Bah.

I couldn't possibly agree with this statement more:

dear boys: when will you stop bragging about how little you pay for a haircut as if it's some sort of badge of honor? it's not like you're cheap about other things - i've seen you at the bar with your $7 dollar beer and your $10 dollar whiskey. i've seen your foo foo messenger bags and your fancy sneakers and your iPods. you wear your hair EVERY DAY of your life. why not spend $40 bucks and have someone do a good job? you will get laid more and your penis will thank you.

I think I know only one guy who can get away with cheap haircuts, but that's more to do with Chris being so hot anything would look good on him. The rest of you, please pay attention!

If you haven't been keeping up with the news lately, Skot's got quite the recap for you:

Upon announcement of his blanket acquittal, Mr. Jackson was seen to totter feebly out of the courthouse and blow shaky kisses at the throngs of onlookers; seen on hand was also heavyweight prizefighter Mike Tyson, fresh from his recent loss to a gentleman picked out of the audience. Mr. Tyson, who had after his loss announced his retirement from boxing, called out to Mr. Jackson. "Michael! Do you have any children you're done with? I could eat them for you. I'm hungry and poor." Mr. Jackson did not reply, but instead leaped onto a nearby car and screamed "HOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" while grabbing his groin. Mr. Jackson then smashed the car's windshield with a crowbar as a zombie dance team shuffled out of the crowd and began executing tightly choreographed shrugging movements.

Not to be outdone, apparently, famed Hollywood actor Tom Cruise was also on hand for the media event, and joined Mr. Jackson atop the ruined car with newfound love Katie Holmes in tow. As Jackson continued his automotive assault, Cruise leaped up and down manically and screamed paeans of love for Ms. Holmes to the stunned crowd; Holmes stood uncertainly nearby, smiling gently, until Cruise finally nailed the young actress to an inverted cross and let Holmes' blood course over his face as he kneeled beneath her wailing form. "Clear," gasped Cruise, clearly overwhelmed. "I'm finally clear." When asked for comment, Ms. Holmes told reporters, "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

My two favorites are Alien Loves Predator and The Perry Bible Fellowship. (I Harth Darth is mighty cute but I don't know about its shelf life when we've all gotten past Ep3.) What are you guys reading?

Salon's Rebecca Traister on rumors that Bill Clinton is going vegetarian:

"Bill Clinton not eating meat? A man whose very name brings to mind the word "pork"? Who has never met a nitrate he didn't like? Whose all-night bull-and-barbeque sessions were sent up hilariously in "Primary Colors"? The man who once, after having consumed a 3,300-calorie lunch with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1994 that included meats, cheeses, seafood and veal-stuffed ravioli, ordered a piece of chocolate cake to go?"

I'm guessing if I ever gave meat up people would react in much the same way.

[ crossposted to A Full Belly ]

A thrift store find, nose tip already gone. I sent this to Anil and he replied: "Hello, is it me you're looking for?"

The photographer: "One of the best impersonators. His nose is made of rotting putty."

The photographer titled this "Pharoah of Pop" and said, "Proof of reincarnation - Michael Jackson - missing nose and all"

I couldn't bring myself to read Bachem Macuno's Ann Coulter stuff, but Tom Cruise on the Universal Efficacy of Vitamins in Treating Every Medical Problem Known to Man is fantastic:

You know, you get to a point where you say enough is enough. People are being misled, badly cared for, and needlessly damaged by the attitudes prevalent in American Medicine, movie actors among them.

Like whom?

Well, take for example Christopher Reeve.

Who suffered massive spinal cord injuries in a riding accident.

Exactly. Now here is a man, and I care about Christopher Reeve because I think he is an incredibly talented man. But look at him; where has his career gone?

P.S. Just like Andrew, I don't get this beard thing, would someone mind explaining it to me? Thanks in advance!

I saw Revenge of the Sith recently and thought it was even shitter than I had expected (and I had very low expectations), so it kind of stuck in my craw a little that the American Film Institute gave him Lifetime Achievement Award this year. Or at least it did until I read this bit:

William Shatner kicked off the evening, singing a version of "My Way" titled "Your Way" with a chorus line of "Star Wars" troopers kicking up their heels. As the troopers carried him off the stage, Shatner yelled "Live long. You already prospered enough."

Matt? Andy? Andre? Please find me a clip of this event; you are my only hopes.