That Narcissistic Earth

Why does everything always have to revolve around you?

;-)

Chris Rock On

Morning laugh: The Number One Reason.

Don't even think about it---is he ever work safe?

From Unfogged.

US Troops to Remain in Iraq through Armageddon

From the 4/26 Press Briefing

Q Scott, last week there were some reports at the end of the week about sovereignty in Iraq not being full sovereignty. Is that true, or -- what gradations are there of sovereignty that --

MR. McCLELLAN: Look, at the end of June the coalition will be transferring sovereignty to the Iraqi people. Obviously, in terms of security, there is still a need for coalition forces to work with Iraqis to improve the security situation. And they will continue to -- the coalition forces will remain in Iraq for some time after the transfer of sovereignty. But this is -- at the end of June, the Coalition Provisional Authority will cease to exist, and sovereignty will be transferred to an interim, representative body. That is what Mr. Brahimi has been working to address. He will be coming back in May with some more specifics to that interim body, and they will serve in that interim period before elections are held, under the schedule laid out in the transitional administrative law.

Q So that's full sovereignty transferred, though.

MR. McCLELLAN: I would describe it as, sovereignty will be transferred to the Iraqi people. In terms of security, coalition forces will continue to -- they will remain in Iraq to continue to provide for the security alongside of Iraqi security forces. The Iraqi people want coalition forces to remain until they realize a free and peaceful future. And we will -- we will remain in Iraq to help with the security situation.

On whether or not FOX NEWS is the President's personal mouthpiece:

Q. I don't know if you saw, before we got on the plane, John Kerry was on Good Morning America answering to some charges as to some --

MR. McCLELLAN: One of your all's network.

Q. -- there you go...

The Passion of The Bush

Bush on Jesus:

"I asked him where he was raised. He said, Southern California," commented the President before his remarks. "He said he didn't speak English when he came to America at age five. His dad had big dreams for him. And here he is, years later, introducing the President of the United States in perfect English.

A parent home with sick kids always gets a nod from me

Andrew's been doing a run of nose wiping.

I am happily looking forward to a long day of two fragile, croaky, wheezy, sniffling, coughing children; both attempting to monopolise the one couch and one television. They cannot coexist peacefully at the best of times: how will they be today.

He's also looking for work, and knows Data Warehousing like a labrador knows pond water. Send a care package, in the form of Puffs Plus and a job, to Andrew in Australia.

My Blog Is a Casetas Telefonicas

I came here tonight to talk about my falling out with blogging, and as I struggled to put words as to why I'm not attracted to this medium right now, the word "boring" was the one I was going to use. Before I went over to read Tom, I was searching up images on google, thinking about piecing together a poster that summarized my ennui, some kind of Blogging Is a Bore poster with an ole hound asleep on a shady porch. That was just one image I was looking for. Because Blogging has become that predictable.

So, in my travels I hop over to see if Tom is still Mexicaning, and to my surprise and joy, I see he is defending my honor over there. I smile. I post my thoughts (below). Then I go back to read what else Tom's been up to.

What I find is this Gem, which, if I were to take it and run with it, which I don't think Tom would mind, I would extrapolate that he is precisely right, not only within American culture as Walmartitis reflects our obsession with the shallow order of things, but also, he is double right in that this very same element is what is BORING ME TO DEATH right now as a weblogger.

There is something to be said for blurring the lines between potatoes and tampons, between phone cards and baking soda.

There is something profound in the brushing up of one against the next.

There is something precious in searching among the unlike.

There is joy in the finding.

Much of that joy is what we once had here in blogland. It's gone missing, for me anyway. Maybe it's behind the Ketchup, just to the right of the motor oil.

I can conjure an image of the place Tom writes about--the casetas telefonicas--if only sort of, because here in the U.S. you can walk into the rare family-owned deli that isn't trying to be Walmart and enjoy the blurring of edges around the meaning and classifying of things.

Tom describes it here: Anyone who has been in a Mexican market knows how their spaces exhibit horror vacui. This sort of aggregating would have a harder time occuring in the U.S., where the borders between kinds of businesses, types of property, and modes of economic activity are more sharply etched in our imaginings of propriety and order.

My dad owned a little Deli. A couple, actually. I think I never said that here. And so, the this-and-that of the Mexican Phone Store tickled me, Tom.

I can say with pride now, then, that my blog is not about journalism or PR or marketing or writing or business. I want my blog to be a Mexican Phone Store and I want to hang out at other blogs that are casetas telefonicas that don't sell phones at all.

What's that in middle isle? Could be meat, could be cake.

You taste it and you tell me.

I'll be back for more on this when Tom takes his post further.

You Came to the Comments Party But You Didn't Go Home and Talk About It.

Thank you, Tom. Thank you for pointing out something that has been bugging me. Not a lot bugging me. But a little bugging me.

You need only read the far-ranging pre-bloggercon comment discussions over at Jay's post on Journalism v blogging to see what Tom means.

Although I offered some fairly insightful nuggets, as did Weldon and many others, including Tom, when Jay summarized the observations of fellow bloggers in his posts that followed, Weldon and I and a few others fell off the map.

In Jay's summary of the thread, Weldon and I didn't make the cut, and in the next pre-bloggercon piece, Jay links to a host of folks talking about the theme, including the whole parade of usual suspects, and some unusual suspects thank God, but doesn't pull out many of those pieces of his 120-something comments that, as a matter of fact, I think he should have. That action could have furthered the discussion (rather than widening the discussion out along a familiar path of either 1) conference attendees or 2) bloggers who cover this stuff anyway).

Furthering and widening or broadening are two different things.

Jay suggested I take my comments to my blog because he felt they were worth exploring. I like Jay and I trust that if I had, and if Weldon had, then Jay probably would have linked to some of the rather astute observations we'd made. At the time, though, I didn't want to. I didn't think it served the thread well in the middle of what had turned into a sort of "think tank" to do the blogging-as-usual bullshitty deal of running off to my own separate blog to pontificate about what I had just said at our little gathering. Isn't it enough that I said it at Jay's house? Do I have to come home and say it over here too?

Why do we have comments if we aren't going to weigh what is said in comments within the larger discussion or theme? Yes, comments are different from posts, but they're also the best place to STOP hearing the sound of our own voices and in some cases to join a more tightly-joined discussion with others--some who blog and some who don't. And why isn't that gathering in and of itself sometimes enough? And if not, why do I bother commenting? Sometimes I don't blog over here for a few days because I'm participating in other blogs within comments. I consider that as important as posting.

Are we gathering gathering in comments just so that we can run back to our own houses and tell how badly the cocktail weenies sucked or how hot the host looked or what great music they played or how I don't agree with their politics?

Man, I hope not.

Forbes says Google's gettin ready...

Google -- soon a $25 billion company?

This Old Infrastructure

Just Checked Out Doc's new "Doc Searls IT Garage" and was so impressed with this idea. I love it as it stands--a digestible weblog featuring the war stories of IT folks. Doc's tagline is "News, ideas and real world stories about how IT folks solve their own problems."

But I can see this blog evolving into more.

I don't know if it's the simple, welcoming design of the blog or Doc's loveable mug at the top, but I conjure images of This Old House meets Ambush Makeover. Or This Old Infrastructure meets IT Ambush Makeover.

Can you see Doc and company rushing into, say, Buy.com (on my current shit list due to my recent laptop purchase) and surprising them with the news that they've been selected for an Ambush Makeover for business?

Doc and crew would be the ones to put some foundation and lipgloss on the less-than-attractive e-commerce processes and infrastructure at buy.com. Can you see Frank shaking his head at the CTO -- "Uh uh honey--you need some help."

I bet after a makeover from IT Garage, when you place an order at Buy.com, you'd actually get an email back letting you know that Buy.com has RECEIVED your order. I dunno, call me goofy, maybe they'd even THANK YOU for your order. And I dunno, I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe they'd keep you INFORMED along the way about what's up with your order.

And I know Doc could run them down with a powder puff assault and a bold new cut with blonde highlights, so that if, let's say, you place a $1,000+ order with Buy.com, you'd even be able to find a PHONE NUMBER where you could talk to a real live person about your purchase.

And if Doc were in charge of the Ambush makeover, I just know he'd have the sense to throw some gloss on at the end, so that SOMETHING was inside the box that shows up three days late offering the buyer something special (say, a coupon for a new laptop case for me, or a 10% off thank you certificate = cross-sell/up-sell opportunities for buy.com; good feelings for happy.buyer).

This is more than IT, I know. It's process stuff too. But it's process stuff that is powered by IT, and Doc & Co. has the smarts, experience, and balls to do this kind of thing right.

I say get the cameras rolling and let Frank and Doc hit the streets donning cables and wires and hard hats with servers in tow, instead of sissors and hair dye and the latest low ride jeans.

You go, Doc.

Off center

It's way too easy to type on this laptop, the speed with which I can move now. It's a great great thing. It's also not such a great thing becuase I haven't felt like blogging. Blogging is so much a part of who I am now that I can tell something's up with me when I don't want to come here. I've been busy, that's for sure. New computer, still getting used to it. But it's more.

I don't know what. I wish I did. But I don't.

Maybe I do.

The shape of a memory that came back recently, about three weeks ago. I didn't know it was there. And when it came back, since it's come back, I haven't really been in myself at all. And when I'm not in myself it's hard to come here. This is where I integrate.

So I'm Dissociated, note the capital D, maybe. Okay, yes. Living outside myself, just off to the left and up a bit.

My sister tells me he was 87 pounds when he died.

pulled through a wormhole I'm transported lightning quick to an place and smell and grey white sky. That image. Oh Jesus. That one was hiding in the gaps. In the black space between my hyper-real colors. The place where if I'd never tripped upon it again, I wouldn't have noticed except that I've been living in and out of that black space all of my life.

Was he home?

Sometimes. He'd go into the hospital and then come back home, and then go back in, and then come home.

Did I go see him there?

No, you were too young to go up to his floor. You'd stand on the hood of the car and wave, and he'd wave to you from his hospital room window

shot through the wormhole again, ripped apart and reassembled at the doorway of the memory. I see him there waving, ravaged form hidden just enough by the drapes that I see mostly hand. moving back and forth. Daddy!?!

Over and over I say inside so very deep inside in the middle of my middle in the center of my soul: "I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him I want to go up and see him."

I still do.

Zooom or Gooom

You know on Zoom, the kids sing this little song about Zmail, which is email you send to the show. Zmail, it's email.

jeneane.sessum at gmail.com

google mail.

dig that gmail stuff.

email with google search capability might just save email. give us some meaning back by making it easier to talk to each other.

"Print Conversation" -- I like it.

Far too many innovations these days. I need to spread my excitement out. I can't keep getting jazzed about cool new things.

Well, Shit.

In honor of this, I went back and listened to this.



and...

Nate Adam's Illicit World of Wireless

In bed. Oh god. So good. Supposed to be working but I have this keyboard that I don't have to backspace on. You don't understand. You remember when, through the kindness of my blog friends, when I got shitcanned/voluntarilyseparated from Ketchum your generosity gave me enough cash to get my refurbished Dell. And that was good. That was a lifesaver. But the thing is, even with the extra memory, it could never keep up with my typing. It would double type letters and skip multiple spaces. By last month I literally spent as much time backspacing as forward typing, and besides, after visiting a few sites, I'd get the old broken-link demons, even with spysweeper, which helped, my life was hell. I live on my laptop--literally--for work, play, and self-torture.

So along comes Sheila mentioning the very affordably priced Acer notebooks and there I go grabbing one from buy.com (DO NOT BUY FROM BUY.COM - DON'T BUY.COM - THEY SUCK) and this keyboard is a thing of beauty. I'm going and going and going and going. I'm FREEEEE!

Then add the wireless mojo on top of that and I feel like I just fell into the future.

But I digress. I'm meta-teching.

Frank, we could have a writer's workshop I suppose. But I wouldn't want anyone to write. We would have to do things like read history and poetry and play vollyball and roll in sand (first find some--maybe florida would be better) and sit at the edge of the ocean with just one foot waiting for the waves. It's not form, you know? It's not even techniques. It's stories. So we have a conference where we all set out to find stories. Maybe we don't confer at all. Maybe we go off in pairs or quads to explore woods and fish or something, and then we come back at night and tell stories. Or we roast marshmallows and weenies and sing by a campfire. That's what writing is.

Fuck blogging and fuck politics and fuck journalism and fuck religion (sorry AKMA) as TOPICS. Go live three layers deep within those things and then write your way out. That's how you tell a story.

That's what I say. And I have new keys to speak with, so watch the fuck out.

no possible way

there's no possible way i'm stretched out on the couch with this laptop, all wirelessly connected n shit. holy hot. this is the life. you guys been keepin a big secret from me. Here's how you blog like you do all the time. I've been tapping my fingers to the bone on these subpar machines, hooked into a cable and plugged into the wall, for years. When did technology get this good?

I have to push post now, just because I can.

In the words of Howard Dean

YEEEAAAAAAAAAAaaaarrrrrrggggghhhh!!!!! On my new laptop, retreived from the wrong house, where it landed when UPS left it there, in the driveway, and now I'm on it wirelessly from my piano top and I don't even know how it's doing that. What's up with that? Does my DSL linksys router have a wireless thingy I wasn't aware of? Do I live in a hotspot? Or am I leaching off of my neighbors? Either way, it works for me!

I realized I've been living in 2001. It's nice to join the rest of yous. Oh, and I can finally TYPE without letters repeating and jumping and skipping all about. This is effortless. It's like floating in water. ohhhhh. i so happy!

okay, so can i ask a question?

I downloaded and installed the A9 toolbar and am assuming I don't see anything different because I already have the Google toolbar? Come on, can we all just get along?

Check out the "diary" feature of the A9 toolbar:


A9 Toolbar
Web Search: Search the web and Amazon.com's Search Inside the Book™ results. You can also do searches on Amazon.com, the Internet Movie Database, Google, and look up words in a dictionary and thesaurus.

Search Highlighter: The toolbar will automatically highlight your search terms in a light yellow. By using the highlighter menu, you can see how many times your search terms appear on the page, and jump to each occurrence of a specific word. Hint: You don't have to do a search to use the highlighter. Just type one or more words in the search box and click the highlight button.

Your History: Keep track of your last sites visited (on any computer) and your most recent searches. It will keep track of the Web pages you recently visited--even if you switch computers.

Diary: This is the newest and (we think) coolest feature of the toolbar. You can take notes on any web page, and reference them whenever you visit that page, on any computer that you use. Your entries are automatically saved whenever you stop typing or when you go to another page.

Site Info: See information about the website you are visiting, including related links, site statistics (including traffic rank), sites linking to this site, and user ranking. Select from the menu to go to the site's page on Amazon.com where you can get more information and write a review about the site.

Pop-up Blocker: Stop those annoying pop-up ads.


So, interesting. On the google toolbar, you can have "blog this" which makes it super quick and easy to blog in Blogger as you surf. On the A9 tool bar you get the wild sounding "diary" feature that lets you keep notes about the sites you visit.

I want it all. Aninegoogle.

oh amazon, i love you.

I've seen enough. I'm in love.

zzzzzz

I can't decide if looking for a new laptop feels more like shopping for a new car or a new house. The strangest thing, and if you believe laptops can be demon-possessed then this may not seem so weird, but after I plunked the just over a thousand dollars down on a new acer, opting for the budget-reliability combo (and don't anyone say anything bad--it's not even here yet) with thanks to Sheila Lennon who uses an Acer Travelmate, and if it can withstand all the writing Sheila does I figure it can certainly handle mine, but I digress.... What I was saying was that after I plunked down the money for the new laptop, this one is suddenly behaving.

I know. I know. It sounds crazy. But look at me type. I've only had three double-tripple letters (which I fixed) in the last paragraph. That's pretty good for this refurbished Dell, whose keyboard issues started the day I brought it home.

So, who knows. Maybe my Dell felt the reverberations of all the searches I've done this last week. Or maybe not. Either way, a fall in status is in store for this puppy.

Listen, Sheila has some great info about Amazon's new search engine capability too. Check it out. I'm on my way over to Amazon now to do just that.

Compare prices and features for Laptop Computer in GA

Happy Anniversary - one year in business, now i gotta get a new laptop. How are HP laptops? Anyone have one? Recommendations on new laptop under $1400 welcome.

p.s., if you haven't used Salescircular.com before, check it out. It's a handy way to check out who's got what on sale before you run around town.

lata.

thought for the day

click.

aging pope chews off own thumbs

mindless

I have been assimilated. My mind is gone, no numb, no gone, no numb. Hello, What? (Once and Future King--I loved that book as a kid. Deep evergreen forests and knights with shimmering swords and magic and stuff. now they talk about harry potter. i don't know or care from harry potter. special defects and all.) So, hello, what? Work has been so non-ending, 5 a.m., 2 a.m., you gotta take it while it's there - this is the only time I miss having a team. No one to even cry to. My house--never, not in 10 years, this bad. Condemnable. The sweet-eating ants are back. I've decided to let them have the place. I am thinking to give them names like eatsy and beatsy and tiny and big boy (the one who carries his dead colleagues home--poor troops having ingested george's latest boric acid buffet, the poor man's biological weapons of mass instruction, which they are obviously breeding to resist) and fluffy and buffy and Henry and Gwenneth.

It just doesn't matter not any of it. It doesn't make the pain stop. It doesn't make meaning.

sleep.

The secret life of the infrequent meeter

I am an undomesticated animal in the pet store of business. No matter where I turn, I leek urine on the carpets, track in mud, and when they're not looking, I've got my eye on the beef-basted chew toys better known as free notepads and pencils.

Once I lived in conference rooms. Half-day here, hour there, full-day here and there. I remembered, yesterday, sitting in a four-hour meeting, swiveling in my corner chair, the comfy black leather kind that I couldn't resist leaning back in, folding my hands behind my head, thinking gee, long time since I've done that, drifting, feeling important. I remembered what it was like.

Once upon a time, I was a frequent meeter.

Smells of old meeting rooms come back in waves, the new-paint scent of the barely-occupied corridor on the 22nd floor, slippery cold welcoming my elbows on the laminated wood conference tables.

Coming to from my reverie, I notice seven black leather portfolios competing around the table, and me with my spiral-bound $1.29 Walmart notebook, college-ruled at least, which I flip through during the introductions to find a page without Barbie stickers lining the bottom. That little girl of ours can't keep her hands off a notebook.

The expert meeters write down the date and topic of the meeting. They have to do that because they go to a lot of these things. I doodle some geometric shapes instead, and then start scanning the faces. I guess at how many are married, decide one is definitely in an open marriage, I wonder where their kids are today, who watches porn and who doesn't.

This, of course, is not what I'm here to accomplish. But I'm finding that I've forgotten to keep my attention span in shape this last year, and whenever I'm around a group of people, I hyperlink off into places better left static. I've developed new habits as a worker in the knowledge age, and putting me inside four cramped walls is one of the worst ways to keep me focused.

The habits of the frequent meeters are so different from my own habits now.

We take notes on the same things, the frequent meeters and I, but my cadence is different; I'm already in an MSWord window in my head. I'm thinking in analogies and metaphors. I write down what I need to know; they write down a lot they don't need to know.

Frequent Meeters are used to working lunches, and they remember to put their trash in the nicely branded boxes the caterer uses to pack the sandwiches, chips, pasta salad and cookies. I notice, later in the day, that I used my lunch napkin to blow my nose and all my unused condiment packets are littering my personal table space. My mustard nudges my table neighbor's portfolio.

When frequent meeters finish a meeting, you know it. There's no real cue, but time for them is in-built, and each begins rumbling and stacking papers, reaching down for a briefcase, shifting posture, sighs, laughter. The icing on the cake: portfolios slap shut.

Like me, I think, they're glad it's over.

On the way home, I call RageBoy. I say, "I forgot about the cookies, man. You know--meeting cookies? They are big fucking cookies with those chunks inside them, all rippley. They were so good! I had two."

The frequent meeters, they don't remember the cookies.

A Paying Gig for Bloggers

Blogsister Roxanne Cooper is offering $250 (paid via tipjar, amazon, or powells) to the person (with a valid email address) who comes up with the best new name for her blog.

Not often we get a chance to name a cool blog and score some cash. Get on over to Roxanne's and see all the cool names folks are leaving. Then, if you're like me, you'll say, crap I can't beat those.

Serenity Now!

The first bump, bruise, toe stub, stumble or tumble that marks the beginning of "one of those days" usually seems like "just one of those things."

You can't know it's going to be "one of those days" until you've stubbed at least twice, broken more than one glass, lost your keys behind the basement steps *and* burned the toast. One of those days requires an accumulation of errors, miscues, and minor ailments.

I hate those days of surprise. There's really no such thing as a little surprise for me. I don't handle surprises well, feeling them morph into shock, no, not around the curve, inside the drain, on the stairs, or in the oven. Surprises are like sushi to me--I can't get the hang of it. Even good surprises bother me.

It's a fight or flight thing. I get stuck somewhere in the transition. That space in between fight and flight, better known as terror.

Some days I feel as if I've made a permanent home there.

Days like this.

Worthwhile

Halley and friends have started a new bloggerzine called Worthwhile. A nice lineup of contributors and already some good posts up. I've just been released from an all-day meeting, so I finally have five seconds to check it out--YAY!

Musings on the Anniversary of My Emancipation

April 1st one year ago, five years to the day after I started there, I took my last walk into Ketchum to drop off the paperwork that got me a little bit of money and 30 days more of health insurance, which, at nearly $1000 per month for COBRA, was like walking in to receive a gold nugget.

The weather hit spring here a couple of weeks back. As the softness returned to the air, it dawned on me that April Fools day had more meaning than the tricks Jenna tried to pull over on us all day long. I remembered that it had been a year since my emancipation from the corporate world.

The realization hit suddenly, since I generally go missing from myself somewhere around St. Patrick's day. When the dogwood blossoms sprang and I got wind of the season having changed, I had a few different thoughts (listed in no particular order) on the startling fact that I had made it through my first year as an independent consultant of the "writing" flavor:

1) holy shit, I made it!
2) holy shit, I'm tired.
3) holy shit, it's tax time!
4) holy shit, holy shit.

For me, the transition from agency to my own business has not been as jolting as it might have been if I hadn't already been working from home.

Essentially, I realized significant efficiency gains, as one might say if one had to write such phrases for a living, through having only ONE email account to check each day, only one channel through which clients and friends could communicate with me electronically.

Gone was my Ketchum email with so many dozens of messages each day, approximately 1/4 of them useful to me; Gone was Lotus Notes (praise be!), a requirement for working on IBM; gone was YAHOO messenger (another IBM team requirement); gone was logging into the corporate Intranet; gone were meeting notices.

gone gone gone.

On April 2nd, 2003, it was just me and bellsouth.

I felt both puny and free.

No more teams. No more resources. No more "global network" or best practices.

Sometimes, what's missing is just what needs to be missing.

One thing that eased the transition from part-time corporate citizen to full-time Net citizen was my home in blogspace. This space has been my workplace for so long now that losing my "internal" business colleagues was far less traumatic than it might have been. When you work from your couch for five years, and then you sign some paperwork, and go back home and work from your couch another year, the realworld watercooler just doesn't figure into the grief equation.

The friends I had "inside" are still my friends (though few are left "inside") and the only difference is that I get emails from them at my home email account. I've collaborated or have been turned on to work by so many of them over the past year, that they really haven't gone anywhere. And neither have I. At the sametime, we've all gone everywhere compared to where we'd been.

During this first year I had some pretty cool successes, and I'm thinking I need to round up links to what I can and update my e-portfolio (which I haven't touched in a year). If I do, I might post some links here, to remind myself what year one of my sole proprietorship was like.

I don't miss my real job. It seems so unreal to me now. A flip in perspective, a flip in priorities.

It seems unreal that I ever made the commute, infrequently as it might have been; it seems unreal that I ever sat in that cube, or in my fancy glass office at the job before Ketchum; it seems unreal that I ate lunch at restaurants; it seems unreal that I ever talked to clients on a phone with a tethered receiver; it seems unreal that I printed on a laser printer; it seems unreal that I ever knew what time it was.

It sees unreal that I ever did anything other than what I'm doing right now.

And I guess, in some ways, that's because I never have.

The Husband of Wirearchy

Jon Husband is just great in this post, where he discusses reading Emergence, which Euen let him borrow, presumably while they were secretly defining the standards of BLX 1.0.

Jon writes: "This will be the first age where we are truly, at the meta level, governed by the feedback loops that we create, both consciously and unconsciously. We will be organized to, and governed by, the dynamics of championing-and-channeling rather than commanding-and-controlling."

God willing.

follow the pictures n links

I saw the pictures of hyenas on leashes at Golby's (hi mike!) site, and he links to others who show a couple of additional photos.

Don't miss Yule's musings over how these pictures scare her more than images that are in some ways more violent, and what she makes of that.

...pictures of guys in uniforms with big weaponry don't have the power to frighten me in the same way. Why?

Same goes for me, where somehow the illusion of the "lesser evil" of democratic danger over anarchic danger may be just that.

Interesting question.

Note to self: Treat Nigerian spammers with more respect.

anyone who first came here in the last two weeks doesn't know who I am

I'm sorry I've been LAME and LOW on blogging since the PhoneCon Phenom, but the problem is thatt work has been insanely busy, doing taxes was insanely frightning, jenna had an insane ear infection, and my left over reserve left not much for writing.

I've been popping around comments where my wit and wisdom is frequently welcomed, sometimes not, infrequently deleted, and maddeningly, only once, yesterday, edited (see mamamusings.com's flap over assaholic back-channel behavior).

I don't make "I" statements in blogging; I'm not always delicate, I don't have the time or the inclination to treat indelicacy with delicacy; I won't preface my writing with "in my opinion," or "from my perspective," because this is, after all, weblogging, and that we are offering our opinions is rather undeniabley inherent.

I'm benevolent with folks who are being real, and I can sniff a personal agenda and self-serving attitude a country mile away. I call folks on bullshit when I see bullshit, and I respect when I'm called on bullshit. I've been writing on blogs since 2001, have some specifiic notions on what we are (and should be) doing here, and sometimes I even share those.

I consider weblogging both sacred and meaningless at the same time.

Don't fuck with me, I'm BLX certified.

NICE e-book, Free Culture

Hey, Taran has a wonderful Free Culture e-book on easylum. Go read it and enjoy!

HEY! the universe just ate one of my billable hours!

Windows just pushed my clock ahead an hour. Yah, well, spring this. I'm billing it.

So many daves, so few georges.

This George reads Chapter 1.

Nicety Nice, George -- We like! George and George need to start their own voice over business. Any other Georges out there gonna play?

popup

"Free Culture" popup audiobook

FREE CULTURE by Lawrence Lessig (and friends) - Reflections, part 1

Scott Matthews has a great site up giving a home to the chapters folks have read.

Eric Rice also has a great one.

Can you imagine if, let's say, Lessig was some other author with a publicist and PR firm, and on the off chance the publisher would even consider tossing the audio online for free (which they wouldn't), how long it would take to make it happen. Hire the professionals, rent a studio, get design involved, build a portal with links hither and yon. What's your guesss--I say a month on the absolute short end. Probably more like three. You'd have strategy and messaging and project plans. You'd have brainstorms and travel and legal involved.

This is one of the best examples I've seen of how ideas catch fire in the blogworld, and the best example I've seen of quick turn around on a collaborative venture with a tangible deliverable.

Would it have worked if there were money on the line? If this had been anything other than a labor of love? I'm guessing the backtracks and backbiting would have put a stop to it. Because giving, not gain, was the motivation.

It's been a fascinating week watching this develop. I think I'll have more to say on the phenomenon of the priest with the idea that inspired dozens to open their mouths.

I wish they had a lotto for bloggers

Damn, I wish I woulda put money on this one. ;-)

Well wow

Shelley wrote several screens full over the last few days when all I was trying to do was upload a big file.

Good reads, all of them.

BLX 1.0 - you better believe it.

BLX 1.0 compliant and proud of it.



All 'Bollocks' all the time.

George Sessum, with Intro by Jenna, Reads Chapter 13 of Free Culture, by Lawrence Lessig

Well it was a while coming, but thanks to the advice on burnatonce, we got the file up. George reads Chapter 13 of Lawrence Lessig's new book, Free Culture, ala AKMA's great idea.

Here it is, with an intro by jenna.

John Didion Rocks Our World

Thank you John for turning us on to Burnatonce (that's burn at once, not burn atonce as I first pronounced in my head) as a way to get the Lessig Chapter 13 file George read OFF the music computer as a data file and up to our server. Upload is in progress. Crossing fingers and toes. Three cheers for burnatonce, a nice, simple, elegent CD burning application that just won our hearts after FOUR days of catch 22s trying to get the CD to take data as data.