June 2011
2 posts
“I really like seeing people move from thinking about it to doing it.”
April 2011
1 post
The Sidewalk
The Sidewalk
When you told me you went for a walk today, I was envious of the sidewalk, and its ability to be all around you.
January 2011
2 posts
What's the Matter With People Around Here, Any...
When I was at school in Humboldt County, my girlfriend and I lived in a tiny cabin in Trinidad, California. Next door lived a desperate alcoholic who drank at least a half gallon of cheap whiskey every day.
One day I heard a voice ask “How’s it going?” from somewhere within his cabin. We chatted, and I told him the brakes had failed on my truck nearly causing a crash, and that...
“The world and the universe is an extremely beautiful place, and the more we...”
– Richard Dawkins (via nathanielstuart)
July 2010
1 post
January 2010
1 post
“Sometimes I recall a smile, a kindness, or a close friend, or I hear a bit of a...”
December 2009
1 post
Five Airline Safety Rules Not Adopted by T.S.A.
Tighter air travel regulations have been in the news in the wake of the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day.
We owe a debt of gratitude to regulators and legislators for preventing the adoption of some additional, and quite onerous, rules. Some of these unimplemented rules include:
Passengers will receive either a first-class upgrade or 20,000...
July 2009
1 post
Vintage Sears Adding Machine Lakes Racer
When I found this vintage Sears adding machine (1970s?) in a local thrift store, I knew that it was a lakes racer trapped in an adding machine’s body. Look at the sweeping Boyd Coddington-esque lines, the two-tone burnt orange finish, the woodie sides. So I took it home and added custom wheels and side pipes from a cherry Mattel Vroom car.
This one of a kind hot rod is for sale for $600....
June 2009
1 post
2 tags
CNN Headline News T-Shirts
I probably shouldn’t be sharing the secret of these cool t-shirts. A couple of weeks ago I went to see Was Not Was, and the keyboard player had a shirt on that said Dummy bomb falls from jet, lands on truck. I did a little research and found that CNN creates t-shirts with interesting headlines, and the network continues to retire headlines and add new ones. Today’s headline sounded...
January 2009
1 post
MLK: From a thing-oriented society to a...
Earlier this month I was at Macworld, and I spotted the following quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. on a plaque at a fountain in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center:
“We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets...
December 2008
1 post
My favorite holiday gift: MGA Entertainment...
It’s the end of the line for Bratz dolls with a major courtroom victory by Mattel this week. According to an AP report “Toy giant Mattel Inc., after a four-year legal dispute with MGA Entertainment Inc., touted its win in the case Wednesday after a federal judge banned MGA from making and selling its pouty-lipped and hugely popular Bratz dolls.”
This is the best gift of the...
November 2008
8 posts
4 tags
30th anniversary of Jonestown Massacre - good time...
I hate buzz words and cliches passionately, but one of the worst is “drinking the Kool-Aid.” This week marks the 30th anniversary of the event that spawned that idiotic expression, the Jonestown Massacre, in which as many as 900 followers of the cult leader Jim Jones died after being forced to consume Kool-Aid laced with poison.
Tim Reiterman, a journalist who flew to Jonestown,...
P&G and the tragic unhipness of Google
The recent news that brand stalwart Procter and Gamble and ultra hipster Google have collaborated in a convergence of “old meets new” made me laugh. OK, sure, Google is known for, as the WSJ points out, company-provided scooters in the hallways and for giving engineers lots of room to create great things, like the recently shut down Lively.
But the problem with applied hipness is that once it...
The death of “the death of” meme
Once popular and beloved, “the death of” meme, known for driving site traffic and links, was laid to rest this afternoon in a pauper’s grave at My Lady of Perpetual Annoyance Memorial Park. Star of such classics as Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!, The Death of the Press Release (in wide syndication), and, more recently, the critical hit/box office flop, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs...
Texas Longhorn Facebooks self off team
According to a piece in today’s Sporting News, “Buck Burnette is your latest example of how not to use Facebook. The backup center for the Texas Longhorns is no longer on the team due to ‘unspecified violations of team rules,’ according to Texas. The real story of how he managed to Facebook his way off the team, however, may be far more specific and interesting than that...
Nearing the end of the hegemony of the...
For too long, the so-called A-List has been dominated by bloggers who nominated themselves for inclusion by getting into the game early and subsequently promoting themselves at every opportunity. But people aren’t buying it anymore. They’ve come to realize they can’t form their worldview by confining themselves to the opinions of the same 10 people who have been dominating social media and web 2.0...
“Our focus should not be on emerging technologies but on emerging cultural...”
– Henry Jenkins, Professor of Comparative Media, MIT, and author of Convergence Culture: When Old and New Media Collide. From a slideshow on Gerd Leonhard’s Music 2.0 site
Fax you? Forget it gramps!
The November 3 Wired features a piece titled Five Useless Gadgets You Should Throw in the Trash Right Now.
Predticably, the piece slams our old friend the fax machine: “Still sending faxes? Hi grandad! The fax was useful when it was the only way to move documents around faster than mailing them. Now it’s pointless.”
I’ll say it’s pointless! And the next time a...
So, it's November
Halloween is behind us and I’ve just finished writing my book. For the first time in six months I have a few minutes respite, so I was compelled to write my first ever, narcissistic, totally not work related, personal recollection. As I understand the early history of blogging, that’s what people used to do on blogs. I’ve always liked Tumblr, and I think it’s ideal for this...
January 2008
5 posts
WatchMy daughter and I tied her Webkinz pets to the ceiling fan to give them a carnival ride thrill.
“That is not dead, which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even death may...”
– H.P. Lovecraft
More Tumblr experimentation
I’m all over the microblogging world this week trying out (and returning to) various tools to check out features, ease-of-use and visual appeal. I love Tumblr. It has the best interface and is super clean looking. I use it to teach people what a blog is. You can set up a Tumblr account and be posting text, video, links, etc. in minutes.