Wednesday, 2004-04-28
tallying up my disgust
At various times this year I've started an informal tally. Often, my methodology breaks for reasons that I will outline here, but first you might want to know what I'm actually keeping track of.
Few people wash their hands after doing their business. Considering these people step out into the world, hands unwashed, shaking my hand and making my food disturbs me.
So I've mentally counted who leaves the restroom directly, without cleaning their hands. And the hangup: should I include myself — I'm not guilty of skipping the sink, ever — in the tally once or every single time?
After working this kink out, with your help, expect a counter on the right. And disgust on your face and mine.
Tuesday, 2004-04-27
rebuild (no longer) in progress
This site is currently under construction. Beware of falling debris.
Update: I've resolved my last major concern with the new design. If anything appears as it shouldn't, please let me know.
Thursday, 2004-04-22
an employee scorned
New York City blogger [name removed] was fired by Bobley-Harmann today (asking for a raise — grounds for a layoff?).
Instead of going down without a fight [removed] has created a couple of blogs that'll vilify his previous employer, and its clients. They mostly feature fact with some fiction thrown in for spice:
Stick it to The Man...uhmm...man.
Make sure to check out a few of his Star Blogger celebrity parody sites, especially that of Eminem, Debbie Mathers and the Friends cast. The upside to his firing? He'll have plenty to work on in his downtime!
Saturday, 2004-04-17
moveon.org bake sale at marley fest
Wow! We did some good for grassroots today at the MoveOn.org "No W, No Cry" Bake Sale at the Austin Marley Fest. Close to $1000 fund-raised through only $1 baked goods purchases and small donations!
Memorable signs from the booth:
- Have Your Cake and Beat Bush II
- Eat Bush [This was a big hit with some ladies in pairs. Not exactly sure why.]
- No More George W(ar) Bush
When we were closing shop, I got mugged for the cookies I was carrying out. I should've known better than to give them out for free.
But I did hear something to the affect of "free cookies from a cute guy, awesome." Which was well, awesome.
Wednesday, 2004-04-14
four steps to blog marketing success
Instructions from Caterina.net:
- Grab the nearest book.
- Open the book to page 23.
- Find the fifth sentence.
- Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Text: Thompson concludes that "to take possession of sexuality in the wake of the anti-erotic sexist socialization that remains the majority experience, most teenage girls need an erotic education" (1990, 406).
From: Sociology of Sexualities (SOC 321 K) Course Packet. Specifically page 284 of a book titled "Doing Desire: Adolescent Girls' Struggles for/with Sexuality" by Deborah L. Tolman.
Monday, 2004-04-12
the writings on the stall (gets some love)
The Writings on the Stall has been Boing Boing'd. Much thanks, Cory.
Collected toilet walls
Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing
Writings on the Stall is a site that collects bathroom graffiti -- they want your submissions. Link (Thanks, Jonathan!)
The number of writings flowing in is just mind-boggling. In less than a day's time we've already surpassed the number of entries since mid-2002.
All I have to say is keep 'em coming.
Saturday, 2004-04-10
when i'm bored there'll always be pgdp
Henceforth, when I catch myself doing nothing at my computer — happens all the time — I'm going to head to Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders (PGDP). And start proofreading:
This site provides a web-based method of easing the proofreading work associated with the digitization of Public Domain books into Project Gutenberg e-books. By breaking the work into individual pages many proofreaders can be working on the same book at the same time. This significantly speeds up the proofreading/e-book creation process.
This will provide a great chance to volunteer for people like me (who always say they want to, but never do). As a plus, the project may boost my interest in books that I'd never have came across otherwise.
[Via Boing Boing.]
Thursday, 2004-04-08
old man dentler has a blog?
Matt Dentler — of SXSW Film fame (say that five times fast, pardoning the excessive alliteration of the character 'F' and this extremely long sentence segment) — now has a blog.
Matt Dentler, blogging at IndieWire
Bloggin' from Austin
So here it is... the "blog." I've never had a blog before. My grandfather first came to this country back in the 1930s because he heard we had good blogs. I hope to make him proud.
With Matt jumping onboard I may have to jump ship. Regardless, the term blog, as we presently know it, has now and forever changed.
Sunday, 2004-04-04
good ol' prop (not)
To the guy with a cane — serving no obvious medical purpose — at Elysium tonite: you looked like an idiot.
Thursday, 2004-04-01
better permalinks
Some may have noticed that permalinks at this site now use a more informational format. I'm quite happy with the result. If you are interested in replicating the process — and use Movable Type (MT) — follow the instructions below.
Before we start, a few caveats: Setup may vary for your site and/or intended setup (the steps you'll find below worked for this site). With this specific method, you'll have to as well make sure you don't forget to input keywords for every entry.
Finally, a basic knowledge of both MT and website publishing will be assumed in the process. That said:
- Added keywords to every entry of this site (whew!) so that permalinks will remain short. Others in the MT blogosphere have used entry titles to create permalinks. As titles here tend to be very long, this would've likewise meant for very long URLs.
- Created a new Template Module (bottom of Templates page) named Permalink. This file is linked to:
templates/modules/permalink.txtand it's contents exist in my Permalink Module. This makes life very easy. You'll see. - Created a template so that I could automate the addition of sitewide URI changes to my
.htaccessfile. The code used will ensure that old links don't break at another pointless dotcom. Find it here: Link Transfer template. - Went to Weblog Config > Archiving and input
archive/<$MTArchiveDate format="%Y/%m/%d"$>/<$MTEntryKeywords dirify="1"$>/index.htmlin the Individual Archive File Template field. - Started replacing any instance of permalinks in my site with
<$MTInclude module="Permalink"$>. This pulls in (during Rebuild) the Template Module created in step 2. In the future, you can change your permalink structure sitewide — if you use MT as a CMS, as I do. - Rebuilt entire site and crossed fingers. Thankfully, all went well.
It's very important that I credit Mark Pilgrim, whose prior art influenced/stirred my imagination. The only reason I didn't follow his method was that I wanted my URLs to end in slashes, as his didn't. If this nearly insignificant aspect doesn't hinder you, I strongly recommend his tutorial over mine.