I’m not sure if it’s fiction or memoir, but this piece from Catfish on the Table, a blog I recently found though my recent referrers gizmos down in the righthand sidebar, is well worth your time. Puts me in mind of the memoirs of Frank McCourt, and as well written, ’tis.
Also : “Have you ever tried to get into a girl’s pants when her main intellectual influence is Steinbeck?” Mad, hilarious, brilliant sh-t from Alex.
Some things I’m angry about :
Joey (aka the Mighty Accordian Guy) has some pics of the fallout (literally) from the garbage strike in Toronto.
I empathize, cap’n. This is the way my neighbourhood looks all the time. Lovely Bugok, vacationland of the rich and famous. Damn right I’m angry.
Here’s some amusing crap old and new to divert your attention from the fact that WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!
No, really.
Scrollbar racing.
A brief history of the codpiece. (I tried to start a fashion trend (being the trendmonger I am and always have been *snort*) when I was in university to Bring Back the Codpiece. It failed.)
WebCollage: Exterminate All Rational Thought
The power and the beauty of Crazy Drunk Guy. Have you accepted Crazy Drunk Guy as your Personal Saviour?
Hope you enjoyed that. I sure as heck did.
When you get sick in Korea, with anything, the doctor writes you a prescription. Not that that’s unlike the west, of course. The drug companies worldwide make sure that the medicowhores push chemicals on their patients relentlessly. But in Korea, this is actually a new feature of the medical landscape – until recently you were able to just walk into a pharmacy and say “I’ve got this pain right here,” and the pharmacist would load you up with armloads of drugs.
The law was changed a few years ago, and the pharmacists kicked up a big stink. To no avail, happily.
But no matter the illness with which you have been diagnosed, you always get the same number of pills. Five. Regardless of whether you have cancer or a common cold, ulcers or an ear infection, you come away from the pharmacist with a string of little sealed wax paper packets, in each of which is 5 pills, of various colours and sizes. Without fail. I’ve never actually checked to see if these variety packs of pills change depending on the illness with which you are currently stricken, but I am curious as to what they might be.
My good buddy the mighty Bearman (why not go say hi – he’s one of the friendly ones!) has sent me a screenshot illustrating the sort of problem that yhbc was talking about here, on IE 5/5.5, with the new layout. I hope I’ve corrected it, but I don’t have access to that browser. If you’re using an older version of IE and things look messed up, please leave me a comment. Thanks!
I posted this over here a few days ago, to resounding silence, which could be due to the fact that a) it’s bollocks, b) no one cares, c) no one read it or d) a combination of the three. But since I’m nothing if not pigheaded, and it gelled a couple of things for me in my mind about both the questions of identity that were doing the rounds recently and the cross-blog conversations idea that I’ve gone on about before, I’m going to cross-post it here. Because I can, and because I like feedback, even though I am a little gunshy tiptoeing through the backdoor back into Smart Person Land. Still, forward!
I’d add to what Shelley and David have said about ThreadNeedle and blogs, just off the top of my head, my take on it : that in the online ‘asynchronous discussion communities’ that Dan mentioned below in /m106, you have represented yourself through the things you say and have said in that community. There may have been an additional body of work, but this was secondary to the text-representation of yourself that accreted, word by word, as a result of your participation. My personal example of this would be my participation at Metafilter over the last couple of years.
This is a trivial observation, I know. But your avatar was effectively yourself as you chose to represent yourself via your comments and conversations.
When we talk about a weblog, though, I think it’s profitable to talk about two separate entities created as an adjunct of our online presence, at least the one that derives from the weblog itself : the (for lack of a better word) publication and the person.
Now certainly, the ‘publication’ is a mirror, to whatever extent, of the person writing it. We see many weblogs that stop here at this point, that have no commenting systems enabled, or that pay little attention the ‘community’, that are traditional web logs (ie collections of links with minimal commentary) or diaries or photoblogs or warblogs or god knows what…but that are intended less as manifestations of the person behind them than publications about that person or their interests.
Another dimension, though, comes in with weblogs that have comment threads, that encourage and participate in conversations with other weblogs/webloggers. In this situation, the weblog not only becomes a publication about something (which might, in the case of more diarist-type blogs, be the person who is writing it) but a representation, an avatar of that person. The weblog itself becomes an active extension of the weblogger’s identity (I wish I’d thought about this during the recent conversations around the blogs about ‘identity’. Ah well.) The weblog is something that is carried with them (or is an extension of their identity online…? I’m not sure about this bit at all), and the cross-blog conversations that occur as a result of this, in posts and their comment threads, are in a way a new and larger version of the sort of discussion types we’re historically used to, that Dan mentioned in his earlier post. A version that carries a body of work, a more deliberate one, along with the community member.
Does this make sense? I’m riffing here, and I have to admit that I haven’t read David’s book yet, so the sort of thing I’m trying to get a handle on (and communicate at the same time) might be old news.
Anyway (*takes a breath*) – I see these weblogs, the blogs that are not only ‘publications’ about something but also representations of the personality behind the words (and are this way because the weblogger has comments threads and/or engages in cross-blog conversations in their main posts and/or blogrolls people (the use of the word ‘people’ here is deliberate) as an acknowledgment of community), avatars that engage in conversation, to be the audience at which Shelley‘s ThreadNeedle is aimed. And I think (hope) that the service might be a major step forward, if it reaches critical mass.
(Also, don’t forget to add your two bits to the conversation about Threadneedle still going on here.)
Like Graham said : The coolness of this thing just blows me away. Here’s a picture
(popup, 75k) of the web of blogs related to me, according to Google, 3 deep. Fascinating. You can double click on any of the other blogs, and the app will go and find the cloud of sites googly-related to it, in turn. One surprise would be the absence of Burningbird, but I seem to recall her excluding the Googlebot from her domains some time ago, so that makes sense after all. Interesting too, that my strongest connection through to a cloud of Metafilter bloggers is via jonmc’s View From The Counter. I would have expected 9622.net to be on there…
This makes the propellor on my beanie whiz at a frightening speed.
A door has opened today, just a crack, and it looks as if it might just be possible for me to go back to Australia sometime in the next year or so. Until I was chatting with my old friend/old boss earlier today and the discussion turned to the real possibility of me returning Oz-ward, I hadn’t realized how much I love and how much I achingly miss Sydney.
*crosses fingers*
What am I going to be able to bitch about if I leave Korea again, though?
And now, as a special public service announcement, here’s some stupid sh-t that was running through my brain this afternoon as I made some chicken cacciatore :
Since it seems we’ve been saddled with the monicker ‘warbloggers’ for the forseeable future, I thought we should open up some more niches for folks, you know, so they don’t feel left out. You can have hours of fun, if you’re so inclined, assigning your friends and neighbours to the right Tribe, a la the Harry Potter thing. If I had the energy, I’d make one of those stupid f–king quizzes. But I don’t. So… onward!
I propose the foundation of the following new BlogTribes :
Any additions?
What is happening in Cro-Magnon Territory and the Neanderthal territories?
Cro-Magnon forces moved into key Neanderthal towns in the Big River Caves at the end of cold season to try to halt a series of suicide attacks on its citizens.
There were many casualties in the military operation which also sparked a wave of protests in the Neanderthal world and led Cro-Magnon Territory’s main ally, That Other Tribe, to call for killmaker withdrawals.
The action caused much hardship among Neanderthals and the militant rock-throwing campaign against Cro-Magnon Territory has continued since.
So how did the violence begin?
The Neanderthal intifada, or uprising, broke out at the end of The Long Cold Season When The Mammoths Died.
Analysts say the atmosphere at the time was ripe for an explosion. Neanderthal frustration that years of the peace process had failed to deliver their political aspirations was intensified by the failure of the Deep Cave summit in Hot Season.
Then Cro-Magnon hard-liner Arshon visited a site in Shared Hunting Grounds known to Neanderthal Shamen as the Noble Sanctuary and to Cro Magnon Ghost Talkers as Happy Killing Floor.
The Neanderthals viewed the visit as provocative because the hunting ground lies on territory captured by Cro-Magnons in the Grandfather war and is at the centre of the fierce dispute over the sovereignty of Shared Hunting Grounds. It ended in bloody clashes at the Shamen tents, which quickly spread through the occupied Neanderthal territories.
Correspondents say the visit was intended to underline the Cro Mag claim to the hunting ground and its holy sites.
What has happened to the peace process?
One of the weaknesses of the Father Times peace process was that it deliberately left the most difficult issues – the status of Shared Hunting Grounds, refugees and borders – until last, in the belief that this would make them easier to resolve.
These issues were finally discussed when the former Other Tribe Chief Clon made an all-out attempt to bring then Cro Mag Ghost Talker Ehurak and the Neanderthal leader Yasafat together at The Other Tribe’s long house.
An agreement was in sight, but talks broke down over failure to agree on the future of Shared Hunting Grounds and – to a lesser extent – the fate of Neanderthal refugees.
Cro-Magnon leaders believed they had been generous to the Neanderthals, while Neanderthal negotiators rejected the proposals as inadequate.
The two sides came even closer to agreement when they met during The Long Cold Season When The Mammoths Died. But this, too, ended in failure.
There has been very little progress on the diplomatic front since Arshon took possession of the Leader Bone more than a year ago.
He has accused his predecessor of offering the Neanderthals unacceptable concessions and that all Cro-Magnon Territory got in return was violence.
One of the biggest obstacles to final status agreement is the issue of Cro Mag settlements, and Arshon has long been seen as a champion of the settlers’ cause.
The Neanderthal Authority currently controls most of The Big River but less than 40% of the Big River Caves, in non-contiguous chunks that are dotted with Cro-Magnon settlements. The Neanderthals believe there can only be a purely Neanderthal state if the settlements are dismantled.
Why are both sides locked in this violence?
Arshon says there is no room for dialogue as long as violence continues. He said the Ehurak Government tried to negotiate under hails of rocks for several months but to no avail.
The Cro-Magnon leader has shown a resolutely tough paw in his dealings with the Neanderthals – but commentators say his policies have support among most Cro-Magnons.
They support the government’s view that Cro-Magnon Territory is exercising its right to self-defence in the face of attacks from Neanderthal militants on Cro-Magnon civilians and defence forces.
The government accuses Yasafat of failing to contain militant groups like Big Stones Brotherhood and Neanderthal Ghost Eaters which carry out many of the attacks. But analysts are now increasingly arguing that Yasafat is in no position to control them.
The Neanderthals say militant attacks on Cro-Magnon Territory are inevitable as long as there is no satisfactory Neanderthal state.
The militant group BSB has pledged to escalate its activities and intensify the armed struggle against Cro-Magnon Territory. The group’s popularity has soared recently, following the demise of the peace process and general sense of despair.
Could the peace process be revived?
Any common ground that appeared to exist at the Other Tribe’s long house has been all but extinguished by more than a hundred thousand years of fighting.
The only thing that could make the two sides move is outside pressure.
There is hope that proposals put forward by more evolved branches of the species for peace and normalisation between Cro-Magnon Territory and its neanderthal neighbours could provide the much-needed momentum.
Under the terms of the proposal which was debated after The Long Cold Season When The Mammoths Died, Cro-Magnon Territory would withdraw from territory occupied in Grandfather Times and a Neanderthal state would be created with its capital in East Shared Hunting Grounds.
In return, Neanderthal nations would give Cro-Magnon Territory full diplomatic relations, including security guarantees, trade relations, animal skins, and some women.
But this plan will only be taken seriously by Arshon if it is actively promoted by the Other Tribes Big Chief Geush.
So far, the homo sapiens proposal has not led to any moves to halt the violence and revive the peace process.
[Search and replace liberties taken with this article.]
Via Mefi, [this is good] for blowing the carbon out of the old mental valves.
I ran into another one of those odd but amusing Korea things as I shambled off to the doctor today to have him insert his video camera into my ears (revealing the most unnervingly unpleasant innerspace vistas I’ve seen in a long time, I must admit. I half-expected to see tiny demons, smoking cigars and lounging on the mounds of reddish-brown crud, poking the souls of the damned in the ass with pitchforks.
Aside to the aside : I tend to patronize practitioners of the medical profession as little as possible, as I’m just a little eccentric that way, and so new technogadgets like the teeny tiny video just blow me away. When did this stuff get invented? I’m kinda keen to make up some maladies just to see what other shiny med-gear surprises might be in store for me! And the patient management software he had, even though it was in Korean, of course, was really freakin cool as well.)
So, anyway, I’m walking down the street and the bass-heavy thumpathump of booty-shaking disco rumbles down the pavement at me. I step aside, matador-like, but it gets all up in my face, and I steel myself to the inevitable.
Although it’s like 33 degrees (that’s about fahrenheit 451 for you Americans out there) and the humidity is pushing 98 percent (i.e. if I hork a loogie, to, like, blend in with the crowd, it would kind of float there in front of me, ghostly as well as ghastly, and then slowly dissolve into a sticky mist), there are two rent-a-dancers outside the new shop in the recently-completed concrete block on the corner.
The new shop is a clothing store for infants called, Koreanically-enough given their dutiful but regrettable obsession with the fruits of fornication rather than the act itself, Baby Boss.
Still, undeterred by the surrealism of the whole proposition, the young ladies (who are quite stunningly lovely under all that furrowed-by-rivulets-of-sweat makeup) are shaking their booties frenetically, halting only to implore passersby to come in, buy something, anything for chrissakes, just please pretend to be interested, or he’ll beat us again!
Well, I exaggerate a titch, perhaps, for comedic effect, but there was indeed a guy who looked very much the part of The Procurer, red-faced and corpulent, leaning against a mini-van parked across the street, alternately scowling and leering. I suspect if he were not Korean, he’d be called Rocco. Hell, maybe he was called Rocco. I didn’t stop to ask.
Nor did I stop to browse the baby clothes. I hope the girls don’t pay for my inattention later.
I talked about this phenomenon here, too, if you’re interested.
The new template I’ve been messing around with is live (as you’ve hopefully noticed), even if it’s perhaps not quite ready for primetime…why the hell not, eh? I’m not sure if I’m happy with it, but I wanted to try a couple things (like the category icons). Archives and comments display and so on have yet to be updated.
Should work fine in all modern browsers. Let me know if you have a problem. Any feedback is much appreciated. I haven’t integrated a single damn thing that Mark’s been talking about lately (except accidentally, like today’s, because I hate popup windows too), since I’m a complete bastard but I probably will, once I iron out the bugs and clean up the extraneous crud. Also, I have encountered some folks out there who are super-hip and elegantly snarky, and who have been known to curl their designer-lip at the preponderance of grey and blue one sees all over the place. f–k ya. There’s a reason I wear blue jeans and that 90% of my other clothing is either black or white or grey. They’re easy.
And by the way : happy Canada Day to you all, even if you’re, you know, not.
Edit : The juxtaposition of images used herein is in no way intended to promote or condone the crime of drinking and driving. Driving and then drinking, however, now that’s just peachy.
