Where I’m @

20020225

Mom’s doing poorly, and I find myself less interested in talking about it than I used to. It used to be pretty easy to give an answer to people who would ask how she was doing, but it’s not so easy any more. Not as many people ask, anyway, which is fine, but I think they don’t ask because in the backs of their minds they’re not sure whether my answer will be that she’s dead, and nobody wants to hear that. Anyway, Jeffrey Zeldman wrote four fine pieces about his mother’s dying way back when. That was, in fact, the first way I took note of him, not for his webdesign abilities and web-savvy. You can read them in order, or not, but you should write him and tell you how they make you feel. I think he still should be told. They still comfort me.

Jeffrey Zeldman’s My Glamorous Life, Episodes Ten, Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen.

20020221

Nothing much to say lately, for some reason. And all I have to say now is that I’ve added a new blog link to the list and a link to this month’s archives. The new blog, Über.nu, seems nice, at least at first blush. And it’s part of a larger set of text-based product organization. At the same time, I’ve crossed out some blogs that just aren’t doing it for me right now. I’m so fickle.

20020215

Ecchhh. I had a nice roundup of assorted Valentine’s day blog posts and ones from today (pretty much all French ones today, since most of the English blogs I read seem to be West Coast), and then Mozilla died while trying to load Scripting.com. What’s up with that? I love Moz and all, but it has a way of encountering sites that just don’t like it, or perhaps there’s some bad interactions with Win2K carrying on. In any case, the only one that you should really not miss is Megnut’s post of a picture of a Valentine very much like that which Ralph Wiggum gave to Lisa Simpson.

20020212

Independent Site of the Day #7: FameTracker
Billing itself curiously as “The Farmer’s Almanac of Celebrity Worth”, FameTracker may not qualify 100% as an independent site, since it’s run as a company of sorts. And it’s Canadian. And as we all know, the Canadian government subsidizes everything up there; that’s why they’re in such a deep recession. But in any case, I haven't laughed out loud in my office cubicle in a while, and haven't had as much fun reading about celebrities since the Washed-Update at IMDb died the death of those portions of sites that don't contribute to the bottom line. FameTracker covers celebrities in a pretty odd way, but in the way that most of your average snide, cynical Gen-X type folk do. After all, celebrities have no soul or right to privacy or worth other than what we the public bestow on them, so why hide that in our media. FameTracker slices and dices media culture in such sections as “2 Stars 1 Slot” (a pair who seem to be playing the exact same types roles) , “The Fame Audit” (in which they dissect a performer and decide whether they are overrated or underrated), and my favorite, “Hey! It’s That Guy” (in which they list and examine a number of also-rans and has-beens and character actors). Lotsa content worth reading, and they say that they’ll consider accepting submissions.
Not that they’re perfect: Consider that they did a piece on how Gilmore Girls was cobbled together from predetermined Hollywood genetics patterns. Funny, but they people they picked as gene determinants for the GG characters were enough off to greatly lessen the humor. Likewise, in their examination of whether Wayne Knight is a personality or celebrity, their math is off, as I reckon. Also, their site loads kinda slow, even on the office DSL.
But once it does, laffs a-plenty!

Independent site review concept by Aortal

Just in case you ever wanted to keep up with the man I best remember as Gordie from Stand By Me, Will Wheaton. Apparently he got on Star Trek: The Next Generation for a reason. Wonder how many celeb or ex-celeb or pseudo-celeb blogs there are? I’ve already mentioned RuPaul here in these pages, and now here’s Will Wheaton. Who’s next? Martha Plimpton? Jon Polito?

Dude. I’ve been listening to Hüsker Dü’s Zen Arcade this morning, and can I just say how thankful I am for Napster? When I first clued in to that app from heaven, among the first things I got were the complete studio works of Firehose and the complete studio works of Hüsker Dü, and better decisions I don’t usually make. Firehose I had liked before and so I ended up buying the CDs also, and when I scrape some money together (that won’t go to paying for car repairs like the new starter we had to buy two weeks ago) I’ll pick up the Hüskers, starting with Zen Arcade, New Day Rising, and Metal Circus. IMHO, those are the peaks. Not that Land Speed Record doesn’t shatter glass, but the others just have that extra something.

20020211

Hey! I got mentioned in Tantek Çelik’s page about up-to-date sites. Not that the page he’s got up with the links is much to write about, but I feel validated. (Pun intended.)

20020208

New special surprise in one of the melons, but I’m not telling which one. The surprise needs some smoothing, but I like it.

20020206

Les Français se multipliennent

According to a report on Radio France Internationale, which I’m listening to today, French folk knocked les bottes more than they bought la ferme in 2000–2001 giving them a net increase of 300,000 people. As last year, the French live the longest, 75.5 years for men and 83 years for women. That beats us pretty good — we’re only at 73.8 for men and 79.5 for women. (See the full demographic report from l’INSEE, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

20020204

World Economic Forum
New York 2002
Day 4/5
Since so many of the others of these meetings of the oligarchy have ended with a bang (or a smack or a thud, or a sickening crack), it just fits the odds that this one is instead a whimper. Another day of nothingness was day 5, and the cop at the corner told me he expects that we won’t have to deal with all the mishugas tomorrow. Having grown slightly neurotic in my twenties (adding on to cynical from my late teens), I am concerned about the lack of activity against the WEF, but I remain optimistic enough to think that this was a temporary lapse. At the same time: The SO and I happened to be in the East Village yesterday and witnessed one of the small, seemingly impromptu demonstrations erupted. Holy cow. Vans and vans of cops, scary unmarked black SUVs reminiscent of those driven by the federalistas in Traffic. Cars blocked at 13th St. Cops driving the wrong way up 2nd Ave. Over. Reacting. Police.

Is it overreacting on my part to say that the level of intimidation exercised by the NYPD carries the features of a police state? Possibly. Yet isn’t that a hallmark of a police state, the quashing of dissent before it even arises? I’m no expert, and I don’t even play one on TV, but I’m just sayin’ I’m nervous.

20020202

World Economic Forum
New York 2002
Day 3
Not at the office today, so I’m relying on others’ reporting, and I must say the results are fairly wide ranging. NYC Independent Media Center says that police have used pepper spray and excessive force, that 25K people were estimated to be marching at one point in the day, that something like 72 people have been arrested. CNN says that 1000 people gathered at Columbus Circle and two have been arrested. 1010 WINS says that a protester in a suit and tie “epitomized the protesters” in his calmness; they quote a figure of “several thousand”. NY1 headlines Hundreds of Protesters Rally During World Economic Forum’s Third Day and focuses on the cost of police overtime (without noting that the NY police are paid comparatively less than their counterparts in New Jersey and on Long Island), the inferrence that protesters were deterred on Thursday and Friday by the rain (no source given for that info), and the perception that the police are around to keep demonstrations under control (forget protecting the rich, the cops are just here to curb your exercise of your Constitutional rights).

20020201

OK, so today wasn’t all bad. I did get to see the official FDNY Midtown East golf cart:

World Economic Forum
New York 2002
Day 2
<rant rationality="medium-high">
Today is not my day. It’s raining, so I can&8217;t take many good pix, and I’m up to 6 reasons why I find it hard to like the NYPD, despite the hype.

1. I can walk east on 50th street between Park and Lex, but not west
2. The cop who wouldn’t let me walk west on 50th explained that he was just doing as he was told
3. This cop was telling me this while wearing a balaclava that hid most of his face. Is he planning on removing it when he goes in to arrest the protesters in accordance with that 1845 law?
4. The cops at many of the ID checkpoints are flirting with or joking with the people as they pass through. The word when my dad was in the Marines was that “A Marine on duty has no friends”
5. Oh, that’s right, they weren’t joking with the bike messengers, the delivery guys, and the majority of the men. Best argument for gender parity in our military that I’ve ever seen
6. Nothing is happening, so the only reason that I’m having my liberty curtailed is so that there will be no chance that
   1. The NYPD’s sterling image will go away*
   2. Anything remotely unpleasant will happen to me, a white middle-class midtown-working person. God forbid that one of the four $tarbuck$ in the immediate vicinity has anything happen to it. Or the one I passed in the East Village last night with a cop in front of it. Ditto the Staples around the corner. Ditto the McDonalds downtown.

</rant>

There’s a tobacconist around the corner that already has a sign up in the window saying, “So long, World Economic Forum. Please don’t come back soon.”



*Yes, I know that the police walk a fine line between being lax and being thugs. Personally, though, I’ll take my freedom with lumps, please.