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November 28, 2005
The name Anzac?!
I was going to blog about how baffled I was by the fact that Australia's customs agency demands I not send anything to the country which bears the name Anzac, but instead I'll send you to someone who's already posted a whole list of unusual customs demands. I wonder if Bangladesh still pays any attention when people send quinine water colored pink.
Posted by me at 4:32 PM | Comments (2)
How do you type with those things?!
Not sure why I felt compelled to look this up today -- probably because I found myself asking the above question of a fellow doctoral student yesterday -- but a Google search for long nails turned up a fascinating site.
The crossovers between long nails and s3xualized fetishism are clear there, but less obvious is what I know from my neighborhood and the Bronx -- that nails of an inch or more with complicated paint jobs are simply expected of women in many areas of the US (and apparently the UK as well). It used to drive the urban studies prof I know at Queens up a wall -- she'd explain to her students that managerial types looking to hire office workers frowned on long nails, and her students would give her blank looks. The class tensions of nail length would make an interesting paper. I'm sure it's been done.
Posted by me at 2:21 PM | Comments (0)
November 25, 2005
Catching Up on Others's Blogs
Because I am terrified of this presentation I am supposed to do at NRC next week, I am procrastinating hardcore in a way which will not make me feel quite as dirty as playing WoW for hours. I am catching up on friends' blogs. Here's a selected rundown.
I feel better knowing that Roger hasn't posted in months, seeing as we're both going through grad school, and I feel this gives me an excuse. But James is still managing to post, quite regularly. He did grad school, too without too much slowing down. I don't know how he accomplished both. And James, the answer to your question is, you can at least tell if it's John Williams... it goes DUN DURRADAH DUN DURRADAH DUN DURRADAH DUN DURR-A-DAAAAAHHHH! But you know that by now.
Christine has found the most unintentionally funny movie marquee ever.
Jessamyn asks an important question which I also find compelling. Who is responsible for teaching people to use computers? This question came up for me recently when it became clear that Fabiola had been using the Internet without realizing that she could enter more than one word at a time into a search query. That's right. Not just no understanding of boolean operators or using quotes, no awareness that you could type in a phrase. I haven't a clue how she found all the Harry Potter slash she's into. So who is responsible? This is a central piece of understanding in information literacy, rather like understanding that letters stand for sounds.
Posted by me at 4:21 PM | Comments (2)
November 19, 2005
Don't know whether to be pleased or appalled
The text ads in Gmail actually turn up fascinating stuff sometimes. The latest link to catch my eye was to an article in a "search optimization" industry site which notes that Google is banning people who use "blog submission software" (read: blog spammers).
I'm thrilled to hear Google is doing that, though apparently they've been doing it for a while. Stands to reason -- every time someone spams a blog, Google's ability to deliver is diluted.
The writer of the article suggests that instead of blog spamming, those looking to "optimize" their search ranking use Technorati to find a blog writing about something relating to their site and take "a little effort... to leave an original thought provoking comment." The author spells it all out for those too stupid to understand the purpose of blogs: "You see, these comments are a conversation. And contributing to the conversation, instead of throwing a bag of wrenches into the middle of it, will not only get you a natural SEO helping relevant link on a blog which covers content similar to your own site; it may even bring you some valuable traffic from the blog readers themselves."
Gee willikers... what the Cluetrain Manifesto hath wrought. The sleep of marketers produces monsters. Yuck.
For the record, the blog you are reading now is NOT a good way to advertise your product. My understanding is that the readers here -- as we've established, my mom, Bacon, and about five Communist ex-boyfriends -- are pretty damn fussy about advertising and are not apt to respond well to it. Not to mention that I delete it, aside from the one guy who apparently took that article to heart and posted a "thoughtful" comment about his software, who I publically mocked. I've also considered suing comment spammers for unpaid advertising fees and time I've spent "managing" their ads. Come to think of it, the one advertisement here I'd consider responding to would be one from a lawyer who thinks we could take that suit to court, win, and establish precedent with it. Any takers?
Posted by me at 2:39 PM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2005
Boxes
I have a box of lemonade-and-cherry Nerds, and a box with a brand new 14", 80 gig iBook in it! My afternoon is made. With all due respect to Joel, the only thing that could make it any better is a box arriving right now which has holes in it and says Bacon on it. Capital-B Bacon. And it has air holes and has been shipped special from Seattle. And she steps out of it and sings "Happy Birthday, Mr. President," as only Bacon can.
Posted by me at 4:47 PM | Comments (0)
Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day
Which do you prefer -- Dance Dance Resurrection, or Dance Dance Immolation? If neither floats your proverbial boat, check out the D.D.Resurrection forums, which are just astounding. Or, go check out the videos I shot at the DDR Nationals, which Sammy Elkassir has finally posted.
I didn't put them in .wmv format, so don't blame me.
In other news, I have not seen enough evidence of filking associated with World of Warcraft. And I think that's wrong. Because I am a giant nerd like that. Ope... wait, maybe I spoke too soon. Oh, I'm ambivalent. Maybe I don't want filk in my life after all.
Posted by me at 12:36 AM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2005
Reproducing News
Am currently sitting in on a presentation by a scholar who is attempting to understand how Muslim children shape their identities using the news. She is using professionally-produced news clips and letting kids edit them together in iMovie; the movies are up on that blog.
Finally a scholar addressing my concern about media literacy classes as they have often been taught -- that students understand and value their own work, using limited, non-professional resources, differently from the polished work they see on the news. She notes that students value the work they've done highly when they edit together others' footage, even if they don't have as much time as they'd like. As a means of getting students to think about the constructedness of the news, my money's on this approach to really have a solid effect and make them feel empowered, rather than having them shoot their own stuff.
Posted by me at 6:26 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2005
My Katamari is Tiny!
... probably because I am such a slow roller. And because I have been rolling so slowly on my own Katamari Halloween pictures, here's some taken by someone else -- possibly from one of the other Katamari groups we met? Page through the photos from this first one of Robert Scott as the King of All Cosmos.
Posted by me at 12:08 AM | Comments (0)
November 14, 2005
Radio Silence
Anyone trying to call my cel at the moment will not have an easy time of it. Probably due to my having dropped it in the Seattle Sound five months ago and it never having recovered, my phone is stone dead. If you really need to reach me by phone, try the games lab between noon and 9pm, or better yet, send me email. Personal email at the twistedmatrix account, business email at the gmail and Columbia accounts. ty!
Posted by me at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2005
More Anguish
My friends from high school will be happy to learn that a second volume of Anguished English has been published. Thank you to Harper's for the heads-up.
Posted by me at 12:22 AM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2005
When a kitten comes to your house
Anyone else remember that old Mr. Rogers song? "When a baby comes to your house/ It's a girl, or it's a boy/ something something/ It is never just a toy..." For some reason as I've been posting these pics that keeps running through my head. Anyway, here's some pictures of the kittens we've been fostering, who are up for adoption through A Cause for Paws.
More pix to come soon; I have some backlogged albums, including Katamari Halloween pictures.
Posted by me at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)