infobong.com

do you dream in hipster?

Just now as I was looking at Andrew Arnold's ten best comics of 2002, I saw the latest Eightball was ranked #7, and I thought to myself, "Oh yeah! That's the one you color yourself." I suddenly realized that I dreamt last night about being in a hipster toy store and mulling over whether to get the new issue of Eightball that came packaged with markers for you to color the pictures yourself. A pretty cool dream, I suppose, but far from reality.
I don't know what this says about my sanity, but lately I've been filing away dream memories, then realizing later they were dreams. A few weeks back, I dreamt that my old high school pen-pal Laine had written me after seven or eight years. A few days later, sitting in RTF 395, Prof. Staiger reminded me of the letter, and I thought, "Oh, you need to write Laine back!" But, to my sorrow, I realized that Laine had not written me at all and it was only a dream. I would write her a note, but I have no idea how to get her current address.

happier than you and me

I think we all know what Jesus would drive, but this T-Shirt asks, "What Would Devo Do?" The first reader who buys me this shirt gets to be a very special friend of the m4dblog, perhaps with special privileges...

if i end up windows me someone is going to be hurting

I generally resist blogging my personality quiz results, but the BBSpot's operating system quiz tickled me, so here goes:

Which OS are You?

respect for native people

Kudos to The Lincoln Journal-Star, which announced it would quit using the racist nickname for Washington DC's NFL franchise in its pages. It said it would also stop using racist logos like the one used for Cleveland's baseball team. It surprises me how much racism is still tolerated in business. At least I can support what these people are selling.

hook, line, and sinker

You don't want to know how I came to this epiphany, but it occurred to me today that "drum-n-bass" could just as easily describe the output of a fishing trip as a electronic music genre.

books behind bars

Here's the best image out of the last roll I had developed. Its from November's Buy Nothing Day celebration I documented earlier, but on a second roll of film. Austin's Inside Books project collects and distributes books to prisoners in the Texas correctional system, and these are books waiting to be mailed to prisoners.

At the event, Inside Books has a notebook filled with letters and art from recipients of books. You could tell the project was very meaningful to the prisoners, just by looking at the amount of effort they put in their drawings. (OK, I'm sure prisoners have an overabundance of free time, but still.) Some of the letter brought a tear to my eye as I learned how important reading was for these people. One of the most memorable letters was from a man who said he had a problem with masturbating on women guards and reading gave him something better to do!
Growing up, my Catholic parish also collected books for prisoners, so I thought it a little amusing that the Church and anarchists have similar social justice projects. The organizers in Austin said they have no shortage of books to send prisoners, but it costs $2 a pop to send a book to a prisoner. I wondered if church book drives distributed books through the priests and nuns that serve the prisons. A lot of the letters I read that day requested books about Black nationalism, labor issues, and the like, so I'll bet the Catholics don't cater to those interests.

Here is the "scanner abuse" remix of that image:

a beefed-up graduate

UT-Austin's J-School is mulling over a proposal to drop the undergraduate photojournalism program in order to expand a graduate program. They argue that the profession now demands journos have experience working with video and other formats in additon to tradtional still photography. This writer, who teaches in the department, suggests that teaching photojournalism to undergrads was a little unnecessary all along. The basic skills should be learned in the field, he says.
An expansive photojournalism program is pretty attractive to me, since I love photography, but I'm interested in producing a variety of different media.

first perfect-bound book

Last night, I attended the "Bookhouse Rock" release event for Neal Pollack's new book Beneath the Axis of Evil. The book is published by an Austin-based small press, So New Media. It was a good time, full of inebriation and anti-social behavior. At one point, Pollack was performing with his band and cried, "Put this in your blogs tomorrow," as he tore apart a copy of the Jonathan Franzen bestseller The Corrections. He also mutilated a copy of David Foster Wallace' Infinite Jest. But, most importantly, he signed my book, which you can see here:

The man speaks the truth.

Anyway, I was talking to another guy about my blog, and he was all, "What's the address?"
"Oh, its on a UT server, so its long and complicated."
"Oh, what's the easiest way to find it, then?" he asked.
"Well, its the #1 result on Google for 'we're stuffing cheese in places you never dreamed about'."
He chuckled and said, "I think I can remember that."
I mused that Google keywords might be the new phone number. You go to a party, and someone asks you how to find your material online, so you tell them to search for impossibly obscure keywords, like "Ostrich Pate Jamboree" and they have no problem finding you.

made to fit low

A friend of mine runs a label that releases music on demand on CD-Rs. This allows him to produce very low volumes of his music, what you might call experimental ambient noise, with a low initial investment. A while back, I saw CafePress had the same idea and its now doing custom publishing for both books and CD-Rs. I doubt this threatens Lurvig Records, which caters to a particular musical taste: The Gerbil Store and these anti-Slashdot thong panties demonstrate Cafe Press is pretty indiscriminate in its taste.

presentation of self in everyday life

School stuff is catching up with me, so I thought I'd make a "I'm too busy to post" post. I just spent the last 45 minutes to an hour finding the best prices for my textbooks, saving only $10 or so.
I currently don't have internet access at home. When I got to school, I decided I wasn't going to get broadband, for fear that I would go into "trog mode" and not meet anyone (or study) now that I'm in a routine, I think its safe to get internet access, so I ordered cable modem today. I have to wait until next week to get it set up, so I'm still blogging from school, which limits me in a lot of ways.

only modern author worth a damn

I'm all excited after seeing a poster for Bookhouse Rock, the release party for blogger/humorist Neal Pollack's new book, Beneath the Axis of Evil which critiques the current warmongering in Washington. But what's really important is the "Texas-sized party featuring readings, punk rock music, and booze." I'll bet all them frou-frou elitists in Philadelphia don't release books like this.

move over jerry lewis

Matt Haughey says he found a page in his referrer logs that instructs students to look at sites like Fark and Metafilter to get a sense of American culture. The host, ESC-Pau claims to be a "elite, highly selective institution of higher education." Apparently, France's future leaders will know Americans are preoccupied with Photoshopping cheesecake pix of Britney Spears and flash movies.

computers into weapons

Here's an NYTimes story in the local paper that says convicted malicious hacker Kevin Mitnick is free to begin using computers again, starting today. Slashdot is on the ball, with an "ask Kevin" thread posted yesterday. The articles goes on to dicuss how some courts are questioning the fairness of barrig convicts from machines. I've tended to think that its "cruel and unusual" to keep convicts from making a living, which is a result of barring them from computers.

where'd the cheese go?

I'm not a huge Ween fan, but considering the the tagline of this blog, this is essential reading. To promote its "Insider" pizza, which features cheese stuffed in places you never dreamed about, Pizza Hut hired musical pranksters Ween to write jingles about the pie. The nice folks at Pizza Hut did not like the results, and Ween's work was in vain. Until now. Dean and Gene have posted a few of the proposed jingles online for your listening pleasure. You should listen to #1 first, but #2 is absolutely hilarious.

item floppy

On Thursday, I left a floppy in a machine at UT's main library, PCL, and remembered it as I was walking home. I more or less forgot about it until this morning when I received this email:

To: Christopher Lee McConnell
From: Kenneth McFarland, PCL Circulation Services

January 18, 2003

Dear Mr. McConnell: It appears that we may have a computer disk belonging to you in our Lost & Found at the PCL Circulation Desk, PCL 2.122. If you would like to claim this item, please come to our desk anytime we are open with your UT ID and be prepared to provide a description of the lost item.

Best,
Kenneth McFarland
PCL Circulation Services

Finished with my workout at the gym, I decided to walk across the street to PCL to check email and blog. As I passed the circ desk, I remembered my lost disk and went to claim it. One of the student workers complemented me on the my wisdom in writing my name on my floppy. I said, "I worked in computer labs long enough to know the lost disk routine."
At OU, we just kept a box of stuff that had been left in the labs, but UT has a whole set of policies and procedures that require workers to report lost items to the campus police and attempt to track down the owners. I actually had to sign a UTPD release form for item "Christopher Lee McConnell - floppy" . I wondered if it was two days before someone turned my disk in or if the red tape accounted for the time lag.

the bitter cold of washington

Anti-war activists held demonstrations around the country yesterday. While the big ones were in DC and San Fran, Loophole said he was participating in an action in Tulsa. Hopefully, he'll give us a recap. I did my homework, checking protest.net and the Austin IMC, but it doesn't appear there was an action here this weekend. I'm not sure what I think about protest.net; as an online application, I find it a useful source of information, but there are other, arguably more important, aspects to activism than just protesting. Anyway, here's an interesting story from the Washington Post about how activists are using the Internet as a means to organize - something I've experienced firsthand without much thought, but is apparently newsworthy to the mainstream media.
So, since I didn't see any actions planned in Austin, I decided to participate by scanning some pictures I took at a march I participated in back in October.

I don't have a lot of experience taking pictures in crowds, and these shots certainly reflect by lack of ability.
Here are marchers lining up at a park in downtown Austin.

I don't know what these big puppet-sculpture-thingies are called, but I found this pretty amusing. Death sits on the president's back, leading him with a quart of oil.

We marched up Congress Ave. You can see the Texas Capitol in the background. Some cars going in the opposite direction honked as a sign of support. We passed a hotel where corporate muckety-mucks jeered us from the bar's balcony as we went by.

These RTF students dressed in black for the occasion.

I'm not sure what message this guy is trying to communicate, but I don't think I agree with him.

The march ended in front of the federal building where there were drummers and people shouting stuff in bullhorns. Afsheen is holding one of the signs organizers handed out.

kiocsound ioctl

BoingBoing has a post today about software that allows you to use a Linux box' Wi-Fi antenna like a Theremin, creating tones based on physical proximity. I'm not a notebook user, so I don't have a Wi-Fi card to try this out.
I wonder how well this works as a musical instrument. A few years back a friend of mine suffered a severe head injury that left him so messed up he was half-blind and having a hard time walking, let alone playing guitar. Since he was desperate to play music, I thought he could download one of the packages that let you imitate a theremin with a mouse, but I suppose that wouldn't be sophisticated enough for him. Its my understanding that a Theremin has a two-handed input; the vertical antenna controls pitch while the horizontal controls volume. With the mouse, these inputs were simulated by the x and y axes, but I wonder if the Wi-Fi theremin uses a similar design. BTW, He's since recovered, seeing and walking as he did before.
Anyway, those who haven't seen Jon Spencer's Theremin antic's should check out the video What's up Matador.

icts in context

I just pointed a fellow student to this paper, "Blogging Thoughts: personal publication as an online research tool," so I thought it might be a good time to post it here since other reader might be interested. Its been some time since I last read it, so I can't comment too much on it right now. What I got from it was blogs reflect the individual interests of the authors through a number of rhetorical devices, particularly explicit intertextual references.

bad longhorn, bad

I finally decided on my third class this semester, RTF 393C "The Social Construction of Place and Identity in an Age of Information." (Here's a slightly different syllabus from a previous semester.) When I went in and talked to Professor Phillips, he said, "I read your blog, and I think you're going to be a good fit for this class." Noting my post about LIS385T, where I suggested it was the first class in many years where I hadn't heard the word "capitalism, he confessed, "I'm sure I said 'capitalism' at least twenty times in the first meeting."
This class was originally scheduled for 9:30-12:30, conflicting with my LIS class, but it was moved to 9-noon, so I can enroll, however the UT mainframe still thinks I have a conflict so I have to fill out the beloved "Time Conflict/Multiple Pass-Fail Override" form, which is just bursting with non-sequiturial energy. Anyway, Maureen, the RTF graduate coordinator was telling me about the office I need to file it and said, "Its in the main building, erm, the tower. You know that information kiosk as you walk in?"
I scanned my brain and said, "I don't think I've ever been in there."
I doubt Maureen would have given me a stranger look if I had said I'd eaten a baby for lunch.

iraq the casbah

I guess I find the looming war with Iraq entirely too stupid and depressing to blog about it much, but here's some stuff I'll point out. Tom Tomorrow's comic this week is spot on and hilarious to boot. And my techie pal Loophole has been blogging his thoughts on the war for a coupla days now.

way down yonder in the indian nation

Through the Austin Chronicle I just learned Tulsa-based Great Plains Airlines now flies to Austin. When I first learned of Great Plains, the concept seemed kind of strange, a airline that specializes in direct flights to mid-sized cities on the Western plains. Like is there that much demand for non-stop flights from Tulsa to Colorado Springs? (Check out their route map.) My dad says no airline now serves Tulsa directly; I remember taking direct flights to Austin and Houston many times as a youth, but apparently now you have to fly through a major hub for even those cities.
To fly to Tulsa on Great Plains with a 21 day reservation costs $69 each way or $138 round trip. I made a hypothetical trip on Southwest, leaving Saturday, February 8 and returning Wednesday, February 12, which cost $79 for non-redeye flights, hubbing through Dallas. I would be paying a $59 premium for flying non-stop. I suppose this is a good deal for business people who value their time more than relatively small amounts of money, but when I'm choosing between spending about $80 in gas for a round trip home, flying Great Plains doesn't make a lot of sense.

In similar news, Texas is so damn big it has its own next-day delivery service. This Austin American-Statesman story profiles Lone Star Overnight which serves only Texas and Oklahoma.

keep it up like a one minute man

ESPN is running a promo spot that features clips from the Nelly video "Air Force Ones," and ends with the text, "Without Sports, there'd be nothing to wear." I'm sure the nice folks at ESPN see this as a simple extension of our consumer culture, using sports as a way to induce people to buy crap, but, for me, the commercial confirms my suspicion that both the song "Air Force Ones," and its video represent a shifting construction of masculinity in our culture.
In his song "Air Force Ones," Nelly describes the lengths he and his posse go to in order to find the right sneakers for social occasions. While earlier shoe-shopping men might be concerned by how sneakers affect their athletic performance, the performative aspects of their shoes is purely aesthetic. Rather than boast about his physical prowess, in the song Kyjuan brags about his shopping ability when he says, "you couldn't get this color if you had a personal genie."
Through much of late capitalism, the "work" of consumption is generally considered a woman's role, but here consumptive ability is posited as an extension of the rappers' masculinity. As if listeners may be confused about the rappers gender, the chorus "Big Boy" punctuates each line. Moreover, in one moment, a feminine voice, presumably in awe of Kyjuan's shoes, asks, "Where you getting them colors, are you dyeing them?", suggesting the woman lacks the ability to shop as well as Kyjuan.
In addition to the glorification of shopping in "Air Force Ones," one line seems to subvert the macho masculinity of most rap music. In a boastful tone, Murphy Lee says, "I'm tryin to keep it up like a one minute man." As this author is a white graduate student, he is unaware of the reference in this line, but it seems to suggest the brevity of intercourse, a far cry from the classic Ice Cube verse, "my jimmy goes deep, so deep," nonetheless. Finally the video depicts Kyjuan wearing an Oklahoma State University football jersey, inexplicably representing an inferior school to the state's flagship university.
Perhaps this blogger simply had a hard time decoding the cultural symbolism embedded in "Air Force Ones," but it certainly raises questions about the construction of masculinity in twenty-first century consumer culture.

debatable or arguably unwise

Boing Boing is in mourning today, and for good reason; the Supreme Court ruled today that it would allow Congress to keep rolling back the copyright expirations, so new texts may never enter the public domain. Traditionally, authors had a limited time when they could profit from their work. Thanks to lobbying by the entertainment industry, Congress keeps extending this period, so work that dates to the beginning of the film sound era is still protected.
If you are reading this at a later date, here's a screenshot of BoingBoing's mourning black.

it doesn't fear mundanity

Inspired by Gawker, these folks were discussing creating similar local-interest blogs for Austin and Berkeley, and how they might reflect the different cultures of the cities. I haven't lived in Austin long enough to have my finger on the pulse of the local culture, but I started to imagine what a Tulsa version of Gawker might be like. Here are some posts I thought you might see:

"Tulsa is way hipper than Norman."
"My mom thinks Brian Haas is hot."
"The Jenks-Union rivalry is out of control!"
"Brookside sucks now that the yuppies took over"
"Driving to Southtown sucks"
"Is Tulsa Gypsy as cool as Gold Coast Coffee?"
"I can't believe I lived in Norman for five years"
"Southtown can't be all bad if India Palace is there"
"I saw everyone I know during lunchtime at Wild Oats"
"QT is the greatest convenience store ever"
"OKC is the world's biggest parking lot!"

Its been some years since I've lived in Tulsa so those may be a few years out of date. I'm sure current Tulsans can come up with better posts.

Update (1/16): In his post, Peter mentions the "Thai Temple Brunch," a Sunday fundraiser at a Berkeley Buddhist temple, and I thought I would add that its some of the best Thai food I've ever had and a shot of Robson at the brunch.

coordination of knowledge assets

I just got out of the first meeting of "LIS 385T - Knowledge Management Systems," hereafter known as "the blog class." I think this is the first time in five or six years that I've sat through a university class session without hearing the word "capitalism" uttered at least once. It should be a very interesting class nonetheless; the student come from a variety of backgrounds, including Naval intelligence and children's book publishing. The biggest part of our grade (30%) will be keeping a blog about the class topics.
Update(1/17):The professor, who says, "If we call it the "blog class" we'll be setting our expectations too low," has put the syllabus online, so all y'all can check it out.

hotter than a pepper sprout

Now that I live in the Lone Star State, I feel pressured to conform the local culinary standards. While I ain't gonna eat dead cow, so I've been making fajitas with everyone's favorite wheat-based meat substitute, seitan!

4 oz. Seitan (I've included a recipe below, in case you can't find it in your store.)
½ Green pepper
½ Red Onion
1-2 Canned Chipotle peppers
1-2 Tablespoons Cooking Oil
4 of those smaller-sized whole wheat tortillas
Shredded Monterrey Jack cheese to taste
Chopped Fresh Cilantro to taste
Your favorite Salsa if this ain't hot enough for you

You probably already have a good idea of where this is going, but here are directions, just in case. Heat the oil in your wok or skillet at medium to high heat. Slice onion and green pepper in long strips. I like to then cut the strips in half to make eating less messy. If I get only half a pepper in my bite the whole thing tends to fall apart. Anyway, yeah, like toss the veggies into the pan. Get out your seitan and slice it into strips as you intone "say-TAN" in your best heavy metal voice. Throw the seitan into the mix and, with a spatula, stir up the filling periodically. Chop your chipotle peppers into itty-bitty pieces and distribute it in the filling. The oil from the peppers can burn mucous membranes, so be careful. And, guys, do not use the restroom without washing your hands thoroughly! I can't tell you how many times I'll forget, and, half an hour later... Anyway, cook the filling until the green pepper is blackened in spots. Wrap the filling in warmed tortillas with the rest of your fixings, and you're good to go. Serves one.

Homemade Seitan
I guess this is further proof that our friends at Whole Foods are evil, but I can't get my favorite brand of Seitan in Austin. In Philadelphia, they carried it at Fresh Fields - which is owned by Whole Foods - but neither Whole Foods here or H.E.B. carries the stuff, choosing instead to sell some funk-nasty crap they call "Wheatloaf." Being the good DIY-er that I am, I've learned to make Seitan at home.

1 Cup High Gluten Flour
½ Teaspoon Garlic Powder
2 Tablespoons Soy Sauce
¾ Cup of Water

High gluten flour might be a trick to find. I found it in the very special health food section at H.E.B., but those of you in other areas might have to go to Akin's or Wild Oats or whatever to get it. Anyway, dump the dry ingredients in a largish bowl and mix it up a little. Mix the wet stuff in a measuring cup, then pour it in the bowl. With a rubber spatula stir the ingredients, which should turn into a rubbery dough surprisingly fast. Knead the dough a few times, then let it sit for a few minutes, then knead again.

In a saucepan, boil:
1 Quart of Water
¼ Cup of Soy Sauce.
Knead the dough a little more. Roll the dough into three or four "snakes," then slice the snakes into little pieces. Drop the pieces into the boiling bath. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cover the saucepan. Simmer the seitan for 45-60 minutes. During this step, the seitan should bloat up like Keith Moon in the late 70s. Drain off the water and refrigerate or freeze the little loaves. Serves four.

is it dissolving?

Last night, I was starting some loads in the complex laundry room, when I notice a bar of Zote sitting on a washer. I was a little bewildered by the pink bar, wondering if it was for washing clothes. My cute neighbor walked in a few moments later, and I asked, "Is that laundry soap?"
"Yeah, it was really cheap, but I didn't know it was packaged like this," she said, as she struggled to cut a chunk off with a butter knife.
"It looks really interesting."
"It didn't come with directions, and I'm not sure how to use it."
"Maybe its for hand-washing?"
She plunked a chunk into the washer and started it.
"You can use some of my liquid detergent if you want." I continued to load clothes into the washer.
A few moments later she asked aloud, "Is it dissolving?" and opened the lid to find a big pink chunk happily floating in the hot laundry water. "Can I use some of yours?"
I chuckled and said, "Hey, I wouldn't have offered if you weren't welcome."
But I'm still curious about Zote, but it appears I'm on the wrong side of the digital divide; I imagine most Zote users pass the instructions on orally and probably don't get online much. My powers of online research are not yielding any directions for using the big pink bar. Any ideas on how to use Zote?

feel the steering wheel

One of Austin's most storied record stores, Sound Exchange, is going out of business. I remember going there with Lurvig and Craven and picking up a New Order poster, while Lurvig hunted for My Bloody Valentine imports. Anyway, since its my last chance to go through their bins and everything is 30% off, I decided to blow my Christmas money on some wax today. Back in the day, Loophole special ordered Pankow's Gisela from Mohawk, so I picked that up. Even if its another Godfathers fiasco, its still worth having their cover of "Warm Leatherette." Here's the rest of my haul, The Ventures Play Telstar (futuristic easy-listening surf-rock I loved as a child), Electronic Sound Constructions by Crescent, Sweet Revenge by John Prine, Close to the Bone by Tom Tom Club, The Jam EP, and Sidelong by Ui. Not a bad haul, six LPs and an EP, for $27.

it looks like you're writing a letter

Yippee! Its the first day of the semester and I am glad to be back in the swing of things. Since I spent the last few years working a jobby-job, having four weeks of solid vacation is a strange experience. I'm hella relaxed, tho. I'm not taking any classes on Monday, so I just have to go to the class I'm TA-ing, "Game Development," which should be an interesting experience, since the instructor has never taught the class before, and it includes both RTF and computer science students working together.
Update(6:20): I reckon I'll just blog it here, the OU/OSU b-ball game is on ESPN at 8pm CST tonight for any Sooner fans reading the m4dbl0g. After beating UConn last week, OU is now #5 in the polls.

just about tenacity

Wow, Steve Case has resigned from the chairman post at AOL-Time Warner. I wonder if he got a 1000 free hours on the way out. With the ascension of Richard Parsons, there seemed to be a lot of speculation suggesting AOL-TW would eventually revert back to plain ol' vanilla Time Warner, basically a media megacorp with an ISP. With all the top management coming from the Time Warner side, I suspect that the company is headed in that direction. Update(1/16):Here's some analysis from The New York Times for whoever's interested. It suggests the company may wind up selling AOL in the long run.

the race to the bottom

This morning's Austin American-Statesman has an LA Times feature about US companies that outsource to sweatshops abroad. The story describes how Levi-Strauss (as in the company that makes jeans) recently closed a plant in Georgia, leaving its only US plant in San Antonio. I remember reading somewhere that Levi's had relatively good labor practices, but now I know better.
Its also interesting the Supreme Court is hearing arguments about whether activists can sue Nike for false advertising when the company suggests its clothes are sweat-free. I love to see this ruling put a damper on all these companies touting their ethics, but, considering how conservative the court is, they may just want to clarify "commerical speech," to allow the megacorps to keep on lying.
And, oh yeah, I picked up a copy of Clamor, which I had blogged earlier. Its not a bad read, although the writing is not terribly polished; I'll probably mail it to Loophole when I get done.

and i know my life's been a failure

Well, on this day 25 years ago the Sex Pistols played "the home of Bob Wills," Tulsa's Cain's Ballroom. I remember being a little surprised in high school when I learned the Pistols had passed through my hometown, but it was McLaren's intent to stir up trouble in cities across the south. Being as un-edgy as an "alternative weekly" can get, Urban Tulsa lacks a story on the anniversary, so here's one from the Austin Chronicle with accounts of the San Antonio show.

they bore me so much

Here is a fan-diddilly-stastic parody of Jason Kottke's critique of the Safari browser. The page asks, "Why are Kottke and Megnut two different weblogs?," when they lack, "interface niceties, customizability, stability, and dog pictures." You can find more earnest criticism of Kottke and Megnut here.

a reasonable rendering

Because it was Slashdotted the other day, I've only just now been able to submit the m4dbl0g to , which enables geographic location of blogs. Looking at these maps, it appears that blogging in Texas' blogging is concentrated in Houston, Austin, and D-FW. Although San Antonio is the ninth-largest city in the US, it is also the second poorest, so the economics of blogging might keep SA from being a blog center. Likewise, blog activity in Oklahoma appears to be centered around Tulsa; although OKC is the largest city in the state, it just flat-out sucks.Update:Just after I posted this, I realized that GeoURL is for all kinds of Web sites, not just blogs, but blogs do seem to dominate the site. And, crap, I didn't notice the map feature until just now. That's pretty much dead on. You can see the UT-Austin campus (look for the stadium) on the left.

wire beads & foam

I love New York, I really do. But The Gawker seems to represent everything I hated about the East Coast: smug, elitist, mean-spirited. On Monday, it had a post that listed events at an anarchist bookstore in the city, with comments from the editor noting, "Wine tastings are great. Knitting is great. And foam wire hats are exceptionally thrilling. But I must be missing something. I don't get the Anarchist angle." Um, its anarchist because their engaging culture in ways outside consumer capitalism. Like, duh, if you're knitting a scarf yourself you're being more self-sufficient than if you bought one. But she probably knows that and it playing dumb for rhetorical effect. I suppose the editor might be the social-irresponsibility Burberry type, so knitting one herself might be far, far outside her world-view.
Does anyone have a clue why there would be no "permanent link to this entry on Gawker? I saw this joint on Monday, but I waited until it neared the bottom, when I could easily count the number of entries, working from the archived entries' links. (I think that made sense.)

j = y, 4 = a

This week's "Straight Dope" column tackles the issue of "133t" speak, or the practice of substituting numbers and symbols in the place of letters. Cecil Adams describes 133t speak in his usual smart-ass style, but, for whatever reason, the humor isn't as funny re-reading it the next day. For the record, at 27, m4dd4wg knows he's way to old to hold any pretentions of being a 133t script kiddie, but only affects the practice as an occasional stylistic flourish.

saluda and buried general patton

You may have seen this on the news, but I thought it was worth blogging. Cops in East Tennessee, suspected a vacationing family of carjacking, and when they pulled the Smoaks over, they handcuffed the family and shot their dog in front of them. The Smoaks were understandably distraught. This site has police video showing the Smoaks handcuffed and kneeling and, later, screaming at the cops. The actual shooting was tastefully edited out. The local police force says the officer did not use excessive force in shooting the friendly dog.

If that's not evil enough, here's a story about Austin businesses that weasel out of paying immigrant employees, hoping the workers will be afraid to seek government action. Local non-profits are working to quell their fears and encourage actions against these unscrupulous companies.

substantial legitimate use

Virginia Representative Rick Boucher has introduced a bill that would add exemptions to the DMCA allowing consumers to circumvent piracy controls to access content for personal use, according to this Infoworld story. It would also require CDs with piracy controls to be labeled. This seems like a good idea, since I agree that piracy is as nasty as the Hollywood-industrial complex telling you how to enjoy culture, but I wonder if this will help intellectual property lawyers find work more than it helps audiences. I haven't been browsing as much in the past few days, but I haven't seen much on this legislation either.

futuristic peristyle alludes

Earlier today, I went to the Austin Museum of Art's downtown galleries to check out this show, "At the Edge of Paradise," which is a collaboration between two local artists, Jill Bedgood and Beverly Penn. Bedgood's panels reminded me a little of Eva Hesse, if only for her use of yellow and funky materials. There was one panel with yellow oilcloth and handmade nails (seen in the image on that site) that really evoked Hesse for me. They gave me two $1-off coupons that are good until Feb 2, so if someone in Austin wants them, let me know.
Last week, my mom and I went to Gilcrease to check out the traveling Warhol show. Yeah, I also thought it was funny that there was a show of Warhol at a museum of "art of the American West," but many of the pieces represented Native American figures like Sitting Bull and Geronimo and Cowboy entertainers like John Wayne and Annie Oakley. Purely by coincidence, they also had a show of work by students at my alma mater, Jenks High School, inspired by Warhol. I was quite impressed with some of the work, particularly a photomontage, and my mom, who teaches 8th grade at Jenks, said she had had several students in class, which lent a particular gravity to their work.

present rose boutonnieres

Last night, as I was leaving the RTF Grad lounge, I asked two students, "Are y'all watching 'The Bachelorette' tonight?"
Another student laughed, mistakenly thinking I was joking, but a woman in the lounge replied, "Hell, yeah!"
"Yeah, I actually blocked out time to watch it."
"Yeah, I can't wait."
Getting slightly more serious, I explained, "I love all that trash TV because stuff like gender politics is all on the the surface."
"Oh yeah, they totally spoon-feed it to you," she said making a soup-eating motion with her hand.
I don't know if its because I have a particularly perverse sense of humor or any normal, red-blooded RTF grad student would laugh, but I thought it was hilarious at the end when Trista began crying because was worried about hurting the guys feelings.
Anyway, her tears stoked my imagination, and I began to think of how I would look on "The Bachelorette." I could see a conversation along these lines:
"m4dd4wg, what kinds of goals do you have in life?"
"Oh, I just want to subvert the dominant paradigm."
"Come again?"
"Oh, I just wanna rock!"

burden estimate or any other aspect

I just went over to census.gov, and a "Help Us Make Our Web Site Better!" survey window popped up. Since its one of my favorite sites, I thought I would give them my feedback and take the survey, but now I'm feeling like a big, big dork. In response to item 3a, which says, "please indicate your objective(s) in visiting the Census Bureau's web today," I can only answer, "I am pursuing data for personal interest/use," rather than "completing an assignment for my job," or looking for some form. Here's a silly question, #11: "...indicate how often you perform the following functions... Browse and read the screen."
Update(1/9):I just filled out this questionaire to be a beta-tester for some new Philips doohickey, and I chortled at these possible responses, "As long as a wireless broadband internet micro hi-fi system sounds good and is reliable, I will buy it," and "I expect my wireless broadband internet micro hi-fi system to have more than just basic features and design, and I am willing to pay for it." Well, based on the wireless broadband internet micro hi-fi systems I've purchased in the past...

i just wanna dance in your tangles

As I was getting dressed this morning I noticed a striking resemblance between the Euro symbol and the "e"s on the cover art to Willie Nelson's Phases and Stages. I found this rather amusing before I started questioning my sanity. Anyway, I put on Neutral Milk Hotel's On Avery Island and my mind began to wander. Do I like this record because Tabasco sauce is made on Avery Island and I like hot sauce? I actually prefer the milder green Tabasco over the red stuff.
Just now I did a search for "i just wanna dance in your tangles" to make sure I got the words right. I don't know if this qualifies as a Googlewhack, but, intriguingly, the only hit was a personal site at UT-Austin. There are strange forces at work today.

weeklies to closed-door

I was at the grocery store this morning and a magazine at the checkout counter screamed, "Luddism to Linux: Tackling Technologies Tough Questions," which, of course, piqued my interest. Being the cheap grad student that I am, I decided to see if Clamor puts its content online, but, like Punk Planet and other fine publications, they keep the good stuff for paying readers. I'll probably go by BookPeople and grab a copy, but have any of you out there read Clamor? I think I remember the name from when I was more attuned to 'zines. It appears to be a punk/progressive politics rag with the current issue dedicated to technology.

the hands-on tradition is serious business

I'm fairly skeptical about Fortune's annual "100 Best Companies to Work For" feature, not because its title ends with a preposition, but because it regularly includes reputed union-buster Whole Foods Market. Regardless, #41 this year is convenience-store chain QuikTrip, which is quite possibly the finest convenience store anywhere. Looking at the entry for QT, it appears that when Fortune says "best company to work for," they mean, "best company to be a middle manager at," since they list managerial roles typical positions. (Or perhaps even the most lowly of employees at QT are deemed managers so they can't organize? Hmmm.) I stopped in the QT by the Jenks Bridge when I was home for Christmas and listened to an employee tell me his big night out is Tuesday because the dollar theater only charges fifty cents that night. Otherwise, he can't afford to leave the house. I still think QT are consistently the cleanest and best-stocked convenience stores I've seen.

small, gleaming discs rapidly supplanting

Jon Johansen, the teenage coder which created DeCSS, has been acquitted of hacking charges in Norwegian court. Johansen created DeCSS in order to watch DVDs on his Linux machine, but it raised Hollywood's ire, since it converts the scrambled content on a DVD to vanilla MPEG-2 and could potentially be used to pirate corporate culture. I was watching AOL-Time Warner-owned CNN Headline News tonight, and they framed the story almost exclusively in terms of piracy, calling it a DVD piracy trial, then noted at the end that Johansen was acquitted because prosecutors couldn't prove that DeCSS was intended to pirate movies. I think this is a good step for intellectual freedom, but its too bad we gringos have the DMCA, which outlaws any scrambling circumvention device, including DeCSS.

tougher than leather

I lost my wallet some time ago, and I finally decided to upgrade from the green rubber band I was using to a bona fide wallet. I decided to follow these instructions and fashion one out of duct tape. I was a little skeptical of how durable a duct-tape wallet would be, but as I was making it, I realized that duct-tape is basically adhesive cloth covered in plastic (duh), so this wallet could potentially outlive me. The results are homespun, but have a certain punk appeal.

interior

exterior

I don't have have anything against the fine folks at BookPeople; the sticker was longer than the wallet, and one of the logos needed to be redacted. I picked BookPeople, since I got the sticker at Waterloo Records. I highly recommend this project to anyone, but readers who want the anarchist-chic of a duct-tape wallet without the extra effort can buy one from Beckybot for $20. I'm sure Becky's duct-tape skillz far outstrip mine.

gluttony update

Last night I realized I consumed an entire 12.5oz bottle of Norteña Arriba Habañero Heat Salsa in less than 24 hours. That seemed like a lot of salsa eatin', but it was some good salsa. I also like the Norteña Tomatillo al Carbon a real, real lot. That stuff is so good I can eat it with a spoon.

I still feeling kind of stupid about my salsa binge at lunchtime when I stopped in a Taco Cabana. I used to be kind of bewildered by the whole chickens I see roasting on the grills there. They must sell quite a few of them, since there's always a half-dozen cooking there, but I eventuall decided people must buy them for take out and feed a whole family. So, there's a heavy-set white guy ahead of me in line. Becuase he was wearing a polo shirt bearing the logo of a local Toyota dealership, I assumed he was on lunch break. The kid behind the counter was like, "You want the whole chicken?"
"Yeah."
"To go, right?"
"No, for here, please."
This guy was going to eat an entire roasted chicken in the restaurant. I suddenly felt a lot better about my Habañero Heat binge.

I used to be a little afraid of Habañero peppers because of their reputation for spiciness, but now I love their fruity taste. Readers in Philadelphia take note: there's a Tex-Mex cart on the Penn campus that has an awesome Habañero salsa. The first time I was there, the proprietor was like, "Our hot sauce is an Habañero salsa, are you sure?"
I was all, "Bring it on!"
I didn't discover it until my last week in Philly, unfortunately, since I had a hard time finding decent food there. There are two Tex-Mex carts on Spruce at the 37th street light, this is the non-descript one further north. I took iZac there when he helped me move, and he agreed that it was some tasty Tex-Mex.

like a mercator map projection

Here's a cool thing I found (as always) on boingboing . Photographer Thomas Hudson Reeve folds 11x14 sheets of photopaper into small pinhole cameras, which become the prints themselves after processing. The result is a near-panoramic image with no optical distortion. According to his about page the angle of view is about 170 degrees. This is kind of fun in the same way that looking at Holga shots is fun; the light leaks introduce an element of chance, giving the images an other-worldly feel.

weee!

Hey everybody, this is my 100th entry! weee! I didn't think I would post this much this fast.

so real it takes your breath away

I was pleasantly surprised this morning when I brought in the Sunday paper. The Austin American-Statesman ran a front-page story about Austin-area psychedelic rock god Roky Erickson and his improved health. Roky, who has suffered from schizophrenia since he was imprisoned in a facility for the criminally insane, is functioning with the help of his brother Sumner, the principal tuba-player for the Pittsburgh orchestra. Like The Red Krayola and the Carter Family, I got into Roky's band The 13th Floor Elevators through Spacemen 3 covers of their songs.
Another nice thing about this story is that The Statesman deemed it important enough to include art with the online version, something I've complained about in the past.

a few massive tools

I just love Andre Torrez' account of intolerance in the workplace . When I worked among the smug suburbanites at Boucher Communications I experienced the same sort of hypocrisy first hand. For example, one day a Boomer-aged woman who proudly identified herself as Jewish came by my cube and asked, "Are you from Oklahoma?"
I answered yes.
"Are you a hick?"
"Excuse me!" I said in near-disbelief.
"Are you a hick?" she asked again, trying to supress a smirk.
I just looked at her icily, and, after a few moments, she made a half-hearted apology, but I wondered if she would think it was funny if I asked her if she was some anti-semitic slur.

That was hardly an isolated incident. I don't think I've been privy to so much outright bigotry as when I worked at that office, I'd hear all kinds of crapola about African-Americans, Muslims, South Asians, Latinos, and nearly every other group imaginable. I don't know if the people at Boucher are representative of the Philadelphia suburbs, but they certainly condoned bigotry.