Friend or doormat? Where's the line?

As an only child, I treasured my friends from an early age, and over the years my closest friends have truly become like family. Needless to say, I consider my friends incredibly important in my life, and I believe in loving them unconditionally. In the last year or so, though, a couple of incidents have forced me to think long and hard about what friendship is--and isn't--and when it's time to end one.

Case #1: A friend from many years ago has been in and out of my life for the last two decades. She was never one of my closest friends, and I often felt like her idea of a friendship was having someone to listen to her problems rather than having a relationship based on mutual trust and support. As much as I value my friends, I began to feel like I wasn't valued or respected, so I pulled back from this relationship somewhat suddenly.

Case #2: Another friend has needed lots of help--financial and otherwise--a few times. But again, it started to feel like she only contacted me when she needed me for something, not when she just wanted to hang out. I let it go, figuring it was just because her life was in crisis. Finally, I needed a favor--not one that required a major sacrifice on her part but which was nevertheless really important to me--which she was in a position to grant. I asked, and she agreed. At the last minute, she bailed with a lame excuse. Time to end another friendship?

On the one hand, I don't believe the value of a friendship should be based on what you get out of it. That's too much like a business transaction. I also don't believe in ending friendships casually over some small slight. Instead, I believe that friends should be there for each other in bad times as well as good, listening to each other and supporting each other. Friends should forgive each other for small slights (and for big ones too). But when does "being supportive" become "being used?" It seems to me that true friends are there for each other, not because they feel obligated but because they want to help each other. They want to spend time together because it's fun, not because they need someone to dump on or someone to help them out of trouble. I contrast the two examples above with my two closest friends. Both of them have needed my help at one time or another, but both of them seek me out whether or not they need something. And they've both been there for me more times than I can count.

So am I kicking people out of my life because I don't get enough benefit from having them in my life? After much reflection, I don't think so. Instead, I think I'm learning to make better use of my limited emotional energy by not wasting it on people who care only about how they can benefit from having me in their lives. Yet sometimes I still wonder if I'm just being selfish.

Hubby's car-gasm

20-some years ago, my husband had a life-changing experience. He saw Mad Max. And fell in love with a car. Really. I understand wanting a cool muscle car. But he had to pick one that was made only in Australia and is therefore a bit hard to get here in the good ol' US of A. Nevertheless, Mr. "I-must-have-an-XB-Falcon-or-my-life-isn't-worth-living" would accept no substitutes. He downloads pictures of XB Falcons, drags us to car shows to look at XB Falcons (there are 2 here in Portland, believe it or not), and generally behaves like a groupie... but over a car. Finally, he has found a way to get one and is waiting to hear from an importer that they've found a car for him. So he checks his e-mail every 3.2 seconds "to see if Phil has sent a picture of his car". But at least he was motivated to clean the garage to make room for it.

Last Saturday, he heard that one of the local XBs was going to be at a Ford car show out in Hillsboro, so off we went. He spotted it from across the parking lot (no small feat since the show was at the fairgrounds, where the parking lot is approximately the size of a small Northeastern state) and began behaving a bit the way I do when near a member of Def Leppard. Jerry and I had to explain to him that cars can't sign autographs (though Jerry did suggest having the car run over a piece of paper to leave a tire track). But they can pose for pictures:



He must've spent half an hour drooling and caressing the thing. Every time I thought we could go look at something cool, like the old Mustang convertibles, he'd drag us back to the XB. We finally made our escape, and hubby is relegated to sighing wistfully while looking at pictures of the car. Oh, well... it's better than 'net porn, I suppose.

Hard workin' weekend

Not much time to blog this weekend, because I've been working my butt off! Since Saturday we have weeded our veggie garden and planted 22 tomato plants, along with cantaloupe, watermelon, and zucchini; cleaned the deck (which wasn't as bad as the garage but was still a mess), and prepped and painted a bathroom (one more coat to go and it'll be done). If we were this productive every weekend, the house and yard would look great!

That's about it for now. I need to rescue my baked bananas from the grill, then plant some peppers before it's time to put the second coat of paint on the bathroom.

First Kiss, Nickelback, Nostalgia...

One night last week, Son asked me how old he'd be when he first kissed a girl. So I asked Husband how old he was when he had his first kiss, and he said he didn't remember! We ended up having a long discussion (after Son went to bed), because I figured Husband was either a) lying, or b) such an insensitive clod that his first kiss didn't mean anything to him. Maybe, though, I was just seeing the situation the way a woman would (gee, I wonder why?), and maybe the first kiss isn't such a big deal for (some) guys. Or maybe it isn't such a big deal when you're really young when it happens. Or maybe I married an insensitive clod.

I remember my first kiss, but don't worry--I'll spare you the slobbery details. I also won't mention how old I was, because it's too dang embarrassing. But at any rate, it was a guy I met at a dance, we went out once after that, and that was it. But it was one of those cheesy adolescent milestones, and I'll never forget it.

What got me to thinking about all this, besides the conversation last week, was this neat little snippet from Photograph by Nickelback:

Kim's the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous that I nearly missed
She’s had a couple of kids since then
I haven’t seen her since God knows when

The nostalgia in that song is almost palpable. I feel it every time I go back home, and I wonder if it would be different if I still lived in my hometown, surrounded by memories and my old friends. At least, thanks in part to the internet, I've been able to reconnect with some of the old crowd. We're so different now, married with kids, jobs, and mortgages. And yet underneath all those trappings of adulthood, I think we're the same goofy, insecure teenagers we were back in the day. I know I wear my "adulthood" like a uniform, the face I show a certain segment of the world. But I take it off every chance I get.

So whatcha think, dear readers? Do you remember your first kiss? Was it a big deal? Is it something most people remember, or am I just pathetic? Do you think guys are less likely to remember something like that than women are? Please leave a comment and share your thoughts.

The Great Garage Cleanout of 2007

Memorial Day Weekend... the traditional kickoff of the summer season. People go swimming, have cookouts, camp, fish, and lounge around. But not at my house. Instead of having fun, we spent most of the weekend cleaning our garage. Not exciting, I know, but it's so nice to have the job done. Our garage hadn't been cleaned in two years and was an absolute disaster. See for yourself:

Before...


And After!


I hope any of you reading this had more fun this weekend than we did.

Aquarium critters

Time to take a break from garden pictures. Instead, today we have... aquarium pictures! Hubby and I recently redecorated our 100-gal saltwater tank, got rid of some overgrown corals (Kenya tree corals should not be left without supervision... they take over!), and cleaned things up a bit. I spent quite some time trying to get pictures of my fish, but they move way too fast, and they're afraid of the camera. I suppose it looks like some large, menacing reef creature to them. But the corals and other finless critters make easier subjects. So here we go:

Red-legged hermit crab, mugging for the camera:


Tridacnid clam: One species of these (but not the one I have) is what's known as a giant clam. They glow so beautifully under lights, because they have special algae on their mantles that luminesce and make energy from light. Without its algae--and a lot of light--the clam would die.


Blue sponge: My newest creature, which I just got Saturday. It's a lot prettier than the sponges under my kitchen sink! And in case you're wondering, sea sponges like this one are animals, but very primitive ones. Kinda like husbands...


Zooanthid polyps, a type of soft coral:


I'll keep trying to get good pics of the fish.

What happened on your birthday?

Thanks to Monkeygirl for posting this cool blog meme. It works like this:
Rules:
1. Go to Wikipedia and put in your birthday, without the year, in the search bar.
2. List on your blog 3 events, 2 births, 1 death and 1 holiday that happens(ed) on your birthday.

Here are mine for March 7:

3 events:

1. 321 - Roman Emperor Constantine I decrees that the dies Solis Invicti (sun-day) is the day of rest in the Empire.
   
2. 1850 - United States Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850 in order to prevent a possible civil war.
   
3. 2006 - Apple Inc. is granted the patent to their revolutionary device, the iPod. (patent # D516,576)
   

2 births:

1. 1942 - Tammy Faye Bakker, American evangelist
   
2. 1946 - Peter Wolf, American musician (J Geils Band)
   

1 death:
1999 - Stanley Kubrick, American film director (b. 1928)

1 holiday:
Official "Metallica Day" in San Francisco, CA (enacted by Mayor Willie Brown in 1999).

Some of these are really fun. Metallica Day? LOL. I feel honored :-)

Funny (and probably all-too-accurate) EMS codes

I've been a bit too busy to do much writing lately, so I thought I'd share someone else's great blog post. Edwinleap.com has a hilarious post from Emergency Medicine News called Describing the indescribable, a list of emergency medical codes that should exist. My favorite:

20-702 Envenomation from attempting to cuddle with Pit Viper.

ROTFLMAO. The sad thing is, people really do this stuff! Some idiot up in Battleground, WA, nearly died from a rattlesnake bite a few years ago--a bite which happened when he was attempting to kiss the rattlesnake! If he had died, he'd have been a shoo-in for a Darwin Award.

I hope to actually write something in the next couple of days. I have some garden pics to post and a few comments about my night at the opera last Saturday. Oh, and I'll have to brag about my new computer, which arrived last night. But I'll be so busy getting it set up that I'll be lucky to find much time to write.

10 random facts/habits

Here are the rules: Each player starts with 10 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their ten things and add a copy of these rules. THEN, you need to choose 10 people to tag and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

In my case, I'm just going to post these here. If you read this and you want to play the game, go for it!

In no particular order...

1. I've seen Def Leppard in concert 20 times. Yes, really! And yes, you can laugh if you want. I have tickets to see them three more times this fall too. I've been a fan since 1983. I've often said that everyone should have a frivolous yet thoroughly engaging hobby. For some people, it's a sports team. For others, it's playing a sport or collecting something. For me, it's Def Leppard.

2. I was a contestant on Jeopardy a few years ago (2001, to be precise). And I lost. Cue the Weird Al song... "I lost on Jeopardy... Baby." Though I had thought about it off and on for years, I never really thought I'd do it. I auditioned on a whim, and in fact it was a fluke that I even knew about the auditions. The show had been postponed due to one of the political conventions in late summer 2000. I was channel-surfing before bedtime and caught the end of the show, which I hardly ever got to watch in its normal time slot, because I had a 2-year-old who demanded all my attention in the early evening. At the end of the show, they put up an announcement that Jeopardy auditions would be held in Portland. So I said, "What the hell," and signed up. The audition was in two parts. The first part was a written test, 50 questions spanning every conceivable topic from European history to Britney Spears. Each question would display on a TV monitor for 7 seconds, then disappear. Of the 80 or so people who auditioned, 11 of us passed the written test and proceeded to the second part of the audition, a mock game. They told us they were looking for enthusiasm, so that's what I gave 'em. It seemed to go well, but I didn't hear anything for about a month and assumed I was out. Then the call came. I should have prepared more in the month or so between getting the call and taping the show, but I didn't. And really, I don't think it would have mattered. I was beaten--soundly--by a guy who went on to win 5 games and enter the Tournament of Champions (back when 5 games was the limit, before they changed the rules and gave us Ken Jennings). But the whole experience was a blast, even though I was more nervous than I've ever been in my life.

3. I grow carnivorous plants. That's what happens when horror fans grow up to be gardeners. I don't watch as much horror as I used to (heck, I don't watch as much of anything as I used to), but I do like my hungry little botanical specimens. I have Venus flytraps (of course), sundews, North American pitcher plants, and Asian pitcher plants, the latter in hanging baskets above my kitchen sink. A friend came over once and asked me about the weird-looking plants in my kitchen. When I told her they were carnivorous pitcher plants, she literally jumped back! No, Little Shop of Horrors is *not* a documentary. But Audrey was my favorite character. As long as we're on the subject, here's your random Carnivorous Plant Fact Of the Day: The Venus flytrap was named that, because someone thought the traps resembled a certain part of the female anatomy. Really! And I guess Venus Flytrap sounded better than Vagina Dentata :-)

4. For a little while I was a teacher. I did student teaching at at Tokay High in Lodi, CA, at the ripe old age of 20, and it was a miserable experience. I worked as a substitute teacher in Lodi annd then in Vancouver, WA, but I hustled off to graduate school at the first opportunity. I still love to teach, but I don't have the patience or stamina for all the BS that goes with being a public school teacher.

5. Along with the rest of my family, I'm a diehard Harry Potter fan. I read the first book on a cross-country flight in 2000 and was hooked. I convinced hubby to read it, and he bcame positively obsessed. Our son is into it too, having discovered Harry Potter through the wonderful audiobook versions ready by Jim Dale. I anticipate the last book with equal amounts of excitement and dread: I'm eager to see how Rowling ends the saga, and I hope she ties up most loose ends and brings everything together for a satisfying conclusion. At the same time, I know she's going to kill off at least one of my favorite characters. After finishing book 6, I was in a foul mood for days! Yes, I take my literature way too seriously.

6. I've been online since late 1991, when I got my first computer account at the University of Washington. I remember telnet and ftp from a Unix command line, and I remember when the web was text-only. You had to telnet to a server running the Lynx browser. I also remember the day I installed the first graphical browser, Mosaic, in 1994. I was so excited about what I saw that I ran next door to my boss' office and said, "You have to see this!" Within a year, URLs were showing up in advertising and on ESPN's sports broadcasts. Now it's hard to remember life before the web. We truly live in interesting times.

7. In 2001 I had a tumor removed from my thyroid gland, leaving me with a cool semicircular scar on my neck. When it was red and really prominent, I explained it by telling people I used to date OJ Simpson. Yep, I'm tacky.

8. When I was little, my favorite stuffed animal was a big green and brown snake. It was about 6 feet long and about 4 inches in diameter. Because I was such an original, creative kid, I named it, "Snaky."

9. My first car was a 1975 Ford Maverick, yellow-ish with a black vinyl top. It was seriously ugly, but it had a good stereo, and it ran. When you're 16, that's enough.

10. And finally, since this little game also mentions routines, here's a snapshot of my workday routine:

• Up at 6-ish
• Shower, hair, makeup, clothes, etc.
• Out the door by 7
• At work by 7:30
• Email, meetings, more email, lunch, more meetings, more email
• Out the door at 6-ish
• Home a little before 7
• Dinner
• Chores, vegetation, recreation, etc.
• Pre-bedtime hangout with hubby and son
• TV, hang out with hubby, read, compute, or write
• Bed at 10-ish

It's not much, but it's my life.

Overheard in the living room...

Son: I'm being stupid on purpose!

There really isn't much to say to that, is there?

Eating my way through San Jose: Lobster corndogs, duck fat fries, and inexpensive elegance

I just finished a book of blog ideas called No One Cares What You Had For Lunch, so of course I'm going to tell you what I had for lunch. Well, not exactly. But I am going to write about food in San Jose. It seems like all I've done since I got here is eat. Library conferences are like that. Every time you turn around, a vendor is sponsoring a break, lunch, or reception, and I've always found it hard to turn down free food. I'll be lucky to fit into my jeans when I get home. But fear not--I'm not going to bore you with details about all the food-related events I've gone to. Instead, I'm going to bore you with my observations about food around here.

First, a restaurant recommendation: If you're ever in the convention center area of San Jose, be sure to eat at the Sonoma Chicken Coop at least once. Their theme is "inexpensive elegance", and they live up to that promise. The food is delicious, beautifully presented, and reasonably priced. I was so impressed with my beautiful chicken salad that I took a picture of it! (see above) I'm pretty sure I've never done that before, but then I'm pretty sure I've never been served something garnished with an orchid before either.

Now for another theme I've noticed: Expensive inelegance. Well, not exactly. But I've been to a couple upscale restaurants in the last few days, and they usually have at least one menu item that's an upscale version of distinctly downscale cuisine. Today's example (which I'm not making up): a lobster corndog. Really! What's next? A deep-fried twinkie with Grand Marnier sauce? The same restaurant also served (are you ready for this) duck fat fries. I noticed that no one asked for ketchup.

I'm not sure what this trend says about American eating habits, but I find it fascinating.

Weekend in California

I've taken a brief break from blogging, as I've been in California since Saturday morning and haven't had time to write. I still don't have much time, so this post will have more pictures than words.

I'm in San Jose for a library conference, which started today. I flew down a few days early to go back to my home town and visit friends. Since it was Mother's Day weekend, a lot of people were busy, but I got to hang out with a couple people and spend a beautiful afternoon on the beach in Santa Cruz. Saturday I walked around town and discovered that, though it's bigger than it used to be, Tracy is still boring. But it was fun to wander around some of my old hangouts. Saturday night I went to a choir concert, since Kristy was the accompanist. The theme of the concert was Music Through the Decades, and they sang songs from the 1910s through the 1990s. It was highly entertaining to hear a choir do a medley of disco songs! Here's a pic of Kristy and me from after the show:

Sunday I hung out with my friend Diana, then went to a Mother's Day gathering at Kristy's parents' house. It was nice to visit with her folks, whom I've hardly seen in the last decade or so, and her sister Gina, whom I hadn't seen in about 8 years. Here's Kristy and Gina, with Gina's very photogenic dog:

Monday was beach day! We were off to Santa Cruz for sun, sand, and the Giant Dipper! The Boardwalk was nearly empty, and most of the rides weren't running. But the Dipper was open--hooray! We probably rode that thing 5 or 6 times without waiting in line at all, and we were in the front car nearly every time. Have I mentioned that I love roller coasters? And that the Giant Dipper is my favorite roller coaster? A couple pics:


When we finally removed ourselves from the roller coaster (grudgingly) we headed out on the pier, where we were serenaded by a group of adorable but loud seals. For whiskery blobs of blubber, they're surprisingly photogenic:


Before we left our coastal paradise, we drove along the cliffs above town, where the views are breathtaking. Here are a few more pics:


That's about it for now. More about San Jose and the conference when I have more time. Right now I'm off to a dessert reception. Life's tough, huh?

A former Army doctor talks about war

I don't have much time (getting ready to leave for CA tomorrow morning), but I want to share a moving, eloquent blog post from a former Army doctor who served in Vietnam. This passage will give you the gist of his message:

And I hate it -- I absolutely hate it -- when I hear hard-on holding TV pundits and chest-thumping politicos who haven't the slightest clue what war does to people getting all teary-eyed about "sacrifice" and square-jawed about bravery. Not to mention people who get shocked when a soldier living in that world goes off the deep end. It's what happens. When we send kids to war, sticking little magnets on our bumpers, putting down the remote long enough to give the finger to peaceniks; when we force our young to leave their humanity behind (while telling them not to and pretending it's possible), we ought to be damn sure -- we ought to be god damn sure there's absolutely no other choice. The only people for whom war is glorious are those who never were in one.

I don't have the time to add my own commentary, nor is it necessary. His post says it all.

Gay Penguins in Lodi

Now that I have your attention, your shoes are untied. No, seriously... someone in Lodi (and apparently people in other cities around the country) is upset about a children's book called And Tango Makes Three. The book is based on a true story about two male chinstrap penguins in the Central Park Zoo who become something of a couple and even make a nest for a fake egg. The Stockton Record has a brief article about the controversy at http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070505/A_NEWS/705050321. The reader comments are more entertaining than the article.

As a librarian, I find nearly all censorship abhorrent, but this example seems especially ridiculous. Someone posted a comment about not wanting to have a sex talk with her three-year-old because of the book. Well, gosh, I don't think a picture book about a couple penguins requires a sex talk! Little kids aren't nearly as obsessed with sex as their parents. You can tell a three-year-old that the penguins are friends and let it go at that. In fact, in the not-too-distant past same-sex friends would hug and kiss routinely, and they weren't gay. It just seems to be our culture today that insists on sexualizing everything.

Maybe the authors intended for the book to promote "the gay lifestyle" (or as we liberals call it, "tolerance"), and maybe they didn't. But it really doesn't matter. The book's target audience will see it as just a cute story about penguins... unless we grownups insist on giving them other ideas.

Thoughts on the Virginia Tech shooting

This post originally appeared in my MySpace blog on April 20. I'm reposting here, as part of my effort to maintain my content in both places. Plus, as depressing as it is, it's one of my better posts IMHO (well, at least the second, personal part is).

I debated whether or not to write about the shootings at Virginia Tech. I usually don't write a lot about current events, because most of what needs to be said, gets said--plus a whole lot more. Events like this one get the usual saturation coverage, so why clutter my blog with more? Ah, well, I shall now clutter...

First, I read a great opinion piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education a couple weeks ago by Gary Lavergne, who wrote a book about the infamous shooting at the University of Texas in 1966. His book is called A Sniper in the Tower. I haven't read it, but it sounds interesting. Anyway, Lavergne's essay in the Chronicle, entitled The Legacy of the Texas Tower Sniper, compares that case with the current nightmare, especially addressing our need to place blame and find reasons for these senseless killings. The essay is available free from the Chronicle site, at http://chronicle.com/free/2007/04/2007041810n.htm. In case you don't want to read the whole thing, here's a paragraph from near the end, which summarizes his argument (and my own opinion too):

Before we identify and learn the lessons of Blacksburg, we must begin with the obvious: More than four dozen innocent people were gunned down by a murderer who is completely responsible for what happened. No one died for lack of text messages or an alarm system. They died of gunshot wounds. While we painfully learn our lessons, we must not treat each other as if we are responsible for the deaths that occurred. We must come together and be respectful and kind. This is not a time for us to torture ourselves or to seek comfort by finding someone to blame. Maybe as a result of the tragedy we will figure out how to more effectively use e-mail and text messages as emergency tools for warning large populations. We may come up with a plan that successfully clears a large area, with a population density of a midsize city, in less than two hours. Maybe universities will find a way to install surveillance cameras and convince students and faculty members that they are being monitored for their own safety and not for gathering domestic intelligence. All of those steps might be helpful in avoiding and reducing the carnage of any future incidents. But as long as we value living in a free society, we will be vulnerable to those who do harm -- because they want to and know how to do it.

Much of what he says here could be applied to 9-11 also.

Now, from the academic to the personal:

School shootings of any sort always take me back to 1989, when a nutcase named Patrick Purdy opened fire with an AK-47 on a schoolyard full of children in Stockton, CA. It happened just a few months before I left Stockton, and it remains one of my most painful memories from my time there. I had worked at the school two or three years prior to the incident, and I was just a few blocks away when the shooting occurred.

I remember scanning the list of the dead and wounded for familiar names. There were none, but that didn't make it any better.

I remember driving to the blood bank to donate blood (which I had never done before, because I was deathly afraid of needles, but it was the one thing I thought I could do to help). When I arrived, the line of blood donors stretched out the door and clear around the block. I decided they'd probably get enough blood, and I drove away with my faith in humanity slightly restored.

I remember Michael Jackson coming to the dilapidated county hospital in French Camp, where many of the survivors were receiving care. He tried to keep his visit quiet to avoid a media circus and nearly succeeded. When he was accused of molesting children a few years later, I had a hard time believing that could be true of someone who cared enough to visit wounded kids in a run-down county hospital, without a PR team in tow.

I remember news coverage of the memorial service for the victims, which drew thousands of people and, for one brief moment, seemed to bring together people of all ethnic backgrounds and socioeconomic levels, united in mourning for these children who were slaughtered so senselessly. In a city like Stockton, such unity was rare.

I remember watching CNN coverage, listening to commentators try to make sense of a senseless act. Purdy's family and friends said he hated Asians. They said a lot of other stuff I don't remember. But nothing they said came close to explaining why he murdered 2nd-graders in cold blood. And since he blew his own brains out, there on that schoolyard, we'll never really know why he did it. Maybe he didn't know why he did it either.

I still have the newspaper articles about the incident. I don't know why I keep them, since I can't bear to read them. And I still can't listen to White Lion's "When the Children Cry." It was popular around that time, and the lyrics hit too close to home.

I suspect the folks in Blacksburg, VA, will always remember where they were when they heard the news, and they'll remember pieces of the aftermath, just as I remember what happened in Stockton over 18 years ago. There will be newspapers they can't read and songs they can't listen to. And someday something similar will happen elsewhere that will bring the painful memories flooding back to them, as this incident has brought back painful memories for me. Tragedies strip away much of what separates us, leaving us with only our pain--and our common humanity.

MySpace vs. Blogger

I've let this blog go for awhile now, because I've been blogging on MySpace. Why? Because many of my friends are there, they comment on my posts, and it's fun to write for a known audience. Writing here is like tossing a message in a bottle into the Pacific: someone might find it, but you don't know who, and they'll probably never tell you. But Blogger also offers some advantages over MySpace: It's easier to access and read, it doesn't have the "home of the predators" stigma attached to MySpace, and it offers *much* better blogging tools (permalinks, trackbacks, tagging, and way more customization).

And then there's the difference in blog culture. As a rule, Blogger users are more tech- and blog-savvy and more interested in thought-provoking writing. MySpace users are more interested in what I did today, pop culture... you know, diary entries. Both are great, but they're different. Yet my MySpace blog wouldn't be an accurate reflection of me if I didn't include some opinions and, ahem, deep thoughts. And my Blogger blog seems incomplete without some of the personal stuff (and I do a lot fewer thought pieces than diary entries, which is why there hasn't been much activity here in awhile).

What to do?

After thinking about this for awhile, I've decided to mostly duplicate my work in both places. I may occasionally post something on only one blog or the other, but for the most part the content will be the same in both places. I don't think that will bother anyone, because I suspect the readership will be different in both places.

So, to catch up, I may copy some posts from here onto my MySpace blog, and I will very likely copy some posts from my MySpace blog here. But from this point forward, new entries will appear in both places. If anyone knows how to automate that process, please let me know. In the meantime, I'll be cutting and pasting.

ID and Fingerprints to Sell Used CDs? You must be joking.

Ars technica reports that several states, especially Florida, are putting new restrictions on the sale of used CDs. These laws are similar to those that govern pawn shops, requiring stores to request ID and even fingerprints from people who wish to sell their used CDs. Supposedly these laws will make it harder for people to sell stolen or counterfeit goods, but as the article notes, one can see the heavy hand of the music industry behind them. Back in the late 80s the industry went to court to stop the sale of used CDS--and lost. Now, when users can buy a used CD, rip it, then resell it easily, music execs are probably freaking out about piracy. I'd have more sympathy if prices for CDs were more reasonable, legally-purchased digital music came with fewer onerous restrictions, and the RIAA stopped extorting money from people they accuse of piracy, many of whom are innocent. I have no problem paying for music, but I do have a problem with a) being ripped off, and b) seeing the RIAA use copyright law as a tool of extortion while doing all they can to limit technological advances in the music industry.

OK, rant over. And if you're looking for a legal way to unload some unwanted CDs, I recommend LaLa. It's a great site that automates CD trading via posted want lists and have lists. There are also some cool social networking features built in. I've been using it since last summer, and I've gotten a lot of great music from other users. If you want to sign up, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know, so I can send you an invitation. Then when you join, I get a free t-shirt :-)

Here's my want list:

Here's my current want list:
Click here to get any of my CDs for $1

Technology Typology Test

No, this isn't another Blogthings quiz, and you won't get a neat little snippet of code to post on MySpace. But you may find the results interesting.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project just released a new report on how people use information and communication technology--cell phones, the internet, various gadgets, etc.--and their attitudes toward these things. They surveyed a variety of people and classified the respondents into various groups based on what they used and how they felt about it. Then, based on the results, they created a Technology Typology Test, which you can take to see which category you fit into.

As for me? According to the quiz, I am a technology omnivore, along with 8% of the US population. I pasted in the full description below. Interestingly, I don't quite fit the norm for a technology omnivore: I'm too old and too female :-)

So what type of technology user are you?

Basic Description
Members of this group use their extensive suite of technology tools to do an enormous range of things online, on the go, and with their cell phones. Omnivores are highly engaged with video online and digital content. Between blogging, maintaining their Web pages, remixing digital content, or posting their creations to their websites, they are creative participants in cyberspace.

Defining Characteristics
You might see them watching video on an iPod. They might talk about their video games or their participation in virtual worlds the way their parents talked about their favorite TV episode a generation ago. Much of this chatter will take place via instant messages, texting on a cell phone, or on personal blogs. Omnivores are particularly active in dealing with video content. Most have video or digital cameras, and most have tried watching TV on a non-television device, such as a laptop or a cell phone.

Omnivores embrace all this connectivity, feeling confident in how they manage information and their many devices. This puts information technology at the center of how they express themselves, do their jobs, and connect to their friends.

Who They Are
They are young, ethnically diverse, and mostly male (70%). The median age is 28; just more than half of them are under age 30, versus one in five in the general population. Over half are white (64%) and 11% are black (compared to 12% in the general population). English-speaking Hispanics make up 18% of this group. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many (42% versus the 13% average) of Omnivores are students.

VIP Syndrome: A Prescription For Poor Health

It's been awhile since I posted here. I've been trying to figure out what role this blog should play compared to my MySpace blog. I still don't have that sorted out, but for now I think that more diary-like posts and personal observations will go on MySpace, while links to interesting stuff I find on the web, and more academic content will go here. We'll see if that's how it really shakes out, but for now, that's the plan.

So, today's link is to an excellent essay from LeftBrainBlog, VIP Syndrome: A Prescription For Poor Health, on how routine hospital care is superior to the care so-called VIPs receive. I'll try to remember all this the next time I have to sit in the ER for six hours, but I do believe it's true. Hospital routines may seem bureaucratic, cold, impersonal, and sometimes downright cruel, but there are often good reasons for them that we laypeople--especially when we're sick or injured enough to be in the ER--may not always understand. I believe in advocating for yourself or your loved ones in medical settings (boy, do I!), but I also believe we need to recognize and respect the expertise of our health care teams. After all, you don't want special treatment at the expense of excellent care, right?

More on private information and social networking

More concern about private information and social networking: KATU - Portland, Oregon - Technology - Some rethink posting of private info

It's fascinating to watch as people learn to integrate new technology into their lives. As one of the interviewees said:

"Just like everything else that we've seen develop socially on the Internet, the
social norms are the last thing to develop," he says. "It's what I refer to as
the 'Wild West Syndrome.' It first gets settled and the laws and the norms get
established."

We're all trying to find the balance between privacy and social space. While some interviewees made their Facebook profiles private and/or removed most personal information, another one noted how annoying it is to look for people and not be able to find them.

As for me, I prefer to be found, so I use my real name, schools, biographical info, etc. But I do try to be careful about what I post publicly. I suspect eventually all this will be a non-issue. People (including employers) will get used to the idea that people have information about their personal lives publicly available, users will get wise to the habits of predators (I think teens are actually ahead of their parents on that score much of the time), and we'll develop some sense of boundaries about what we post publicly. Time will tell.

Friends and Identity on Social Networking Sites

I just finished reading a fascinating paper in First Monday called Friends, Friendsters, and Top 8: Writing Community Into Being on Social Network Sites. It's an academic piece, so not necessarily light reading. It analyzes the dynamics of friend spaces on social networking sites like MySpace and Friendster. I've wrestled with some of the issues the author raises as I've built my MySpace presence, so I was intrigued with some of her conclusions.

One of her major points is that social networking sites make your friends public, so we choose our friends in part for what those friends say about us: "When people articulate their relations on social network sites, they are not simply projecting their internal model of tie strength. The public nature of these sites requires participants to perform their relationship to others, not unlike the examples given above. Based on an internal understanding of the audience, participants override the term 'Friend' to make room for a variety of different relationships so that they may properly show face." The author later adds, "The actual collection of Friends and the display of Top Friends provides space for people to engage in identity performance." In other words, our friends lists are a part of how we define ourselves on social networking sites. Friends can be friends or acquaintances in the traditional sense of those words, or they can serve a similar purpose as posters or bumper stickers in physical space--a way to help define who we are, what we believe, what our interests are, and what our status is within a particular group.

The author continues by pointing out that our friends lists define the audience for our participation in the site. Our profile designs, bulletins, blog posts, etc., are usually targeted toward those on our friends list--or at least a subset of them. And it's this point that I find most frustrating about using sites like MySpace. I operate in different circles, and in each of those I behave a bit differently and have a slightly different identity. But MySpace doesn't allow me to do that. I can't group my friends into categories like work, church, old classmates, close friends, and family, the way most of us group our friends in real life. Instead, I have three choices:

1. Choose the audience I wish to have, and exclude from my friends list those who don't fit in with that audience
2. Include everyone, regardless of where they fit, and make my profile, bulletins, etc., sufficiently generic that they won't shock or offend any of my friends.
   
3. Include everyone and post whatever I want, regardless of the consequences.
   

In reality I do a little of all three. I avoid posting information that's too personal or specific to a single context, because I have MySpace friends from lots of different parts of my life. But I include a wide variety of stuff in my profile (religion, gardening, and Def Leppard, for example), and I sometimes post bulletins that may surprise a few of my friends. Finally, I don't actively encourage my co-workers to join MySpace and send me friend requests. I wouldn't turn down their requests, but I don't actively solicit them, because I want the freedom to post things on MySpace that aren't necessarily appropriate in the workplace.

In a way, operating within a social network like MySpace is more complicated than dealing with friendships in other arenas, because you have to display the same self to everyone with whom you interact. That can make the experience more interesting, for ourselves and our friends, because we can be who we are and let all our friends see all sides of us. But sometimes there are negative consequences for doing that, to which any teenager punished by parents for his MySpace behavior can attest. What do you do when co-workers want to be your friends? Or family members? Teens in your church's youth group? How do you retain your ability to express yourself freely--one of the most fun aspects of social networking--when you have friends with very different world views and different views of you? In the physical world, we present different faces to different groups of people. Some, especially teenagers, call that hypocrisy, but it's really a social necessity. We behave differently at work than we do with our college buddies and differently at church than we do at someone's bachelor party. Even those rare few who can maintain complete personal integrity, never violating the values of one space while in another, will still behave differently in different contexts. But with MySpace and similar social networks, there's only one context--your entire friend space.

This piece presents a good example of this problem. It's mostly written in my academic voice, which I usually reserve for my long-suffering co-workers. But I'd like to include it in my MySpace blog, because it relates to my behavior there, and I'd really like to hear what other MySpace users think about this issue. But if I post it there, my friends will find out just how nerdy I really am (yeah, like they don't already know). What to do? I'm going with option 3, above: post it wherever I want!

I suppose it would be easier if social networks could let us categorize our friends and direct certain information to specific groups rather than to everyone. That would more closely model the physical world, but it would also make using these networks more complicated. And it would rob us of the chance to see different sides of our online buddies. So after all this long-winded prose, I don't have any good answers. But I do enjoy contemplating the questions, and I wonder if the dynamics of friendships in social networks will spill over into the physical world--or if they already have, and to what extent. But that's a topic for a different long-winded essay.

DareToScare Blog - A Halloween Blog

Yeah, I know - Halloween is over, and we're all supposed to be dashing through the snow in our SUVs to the mall for some commercial Christmas cheer. Personally, I find the thought of a mall at Christmastime more terrifying than most Halloween horror, and not nearly as much fun. So, for some fun stuff more suitable for Halloween than Happy Holidays, check out the DareToScare blog. It hasn't been updated since October, but what's there is worth a read. It includes posts on famous horror movies, supposedly-haunted locations, famous criminals, monsters, etc. Be brave and take a look.

The Future of Work

Interesting piece on how work may change in response to globalization, demographics, and technology:
The Future of Work. The author proposes that left-brain activities like data analysis will either be outsourced or automated, leaving right-brain creative types with a big advantage in the job market. He also notes that work could become more playful as a result, because playful people who love what they do are more innovative. And finally, he provides the perfect explanation for all of us who refuse to grow up: "the increased level of immaturity among adults is an evolutionary response to increased change and uncertainty. "

See? I'm not just immature. I'm responding to increasing change and uncertainty. So there!

Seed: When Two Minds Think Alike

From Seed Magazine comes a fascinating theory that autism may be related to human mating habits, specifically the tendency for people with similar traits to be attracted to one another. See Seed: When Two Minds Think Alike for details.

Neanderthal DNA Shows No Interbreeding With Humans

According to an article in the latest issue of Science, it appears that modern humans don't share any DNA with Neandertals. Forbes.com has the details: Neanderthal DNA Shows No Interbreeding With Humans

So now I have to find another explanation for my husband :-)

My puking pumpkin

OK, one more Halloween thing. After admiring them for years (yeah, I'm weird), I finally made a puking pumpkin. Here it is, in all its glory, a cautionary tale for any squash that decides to wash down Halloween candy with tequila ;-)

Murder and dismemberment in New Orleans

Just in time for Halloween - a grotesque story of murder and dismemberment in New Orleans. See Michael C. Hebert, MD - Journal - The Strangest

Don't worry - this isn't a tabloid piece but a funny and thoughtful commentary on a case that's truly stranger than fiction. And New Orleans is the perfect setting for it.

Happy Halloween y'all!

Extreme Pumpkin Contest Winners 2005

Wanna get creative with your Jack o' Lantern this year? For inspiration, check out the Extreme Pumpkin Contest Winners 2005
I love the pumpkin giving birth, the moldy skull, and the flash o' lantern. I have about 5 pumpkins sitting at home; I think I'll get to work on 'em.

Boy, 6, chosen as library's volunteer of the year - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

I rarely post library news here, but this one is too good to keep to myself. A 6-year-old boy has been named Volunteer of the Year by the Allegheny County Library Association in Pennsylvania. His reason for volunteering at the library? "I just like to help." More details available in an article from this article:
Boy, 6, chosen as library's volunteer of the year - Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

LILEKS (James) Interior Desecrators

Did you grow up in a house with orange furniture and green shag carpet? Or green furniture and orange shag carpet? Then you too must be a child of the 70's! For a nostalgic, snarky look at America's ugliest decade, visit LILEKS (James) Interior Desecrators

Next to pictures of the worst the 70's had to offer the world of interior design, the author makes the hilariously snarky comments we wish we'd been witty enough to come up with back in '77.

Solutions from PC Magazine: Save the World with Your Screensaver

Remember the SETI@Home project, which lets users install a screensaver that searches for extraterrestrial life while you aren't using your computer? Now there are more projects that use this model, called grid computing. While it's otherwise idle, your computer can search for cancer treatments, help find a cure for Parkinson's Disease... or help SETI find extraterrestrials. PC Magazine provides a nice overview of some grid computing projects and how you can participate. See Solutions from PC Magazine: Save the World with Your Screensaver

Polyamorous cows, Paris Hilton, and the OED

Now that I have your attention... check out the latest additions to the OED:
http://dictionary.oed.com/help/updates/pleb-Pomak.html

Some of these terms have been around awhile (like polyamorous and cow-tipping) but are just now being added, while others are fairly recent (e.g. celebutante -- thanks, Paris Hilton). I'd love to know how they decide when a word is sufficiently ingrained in the language to warrant an entry.

Survival of the Harmonious: Why do we respond to music?

In Survival of the Harmonious, the Boston Globe reports on recent research into the origins of music and what, if any, evolutionary advantage it provided to early humans.

According to the article, neuroscientists "have scanned musicians' brains and found that the 'chills' that they feel when they hear stirring passages of music result from activity in the same parts of the brain stimulated by food and sex." No comment :-)

Apparently researchers have four competing theories for the origin of music:

• "Music originated as a way for males to impress and attract females" - we'll call that the rock star theory
• "Others see its roots in the relationship between mother and child" - the lullaby theory
• "Music was a social adhesive, helping to forge common identity in early human communities" - maybe the national anthem theory?
• "And a few leading evolutionary psychologists argue that music has no adaptive purpose at all, but simply manages, as the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker has written, to `tickle the sensitive spots' in areas of the brain that evolved for other purposes." - the not-everything-that-feels-good-has-to-have-a-purpose theory

Since I'm not an evolutionary psychologist, I don't have a theory of my own, but all of these make some sense to me, as does a fifth: Music fills a spiritual need in humans. Yeah, I know -- that opens a whole new, not-necessarily-scientific can of worms, but there you are.

I'm off to tickle my brain's sensitive spots with a little Def Leppard ;-)

In Search of Courage

I just stumbled across an essay by John McCain called In Search of Courage. Interestingly, it was written in September, 2004, just prior to the 2004 elections, when McCain was campaigning for Bush. Here are a few nuggets:

Courage is like a muscle. The more we exercise it, the stronger it gets. I sometimes worry that our collective courage is growing weaker from disuse. We don't demand it from our leaders, and our leaders don't demand it from us.

We may have learned important lessons from the intelligence failures that preceded the terrorist attacks of September 11 and the fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But I'm not sure we set a reassuring example to the rest of the country by declining to punish anyone involved in those failures. Not one person was fired or was moved by his or her conscience to resign.

When there's an absence of courage, greed and selfishness take over.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the capacity to act despite our fears.

Even dyed-in-the-wool Democrats like me can find value in this piece. If, as I suspect, McCain turns out to be our next president, I hope he practices what he so wisely preaches in this essay.

How To Make Your Work Easy

And one more thing from Guideposts -- Norman Vincent Peale's advice on how to make work easy. It's a cool combination of the practical ("Plan your work") and the spiritual ("At the start of each day pray about your work").

If I Were Starting My Life Again

The Guideposts site has reprinted a wonderful essay from 1979, in which a father describes what he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. His words are wise, a wonderful reminder to harried parents like me to cherish the joy of our children instead of correcting or ignoring them. He ends with an image I hope to carry with me as a parent -- to be "God's love with skin on."

"Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe

Check out this article from Washington Monthly: "Why Conservatives Can't Govern" by Alan Wolfe. This quote summarizes the key idea: "Conservatives cannot govern well for the same reason that vegetarians cannot prepare a world-class boeuf bourguignon: If you believe that what you are called upon to do is wrong, you are not likely to do it very well." So Bush et al. have created bigger -- yet more incompetent -- government. That explains a lot.

Librarians, Almost Live, and the Joys of YouTube

I discovered YouTube (http://youtube.com) a couple of months ago -- kind of like the old Napster but for video. There's everything from some dude in his underwear doing bad karaoke to music videos, bootleg concert videos, old TV shows, and lots more. What's especially cool are clips of old local TV shows that will likely never be released on DVD but which bring back lots of fond memories. Which brings me to Almost Live, Seattle's sketch comedy show from the 80's and 90's. When I was a starving grad student, hubby and I would go to tapings on Saturday night because a) it was fun, and b) it was free. So I have a soft spot for the show. There are a bunch of Almost Live clips on YouTube, including one I never saw back in the day: a parody of Cops called Librarians. Check it out (no pun intended) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIUC9NPo3W4.

A Commencement Speech by Stephen Colbert

I haven't spent as much time online lately, so it's been awhile since I found something worth posting here. But I finally found something blog-worthy (the 21st century version of sponge-worthy??) -- Stephen Colbert's commencement address at Knox College last weekend. You can find the text of the speech at http://www.knox.edu.nyud.net:8090/x12547.xml

How can you not love a graduation speech that includes a Lincoln-Douglas drinking game, an umm... creative solution to illegal immigration, and padded mortar boards? I'm jealous. At my college graduation, the speaker was a minor member of Reagan's cabinet, and the sound system was so bad you couldn't hear him. And did I mention it was about 95 degrees outside? During allergy season? Whine, whine, whine...

12 Things a Klingon Programmer Would Say

I just received the following bit from a friend, and it's too good to keep to myself.  Enjoy!

 

12 Things A Klingon Programmer Would Say

1. Specifications are for the weak and timid!

2. This machine is a piece of GAGH! I need dual Pentium processors if I am to do battle with this code!

3. You cannot really appreciate Dilbert unless you've read it in the original Klingon.

4. Indentation?! -- I will show you how to indent when I indent your skull!

5. What is this talk of 'release'? Klingons do not make software' releases'. Our software 'escapes' leaving a bloody trail of designers

and quality assurance people in its wake.

6. Klingon function calls do not have 'parameters' -- they have 'arguments' -- and they ALWAYS WIN THEM.

7. Debugging? Klingons do not debug. Our software does not coddle the weak.

8. I have challenged the entire quality assurance team to a bat'leth contest. They will not concern us again.

9. A TRUE Klingon Warrior does not comment his code!

10. By filing this SPR you have challenged the honor of my family. Prepare to die!

11. You question the worthiness of my code? I should kill you where you stand!

12. Our users will know fear, and cower before our software.

13. Ship it! Ship it, and let them flee like the dogs they are!

A good death

CNN just posted a great article about Art Buchwald's final days:
CNN.com - Laughing through his final days - Apr 5, 2006 Having decided to forego dialysis for kidney failure, Buchwald is enjoying time with family and friends, eating whatever he wants, and writing columns from his hospice room. Wouldn't it be wonderful if more people could leave this world in such fine style?

Rands In Repose: N.A.D.D.

OK, I've just learned I have a new disorder: NADD (Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder. Details about this tragic-but-highly-entertaining condition can be found at Rands In Repose: N.A.D.D.
Compared to the poster, though, I have a relatively mild case. For example, at the moment I'm only:
1. Backing up my computer
2. Typing this blog post
3. Monitoring my work email
4. Monitoring whatever new stuff comes up on my Google Sidebar
5. Monitoring my personal email
6. Listening to Morning Edition on NPR

Wait... OK... maybe I do have a severe case. Oh, well... Let's hear it for drinking from the information firehose!

thingoid » Stumble your way around the web

I've found a new online time-waster (as if I needed another one): StumbleUpon. Rather than spend lots of time describing, I'll just point to an excellent description at thingoid:
thingoid » Stumble your way around the web

Thanks to StumbleUpon, I have created my own South Park character, found new ways to insult people in Latin... and found some useful reference sites. Let's hear it for serendipity!

Unseen. Unforgotten.

From the Birmingham (AL) News site, Unseen. Unforgotten:

In November 2004, [Alexander] Cohn went through an equipment closet at the newspaper in search of a lens and saw a cardboard box full of negatives marked, "Keep. Do Not Sell."

 

What had Cohn found?  5000 images documenting the Civil Rights Movement from 1950-1965, many of which had never been published.  The Birmingham News has put together a wonderful web site to showcase the photos: http://www.al.com/unseen/  If you ever needed evidence of a picture being worth a thousand words, you'll find that evidence here.

"The Framers and the Faithful" by Steven Waldman

"The Framers and the Faithful" is a lengthy essay by Steven Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet, published in the Washington Monthly. In it, Waldman argues that evangelical Christian leaders at the time of our nation's founding argued adamently in favor of separating church and state, in contrast to their spiritual descendents in the modern evangelical movement. Those early evangelicals were members of a minority movement persecuted by the established churches of their day. As such, they viewed a state-established church, along with any other government-supported religious activity, as a threat to their survival. They also saw state-sponsored religion as leading to the moral decay of both clergy and laity.

So, what has changed in the evangelical movement to cause such an about-face today? Waldman doesn't directly address that question. IMHO, the difference is simple: today's evangelicals have much more political power and social influence than their brethren of yesteryear, so any state-sponsored religious activity would likely be in line with their beliefs. What too many of us Christians forget, however, is that political winds change. Once government becomes excessively entangled with religion, it will be difficult to disentangle it when different political views predominate. In the long run, the separation of church and state is most important for protecting churches from excessive government influence rather than the other way around.

Need to update lots of blogs? Try Qumana

This is my first blog post written with Qumana, a free blog editor. According to the Qumana site (http://www.qumana.com), Qumana provides more sophisticated blog authoring tools than most blog sites. It also allows you to post the same content to multiple blogs. The software is available for Windows and Mac. I'll experiment with it over the next few weeks and (if I remember) post an update on how it works.

Powered By Qumana

Out of Context Quote of the Day

"It's good to see cannibalistic maniacs are taking culinary advice from Ozzy Osbourne."

To read the source of this wonderful sentence, check out the Chicago Tribune's review of The Hills Have Eyes: Metromix. Fast-Paised review: ‘The Hills Have Eyes'

Bottled Water Isn't Healthier Than Tap, Report Reveals

From National Geographic News comes a short article on the environmental impact of bottled water:
Bottled Water Isn't Healthier Than Tap, Report Reveals

I never did understand why people want to pay soft drink prices for water, but this article points out that the demand for bottled water wastes more than money.

Zillow.com - Your Edge in Real Estate

Wanna know what your home is worth? How about your neighbor's home? Or anyone else's? Check out Zillow. You don't have to enter any personal information, either.

Zillow also offers tools to calculate the value of home improvements, so you can see how much return on investment you'll get from adding an extra room or remodeling.

4things Meme

meme (n) - an idea or concept that gets replicated through a culture, especially via the internet. For more than you ever wanted to know about memes, see the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme

Here's my take on the 4things meme making its way through the blogosphere:

Four jobs I've had in my life
Disc jockey at Chuck E. Cheese (really!), archives assistant (worked with the John Muir Papers and a bunch of other collections in two different archives), high school English teacher, librarian

Four movies I could watch over and over
Any of the original Star Wars trilogy, most James Bond movies (especially Goldeneye), Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Princess Bride

Four places I've lived
Tracy, CA; Seattle, WA; Dalton, GA; Portland, OR

Four TV shows I love to watch
The Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, documentaries about history or interesting animals, Behind the Music

Four web sites I visit daily
Google, Yahoo News, Bloglines (gotta have my RSS feeds), OHSU Library web site

Four places I have been on vacation
Yellowstone National Park; Vancouver, BC; Santa Cruz, CA; Caribbean cruise

Four of my favorite foods
Mongolian grill, pizza, cheese enchiladas, panang curry with chicken

Four places I'd rather be
Just about any tropical island with sandy beaches, Australia, Arizona (hey, it's winter in Oregon - I need sun!), curled up under a blanket in front of a roaring fire with a good book

Four albums I can't live without
Def Leppard's greatest hits is probably the only album. Otherwise I'll take my satellite radio. That should supply the rest of my musical needs.

Four vehicles I've owned
'75 Ford Maverick; '85 Dodge Daytona; '92 Geo Metro; '99 Toyota Tacoma

Holocaust Survivor, 76, Is Bar Mitzvah

I don't know how long this story will be posted, so read it while you can at http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1160172&tw=wn_wire_story The coolest part IMHO is how the man and his wife met - as children in a concentration camp - and then met again years later on a blind date. God sometimes makes miracles out of tragedy. The rabbi's comment after the bar mitzvah sums things up nicely:

"We live in a time where we need hope and a positive outlook in life, and Herman's story reminds us that goodness will always overcome badness, and light will overcome darkness."

An Interview With God

I just stumbled across something that has apparently been going around the web for awhile now. It's called An Interview With God. The most common version is a Flash presentation; see http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com. Very beautifully done.

After a bit of hunting, I was able to find a text version. Since it's all over the web already, I suppose it's OK to repost it here:

I dreamed I had an INTERVIEW WITH GOD.

"So, you would like to interview me?" GOD asked.

"If you have time," I said.

GOD smile. "My time is eternity... what questions do you have in mind for me?"

"What surprises you the most about humankind?"

GOD answered...

"That they get bored with childhood, that they rush to grow up, and then long to be children again."

"That they lose their health to make money... and then lose their money to restore their health."

"That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, such that they live in neither the present nor the future."

"That they live as if they would never die, and die as though they had never lived."

GOD's hand took mine... and we were silent for a while.

And then I asked, "As a parent, what are some of life's lessons you want your children to learn?"

GOD replied, "To learn they cannot make anyone love them. All they can do is let themselves be loved."

"To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others."

"To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness."

"To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those they love, and it can take many years to heal them."

"To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but is one who needs the least."

"To learn that there are people who love them dearly, but simply do not yet know how to express or show their feelings."

"To learn that two people can look at the same thing, and see it differently."

"To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another, but they must also forgive themselves."

"Thank you for your time," I said humbly.

"Is there anything else you would like your children to know?"

GOD smiled, and said... "Just know that I am here." "Always."

The ECUS (Edinburgh Chat-Up Scale) questionnaire

OK, so I really should have posted this one on Valentine's Day. But better late than never, right? The journal Personality and Individual Differences just published an article called Chat-up Lines as Male Sexual Displays, which analyzes the results of a questionnaire in which respondents were asked to rank pick-up lines. The article requires a subscription, but you can view the list of pickup lines at http://psy-web.psy.ed.ac.uk/people/pcaryl/pgcresearchitems/ECUS40b.txt. Some are classic, cheesy lines ("Well hey there, I may not be Fred Flintstone, but I bet I can make your Bed Rock!"), but others are mini-scenarios. Here's the bottom line, from the article abstract:

Openings involving jokes, empty compliments and sexual references received poor ratings. Those revealing, e.g., helpfulness, generosity, athleticism, ‘culture’ and wealth, were highly rated.

So forget those cheesy lines, guys. As if your lack of success with them wasn't evidence enough.

"Interest Groups Are The New Geography"

In a piece from Fast Company called Ambidextrous Exec, Steve Murphy, CEO of Rodale, Inc., makes an interesting statement:

Interest groups are the new geography. Because of the Internet, old paradigms of demographic analysis and segmentation -- by sex, age, household income, and especially zip code -- are meaningless. People are gathering around their interests. The more we can identify those interest groups the better we can serve them.

My experiences on the internet support this claim. I'm part of several online communities based not on geography, gender, or socioeconomic status but on personal interests. Old barriers are breaking down, but I wonder if new ones -- just as seemingly impenetrable -- are being erected. Instead of hanging out with people of the same race, gender, religion, and/or income level, will we hang out only with people who are into the same music or have the same hobby? If so, we'll still miss the great diversity of this world and still become balkanized.

The Straight Dope on Public Libraries

The Straight Dope just posted a great history of public libraries -- Straight Dope Staff Report: How did public libraries get started?. I've been a librarian for nearly 14 years, and I learned a few things. What most surprises me, though, is the question that prompted the report -- from a 25-year-old who doesn't understand even in general terms how public libraries are funded. Clearly we in the library profession need to do a better job of educating our users if this question is any indication of the public mindset.

Banished Words List :: 2006

It's here! The 2006 Banished Words List! So pack up your holiday tree and hunker down with this 97% fat free breaking news from Lake Superior State University. They really know how to git-er-done.

A List Apart: Articles: Attack of the Zombie Copy

A List Apart takes on corporate zombie-speak in Attack of the Zombie Copy. As a former colleague of mine used to say, "If you try to maximize my e-commerce potential, I will hurt you."

The Best Free Software

Bob Rankin just posted a short guide to free software. If you haven't discovered the wonders of freeware, check it out. Among his recommendations are three programs I use regularly - OpenOffice (full-featured office suite, http://openoffice.org), IrfanView (fabulous photo editing/managing program, http://www.irfanview.com), and AVG (antivirus; http://free.grisoft.com)

You should also know that Bob Rankin is one of the authors of the Internet Tourbus (http://www.tourbus.com), the best e-mail newsletter for internet users IMHO.

SuprGlu - Gluing your life together.

Ever wish you could bring all your web content together - your blog posts, del.icio.us bookmarks, and Flickr photos? Well, now you can. Surf over to SuprGlu to create a summary page of your web content. It looks a lot like a blog, with entries in reverse chronological order. The difference is that an entry might be a a link, a picture, or some other kind of content as well as a blog post. To see mine, check out http://crumj.suprglu.com.

Bob Lefsetz column on what's wrong with the music industry

A couple of sites recently reprinted an article by veteran music journalist Bob Lefsetz, which explains clearly what's wrong with the music industry these days. IMHO, the article is intelligent, irreverant, and dead on. I can't find a direct link from Lefsetz's site, but here are links to two places it has been posted:

• Melodicrock.com: scroll down to the heading "WISE WORDS FROM AN INDUSTRY VETEREN."
  
• Kurt's Krap, a music blog. Scroll down to the heading, " Greatest. Music column. Ever."
  

My take on the article and the music industry:

As I see it, the biggest problem with the music industry is huge, merger-created music companies that want to force people to retain the old model. Instead of figuring out how to market their product in the digital world, they want to quash all attempts at change and continue to shove an inferior product, sold in an inferior format, and marketed with phony journalism, down the consumer's throat. They need to completely reinvent their product and their marketing to remain relevant, but so far their attempts have been too little too late.

All of this reminds me of Microsoft when the web first started becoming popular. They were very late to recognize the internet for the revolutionary force it became. But, once Gates figured it out, he turned the company around virtually overnight. Current projects were dropped immediately, and the largest software company in the world ramped up on the information highway in a matter of months. The music companies need to execute a similar turnaround, but I don't think they have the leadership or the corporate culture to make such a change possible.

MacDevCenter.com: What Is Bluetooth

No, Bluetooth is not a dental problem :-) Rather, it's a wireless communication protocol that has gotten a lot of press over the last couple of years. Even though it has been talked about a lot (can you say, "buzzword"?), I haven't found many plain English descriptions of what it is and what it's good for - until now. O'Reilly's MacDevCenter recently posted a great "Bluetooth 101" article, What is Bluetooth. Check it out if you're curious about how to make wireless devices talk to each other.

Compare prices at retail stores in your area with SalesCircular.com

Tired of combing through six inserts in the newspaper to see who has the best price on DVD players, video game systems, or appliances? Salescircular.com to the rescue! This site consolidates in-store specials, so you can go to one place to see which stores in your area have the best deals. Once you go to the site, choose your state, and you'll be presented with a menu of types of products:

• Computer Hardware


• Software Etc.


• Electronics - Audio


• Electronics - Video


• Major Appliances


• Small Appliances


• Cellular Phones/Service


• Free Stuff (i.e. free after rebate)

Salescircular.com is one of the most useful shopping sites I've found. I always start there when I'm considering purchasing a new gadget.

Blast through voicemail hell!

Do you hate being lost in a maze of voicemail when you call a customer service number? So do I! So check out the IVR Cheat Sheet(tm) by Paul English, which tells you how to cut through layers of voicemail menus and talk to a human at a long list of companies. This site was just mentioned on CNN Headline News, though, so I wouldn't be surprised if some of these companies changed their menus soon.

Def Leppard in Sacramento

What with being sick and preparing for Thanksgiving, I completely forgot to post about my most recent mini-vacation. On Nov. 10 I flew to Sacramento with a friend to see Def Leppard (yes - *again*. I've now seen them 17 times.). The show was great (of course), though I could have done without the drunk guy behind me yelling in my ear during most of the show.

Afterward, we waited near the backstage door for the band to come out. It was a long wait in cold weather - but worth it for the pictures and autographs.

And in case you're wondering... no, I will never grow up :-)

Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents

Wow - two posts in one night. If I keep this up, people will think I have too much time on my hands! But I couldn't resist sharing this e-book. As I skimmed through the Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents, I felt very lucky to be an American. I certainly have my differences with the current regime in DC, but at least I don't have to use proxy servers and cryptography to speak my mind.

The first half of the Handbook covers the basics of blogging, including ethics and promoting your blog. Aimed at bloggers in repressive countries, the second half provides lots of information on how to thwart censorship and blog anonymously. Fascinating - and a good reminder of how much we Americans take for granted.

Amazing pictures of the Dead Sea

Imagine a man reading a newspaper while floating in the water - with no air matress or life jacket. Terragalleria.com includes some stunning photos of the Dead Sea, including the Biblically infamous pillars of salt and the aformentioned man with his newspaper. You can download the pictures as wallpaper or order prints.

Posting something online? Read the fine print!

If you've been online very long, you've probably heard the following advice: Don't post anything online that you wouldn't want to read on the front page of the New York Times. Well, I've been online since 1991, so you'd think I'd have internalized that bit of advice. But I got a surprise reminder today.

I didn't post anything awful, and it didn't appear in the Times. Here's what did happen: This morning I got an email from a colleague, congratulating me on a letter to the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education. That would be a routine bit of correspondence except for one important point: I never wrote a letter to the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education! I did, however, submit a short posting a couple of months ago to Colloquy, the Chronicle's online forum for discussing issues related to higher ed. I hopped over to the Chronicle site, and, sure enough, there was my posting, edited a bit and presented as a letter to the editor (see http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i12/12b01701.htm if you're interested; it's a response to an article by a conservative librarian, accusing the library profession of liberal bias). A little more digging revealed the following statement on the Colloquy page: "All submissions may also be published as letters to the editor in print."

I don't mind my posting appearing as a letter to the editor, but I wish I'd paid more attention and noticed this statement beforehand. Then I would have taken a bit more time with the post, as I would anything I intended for publication.

The lesson? Read all fine print before posting online, and assume your words may crop up in unexpected places. And a note to the folks at the Chronicle: It would be nice if you'd label which letters are really Colloquy postings, so people would understand why they are less polished and formal than one would otherwise expect.

Wired News: Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit

Bruce Schneier at Wired News has the best take I've seen yet on the Sony copy protection nightmare. Unlike most stories in the mainstream media that focus on the copy protection software itself, Schneier gets to the critical part of the story: If some small, no-name firm installs it, it's malware; if a big media company installs it, it's a legitimate application. Infuriating - and scary.

Web Moments That Changed the World

Take a walk down online memory lane with Web Moments That Changed the World, a list from the Webby people with commentary from online luminary Bob Rankin. What a decade it has been!

Is Your Printer Spying on You?

It sounds like an urban legend, but it isn't. Some color laser printers encode each document they print with the serial number of the printer and the time the document was printed.

Clocky

Trouble getting out of bed? Clocky could be the answer!

Welcome to Plogress.com!

Wonder what your legislators are up to? Go to Plogress.com! and find out! Choose your state, and you'll see a list of your senators and representatives. Select one, and you'll see a list of legislation your congressperson has sponsored or co-sponsored. Look at the bottom of the page, and you'll see a link for an RSS feed. Plop that link in your RSS reader to keep tabs on your legislators while you sip your morning coffee.

AlterNet: How to Turn Your Red State Blue

Just finished reading an interesting essay on AlterNet called How to Turn Your Red State Blue, by Christopher Hayes. The author argues that progressives need to expose more people to progressive ideas through evangelizing and organizing and especially through making the personal political. These two paragraphs capture the crux of Hayes' argument:

This is what social movements at their best do. They pull back the curtain on power and expose its workings. They politicize those without political engagements by transforming personal grievances in the workplace, at home and in society into political issues. Before the labor movement, a dangerous workplace, low wages and arduously long workdays were just crappy things about a person's life. Before feminism, stifling your personal ambitions in favor of doting on your husband was just a drawback to being a woman.

And here's one point of access that conservative policies are inadvertently expanding: the moments of personal crisis – unmanageable debt, hospitalization without health insurance, lack of mental health services, sudden unemployment – that reveal to Americans that the right's ideology of "personal responsibility" masks the destruction of a social safety net for middle-and lower-income workers.

Well said.

Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day

Attention word junkies! Check out the Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Day. As we former English majors know, the OED is wonderfully entertaining, telling you not only what a word means but also giving examples of how, when, and where it's been used. You can even sign up to have the OED WOTD emailed to you each day. You'll never be at a loss for words again.

Festivals.com: Your source for deep-fried food and family fun

Looking for something to do this weekend? How about a good, old-fashioned festival? Check out Festivals.com, where you can search for festivals by map, location, keyword, or subject. C'mon... you know you want to check out the World Catfish Festival in Belzoni, Mississippi.

Chronicle Careers: 02/02/2005

In today's Chronicle Careers column, an academic librarian talks about her search for a better position. Big deal, you say? Well, what's interesting are her comments about one of the institutions that invited her for an interview. She talks about the mistakes the staff made in handling her job search and other red flags that led her to turn down a subsequent job offer from that institution. Those of us conducting job searches in libraries (and elsewhere) need be just as aware of the first impressions we make as job candidates are. One cannot expect to recruit quality employees through a poorly-run candidate search.

Correct Use of Language is a "Badge of Competence"

From the January issue of Prospect comes "Mother Tongue," a clear, well-argued piece by Richard Jenkyns, in which he argues that correct use of language is not a mark of elitism but rather a "badge of competence."

Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

Of two examples of awful prose: "One of the reasons that this is bad prose is that it is dishonest prose: in each of these passages the writer is trying to hide the fact that she has very little to say." Similarly, he notes, "the study of popular culture easily tends to statement of the obvious, and its practitioners naturally want to disguise that fact."

And the key point:

We should learn educated English, as we should learn to spell, if only because it is a certificate of competence. Mistakes like "should of" or "flaunt" for "flout" are literally childish: they are the result of people picking up language by imitation, as children do, and misunderstanding what they have heard. We should flaunt the rules of grammar, not flout them, if only to show that we know what we are up to. But there is a nobler reason for knowing the rules, and that is that it enables one to speak more variously and effectively.

Articles like this one gladden the heart of this former English teacher.

Scientists discover the Pokemon gene! No, it doesn't make you spend ridiculous sums of money on trading cards featuring pictures of cute Japanese animated characters :-) Pokemon in this case stands for POK Erythroid Myeloid Ontogenic factor, a gene that appears to orchestrate the process by which cells multiply out of control, thereby becoming cancerous. See http://health.discovery.com/news/healthscout/article.jsp?aid=523500 for details. Let's hope this discovery is the beginning of new, more powerful treatments for cancer.

Last month Nature published a fascinating news piece on the debate over embryonic stem cells. It delves deeply into religious views on the practice, providing an in-depth, balanced look at a topic that, like abortion, usually generates more heat than light in public discussions.

I just received an email newsletter from our internal corporate communications that included this fine piece of prose: "The project will be an impactful visual addition ..." "Impactful"????? It's bad enough that nothing ever affects anything anymore; instead, it "has an impact on" it. But impactful? Puhleeze.

In the immortal words of Charlie Brown, "I can't stand it!"

Now for a bright spot in this dreary winter--the Lake Superior State University Banished Words List for 2005. If only this list had the force of law...

Evangelical churches and secular universities have much in common, writes William J. Stunz in TCS: Tech Central Station - Faculty Clubs and Church Pews. No, really! They do! And if they ever figured it out and got together to fight for the issues they both care about deeply, American politics could change drastically.

According to Edward L. Ayers, Dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia:

"Librarians have been the real heroes of the digital revolution in higher education. They are the ones who have seen the farthest, done the most, accepted the hardest challenges, and demonstrated most clearly the benefits of digital infromation. In the process, they have turned their own field upside down and have revolutionized their professional training. It is testimony to their success that we take their achievement--and their information-management systems--for granted."

From:
Ayers, Edward L. (2004). "The Academic Culture & the IT Culture: Their Effect on Teaching and Scholarship." Educause Review 39(6): 48-62. Available online at http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0462.pdf.

Never go without pizza again! Use Google SMS to find local business listings (including pizza places), product prices, dictionary definitions, and more -- just by sending text messages with your cell phone!

On the lighter side, see Word of the Day: Nerdstick -- ResearchBuzz, October 09, 2004. Nerdstick: "those little USB-based portable hard drives, usually kept on a keychain or lanyard."

Time to go buy a nerdstick. I feel left out.

For more evidence that our democratic principles are under attack by people who cannot tolerate dissenting opinions, take a look at the most recent editorial in The Lone Star Iconoclast, the newspaper in Crawford, Texas, that recently endorsed John Kerry:

http//www.iconoclast-texas.com/Columns/Editorial/editorial40.htm

These quotes from the editorial speak volumes about the perilous state of democracy in America:

"In the past, when individuals disagreed with an editorial, they would write a letter to the editor politely expressing a different point of view in contrast to the views of the publishers, which we have usually published. Occasionally someone would cancel a subscription or an ad, but this was rare... The new mode of operation, I am told, is that when a newspaper prints an editorial of which some sectors might disagree, the focus is now upon how to run the newspaper out of business."

So apparently if you disagree with an opinion, instead of writing an intelligent counterargument, you destroy the source of the offending opinion and thereby intimidate others who might be tempted to disagree with you publicly. Maybe that's the only recourse for people who are incapable of formulating an intelligent argument to support their opinions--or who hold opinions which cannot be supported with an intelligent argument at all.

Check out Bill Maher's Valentine's Day editorial on gay marriage, from the Boston Globe at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/02/14/valentines_day_that_great_state_holiday/. A sound argument made with humor--just what you'd expect from Maher.