Change of adddress.
Well, I'm still working on it, but all the archives seem to be up at guavalog.wordpress.com. That's where to go for new posts too! See you there, beautiful blog people.
Been blogging in Bulgaria.
Ok, not really. But I have been blogging elsewhere. Only about three of you have ever met me offline (I conveniently forgot about all the monkeys I met, maybe because it was in a group setting and sometimes not as "Guava"), and one of you has a page there too, so 1/3 of you potentially already know this, given that I have a photo of myself connected to this other blog.
TypePad is nicer. In many ways. Still, I was surprised at the number of comments I got over at the other place, from the start. One of the other people blogging there mentioned signing up for blogspot (the same place where I started, way back in 2001) in order to escape various technical difficulties, and then coming back anyway because it felt like being cast adrift on an island.
And that's how I've felt. Even before I removed comments from each post here. It's not all bad feeling that way. Maybe I even like feeling that way and having the advantages of that sometimes. So, I will be back from time to time. The other place is too cheesey to last anyway. Hmm, that makes it sound like I have a MySpace page or something, doesn't it? Nope.
Craig and crackers.
I went to hear Craig Newmark talk. Yeah, that Craig. The audience (which was packed) seemed really well informed, or maybe I was just really poorly informed in relation to them. Probably the latter, considering that I didn't know about the film 24 Hours on craigslist or that ebay had bought part (25%) of craigslist until audience members brought up these facts. One person asked a question about the mechanical side of the site. The answer involved Linux, Perl, blah, blah, blah if I know.
Someone asked an interesting question - why is Craig making more public appearances these days, after nearly a decade of being low profile? If you take him at face value, I guess he was just too busy earlier and/or didn't/doesn't really want much attention - he mentioned that his photo is not really easy to find on the site and that's intentional. (That last part ties into another comment of his about people who have taken on banner ads and pop-ups etc. - that they did amass much wealth but also need bodyguards now, and he likes not having to deal with those issues.) I would guess that increased publicity couldn't hurt his new media project either.
Finally, he was asked about important influences in his life. Among other things like the golden rule and trying to help others he mentioned Leonard Cohen - someone he considers his "rabbi" even though the man is a Buddhist. I had no idea who that was until I just looked him up. Interesting that a man who described himself throughout the talk as not being very cynical (he's trying, though, to "wear more black") and Pollyanna-like would note someone so seemingly dark as an important influence. Knowing how he feels about Cohen may provide sartorial context for that beat-poet era black beret Craig wears in some photos.
The talk was sponsored by Wired Magazine and Senseo. The magazine's current issue featuring little lego yellow people on the cover was available for free, and Wired's Thomas Goetz (dude looked like a very cute sixteen year old in a nice suit) conducted the interview. There was a Senseo machine at the reception, on display in the way that shiny Chevys are sometimes on display at the mall. I'm impressed by what I've heard about its foam-making capabilities despite not being a coffee drinker, but we didn't stay around to see if the Senseo would be raffled off or wait for Newmark and Goetz to make it out to the courtyard. Nor did I have crackers, sadly. The line for the savory table was just too long. So I snagged a diet coke instead (this was, admittedly, just a few hours after having heard of the reasons for Coke being banned at the University of Michigan.)
So, I guess some themes of his talk were:
- He's a nerd who likes to explain how his behaviors fall into the nerd construct as he exhibits those nerd behaviors.
- He's busy, often doing "customer service." Jim's busy too.
- Dealing with some of the scammers/abusers has made him slightly more cynical.
- Something about citizen journalism. Hey, it's not like I took notes (on anything besides the food at the reception).
TypePad's technical difficulties.
When TypePad had some technical difficulties last week that temporarily erased a couple of recent posts, it hit me that it might be a sign from the web lords to not post garbage like that. Then I decided to ignore that sign.
Get going to the GIF.
Hey folks. As of now (update: that was back then, before the template change, email shouldn't be too hard to find somewhere on this page), the comments link goes to a .gif* of guavalog's email address that looks like 
Cool, huh?
What's that you say?
What?
...
I still can't hear you.
Maybe if you emailed.
P.S. Your comments, if you left any, are not gone. They're still with me, and not just in the blog-related recesses of my mind. TypePad lets me have them forever. So thank you.
*partly because after fiddling with the template in an effort to make the gif show where "Comments" does, it doesn't.
Wiki wiki wacky.
I've seen pictures of craigslist's Craig and read a little bit about him. I had no idea really who was the guy behind Wikipedia (Jimmy Wales). So it was quite cool to watch videos of them being interviewed by Irene McGee. You may know her from MTV's Real World, a reality show she left and has criticized. At first I was a little put off by her Valley girl accent, and still wonder how she comes by it - her bio says she's a "native of Pleasant Valley, N.Y." But I decided that it works, in a disarming, charming sort of way. She interviewed Lessig as well.
Go, google, go.
Spotted on the road tonight, close to home - a Jaguar with the license plate "GOOGLE" turning into the parking lot of the 99ยข store.
Puzzling petunia picture.
These days Yahoo! has a seemingly random selection of images appear on the page where I sign in to my email account. Most are pleasant in a bland or cute way, but occasionally a jarring picture pops up, like the one with the girl with the target-practice-for-bees flower mouth.
When I see this person with the large sunglasses, I think that there's got to be hard liquor in that red plastic cup, and hmm, what would Benicio del Toro look like if he had a sex change operation (maybe the just barely noticeable birthmark and hair make me think of him).
There is no backstory for the Headless Horsewoman, but there is a very brief story about The Guy Who Chose That Photo. Much briefer than the one for the slap-her-face-with-pizza mom.
Her bloodthirsty expression makes me think of Kali. KISS works too, I guess.
Flood of photos.
Pictures can say a lot without words. I've seen many pictures of Hurricane Katrina's destruction and aftermath this week. A full week of photos has flooded my eyes. The ones on tv flicker by and often repeat. It's hard to really take them in that way and get all of what they might be saying. The ones online or in the paper at least give me a moment to wonder and feel something on my own, without someone's running commentary in the background.
flickr's katrina photos include some by people in Houston (slight clutter and Houstonian) and Baton Rouge, who are volunteering at shelters.
Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans? I can't say that I really do. I never visited the city. But my mom did earlier this year when she visited some relatives. I asked her about it and she told about her cousin driving her and other guests to the French Quarter for coffee and take a wild guess. It sounds like that part of the city is better off than others.
Help: Habitat for Humanity
