Out of Tune
Just a thought from 28 April 2004 about Apple, Design, Geek.

I'm a randomizer. Back when my music came on small reflective circles, my favorite thing to do was load up the 5-disc changer with CDs from totally disparate genres and hit the shuffle button. Hours of tunes, bouncing between styles.

Now, admittedly, this is not everyone's cup of tea. I'm sure there are many people that pick an album, play it from top to bottom, and then pick another. But the great strength of digital jukeboxes are the many ways you can mix up your music library.

Apple's iTunes is especially set up for randomizers like me. Which is why one part of the new version released today is so disappointing.

Continue reading “Out of Tune” »

Overheards
Just a thought from 25 April 2004 about Life.

Overheard on Carl Street: Family sitting at a sidewalk table at an Italian restaurant, father to young son: "See, that's why you get spanked. You just. don't. listen."

I was on the kid's side until he screamed through the rest of his dinner.

Overheard on Ocean Beach: The nice guy with the two tiny Westies walking with his girlfriend: "She picked the breed, I picked the names."

"And what are their names?"

"That one's Killer, that one's Spaz."

It's an honor to be nominated. Again.
Just a thought from 21 April 2004 about Fray.

Fray has been nominated for a Webby Award. When this happened three years ago, we were nominated in the Community and Personal categories and all hell broke loose. People kvetched that Fray was not personal, not a community, and besides the Webbys are passe.

This time around seems much calmer, which, in a way, just shows how far the Webbys have fallen. I mean, come on, the Kottke thread only warranted 12 comments. There's not even a MetaFilter thread yet. How times change.

I liked the Webbys then and I like them now. I doubt Fray has much of a chance against the heavy hitters in the Print & Zines category this year (including, funnily enough, the site I work on for a living, AlterNet - it's dayjob vs. nightjob!), but that's not the point. The fact that a little labor of love site can sit there facing off against the giant international magazine that lined my bookshelves as a kid is why I love the Webbys.

And now comes the part where I ask you, loyal Powazek readers, for a favor. As you may know, every Webby Award category gets two awards: the main award as picked by the judges, and a People's Voice Award chosen by the great unwashed masses of the internet. If you'd like to support the underdog, I urge you to register and vote for Fray in the Print & Zines category.

Or, of course, you could just point and laugh and complain that Fray is not a print publication. Please do! It makes me so nostalgic.

KnowSpam 400k
Just a thought from 21 April 2004 about Geek.

For anyone following the horrible saga, my spam count hit 400,000 today, just a bit past the middle of the month as I predicted. Onward to one million, bastard spammers!

Happy Four-Twenty
Just a thought from 20 April 2004 about Stories.

The calendar reminded me of a story I wrote three years ago. Here's a bit:

Four-twenty. Supposedly it's the number of active elements in marijuana. Or the criminal code for possession. I think all that's all just urban legend material. All I know is that on April 20th, back when I was in college at Santa Cruz, it was a very special day.

I remember one April 20th when I was hitchhiking up Bay Street to campus. A VW van picked me up and a blue cloud rolled out when the door opened. "Happy four-twenty," said the driver, handing me a joint. It could have been 1969, but it wasn't. It was 1992. Santa Cruz was like that.

Happy four-twenty, y'all.

Monday!
Just a thought from 19 April 2004 about Fun.

PETER: When you come in on Monday and you're not feeling real well does anyone ever say to you sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays?

LAWRENCE: Shit no man, I believe you'd get your ass kicked saying something like that man.

– Office Space

More Office Space clips.

Plays Well with Others
Just a thought from 14 April 2004 about Elsewhere.

I've had the pleasure to contribute to two other sites recently, and it's really so much more fun than talking to myself here.

I've been reading TeeVee for years - it's the best writing about the idiot box anywhere. So what a pleasure it is to see a little something I wrote published there. It really is a shame their standards have dropped so much over the years, but their loss is my gain. Or something.

Exercising the other side of my brain, I contributed a few photographs to the newly relaunched Photojunkie Magazine. I was thrilled to contribute to the collaborative photo essay: Everything Old is New Again.

Yay for collaboration!

Dear Senator
Just a thought from 13 April 2004 about Politics.

To: Senator Liz Figueroa <senator.figueroa@sen.ca.gov>
From: Derek Powazek <[myaccount]@gmail.com>
Subject: You are wrong about Gmail

Senator --

I've just read about your hopelessly misinformed attack on Google's new product, Gmail. And I can't help wondering, have you even seen the service?

As you can tell from my return address, I am one of Gmail's beta testers. I bet if you actually saw the system, your fears would be eased. There is nothing to worry about here. Yes, on some messages, sometimes, unobtrusive ads are placed on the side. But they are simply text links to websites, separate from the email message, and clearly labeled as ads.

Continue reading “Dear Senator” »

Vampires and Cowboys
Just a thought from 12 April 2004 about Joss Whedon, TV.

I never liked vampires. The whole vampire genre, it seemed to me, was made for sex-starved girls and self-obsessed high school goths. Then I met Buffy.

Buffy the Vampire slayer, by Joss Whedon, was great television, if you haven't heard. Smart, funny, dramatic, and very very real. Yaknow, as real as a girl dusting vamps can be.

I was a closeted Buffy fan for years. I even furtively followed Angel as he left Sunnydale for his own spinoff in LA. The noir style and male protagonist finally brought me out of hiding. I was a Buffy/Angel fan. Joss Whedon was my hero. And that was okay.

Continue reading “Vampires and Cowboys” »

New in {fray}: Making Leta
Just a thought from 11 April 2004 about Fray.

The best part about running a collaborative site is being able to mix and match all of the talented people I have the privilege of knowing. Like, I wonder what would happen if we mixed the lovely, hysterical words of Heather Armstrong and the emotional, gorgeous art of Claire Robertson?

Well, wonder no more. Enjoy the newest story in Fray, Making Leta. And be sure to read all the way to the end to add your own family story to the mix. (Bonus points for the first person to link to this story with the words "birth blog.")

The "Kostroversy" Context
Just a thought from 5 April 2004 about Blogging, Design, Internet.

Something interesting happened this weekend. But it's not interesting for all the reasons it seems interesting at first.

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga is a political blogger. He maintains a site called the Daily Kos, where he writes thousands of words a day about Amercian politics, especially Bush and the war in Iraq. His politics are left of center, but not all that radical by San Francisco standards.

On Thursday, April 1, Markos posted a comment on his site: "I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

The response was swift.

Continue reading “The "Kostroversy" Context” »

Thank You, Movable Type
Just a thought from 1 April 2004 about Geek.

I remember when the web wasn't powered by Movable Type. Those were quaint, sepiatoned days, when we had to walk to the web server in the snow, uphill both ways. Ah, the good ol' days.

No, fuck that. Those were the bad old days. Movable Type has taken over my web work, and I, for one, welcome our new Trott overlords.

As a freelancer in the web before Movable Type, I got paid to make sites for clients. And make, I would. And I'd send them off into the world with a shiny new site made of html and attitude. And they'd come sailing right back every time they wanted to change something.

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