Confluence
Just a thought from 31 August 2004 about Politics.

Does anybody else think it's strange that the Republican National Convention and the Burning Man Festival are happening at the same time? They even started on the same day.

You can almost feel the polarization - thousands on one side, making art, getting dirty, and burning a man in effigy for no good reason ... and thousands on the other side, putting on suits, waving flags, and supporting a man who became president for no good reason.

If it were up to me, I would switch about half the tickets. Let the republicans learn to piss clear and the burners effect the real world for a change. Just imagine the comedy at the ticket counter. "Hey dude, there's no money needed on the playa." "I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't blow bubbles in here."

Somewhere in the Black Rock Desert there's a young republican saying, "Have you ever looked at your hand? I mean really looked?"

Amen
Just a thought from 30 August 2004 about Politics.

Phoning It In
Just a thought from 25 August 2004 about Powazek.

I was on the radio today. The show was about My California and featured four authors from the book: author and Pulitzer Prize winner Patt Morrison, editor of 27 books and award-winning author Gerald Haslam, journalist and columnist Anh Do, and me, the writer of a story about buying drugs as a teenager.

I tried to be funny.

The show should be online soon. Update: Here it is! (RealAudio stream - I'm 6 minutes in.)

Elsewheres
Just a thought from 25 August 2004 about Fun.

» A Rational Response to Image Theft, a Photoblogs post by me about the Ephemera Image Widget.

» Now I know what to do if I ever see someone peddling W. in my 'hood. I can only hope Dubya My Ass becomes a national trend.

» Congrats to Heather, who is celebrating her 10 year anniversary of putting cool shit online.

» Did you catch the moment when John Stewart and John Kerry went nose to nose last night? I swear, for just a second, I thought they were gonna kiss.

» Fray Day 8 is coming.

Fray Swag Sale
Just a thought from 24 August 2004 about Fray.

Less than one week left to get Fray Lunchboxes and Messenger Bags at back-to-school prices! All proceeds go to support Fray Day 8.

Notes from a Weekend
Just a thought from 23 August 2004 about Life.

1. Happiness is a Gama-Go sample sale. I have never seen so many hip people buying even hipper clothes. For the next week, I shall only wear t-shirts with robots on them. You have been warned.

2. Cooking eggs for my wife on a Sunday morning makes me happy enough to hum. Actual humming!

3. Stats from my recent adventure in dentistry. Number of temporary crowns I've gone through in four days: Two. Number of days until the permanent one is ready: Nine. Taste of the glue used to hold the temporary crown in place: Cloves.

4. Photographers are most interesting when they're not talking about photography. The same can be said of dentists and dentistry, but not of cab drivers and cab driving.

The Real Heroes of the Web
Just a thought from 20 August 2004 about Geek, Google, Internet, Weblogs.

With all the hoopla in the news about the Google IPO, let's take a moment to remember the real heroes: The people who put all that great stuff on the web in the first place.

I love Google, I really do. But I also enjoy a nicely toasted bagel. And when I'm spreading cream cheese on my toasty bagel, I don't say, "Wow, my toaster sure is great."

A toaster is just a tool. It's the stuff you put in it that makes it worth having. The same goes for Google.

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Things Mom Was Right About
Just a thought from 19 August 2004 about Life, Stories.

As Illustrated by Three Short Stories of Conversations with Professionals

Someone once told me that one of the signs of true intelligence is when you're able to change your mind about things. To learn from experience and grow as a person. If that's true, I think I'm becoming a fucking genius. It's only taken me 31 years to learn my mom was right about (mostly) everything.

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The Original Dropped E
Just a thought from 19 August 2004 about Photos.

I knew there was a reason I liked the missing E in Flickr. Then, sitting on the throne in SFO the other day, I remembered.

Duh
Just a thought from 18 August 2004 about Geek, Internet, Writing.

Wired News: It's Just the 'internet' Now
"Effective with this sentence, Wired News will no longer capitalize the 'I' in internet. At the same time, Web becomes web and Net becomes net."

Say it with me now: Duh. When I was working at HotWired in 1997, and we published the Wired Style book, everyone who actually coded pages for a living already knew that it was internet, not Internet. And web, not Web. Tell me, do you capitalize radio, newspaper, or television?

As long as we're fixing long-standing idiocies, can we all just agree that its email (not, shudder, e-mail)? And drop that dotcom from the name, people, your name is Amazon, not Amazon.com. That's your URL.

Also: You visit a website, you don't log on to one (unless, yaknow, you have to for some reason). And let's all stop saying the following phrases: viral marketing, value add, and monetize.

Thanks.

Our Wedding Ceremony
Just a thought from 15 August 2004 about Love.

When Heather and I got married, my uncle Harry officiated. Harry, dad's little brother, is a judge and a great guy. So Heather and I were lucky to be able to be married by family.

But here's the thing about wedding ceremonies: They suck. I mean, all of them. They're either so traditional as to be painful ("honor and obey" would have made everyone in our audience laugh out loud) or so new agey you'd hardly know a wedding was going on.

So Heather and I rolled our own. We each wrote our vows and we collaborated on the entire ceremony. As a writer, it was a challenge I'd never even considered. What would a meaningful, emotional, sincere yet irreverent wedding ceremony sound like?

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New Ephemera Cards
Just a thought from 15 August 2004 about Powazek.

What I did this weekend: Made new Ephemera business cards!

Happiness is ...
Just a thought from 10 August 2004 about Life.

... listening to the heartbreakingly beautiful music of a dead man's new album before it's released thanks to a certain file sharing site that cannot be named. (I still miss you, Elliot.)

... driving too fast on curving Bay Area highway roads on the rare occasion that they're empty and the car is actually working.

... kissing your wife as she's sleeping before you take the dogs out for the last walk in the fog; making her stir, but not wake.

Bits and Bobs
Just a thought from 8 August 2004 about Fun.

Scotsman: Prozac seeping into water supplies. Is it just me, or do you kinda hope your city is next, too?

NY Times Slideshow: The Strokes. Beautiful liquid photos.

Ephemera: Buy a Print! Support my photo habit.

Two movies that were a lot better than expected: The Village and The Bourne Supremacy. Two movies that were just about as enjoyable as expected, so long as your expectations are low: I, Robot and Spider-Man 2.

Guilty pleasure: In a Fix on TLC.

Near Port Orford, Oregon? Go see the exhibit at Point B Studio including photos by myself and the wife.

Manly
Just a thought from 3 August 2004 about Life, Stories.

A few months ago I installed a car stereo in my old Honda Civic. It plays MP3s. MP3s weren't even invented when that car was made.

I felt a sense of manly accomplishment that was, frankly, intoxicating. I, Derek Powazek, had actually removed a car stereo and installed a new one, my ass hanging out of the passenger side door, grunting and crimping all those wires in all the right places, without any bleeding or setting anything on fire or anything.

When I was done I brought Heather out and we sat in the car listening to the thing boom. The people in the hair salon watched us, leaning into their window, wondering why we were sitting in a parked car, and one of us was pumping his fist in the air.

I guess that's what made me think I had the chops to replace the hard drive in my laptop.

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