anonymous disclosures

People want and need to confess.

This morning on NPR was a story about the site Post Secrets.com in which people mail the creator a postcard with a confession on it. It's an interactive artistic project of the creator. The postcards are depicted on his site in the form of - everyone - a blog.

A forerunner of this is GroupHug.us, albeit more prurient, it's an online confessional. There are others, but these seem to be the most buzzworthy. I don't know the traffic of Post Secrets, but Group Hug is currently up to ~22K visitors per day with an average of 4 page views per visit. That's some heavy online loitering.

They're both undeniably creative efforts.

Know of any other anonymous disclosure sites? Leave 'em in the comments.

the office

They did it. There's a show worth watching on television. It's funny but kind of sad too.

drats

Two.

Frankie's two years old today and woke up barfing. We're hoping it passes - fast. Send her good thoughts. A quick consult with Dr. Sears indicates it may be nothing.

What helped most was putting the phone to her ear so she could listen to the infamous Wiseman sing her Happy Birthday and later in the day all of the Penguins called to sing her a happy birthday!

Thanks Rich and thanks Penguins (and of course, Erinn), she enjoyed it very much; it saved the day.

midwest landscapes

American Horizons: The Photographs of Art Sinsabaugh A great exhibit at the Columbus Museum of Art (nice café too). Oh yeah, there's this dark room there too. All that's in it is a rope from one end to the other and a 9'-diameter barrel "balanced" on the rope. It's a bizarre installation. You gotta see it.

Dare I say the word "dimebag"?

If you Google (I think that's been incorporated as a verb) "dimebag dave", my feelings on the matter are listed in the 6th position. The gist? I thought the exhaustive coverage of the event was a poor editorial decision (and I really like the Columbus Dispatch). I received quite a response over this.

What I noticed is people who leave comments on the post are rational and say something thought-provoking. People who can figure out how to email me, leave really angry and silly comments. The other night I received an email with the following instructions: "if you don't like what's in the News Paper [sic], don't read it". I find this statement fascinating. I wonder if there are telepathic individuals who just understand the content of a written article without having to read it? As this post propagates into the blogosphere, I suspect the mail's going to come flowing in quite rapidly. Don't worry, I'll be sure to share.

Blogs 'o spam

Sifry's Alerts recently had some interesting stats on the proliferation of blogs. The growth is exciting. Unfortunately, it's not all good:

"There is a dark underbelly to these numbers, however: Part of the growth of new weblogs created each day is due to an increase in spam blogs - fake blogs that are created by robots in order to foster link farms, attempted search engine optimization, or drive traffic through to advertising or affiliate sites."

It's too bad. I'm hoping it doesn't get out of control. Here's a typical example of a spam blog for DirecTv. Should be interesting to see how the problem will be dealt with.

Open mic at Kafe Kerouac

People need to express and be heard.

Last night Eric and I went to 2250 N. High, Kafe Kerouac for their open mic night. It kicks off around 10 on Thursdays. I love intimate productions of any kind, so it was no surprise I enjoyed it. Kafe Kerouac recently incorporated a new room and is becoming quite the cultured space. Next week, there's some improv comedy on Wednesday night and some small theater companies dropping by to perform soon as well.

Open mic was hosted by Allison who kicked things off with a poetry reading. "Those dudes over there" did a 3 person scripted routine I kind of liked. Greg played a couple Martin Sexton tunes (who is playing at the Newport next week), nice job. This was followed by a guitarist in the process of assembling a band called the Poppies (they're looking for a drummer); he sang a song I believe named Space Station Stereo. I liked it too. Next up: Dru. Allison introduced him as "the peacemaker" in reference to his intervention at an earlier conference at Kerouac. Dru sauntered to the stage with a tattered legal pad and didn't look promising. Within a minute, the 30 or so onlookers were rendered motionless and silent. I'm unqualified to evaluate poetry, but it was more of an experience than a reading. Dru presented another piece and a duo strummed until a smoking break. School night, had to leave.

Drop by sometime, it's a fun night. Tell Mike I sent you and he'll give you a free latté. But, do me a favor, tip him about $2.75 for it because he runs a great place.

Slime for my girl

Frankie turns 2 years old the 28th. To celebrate the upcoming energetic 2s, I'll be spending the day with her in daycare with all her little friends - helping, reading - and doing science experiments. If you Google "slime recipes", there is NO shortage of results. The various formulations provide gooey products with consistency ranging from slime to silly putty. I stumbled on one that's closer to the silly putty side of the continuum and isn't too messy. After all, there's a reason there's no frosting allowed on desserts in the Penguin Room.

Here's my version of Slime for Toddlers: A solution of Elmers White School Glue is mixed 1:1 (v/v) with water. This makes a soupy opaque white solution which can be colored with food dyes (I skipped the dyes at this stage). A second solution is mixed from 20 Mule Team Borax (10 grams) and warm water (270 grams). A ziploc baggie is charged with the glue solution (50 mL) followed by the Borax solution (20 mL) using a children's 5 mL medicine dropper. The ziploc bag is sealed and given to the child. The child kneads the initially soupy solution mixture and within a few minutes, the contents of the bag gels. The child is then allowed to remove the contents and play with their product. It's about the size of a golfball and can be stored in a small Ziploc container for days. I can't stop playing with mine.

I think this will be our sensory experience that day (if her teachers permit it).

Even smarter than The RZA

Sorry for the NPR rehash again but when you hear someone who's so interested (interested, not obsessed) in what they do, it's infectious. I saw Trish looking wantingly at a series of books the other night at B&N, Knuth's The Art of Computer Programming, Vol 1-3.

Didn't do much for me either at the time. But, I heard him this morning interviewed by David Kestenbaum. They talked about the upcoming Vol. 4, the fact he hasn't used email since 1990 and how he thinks about nearly any question or phenomena mathematically. His kitchen was designed using string graph theory and the garbage can is always an easy shot from anywhere in that room.

People like this are rare and gifted; it was a treat to get a glimpse of him.

RZA rules

I'm a big fan of Terry Gross and her show Fresh Air. We even saw her give a talk a while back at OSU's Hillel Center. Actually, it was a long while back; back when we were able to sit for longer than 2 minutes and listen to someone speak, but I digress.

The only interview I didn't like was the one with Bill O'Reily. Hostile from the start. I don't know why she agreed to it. Gross obviously doesn't need my praise, but she's become my idol since her interview a couple days ago with founding member of the Wu Tang Clan, The RZA. He wasn't the most articulate speaker but what he had to say was provocative and Terry Gross should be applauded for highlighting his creativity. I listened to the interview twice.

What book best characterizes you?

This past weekend, we visited W. Lafayette. The area where Trish and I met. We heard an interesting story about a guy who gave his girlfriend a list of books to read to better know him. Kind of a silly thing to do but a nifty question at the same time. If you were to tell someone to read ONE book that best characterizes you, what would it be?

My choice is Jeff Schmidt's Disciplined Minds: Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives". I think the long title says quite a bit and I don't feel I can comment further on it.

What's yours? Leave it in the comments. I'm curious to know Memphis Word Nerd's pick.

A teeny bit of anger today

A bit off topic today but when your free time's precious, you don't want to spend it ranting to your loved ones. So I rant here. Books today.

I've never spoken to anyone who didn't like Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America (2001).

I'm the only one in the world who hates it.

The book documents a year of her life when she tries to survive working low wage jobs. It sounded like an interesting experiment. Unfortunately, throughout the book, she can't resist letting people know she actually has a Ph.D. and is just dropping in on the little people as an experiment and then has the nerve to be surprised when her co-workers don't seem to care. She does this several times throughout the book. To me, it simply represents a weakened committment to her cause. So Barbara, her Ph.D. and her big fat pompous ego are shocked they don't fawn all over her virtuous attempt to know and feel the pain of the every day grunt.

She also expresses surprise that the work she engages in is hard. If you don't think that guy hustling his ass off behind the McD's counter wouldn't castrate himself to get out of that situation, you don't possess the necessary skills to be writing such an account. But hey, Ehrenreich's a successful writer and I'm . . . well, not. I'll never know why the book is so popular. I pitched my copy after I read it so no one else would read it. Or, maybe I lit my barbecue with the shredded pages, don't remember.

In today's Dispatch (paid content) there's a brief synopsis of David Shipler's The Working Poor: Invisible America (2004). It seems like it will be better; similar focus, to more understand the plight of low wage earners in this country.

We need to appreciate the problems of this population more and, hopefully, Shipler is a more empathetic author. I'm looking forward to it.

There, I feel better now.

Italy in the round

Yahoo! Picks found this most excellent site. Various spots in Italy photographed round the clock and animated. See it here.

Ohioans get a freebie

If you reached this site via Google using the search phrase "fair credit reporting act" you may have noticed a bunch of ads on the right side of the search results screen. These were generated by Gordon Gekko wannabe affiliate marketers trying to sell you a credit report for $30 that you're entitled to for free. You simply have to go to Annual Credit Report.com. NPR had a story on it yesterday and they claim the site is safe.

To try to prevent a backlog, they are allowing sections of the country at a time to obtain their credit report and as of yesterday, it's Ohio's turn. Free. Immediately online or you can call 'em on the phone. I guess you can get all 3 bureaus at once or space them out too. Pretty cool deal.

Happy March

This looks a little like Columbus today. Only there's no beach, it's snowing and there's no green trees.