Blogger Minutiae/Ubiquity of Spam

For those of us working with Google’s rather techy-impaired Blogger blogging service, there’s hope that improvements lay ahead. The first auspicious sign arrived yesterday when they released a program that lets you publish posts directly from Microsoft Word (access this on you Dashboard page). After downloading, you’ll see a quaint little “Publish” button in the Word toolbar tray that practically begs you to stop writing memos and start post, post, posting. You can use bullets, bold, italic, etc. All the formatting functions seem to transfer fluidly. Hyperlinks in Word publish, although, when you browse recently visited URL’s, word doesn’t seem to pick up Firefox searches, only Internet Explorer…anybody know how to link Firefox with word?

Hopefully more innovations will follow. To aid in the process, sign-in to your account and fill out the user survey. If you can’t think of anything else, recommend they let us work with the HTML in the comments page and program threaded replies. This isn’t necessarily the most pressing concern for many of us Blogger kids willing to endure the ignominy of relying on Spammers to fill our comments pages instead of Friends Networks, it would still be a neat capability. Tagging would be another nice option. Oh, and if we could work more with video….and, ummmm, if Blogger could do our tax returns and remember birthdays and make my lunch and iron shirts. That’d be nice, too.

Ronald Reagan Boulevard, Good Riddance/ Personal Crap

For a number of reasons, I’m moving. My wacky-wild-Koolaid-style roommate recently accepted a position through the Department of Justice working in the International Zone (Baghdad) on the DOJ team advising and assisting the Iraqi Special Tribunal. These dudes are responsible for prosecuting Saddam Hussein and his cohorts. When not serving in that paralegal-esque capacity, he will be painting walls. Either way, he's no longer sleeping in the other room.

So that jazz, a completed lease, and a sweaty walk up a hill every afternoon convinced me it was time for a new adventure. I’ll be living close to the National Zoo in the Woodley Park area of DC in a beautiful 6-bedroom, 4-level house. I don’t know any of my roommates yet. Two others have been chosen. All I know from my landlord is one works at the World Bank, one is in real estate, one is 25, one is 29, one is from Pakistan, and nobody knows from where the other hails. Please choose-your-own-adventure and combine those aforementioned characteristics to form two roommates (when you guys are reading this a month or two later because I’m forcing you at gunpoint, please forgive my mish-mashing). The rest are on the way. Cameras monitor every nook and cranny in the house and the show is set to air on MTV in the Spring of ’06. Word.

My third floor room is small, but the single window provides a spectacular view of the Swiss Embassy across the street and the top of the National Cathedral in the distance. I'm hoping the bells increase my number of conscious hours on a typical Saturday. If I get hungry, I can sneak up to the cathedral flower garden and eat roses. Also, the house comes complete with a functioning xylophone. I mean, c’mon. Please contact me personally to receive an updated mailing address where you can ship fan mail and exotic animals after September 10th.

Cornucopia Blog

A couple things:

• Did you know that cornucopias are also called 'horns of plenty'?...based on the mythological episode when the horn of the goat that suckled Zeus broke off and became filled with fruit. Apparently, the cornucopia filled with whatever treasures its owner desired. That's mind-blowingly amazing. i know.
• I managed to find-okay, that's not quite true...i provided essential logistical and spiritual support to someone else who did the finding-an incredible deal on flights overseas and decided to take ten days in France, Italy, and Switzerland in early-mid October. I know i've discussed such an adventure with a number of people, so if you get the travel bug and have a few bucks to spend (emphasis on 'a few', we're not travelling lavishly), maybe we could cross paths for a few days somewhere across the pond. Although many people i know studied abroad, and hence, are probably more travel-europe-cheaply savvy than myself, check out STA Travel for amazing fares. You have to be under 26 or a student to apply for the cheap deals. The destinations span the globe, not just Europe. Be persistent, the fickle rates sometimes change from day to day. If you see something amazing, don't anticipate it being there tomorrow.
• Another choice selection from the don't-they-actually-work-at-the-department-of-justice vault: Professional skateboarder Danny Way hurled himself over the Great Wall of China on a skateboard. Check it out. Here's his website.
• Astronaut Tim Robinson recorded the first quasi-podcast from space. Thanks BoingBoing.

That's it. I feel better now.

only sometimes

sometimes they make me work. sometimes they make me work a whole bunch. only sometimes. i'm off to the spy museum. is anybody else's life insane right now? should i make business cards for my blog? do you think any librarians are ninjas? okay, bye.

I'm late for lunch, damnit

this is all you get:

1)...and i have trouble climbing out of bed.

2) one of the musical recommendations that was recently offered to me (thanks, Amanda) kicks ass and is available to us, the internet using world, free of charge. Check out the Decembrists live at the 9:30 Club on NPR's website. NPR's posting a bunch of cool shows that come through the 9:30 club. the next such show is Bloc Party (thank you NSA=JA) this thursday. unfortunately, i'll be stalking the decembrists in their hometown of Portland, OR, so i can't go.

3)more things...be a good american and go learn all about the statue at the top of the US Capitol building.

That was an annoyingly and unnecessarily high number of hyperlinks to include on this itsy-bitsy post. deal with it.

Sunday morning thoughts (republished...comment issues)

…yes, morning. A couple things:

My computer is crippled and, by extension, I am crippled. There’s no denying it, computers are an ever-increasingly integral part of my life. Since I can’t afford the computer I really want right now, I had to settle for reprogramming windows onto my computer (chose traditional OS for timebeing). Since ordering it weeks ago (my XP disks disappeared in the bedlam of my one of my post-collegiate moves), it’s yet to arrive and I’m sort of going insane in the interim. Fiddling with a keyboard accomplishes too many important things these days for me to be completely cut-off upon leaving work, including the following: the internet serves as my primary source of daily information (articles, entertainment, weird websites), I also accomplish a fair amount of my communication online, and finally, I pour most of my technical interests and creativity (as my buddy Tony can relate to) into computer oriented activities these days. That’s a lot to go without. Such a stance might alarm or atleast surprise many people who knew me in my previous Stone-age phase, but they need not worry. I haven’t gone over the deep end yet.

Washington is really humid. I perspire alot.

I saw the Old 97’s in concert last night at the 9:30 Club here in DC. First of all, they kick ass and I highly recommend checking them out. Also, that venue reminds me a) how much I love intimate live shows and 2) how much I don’t like way overpriced megashows (although I’ll still go if it’s my only opportunity to see an amazing band) where the people on-stage look like wiggling black lines in the distance. Like other smaller venues I’ve frequented in p-town, anchorage, Spokane, dc, etc, the shows there are almost always cheaper and, without a doubt, much better.

Arrested Development is the funniest show on tv. I don’t really watch that much television, so I don’t religiously follow that many shows, if any. But I guarantee you when the third season of Arrested Development starts this fall, I’ll be watching (all my love to those who pushed for the show’s renewal). I’ve been laughing until it hurts the last couple weeks as I’ve charged through the Season 1 dvd’s. If you’re a late-starter like me on this one, get on-board soon. It’s hilarious.