Month: July 2001 (Page 2 of 5)

Had an illuminating discussion with my brother while in CA over the weekend about my weblog. He knew I had a web site, sort of, with only the vaguest idea of what that even was. (He’s an attorney and quite a bit smarter than me, but still had to take the mandatory “Introduction to E-mail” class at his office three times.) Then I explained that it’s sort of like an online journal, with new entries pushing older ones to the bottom. Many people use them as personal diaries, although I don’t, and you can get to know people pretty well through their daily writings, I told him. He found this not only strange but sort of perverse.

“Well, if you had a friend who kept up one of these sites, wouldn’t it be interesting to read?” I said.
“I would never have a friend who did that,” he said, with a mix of incredulity and distaste.

I realized that because so much of my life and work revolves around computers, it blinds me to the fact that for the general population, an ATM machine is about as close as they will come to a computer in their daily lives. This isn’t good or bad, just different. But I wouldn’t give up what I’ve gained from computers and the web for anything.

Pop culture truth: Catherine Zeta-Jones is a much bigger star in her own head than she is on Entertainment Tonight.

Aaaaah! My eyes! My eyes! (via Anil Dash)

Let me tell you a story.

I was off to my cousin’s wedding in Santa Barbara, CA. (Best weather in the USA, amazing breezes for mid-July, but a little boring and planned and fake-touristy at the same time.) I was going to be gone from Thursday morning until Sunday afternoon. I thought about posting Wednesday that I was going to be gone and I wouldn’t likely be near any sort of computer upon which to post, but I thought this was making myself just a little too important. So I didn’t.

Meanwhile, Network Solutions let my domain, lucky8ball.com, lapse, since I hadn’t paid the renewal bill. Understandable on both their and my parts, since they had old information (both address and e-mail) for me so I didn’t get a renewal notice. It took me even longer to realize that I wouldn’t be getting any e-mail either, since my address is tied to the domain.

Then Sunday afternoon, just as we were on landing approach to O’Hare in Chicago, a freak thunderstorm whipped up. We didn’t have enough fuel to circle, so we were diverted to Indianapolis, fueled up, and then sent back. The four-hour flight turned into seven hours. Then, back in Chicago, all the Madison flights were canceled. And guess what – the airlines don’t put you up or give you meal vouchers or anything if it was a weather-related delay. So my mother and I had to pay for a blackmail-priced room at the Hilton, sleep in our traveling clothes, then take the three-hour bus back to Madison Monday morning. Ugh.

So I come back home to find, after not posting for nearly a week, that my site was unreachable. This, for me, was sort of like returning home from vacation to find your car stolen. Well, after much hilarity and waiting on hold, the mystery was solved, and, if you’re reading this, fixed.

And they all lived happily ever after. Or something like that.

Tea Leoni still employed
Two-word review of Jurassic Park III: Huge stinker.
Six-word review of JP3 (for those who need a little more detail): Barney joke good, phone joke bad.

Words Mean Things is back! Explanation to come.

Word of the day: obstreperous.

My latest pop culture guilty pleasure is L.A. Law reruns on A&E. They’re early in the cycle now, so you get to see all those great early ones. This morning, Abby was opening her own law office, so Arnie set up a meeting with her and his publicist, played by Nana Visitor of ST:DS9. I’ve said in the past that seeing now-famous guest stars on old shows is a particular pleasure of mine, and early L.A. Law episodes are a treasure trove of those kinds of appearances.

I was also thinking it would be great to have a publicist of my own – get my name in the paper, drum up business for me with high-profile clients, etc. Where do you find those people? Are there ones that specialize in technology? If not, there should be.

I have continually praised Amazon.com for what I think is the best consumer experience on the web. Despite my general anti-consumerist bent (I’m currently reading Culture Jam and loving it), I have to admire a system that uses databases in such a useful and relatively unobtrusive way. So recently I get a promotional e-mail from them, offering to give me discounts on Sweet November, Autumn in New York, An Affair to Remember and Untamed Heart.

Obviously they don’t know me as well as they think they do.

Story of my life.

From a wire story about Chandra Levy:

Police have four theories: she left of her own accord, committed suicide, has amnesia or is the victim of foul play.

Smart guys, those police. I’m so glad they eliminated alien abduction and spontaneous human combustion.