Month: February 2003 (Page 3 of 6)

Blog stuff

1. Congratulations to Evan Williams on sale of Blogger to Google. Blogger, while maddening, is the magical application that got me into this weblog mess in the first place, and for that I will be eternally grateful. Can’t wait to see how things shake out with this.

2. I have similar respect for Ben and Mena Trott and Movable Type. MT is flexible and great for multiple-author, multiple-weblog setups. But now that I’ve been spending some real time with the application (I’m building a site for a friend), I find the interface to be almost perversely complex at times.

An example: to add an author to a weblog, you have to exit out of editing that specific weblog, go to “Add/Edit Blog Authors,” choose the existing author from a dropdown, submit, scroll down to the bottom of the page, select the weblog from a dropdown, and submit.

Ben and Mena: How about just having a list of authors and an author dropdown on the main weblog editing page? Just a thought.

First nominee: Quote of the Year

“[Michael Jackson] is like Saddam Hussein. He hasn’t done anything in 10 years, and suddenly we’re attacking him again.”

-Bill Maher, on The Tonight Show

As much as I hate to say “I told you so,” I predicted the so-called “shocking twist” at the end of Joe Millionaire a while ago. (Regrettably I didn’t write it in a post for take-it-to-court proof. But you trust me, right?) I did mention Evan and now-we-know-it’s Zora getting $1 million to my friend Wendy, to which she responded, “A million dollars doesn’t go all that far these days.”

A much better twist would have been to reveal that all the women were actually millionaires, and knew Evan’s “secret” from the beginning. This would have thrown funny new light on the “what’s your middle name?” and “I had a dream you were two people” episodes. Or, knowing Fox, they could have offered Evan $1 million, but only if he never saw Zora again. Talk about good television.

One thing I did write about is that I liked Zora from the beginning, and I stand by my feeling that she’s too good for him. But she’s such a sweetheart, if she gets $500K out of the deal, that’s OK. She can use part of it to iron out her hair from the finale – she looked like she had a deranged poodle on her head.

One reality show down, 237 to go.

Orange Alert Quote of the Week

I was talking with my friend Michele, who lives out in the boonies around Verona, about how Wisconsin is a great place to live right now, since it’s an unlikely target for terrorist attack.

“Terrorist attack?” she said. “I can’t even get cable.”

Funniest Men’s Magazine Headline of the Month

HAVE YOU HAD SEX WITH COLIN FARRELL YET?

–Details, Jan/Feb 2003

Outrage overload. I can relate. I’m exhausted. Wake me up when it’s over.

Words mean things

“One of the most nationalistic things Americans do is reserve the word ‘nationalism’ (which implies something sinister and potentially homicidal) for other nations, while holding on to ‘patriotism’ (which is invariably seen as noble and good) for ourselves.”

-Barbara Ehrenreich, The Progressive, February 2003

Bring on RED!

Like many things these days, this is funny. (I think I’m about orange.) But it also gives me a tinge of fear. How long before any questioning at all is a punishable offense?

The women-vs.-men dynamic of “Survivor: Amazon” is interesting, but probably not enough to make me watch any more than the opening episode last night. I skipped the last two Survivors altogether, and nothing I saw last night has elevated it above the tidal-wave-like glut of reality TV right now.

Since it’s hard to keep 16 strangers straight in the beginning, Kevin and I spent most of the time making up nicknames for the contestants: Boob Girl, Asian Popeye, and Crazy Scary Nipple Man were among the castaways who made an impression, although not necessarily a favorable one.

Wake me up when it’s over.