Or a trained ear. Finding an incredible record has a lot to do with knowing what you like in the first place—although for those wanting to take up the hobby, it’s perfectly reasonable to make it up as you go along. A good place to start? By all means, judge by their covers. Me, I happen to know that I like gypsy music. I pick up many records simply because they contain in their titles one of these: Gypsy, Roma, klezmer, or Bulgaria. In general I also recommend looking out for: home recording, demonstration, spectacular, incredible, “_____ and the [word intensifier]s,” Moog, olde tyme, fart, and dinosaur. It’s a wide net, a rough algorithm, but it get’s results.

Which is what brings me back to “gem.” I got one. I wasn’t able to actually play it until I found a new record player on the street (thank you, city of cannibals). Even after I discovered its magnificence I didn’t pick up the phone on the ol’ Share-The-Love hotline until a roommate suggested it. And then I had to fiddle with knobs and buttons and wires and other esoteric equipment, only to discover that no matter what I did, the digital transfers just didn’t measure up to my high standards. I’m a wizard with audio software… but there’s no way to get pristine audio from salvaged parts. Get what you pay for, I guess.

But wait, what was this musical masterpiece, I hear you say? Let’s listen to the first track:

Download audio file (hugo-winterhalter-goes-gypsy-01-hungarian-dance-no-5.mp3)

Even through my peasant’s needle, you can hear the tambourine sparkle… the horns shimmer… the tubas thump… the piano tinkle… the flutes shriek. It’s exciting! It’s powerful! We’ve heard this song before, but not like this. Easy listening and exotica both seem to apply, but can’t measure the appeal of the real nifty fifties, big bang band, swank-ocracy. Mostly the album is made up of low-key low-tempo stuff, soothing music that might be played without irony on KWXY, which might very well bore you. The poppy ones sure do pop though. On all of them, the arrangement is top-notch and the production values are beyond reproach.

This makes sense considering that the arranger was none other than Hugo Winterhalter, musical director at RCA for more than a decade. This album is dated 1960. For the time, I’m sure, it was somewhat standard. It’s a formula: take a bunch of songs people know, ones that you can tie together with a theme, write them for ensemble, make it modern and “now!”; you have yourself an easy sell. It’s a formula, and it worked. Still does.

Some say stuff like this is more craftsmanship that artistry. It’s the carpenter’s work, not the sculptor’s. I had a music teacher who made the same comparison between Bach and Mozart. He said that while Mozart was a genius, transcended forms and gave the world beautiful music heard neither before nor since (etc., etc.), Bach was simply working within established convention—when you wanted a fugue, he made the best. They were differently brilliant. Both men became immortal through their music. If you’re like me, though, you have to respect Bach a little bit more. It’s a very clever mind that can conjure immortality working with someone else’s rules. I’m thinking that Mr. Winterhalter was a Bach fan.

Now I’m getting a little antsy thinking about how poor my equipment is, and how enjoyable some of the actual songs are, and how there’s hardly any CDs of Winterhalter available, and how it might be up to me to handle this guy’s continued existence. Then I remember the long tail, realize I’ve been praising the guy for seven paragraphs, and things are probably gonna be ok. I’m hesitant about uploading the good stuff (hand-restored LAME V2 mp3s) because I understand perfection, and I understand pragmatism, and I understand that they aren’t the best of friends. Let it be known across the land that I sadly consider these songs as “orphan works,” and hereby claim stewardship of them until someone better steps up. For goodness’ sake, even if you have a better record player step up. Here are the songs from “Hugo Winterhalter Goes… Gypsy!” that will thank you if you do:

1. Hungarian Dance No. 5 (2:53)
2. The Back of Her Head (3:08)
3. Hora Staccato (3:12)
4. Golden Earrings (3:46)
5. When a Gypsy Makes his Violin Cry (3:08)
6. Francesca (3:17)
7. Csárdás (4:32)
8. Zigeuner (3:16)
9. Gypsy Don’t You Cry (3:53)
10. Gypsy Love Song (2:58)

Total playing time - 34:05

Without further ado, I give you the imperfect recording of my favorite thrift store record in the past year:

Hugo Winterhalter Goes Gypsy (full album)
50.1 MB

“B-Squad Records” photo credit to Bryan Kennedy on Flickr

I’m just trying to prove it’s a labor of love. For the record, no, it doesn’t make sense to do this custom CSS work when no one but me will ever work with it. Pleasure isn’t always sensible.

Considering the current financial climate, both personal and national, I feel forced to justify the frittering waste of several hours of time that is updating one’s admin screen. So here goes (prepare for long sentence): it’s an exercise of skill which not only keeps the mind sharp, provides a small bit of accomplishment, and is something to show off, but reasserts and reminds me every time I login of my personal sense of style, a style which is particularly energizing and, well, awesome. I like it. Do you?

Please consider this: if you’re living and breathing, here on this earth, it’s fair to say you need to figure out where you’re sleeping tonight. And beyond that, you ought to know what your going to do for food and water, and what you’ll do for it tomorrow, right? Then the next day. Then the next. There’s mutual funds, 401Ks, mortgages, all the way through burial insurance—and if you have them, you have them on account that you think you know something about the future. If so, you’re a futurist—predicting the unpredictable for your own well-being. Nothing special. The people we might call “futurists” are just the ones who go a little further, who get a little creative, who think up the amazing stuff that makes things seem weird and different.

Futurists like the iPhone (those that think of such things). That new one coming out tomorrow I mean,the one with location-sensing GPS built into it. That’s a wishlist biggie. With an iPhone you can reasonably take the web’s mountain of available knowledge anywhere. Mohammad doesn’t need to go to the mountain; the mountain can come with him (in convenient molehill size). To follow the metaphor… if it shall come to him, the mountain must know where he is. That’s the location-sensing, location-aware internet: it comes to you. Near a grocery store, and one’s grocery list will pop up. Outside a restaurant, the restaurant reviews magically appear. We’re allowed to dream crazy dreams that might happen one day… picture something like network-enabled telepathy: normal people walking down the street, transmitting data of them walking down the street, to others walking just around the corner, and suddenly everybody can see around all the corners and we get something like a real-time GoogleMaps Street View. Techno-clairvoyance, it could be. Someday perhaps a new Transparency will replace the role of stodgy old button-up Security, light shining over dark forever and for good. These are things I have heard dreamt of.

Apparently, I’m the only futurist who rides public transit. It seems odd that few analysts seems to have analyzed thusly, but iPods have always seemed a little… alienating. The earbuds double as earplugs. Have you ever been privileged as captive audience to a stranger’s lengthy phone conversation? Perhaps chose to cloister yourself away from them and escape into your own idiosyncratic cinematic push-button music-video reality? No difference, you and them. You’re each off in your own little world. Personally, I know that if I got an iPhone I’d use it on the bus, I’d read blogs waiting in line, I’d Twitter my daily thought quotient till I’d overthunk it all. I would fill in every idle moment and be wholly absorbed (O, Little world! I claim thee as mine own!). However, the world-at-large doesn’t stop being magical or fascinating or often banal because we’ve stopped participating. When we escape from it we’re usually still aware it exists, but as a goldfish is aware—largely unseeing of its aquarium walls, happily swimming and forgetting. Maybe there’s our Transparency with a capital T: “welcome to the future: your own private fishbowl.”

Such mobile devices can complete a triangle: a phone to speak with, music to hear with, and the internet to see with. Somewhere nearby are three wise monkeys avoiding those “evils”. Don’t mistake them as tools of devils, though, as they’re only a human tool—something far more dangerous and wonderful. The problem is that we are neither devils nor angels. Lots of heirloom Utopianism from the 19th century would have us believe otherwise. Ever since the Victorians, there’s been a certain vein running through futurism which is—in a word—vain. The future should be much more *perfect*, says the old saw, than this compromised existence we are forced to live. Too easily, I think, we see technology’s shiny smooth newness and forget how soon it becomes normal, earthly, taken for granted, exploited by some, a boring job to others, and then it’s all old news. That’s why, dear futurists, the iPhone brings us not all that closer to the Singularity. It’s just another thing that we use, that we have, but now it costs only $199.

Which is really what this is all about. It’s about me being tempted to buy the newest and shiniest thing. The iThing. This isn’t about Apple, by the way; it’s about the world. Because here’s the important bit: I don’t mind any of the stranger-alienating, idleness-exterminating, or fishbowl-inhabiting. I don’t find them to be inherently bad. They’re simply facts of life, much as those people on public transit who sometimes happen to be absolutely crazy. I like the idea of choosing whom and what I interact with, instead of just right-place-right-time interactions, and who cares if they take us in the right direction, so long as it’s a step forward. Keep walking to find the way. You’ve heard that all futurists are proven wrong eventually? Enjoy that fact, cause we’re each and every one of us going to be wrong.

Enjoy the renaissance of whatever happens to be momentarily blooming. Daydreams are your friends. Of course, your friends are your friends, too. Remember that the ‘i’ isn’t a pronoun. You’re not alone in life—even if sometimes you want to be. The future is unwritten. At least, that’s what I predict.

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I like Richard Dawkins. He’s a hard-working man, a man with strong beliefs and ideas and principles. He’s written many books on evolution and its related genera. He also coined the word “meme” way back in 1976. And, apparently, he’s a blogger. But who has time to read blogs anymore though, honestly? So I was pretty thrilled thee days ago when I discovered his now six-day-old account on Twitter. Finally! I can follow the day-to-day musings of a bona fide scientist, one who’s books I’ve actually read, from the comfort of a corner of my monitor’s real estate.

The rest of Twitter was pretty happy too. It’s one of those things where @hrheingold tells @tyrsalvia and she tells me and @sfslim hears it from both of us, from whom @Kalli hears it, and before long everyone within shouting distance knows that Dr. Dawkins is enjoying poached salmon with Hollandaise sauce and a nice chardonnay. The magic of the modern age.

It made me imagine a very smart uncle who gives sweet and worldly advice, like what I read about two hours ago:

While I still have 1700 of you paying attention, I just wanted to say: Whatever you believe, respect others beliefs. It’s not wrong to be kind to people who don’t believe the same as you. You don’t have to be militant atheists. People who claim to be Christians can be hypocrites, but they’re just people, and all people make mistakes. Try to be good to one another. That is my message of peace to all of you. Love one another. It’s ok.

Things could’ve just left off there. What nice sentiment. But it went on…Oh dear, but it had to go on…

It started slowly, last December, with a single, simple, unanswered, email…

I couldn’t tell you exactly where we sat (as Lynae decided to come at the last minute), it’d be the front row of the back section (apse?), carefully behind the singers… my architectural jargon isn’t up to spec. Nor could I try and easily explain how I became interested in this specific musical niche, the convoluted methods that I useta employ finding listening material. I can’t even tell you what I heard… not would I care to try and learn (then explain) what modal scales or dissonant harmonies are.

I found a recording that might possibly clarify. At right, the group sings one of our less sophisticated American folk songs. The harmonies are totally off, aren’t they? Not off, just… odd. They’re of a different logic. The mentality is different. Sitting there, listening to song after song and having a different internal experience each time, I envisioned mountain landscapes where women signal to each other over vast distances. The microtonalities made sense, because doesn’t a nuanced emotion deserve expression as much as a powerful one?

Dressed in their traditional outfits for the first half, they were a little too precious. I waved at one of the resting soloists and she waved back—just in time for me to bashfully turn my head. These were Bulgarians! How many times had I listened to them on my iPod on the subway? And here they were in their delightful little Bulgarian costumes! The second half was much better for me; dressed in formal blackwear, coven-esque, it became only about the music and less about the novelty of having an ethnic experience (for an ethnic group, I might add, that I’ve personally checked in to stay at a hostel where I worked).

It was surprisingly immersive; songs were in a different scale for hours afterward. It was a joyful way to break out of that subway. It made something which had become just “one more thing I’m into” and made it “something I’ve done.” It was a good thing to spend fifty bucks on.

Jerome got his bed yesterday. He was sleeping on the couch before that. He was sleeping in our apartment because he’ll be staying with us the next three months. Three months! This is Jerome (and this is Jerome en English). He is Quebecois, from Quebec City. An international traveler extraordinaire, he planned a three-month internship as a Mac developer, not to mention found a place to stay (with me), completely through Gmail. That’s impressive.

Jerome, meet Rhiannon. She’s our roommate—as of two weeks ago. Yup. She had to move three times in the past two months to find a place as good as ours. She’s planning on settling down and having some action figures. We met her at Bad Movie Night and kept coming back, long enough to make friends with the girl taking our $5 every week. Now it’s free for us. You can come too, Jerome, and be subjected to the horror that is “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.” It’s ok, though! It didn’t actually win any Razzies, so that means it must be a good movie.

Nice to finally introduce you two. This place isn’t the cleanest in the world, now that our former roommate is gone. She sure liked that cleaning. So there’s some Dr. Pepper boxes that are being saved for no reason. We’ve got extra couches, now (not sure what to do with those). I’ll be the first to admit that there’s too many open projects to count. Expect things to be in unlikely places, like my hats on the couch or network cable strung up in the hallway. It’s a creative disorder, a constantly brewing ferment of materials and activities and ideas all swirling around in too small a space for their own good. Welcome.

1st idea: Evolution. Selection. The world of man. A species’ environment determines which genes are favored. It determines what genes stick around. In humans, self-determined environment (society) is usually more important than the natural world. So there’s a feedback loop. People create their environment, which favors people who can better live in it, and have children who continue to live a life to which they are suited. A possible genetic tendency towards cultural aspects. Accelerated specialization. Patterns within a culture and the ensuing sexual selection might explain geographic racial features. How an individual deals with turmoil and struggle is tied with one’s spiritual beliefs. We can have a culture that shapes its gods a certain way, and people within it who adhere to those gods. Feedback. Some concept emerges somewhere, spreads through society, and favors those predisposed to it. Or it might find more fertile minds somewhere else, and the seeds will grow elsewhere. Memetics influencing genetics. For instance, Greece no longer is made of Greeks, but ethnic Turks. Yet in academia, a major in Classics might as well be called “European Studies.” Through the influence of ideas their values live on in a populace both inheriting them and built to inherit them.

2nd idea: Predation. Digestion. Nature’s law. Organisms get better nutrition from sources closest to themselves. Carnivores spend less time eating than herbivores do, because it’s more work digesting plant fibers than animal protein. Go back far enough and all organisms are theoretically related. Life was just self-replicating bacteria. A few billion years later some became Eukaryotes, which are distinguished by their ability to eat other things (like bacteria). Everything that grew from them—animals, plants, fungi—inherited the capacity to derive sustenance from other life. The more alike, the easier that is.

3rd idea: I find those two ideas I just had quite interesting. I wonder if I can link them together. Let’s see.. they’re both centered around evolution and assimilation. Things diverge over countless years and then re-absorb quickly, converging like long-lost puddles. If they were puddles of oil and water they wouldn’t come together so easily. It’s about how easy it is. How easy it is to assimilate something is directly correlated to how similar it is. There’s my topic sentence.

Hm. That was interesting. Those idle thoughts led somewhere. Even if it turns out there’s an existing scientific theory that says about as much, it’s fun to derive these concepts myself. I do recommend trying it sometime.

photos by cwiener08 and rusty shackelfurt

My girlfriend’s laptop sucks. For many months, a sticker that reads UR STUPID has presided just above the little embossed HP logo on the front. It has performed to expectations admirably. It’s noisy, it runs too hot and then freezes up, and it’s got some unidentified white material melded in places (no, not the Nik’l Nips you see pictured to the right, a different odd white material). All this until a few weeks ago, when I disassembled the dern thing and managed to clean out the hairball of dust-clog lodged in the gills of the heatsink. If that made no sense to you, don’t worry—suffice to say that I fixed the noise and overheating. Of course, I hadn’t counted on somehow creating a worrisome problem whereby the computer runs normally for minutes or hours or days, but then without warning shuts off entirely. No warning. Entirely. Needless to say this was distressing for the female involved and she decided that she’d spent enough years trying to get it to run properly. That’s why she’s got a brand-new Lenovo. Yup, brand-new. That’s why that particular “girlfriend’s laptop” I was just talking about—it no longer exists.

Instead, it is now boyfriend’s laptop. Yes, after a thorough disassembly, and soldering some suspicious components, including an motherboard battery knocked loose from its moorings, the computing P.O.S. seems to be much less “S.” So yeah. Laptop. I have it. Wow, what an interesting story. Mainly I just wanted to tell it so that everyone understands that this was totally not my plan, I take no responsibility for my good fortune, and I am an oft-resourceful compu-person.

Part two, fun part: the challenge for you. The laptop has doodles all over it, girly colored sharpie squares that have worn away and make it look like the laptop of an indulgent Lisa Frank fan. This is unacceptable. I’ve decided to use my my own means to cover the thing in words. I’ve always liked words. I would like some things to say. Inspired by #2, “crowdsource the name of your new unicycle” on this list of 5ives…

Guidelines:

• the stickers will be ALLCAPS, hand-typed on an ancient “hobbyist” Dymo labelmaker
• keep phrases short; there’s only room on one “line” for 56 characters (including spaces)
• speaking of characters, I got 0-9, A-Z, period (.) and slash (/) and that is it
• don’ try an’ make me put anything that I wouldn’t want my mother to see, yokay?
• they’ll be printed in any color you want, as long as it’s black (mayyybe blue)
• Twitter responses ok, GLOT comments ok
• 56 * 29 lines = 1624 characters, average English word length is 5.1, +1 space per word, that’s only 266 words, people! Not a lot!

Orin’s new computer: now accepting submissions.

I remember when I wrote about it. There was such beautiful harmony in this clever system of giving people thumbs-up and earning points for photo contests and answering ridiculous yet thought-provoking questions. I’ve long had an affinity for non-binding imaginary point systems, that fact is known to many.

It was sad when I heard that it would be going offline. I had a spree-day contacting people I’d met on there once or twice, people I liked but never really kept in touch with. Does anyone reading this remember when Flickr used to be mostly just bloggers with cool pictures they wanted to host? Every photo had an interesting reason to be there; you had to portion out which photos you uploaded cause you only had 20mbs a month to work with. So you only only put up the best ones. Either that, or you shilled out the $60 to become… pro. Lots of websites go through that high-quality early-adopter content-building phase. Consumating never had a chance to outgrow that magical period, and I’m bittersweetly thankful. I sound silly enough waxing about Flickr.

So I’ll just remember it how it always was: silly; playful; packed with interesting people, far too interesting; a perfectly crafted time-waster; the spirit of an age. Not bad for a site that started life as joke personals ads.

Only took me only two days, which I’m pretty proud of. Turns out that I already know how to do all this stuff. I already had all the audio editing and video encoding software, music mixing experience, radio editing experience, and know-how from encoding movies for torrents, even back to originally making StarCraft vocal effects (Mom and Dad, my life in middle school was not wasted). I had the camera and tripod although the relatively recent addition of a wireless trigger certainly helped. I did have to download a new stop-motion editor, but honestly it’s just a glorified slideshow viewer with powers of copy & paste. Had the skills to do it all along.

And I did it.

Zeitgeist the Movie. Ok, I just finished watching it. First reactions: a little depressing. A little tricked into watching it cause I followed a blind link on advice from a friend that it was “definitely worth seeing.” Not disappointed, no. Not at all. Not entirely. Maybe a little. Yeah, it kinda sucked… I mean, you really had me in the beginning because you must know how much I enjoy unraveling complexity, but did you really mean all that stuff about Jesus and Horus? And then you present all these brain-tingling conspiracies about September 11th and move into… international finance and then… RFID chips? The trans-American highway? What is this? Well, I did like watching it while I watched it, at least. I think I would perhaps possibly say with some little conviction that it is worth seeing. Before doing so, bear in mind fiour things:

1. This movie is nearly 2 hours long and you may be compelled (like I) to watch all of it
2. If you are religious many “theories” may “bother you” or simply make you “pfft”
3. if you find conspiracy theories annoying you will find this move annoying
4. millions of people have seen it already (supposedly the most popular video ever hosted by Google Video)

I was originally gonna post the video within this post but decided that, actually, on reflection, I don’t really care enough about this movie or if people see it so instead I’ll just put a link here again.

Also, it’s worth noting that you may need a much smarter analysis than mine.

photo by • Sandra • on Flickr

It’s not a pretty sight, but it’s paradoxically photogenic. There’s something about a thousand pillows violently, desperately thrashing about in a great throng of struggling, giggling humanity that’s very life-affirming. Or something. All I know is that last year I got deep-throated by some else’s (probably pre-used) pillow feathers and this year I wore a face shield and took pictures instead. And why did I take pictures instead of actually fighting in a pillow fight? Well, like Jane Waterbury (who took the photo to the right) I think having pictures of cool stuff that I’ve gone to makes me cooler. Well, I think that’s what she thinks. It’s what I think. Show ‘em off to friends who weren’t there, so that you can prove it. “See what I did for Valentine’s day? You know it’s awesome and that’s why you’re going next year! That’s why you want one in your own town!” It’s what many many many people must be thinking because the number of cameras there was sheerly staggering. You’d think the Superbowl was going on. Except, well…

My personal opinion is that a pillow fight is FAR cooler than the Superbowl. How passé—paying to go to something fun? I am of a new generation that eschews these more manipulative entertainments in favor of those which we ourselves create. We are… enlightened. Sometimes.

Also, I can’t stress enough how many hotties there are that go to this thing every year.

Such is the case for the 1992 adaptation of the Virginia Woolf novel “Orlando.” I just watched it. After scouring the internet for some sort of explanation or even acknowledgment, I have come to the conclusion that I am the only person to have watched this film and pondered much about the ending. For those who find this post having seen this particular film and came looking for solidarity, or for those who wonder why I’ve made it, let me say outright—after an hour or more traveling through history from the eyes of an ageless British gender-transcender, who has now finally found some peace in the world having a child and losing his/her/their mystical monarch-bequeathed aristocratic lands, and as the film is finally rounding out, with her sitting at the selfsame tree as when we first met him, and to have the last scene suddenly transform into a gay angel singing a gay house anthem in the sky, shot in shaky-cam mode… is a little… unexpected. Perplexing. Baffling. Really, really weird. Makes me a little cross-eyed; forces my eyebrows to do all sorts of weird shapes. Kinda makes you wonder if they ever really had a point, and/or if just ran outta time and adaptational^[1] stamina, and said:

“Hey, you know what? We’ve got this gay pop star who says he likes the book. What are the chances we can get him up on crane later singing something about unity? Or harmony? Or unity and harmony? Oh, well do you have any better ideas for how to finish the movie?”

No, I do not. But for those of you who also don’t, and just really wish the filmmakers did, let me say: you are not alone.

I have written this letter in the interests of giving you a fair chance. Who knows? You may well have just been having a very bad night, happened to have found a golf club, and were riding around my neighborhood at 4:40 in the morning. In all sincerity—we’ve all had our nights. But hey, when you started screaming when I asked what you were doing, Lord knows I thought the worst. I called the cops. They came looking for you but of course, didn’t find you. Respect enough. Now, coming back to my apartment a half hour later might not have been the best idea even though I’m sure it helped you blow off some steam. Coming again at 7:30 to ring the buzzer was kinda stupid, cause now I have your photo and could make a real good police report if I wanted. On the other hand, that’d just piss you off more, and would probably piss me off too, so instead I’ll do this: TELL ME SOMETHING I WAS WRONG ABOUT. Seriously. Make me feel bad. Cause right now I feel alright, cause I finally got back in some way for the one of you that smashed my car window WHILE I was SLEEPING in it. Dumb, I know (cause hey, if a guy’s sleeping in his car, he probably doesn’t have some great shit to take… and he’ll YELL at you, too). Tell me I’m wrong to feel righted. I ruined your night? It goes around, is what I’m thinking. For real: there is an envelope behind this letter, and a pen. Write it out. I’ll read it.

Peace,

Bluehair.

Megaphone in hand, pointed in no particular direction, she announces her name is Monica. She is turning thirty. Cheers. Welcome to her birthday! she says. Cheers. Much commotion and fumbling in pockets and, shortly thereafter, a blast from the megaphone. Even greater commotion. Another signal tone, a pause, much clapping and yet more cheers, then ebbing to silence, as the crowd seems to contemplate their plight. No one knows where to look so everyone looks everywhere. Two minutes pass, and the group is silent. Except for some minor fidgeting, the fifty party-prepped people together on the green grass stay still on this bright, sunny Saturday afternoon in the park. But then, inexplicably, with no cue from Monica or anyone else, the crowd begins to cheer again.

This is when some sort of magic starts to happen. Over the next half hour, with no apparent direction, revelers flap their arms and pretend to fly around in circles, play tag, dance at random intervals, engage in staring contests, hum the theme from Super Mario (more or less), go hide elsewhere in the park, form a spontaneous line to spank their beloved leader as she crawls between their legs, and finally, carry her bodily to her waiting birthday cake, where they summarily deposit her butt-first into it… and of course, must then sing “Happy Birthday.” Maybe just one more dance party, the crowd seems to decide. Much applause follows for super-special birthday-girl Monica who has rightfully earned it by pulling off this ridiculous, puzzling, and joyful spectacle. Then the magical shenanigans are over. One by one, people in the crowd pull out their earbuds.

You knew there was a big reveal, didn’t you? Well, keep reading!

Also found out today Consumating will be going offline for good in about a month. This is sad for a number of reasons. I’ve met a lot of people through Consumating, good friends. There’s also a lot of people I like that I just… never really hung out with. But could have! Some who live across the country, who I might have someday met, who I probably never will. The community (and there is a community, in this instance) is being broken up. I’ve been archiving some of my old stuff that I wrote, although now that I’ve read Waxy’s writeup on CNET’s Consu-killing decision I realize I didn’t have to. I gave lots of tags, thumbed up every question for a couple people, and wrote some nice notes. It’s not that I think that’s important, it’s just that I’m sad I didn’t take as much out of it as I could’ve. Life is short. This post isn't. Keep reading…

Often I’ve been asked, in the fifth hour of a project to improve some small thing on my GLOT, why I bother. Why not bother to actually update it, rather than improve something no one will notice anyways? Well, dammit, I notice. I notice that the Rubix cube doesn’t display correctly in Internet Explorer 6. I notice things that don’t match well, like the alignment of the contact form and me-photos. I know that the search was placed incorrectly and used borrowed CSS since I put the damn thing in. And so today, I fixed it. I fixed all of those things. Yet do I find satisfaction?

No. And here’s why: the web isn’t real. It’s not a tangible experience. Up until the moment someone pointed their browser at this particular website and saw this particular thing, it was just an idea. It was information, data stored in a machine of irrelevant location, and will go back to being there once that someone leaves. The data might be slightly different. It might be very different. But it’s still just data, and it doesn’t have a life of it’s own, it doesn’t DO anything that isn’t in its basic nature. It’s not even a thing, it’s an it.

Existential pontificating of digital existence complete. Back to the original question: why do it? Because it’s a challenge. Because it’s one I can usually accomplish, given enough time and tenacity. Because it fits my habits, sitting in front of a computer. Because it’s something I’m good at. Because it makes me feel like I did something. Because I can. And so there you have it: I do it because I can. Sometimes it seems like a pointless exercise. Often it is. But here you are, and for the moment, it’s real. Hm.