1234567890

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As of now — Feb. 13th 2009, at 3:31 (and 30 seconds) PM (PST), the Unix Time is 1234567890.

Pretty exciting, isn’t it? Hey, some people think so — there’s a listing of “1234567890 Day” parties right here.

Good Twitter Marketing is Communication

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I’ve been having fun over the past couple of weeks playing with a bit of unofficial marketing via Twitter for a couple of the local conventions. I’ve been using Twitter (djwudi, if you didn’t know already) for some time now, and I’ve been seeing a number of different companies and organizations picking up Twitter accounts, some of whom seemed to use it successfully…some of whom, less so.

To me, possibly the single most important aspect to marketing successfully on Twitter — and keep in mind that I’m not a marketing wonk in any way, I’m just an opinionated geek with a Twitter account — is having a real person behind the account. Just as people prefer to call a business and speak to a person rather than an automated machine, I like to know that there’s a real set of eyeballs paying attention to a Twitter account, and it’s not merely an automated receptacle echoing an RSS feed. Many companies seem to see Twitter as little more than an RSS reader for people who don’t grok RSS readers, and that’s a rather sad outlook.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with feeding RSS feeds into Twitter accounts. I’m doing that very thing myself, in fact. However, that shouldn’t be all that is done with the account.

Right now, I’m managing two Twitter accounts for local conventions: norwescon (for Norwescon) and steamcon (for Steamcon). Both of these are unofficial (i.e., I’m not actually involved with the production of either ‘con, but just do this because I can and because it’s fun to play with this stuff), but the Steamcon account is slightly less unofficial…that is, I’ve received a nice thanks from the Steamcon Powers-That-Be along with a link on their homepage to the Twitter account. Both accounts are somewhat automated, using Twitterfeed to pipe in RSS feeds. However, I also take care to make sure that neither account is a simple infodump.

Here’s the steps I’ve taken so far:

  1. Use multiple sources.

    Each account actually has multiple RSS feeds contributing content. For Norwescon, that’s the LiveJournal group, the Flickr group photo pool, and the Flickr group discussions; likewise, Steamcon gets their LiveJournal group, their Flickr group photo pool, and their Flickr group discussions. At the moment, there’s very little activity on Flickr, and most of the posts come from announcements on LiveJournal, but the Flickr feeds will come in handy post-con.

  2. Find the people that might be interested.

    I knew that since these weren’t official accounts, the chances of people stumbling across them were pretty slim. So, rather than just set them up and toss them into the electronic wind of the ‘net to see if they caught anyone’s eye, I set up two Twitter searches and subscribed to the RSS feeds. I use the same syntax for each search, just changing the name of the ‘con: norwescon -from:norwescon. This shows me any Tweets mentioning the ‘con, while excluding those sent by the Norwescon Twitter account (I originally also appended -"@norwescon" to exclude reply Tweets, as those have their own tab in the Twitter interface, but I’m finding it handy to have those included in the RSS feed as well). When I see someone’s tweet pop up, I take a look at their Twitter account, and if they look like they’re interested, I follow them.

  3. Interact!

    As evidenced by how I started this post out, I think this is the most important of the three. Rather than letting the RSS feeds take care of everything, I check in on the accounts myself off and on when I can. Admittedly, it’s not as often as I check my personal Twitter account, but it’s often enough that I can catch mentions, reply to any Tweets directed to the account, and so on. I also post Tweets myself when I find something interesting or worth sharing that fits the theme (such as Star Trek corsets or steampunk Lego). Any indication that there’s a real personality behind the account handle is good, and is more likely to get not just subscribers, but active subscribers. Twitter should be a conversation, not a lecture.

In the end, I’m having a lot of fun with this little experiment. It seems to be working well enough — the Norwescon account is up to 40 followers just through my dinking around and word-of-tweet, while the Steamcon account is now up to 38, most of whom have just shown up in the past two days after the Twitter logo and link hit the Steamcon website. Not huge numbers by many estimations, but both accounts are relatively new, and I’m sure both will continue to grow as the cons get closer and as word continues to spread.

Now if only I could figure out how to get paid for this kind of stuff full-time, instead of doing it for free during lunch breaks and evenings at home! ;)

Links for February 11th through February 12th

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Sometime between February 11th and February 12th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Darwin Survives as the Fittest: Roger Ebert on the ongoing creationism/evolution debate in the comments to an earlier post: "As Darwin went on the voyage of the Beagle and produced journals of his observations of flora and fauna, so I have returned from my voyage through all of those comments, with my own notes. Here are some species I have observed: The True Believers, The Reasonables, The Metaphysicians, The New Agers, The Hard-Noses, The Playing-It-Safers, The Conspiracy Theorists, and so on…."
  • Evolution and Facebook’s "25 Random Things About Me" Craze.: "'25 Things' authors can be seen as 'contagious' under what's known as a 'susceptible-infected-recovered' model for the spread of disease. Think of '25 Things' authors as being contagious for one day–the day they tag a bunch of their friends. Meyers found that, for that one day, the growth parameter of the '25 Things' disease during its ascent phase (roughly until the beginning of February) was 0.27. This means that, on average, each '25 Things' writer inspired 1.27 new notes. " (via /.)
  • Czar Struck: Obama’s Brilliant Pick for Drug Czar: "The brilliance of Obama's pick for drug czar is not just finding someone who is open to new strategies, but someone who nonetheless holds undeniable qualifications as a cop. Nobody can claim Kerlikowske is a public-health nut who doesn't know the impact of drugs on the streets. Like many Americans, he agrees that drugs should be illegal. But he understands the place for low priorities and public health–and he's willing to step back where enforcement alone has failed."
  • 15 Companies That Might Not Survive 2009: "It's possible that none of the firms on this list will liquidate, or even declare Chapter 11. Some may come up with unexpected revenue or creative financing that helps avert bankruptcy, while others could be purchased in whole or in part by creditors or other investors. But one way or another, the following 15 firms will probably look a lot different a year from now than they do today." The list includes Rite Aid, Chrysler, Dollar Thrifty (car rentals), Sbarro, Six Flags, Blockbuster, and Krispy Kreme.
  • Surprising Stories Behind 20 Muppet Characters: "Rowlf the Dog, surprise, surprise, was first made in 1962 for a series of Purina Dog Chow commercials. He went on to claim fame as Jimmy Dean's sidekick on The Jimmy Dean Show and was on every single episode from 1963 to 1966. Jimmy Dean said Rowlf got about 2,000 letters from fans every week. He was considered for Sesame Street but ended up becoming a regular on 'The Muppet Show' in 1976."

Links for February 9th through February 11th

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Sometime between February 9th and February 11th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Less Water, More Heat Forecast for State: "Fewer cherries and apples — but possibly more wheat. ¶ More summer days when streams grow dangerously warm for salmon — and worse winter floods flushing away or burying their eggs. ¶ More people dying in King County from heat stress. Less drinking water in the summer. A quadrupling of the acreage burned statewide in summer wildfires. ¶ But more electricity to heat our homes in the winter. ¶ Those are a few of the effects projected for Washington by the first comprehensive look at how climate change is likely to affect the state by the end of the century."
  • China’s CCTV Didn’t Cover Its Own Tower’s Fire: "There were no pictures on the front page of The Beijing News. The home page of Xinhua, the official news agency, featured a photo from another tragedy: a stampede in South Korea that left four people dead. Throughout the morning, CCTV's brief bulletins about the blaze omitted footage of the burning tower. ¶ Even before the flames had been extinguished early Tuesday, images of the burning hotel had been removed from the country's main Internet portals. A directive sent out by propaganda officials left no room for error: 'No photos, no video clips, no in-depth reports,' read the memo, which instructed all media outlets to use only Xinhua's dispatches. 'The news should be put on news areas only and the comments posting areas should be closed.'"
  • How a Dentist Visit Became a YouTube Hit: "David's father, also named David DeVore, says his son was safe the entire time and finds the video very funny. Mr. DeVore says he filmed his son to help ease his fear of doctor's appointments. 'I was trying to teach him that the anticipation is probably much worse than the actual event,' Mr. DeVore said. 'This might not have been the right case to give an example.' "
  • Sad News for Architecture Fans: Portion of CCTV Complex Burns Down: "In 2009, one of the most eagerly anticipated buildings in the last 20 years was to be completed: The headquarters of CCTV in Beijing, designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA. A striking, integral piece of that complex was the nearby Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Sadly, it looks like the hotel has almost completely burned down this morning." Yikes. More photos and video from Reuters, on Flickr, and from Shanghaiist.
  • Wm. Shakespeare’s Five and Twenty Random Things Abovt Me: "14 On the topic of dating, my daughter Susanna loues to remind me: ~Jvliet was only thirteen! And I remind her that i) she was Italian, an impulsive race ii), she was actually played by a middle-aged Eunuch named Ned, and iii) she died. That always shvts her right vp."
  • Things I’M Standing Next To: "Earlier last week we enabled a quiet little feature that, hopefully, allows you to navigate some of that same mystery and serendipity in the 100 million geotagged photos on Flickr. We call it 'nearby' and it is available for any geotagged photo on the site."

Links for February 8th through February 9th

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Sometime between February 8th and February 9th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • The Invasion From Outer Space: "From the beginning we were prepared, we knew just what to do, for hadn't we seen it all a hundred times?–the good people of the town going about their business, the suddenly interrupted TV programs, the faces in the crowd looking up, the little girl pointing in the air, the mouths opening, the dog yapping, the traffic stopped, the shopping bag falling to the sidewalk, and there, in the sky, coming closer . . . And so, when it finally happened, because it was bound to happen, we all knew it was only a matter of time, we felt, in the midst of our curiosity and terror, a certain calm, the calm of familiarity, we knew what was expected of us, at such a moment."
  • Rands in Repose: A Twitter Decision: "* Decision #1: A user chooses whom they follow. * Decision #2: A user chooses whom they no longer follow. * Decision #3: A user should be judged only by what they say. ¶ These are simple decisions of empowerment. As Twitter's popularity grows exponentially, both veteran users and recent arrivals need to remember that these basic decisions mean Twitter is yours to build with however you choose. "
  • New Nikon 35mm f/1.8G Adds Normal to DX DSLRs: "Nikon Inc. today announced the AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G lens, which is the first fixed focal length, fast-aperture DX-format lens that affords photographers superb image quality along with the creative possibilities and versatility of the classic 50mm focal length (FX-format equivalent of 52mm). When mounted on a DX-format camera body, it enables photographers to document their world with a lens that produces a picture angle similar to the field of vision as seen through the human eye. Whether new to D-SLRs or a seasoned enthusiast, users will appreciate the extreme low-light performance and the expanded ability to dramatically separate the subject and background with the new 35mm DX lens' wide f/1.8 aperture. "
  • Comics Grammar and Tradition: "Comic book lettering has some grammatical and aesthetic traditions that are quite unique. What follows is a list that every letterer eventually commits to his/her own mental reference file. The majority of these points are established tradition, sprinkled with modern trends and a bit of my own opinion having lettered professionally for a few years now. The majority of these ideas have been established by Marvel and DC, but opinions vary from editor to editor, even within the same company."
  • Want Olympics Tickets? Most Already Gone: "CoSport's allotment of individual tickets for the entire United States was 48,000 — about 3 percent. The New Jersey company received 14,179 orders with requests for 166,800 individual tickets. Forty percent of those requests came from Washington state. ¶ Only a small percentage were filled. Most fans who requested broad ranges of tickets got only a few events. Many, even those seeking tickets to less-popular events, such as Nordic combined, got nothing." Bummer! With the 2010 Olympics just a few hours north of us, Prairie and I had figured it'd be fun to head up to see something. I hadn't even heard that tickets were on sale at all yet, but it looks like we've already missed our chance.

Vinylicious

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Introducing a new blog: Vinylicious! I’m no hardcore vinyl collector, but I do keep an eye out for fun oddities to add to the collection I do have (which itself owes a large debt of gratitude to my dad), and I’m planning on using Vinylicious to share some of the goodies I’ve found.

The plan is to update weekly on Sundays with another album. We’ll see how long I can stick to that schedule. ;) For now, I have two albums to get started: Discotheque for Polka Lovers and It Happened in Sun Valley.

Links for February 6th from 18:43 to 23:36

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Sometime between 18:43 and 23:36, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • ‘Jeopardy’: What Is High-Tech?: "'Jeopardy' originally used cardboard and magic markers but now broadcasts in HD with a $4.1 million all-digital production. Alex Trebek talks about how the show has changed over the years"
  • Make Love Not Porn :: Porn World vs. Real World: It's a pity they have to hide this site behind a "Click if you're over 18" button. I know, I know…"think of the children!" I am thinking of the children. I'd bet good money that there are a lot of people under 18 who could use reading this stuff…especially as with the state of sex education in this country, most of them are probably learning about sex through internet porn clips more than anything else. Oh, and this is most definitely a NSFW link.
  • A president using obscenities is so much better than an obscene presidency.: "1. Barack Obama puts some salty language (in quotations attributed to others) in his memoir Dreams of My Father. 2. Obama reads the audiobook himself. 3. Obama gets elected President. 4. Blogger posts remix-ready clips of POTUS profanity online." Funny and wrong. I don't recommend the prank calls page, they're just as funny as any prank call is (that is, not very). The audio clips themselves are definitely worth a juvenile snicker or two, though. (via Metafilter)
  • Today’s Playmates Are More Like Anime Figures Than Real Humans: "Oh, Playboy, why do you want your 'readers' to lust after androids? That's the only explanation we can think of for the proportions of your lovely ladybots. We culled the stats for every centerfold from December 1953 (Marilyn Monroe) to January 2009 (Dasha Astafieva), then calculated each woman's body-mass index. ¶ A clear trend emerged: While real American women have steadily eaten their way up the BMI slope — just like American men — Playmates have gone from a sylphlike 19.4 to an anime-ideal 17.6."
  • The Sexual Evolution of Pepe LePew: "Is this a politically correct revision of the earlier 'What part of non don't you understand?' skunk-on-cat courtship? Or is it an extension of that courtship, and we're to believe Pepe's tireless sexual assaults finally wore the poor cat down, and what looks like love is simply Stockholm Syndrome? Or is this like that amazing scene in Gone with the Wind, when Scarlett wakes up the morning after her spousal rape with a smile on her face and a song in her heart?" Prairie and I were wondering about this, too — the new commercial featuring Pepe is the exact opposite of classic Pepe…which, of course, was harassment, stalking, and possibly rape. Heh. Cartoons are weird.

Links for February 5th through February 6th

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Sometime between February 5th and February 6th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Universal Studios Home Entertainment: Caprica on DVD 4/21/09: More info from iO9: "Can't wait to see Caprica, the prequel series showing the tawdry origins of the robotic Cylons? Now you won't have to: the show's pilot is going direct to DVD on April 26. ¶ The show isn't scheduled to start airing on Sci Fi until 2010, but an unrated, uncut version will be out on DVD in April."
  • Dollhouse: Dollhouse’s Sexuality Is Creepy on Purpose: "…the marketing reflects the fact that sexuality is woven into the fabric of the show — and it goes to some very creepy places on purpose. The show is about men and women being brainwashed and hired out, and some of their assigments have to do with sex, says Whedon. The show goes into some situations that make Whedon himself intensely uncomfortable, even if they don't bother any of the show's other writers. ¶ Dushku was adamant that whatever TV show she made next should address sexuality, 'not just by virtue of being all hot, but by talking about sexuality: why it drives us and how it works.' One of the show's goals is to 'get the audience to ask what of their desire is acceptable, and what is creepy. In order to ask that we had to go to kind of a creepy place,' says Whedon. 'We may have crossed the line.'"
  • Base System: xkcd explains the "base system" of making out. It's all so clear now!
  • Movie Review – Coraline – Cornered in a Parallel World: "There are many scenes and images in 'Coraline' that are likely to scare children. This is not a warning but rather a recommendation, since the cultivation of fright can be one of the great pleasures of youthful moviegoing. As long as it doesn't go too far toward violence or mortal dread, a film that elicits a tingle of unease or a tremor of spookiness can be a tonic to sensibilities dulled by wholesome, anodyne, school-approved entertainments. "
  • All the Way Through to "Kerplunk": Some teasers on the final three episodes of Pushing Daisies: "I'm keeping this as spoiler-free as I can, in case you hadn't noticed. I'm not gonna tell you what happens. The discs will be out at some point in the future and it's something you should experience yourselves. There's singing, there's swimming, there's sadness, there's love and broken hearts and broken hearts mended. There's everything this show has offered us before, only three more blessed-be episodes of it." (via @nedthepiemaker, of all people!)
  • Neil Gaiman’s favorite bad review for Coraline:: "While watching this movie I couldn't help thinking it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers for kids." (Neil's reaction: "Coraline is currently 84% at Rottentomatoes.com: of the bad reviews, this is my favourite. I wish it was on the posters."

25 Random Things Meme

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Oh, alright already. Naysayers be damned, here’s my entry into the ‘twenty-five random things about you’ meme that’s currently flying around Facebook (and, to a limited extent, creeping out into the rest of the blog world). Some of these, people will know. Others…perhaps not.

Though I’ve been ‘tagged’ to do this by a few people on Facebook, I will not be ‘tagging’ anyone else. As with all memes, if you want to do this, do it. If you don’t, don’t. I won’t be bugging you about it either way.

  1. I knew a serial killer. When I was a kid, Robert Hansen, a.k.a. the “Butcher, Baker” serial killer, lived on the same street as our church’s priest. My brother and I and Father Schmidt’s kids would go over to play with Hansen’s son. I don’t really remember this, and only found out because, while idly leafing through mom’s copy of Butcher, Baker, I saw a photo of the basement where Hansen did some of his killing and mentioned that it was a creepy looking room. Mom then glanced up at me and said quite calmly, “Yes, you never did like it down there.”

  2. I spent a number of years — nearly a decade, if I remember correctly — singing in the Alaska Children’s Choir. Actually, when I started, it was two separate organizations: the Anchorage Girls Choir, which had been in existence for a few years, and the Anchorage Boys Choir, of which I was one of the first members. A few years later the two merged into the Anchorage Girls and Boys Choir, then became the Anchorage Children’s Choir, and finally settled as the Alaska Children’s Choir.

  3. I played the violin (never terribly well, as practicing was never high on my list of things to do) from Elementary through High School. I’ve often wished that I’d gone for the cello rather than the violin, as I much prefer its tone, and might have stuck with it longer and more conscientiously.

  4. I’m starting to regret starting this post, as I’m only on item number four, and I’ve likely already typed more than most people do for their entire 25 things list.

  5. My online pseudonym, “djwudi,” is a somewhat bastardized onlineification (yes, that is a word) of “DJ Wüdi,” which for a number of years was my offline pseudonym.

  6. I was given the nickname of “Woody” as a child by Royce‘s father, who declared that I looked “like a young Woody Allen.” I started using it regularly around the end of my High School years, when I got tired of there being multiple Michaels in nearly every classroom. I didn’t return to going by Michael on a regular basis until I moved down to Seattle in 2001.

  7. As may be guessed from the “DJ” part of my pseudonym, I was once a DJ. I spent close to a decade playing for various clubs in Anchorage, the most well-known being The Lost Abbey and Gig’s Music Theatre. Both were all-ages, non-alcoholic dance clubs that catered primarily to the punklings, gothlings, ravers, and street kids running around Anchorage.

  8. “Wüdi” comes from Royce and I horsing around and creating a bastardized pseudo-Germanic form for my nickname.

  9. In my teen years, I went through a brief period of light shoplifting. The items my itchy little fingers went after? Books. The ones I can remember now were a leatherbound, gilt edged edition of a Batman graphic novel, and a selection of paperbacks from the Erotica section that onetime Alaskan bookseller The Book Cache used to have conveniently close to the door. Most were by the surprisingly busy author Anonymous, though I did at one point end up with a copy of John Cleland’s Fanny Hill. All of these ill-gotten goods are either lost, stolen, or somewhere at my parents’ house, as they’re not on my current bookshelves.

  10. I spent something over a decade more or less avoiding television. I would probably still be a snobby “Kill your TV” evangelist were it not for Prairie, who has managed convince me that while yes, the commercials do have an unfortunate tendency to make you want to claw your eyes out, some of the shows are actually quite enjoyable to watch.

  11. If I could ditch all of my pants and stick completely with a selection of Utilikilts, I would. Unfortunately, neither my job nor the lack of insulation on my skinny bod will allow me to do so, so while at work and during chilly months, I put up with wearing pants.

  12. I’m running out of time to get this finished before Prairie gets home.

  13. I’m a person of habit, at times very likely bordering on slight OCD. I had not noticed this until Prairie started pointing out all the things I do just so every time, from how I make my lunches in the morning to how I lace and tie my boots. Now it’s a combination of amusing and annoying when I catch myself.

  14. One of the areas where my anal retentiveness is most evident is my iTunes library. At the moment, my library is about as organized as I can realistically manage it. There are areas where I’d like it to be more organized — the ‘Composer’ metadata field, for instance, is in absolutely horrid shape, generally speaking — but I can control the impulse to keep tweaking. Maybe.

  15. I was once told by a group of girls at one of the clubs I was DJing at that I “did good things for the Macarena” when I came out to dance to it. During the height of the songs popularity I’d put it on (hey, I was getting requests…and besides, I have a weakness for “bubblegum” pop, no matter what the era), hop out of the DJ booth, and do the dance. Of course, the dance itself is really simple, so to really have fun with it, you need a few improvisations and embellishments, a bit more sway in the hips…. Apparently whatever I did was worth doing, because this group would stop dancing and gather to watch every time. Good for the ego, no matter how silly it was.

  16. As expected, I ran out of time midway through the preceding paragraph. It’s now twelve hours later, and we’ll see if I can finish this before I have to head off to work.

  17. I am constitutionally incapable of saying something in five words when it can be said in fifty…or fifty, when it can be said in five hundred. It’s a trait that I share with Dad. Before I settled on naming my blog ‘Eclecticism,’ it spent about a year or so titled ‘The Long Letter’, after a quote attributed to Pascal: “Please excuse such a long letter — I didn’t have time to write a short one.”

  18. While I tend to identify as (a somewhat lazy) Episcopalian and liberal Democrat, my socio-political-religious views can in many ways be summed up by the Wiccan credo that has always stuck in my mind as, “An’ it harm none, do as ye will.” Do what you want with whom you want for however many twinkies you want…as long as you’re not bugging anyone else in the process. If everyone involved is all cool and copacetic, great! More power to you. But the moment you’re involving someone against their will (and this is a pretty broad category, from secondhand smoke or overly loud music all the way to emotional or physical assault), that’s not cool.

  19. I haven’t even quite made it to number twenty, and I’m running out of interesting stuff to put in here.

  20. No matter how silly I know it is, I’ve always been a little bummed that I was never able to parlay my 15 minutes of fame into some form of job running around as one of the Seattle technorati. I’m not even sure what kind of job that would be or how I could have done it, but it would’ve been nice if my notoriety had actually led to something better, instead of just being an extended blip of insanity and then fading back into obscurity.

  21. Wall calendars are useless to me. The calendar currently on the wall of my office is currently displaying October of 2008, and the only reason it even got changed to that month (back when that was the month) was because Prairie did it for me.

  22. Somewhat related to the last point, I’m often incredibly absent minded. I tend to find it obnoxious and occasionally slightly depressing; Prairie, while not immune to being sometimes inconvenienced and annoyed by it, overall (rather amazingly) manages to find it amusing and a little charming — kind of an “absent minded professor” thing. I just consider myself lucky that she sees it that way.

  23. I find that getting out and “going bouncing” — socializing and dancing at one of the local goth/industrial clubs — is just as important to me as quiet alone time is for recharging and keeping me on an even keel. As nice as quiet nights at home are, I need to get out and go bounce around for a while every so often or I get a little stir crazy. Mom once told me about an alternative description of ‘introvert’ and ‘extrovert’ that believe comes into play here: while I’m in many ways the classic introvert, this tendency to use social occasions to ‘recharge’ gives me some definite extrovert tendencies.

  24. Again, somewhat related to the last point: while I was too shy to express it much during my high school years, once I came out of my shell in my very late teens and early twenties, it became obvious that I was a shameless and incorrigible flirt. This has shown no signs of letting up to this day.

  25. In a way, I have Royce to thank for my meeting Prairie. Many years ago, he and Jana Herd combined every abnormal fetish, -philia, and -phobia they could come up with into one single phobia: “Pseudocoitoxenohematomysonecropyrobestio-acroclaustro-ochlohydrophobia: The fear of being forced to pretend to have sex with the unfamiliar bloody infected corpse of a flaming animal at 15,000 feet in a small crowded wading pool.” This has provided entertainment for me for years.

    During late ’90’s and early 2000’s, I spent a lot of time in the Yahoo! chat rooms, and one of the chat names I used was a version of the above phobia, edited down to fit the Yahoo! profile name length limitations: pyropedonecrobestiality. One day in 2001 after moving to Seattle, while I was hanging out in the Seattle chat rooms under that name, Prairie saw me, and decided that anyone who’d come up with a name like that had to have a sense of humor and at least two brain cells to rub together, and she said hello. A friendship was formed, and things progressed from there.

    So: I owe my relationship to publicly professing an urge to copulate with the dead, flaming corpses of young animals (and I bet that that’s a phrase you never expected to read) — which itself traces back to Royce.

Okay. I’m done. Uff-da.

Links for February 4th from 14:21 to 18:52

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Sometime between 14:21 and 18:52, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • Why Your Avatar Matters: "A great avatar will help people remember you instantly. And you should use it everywhere, across the board. Use it on your blog if you have one (you should). Use it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, everywhere. Even if people don’t automatically remember your name or your website, they’ll remember your avatar and make an association. When they see it again later, on another network or site, they’ll be more likely to pay attention, to friend you, and maybe remove a few of those degrees of separation."
  • The 20 Worst Foods in America of 2009: "Uno Chicago Grill’s individual 2,310-calorie Classic Deep Dish is still the worst pizza that could pass your lips. Romano’s Macaroni Grill’s 2,430-calorie spaghetti and meatballs is a truly lethal plate of pasta. And Bob Evans’ 1,543-calorie banana pecan pancakes won’t just break your fast—they’ll destroy it. What’s more, we found 17 more deplorable dishes worthy of spots on our 'worst' list. For now, be sure to avoid them—but here’s to hoping these are 20 foods we won’t see on restaurant menus next year."
  • Exclusive: Stephen King on J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer: "Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people. … The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."
  • Ancient Fossil Find: This Snake Could Eat a Cow!: "Never mind the 40-foot snake that menaced Jennifer Lopez in the 1997 movie 'Anaconda.' Not even Hollywood could match a new discovery from the ancient world. Fossils from northeastern Colombia reveal the biggest snake ever discovered: a behemoth that stretched 42 to 45 feet long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds. 'This thing weighs more than a bison and is longer than a city bus,' enthused snake expert Jack Conrad of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who was familiar with the find. 'It could easily eat something the size of a cow. A human would just be toast immediately.'"
  • Masked Man Robs Stores With Klingon Sword: "Colorado Springs police are looking for a man who hit two 7-Eleven convenience stores early Wednesday, armed with a Klingon sword. Both clerks described the weapon as a Star Trek Klingon-type sword, called a 'Batleth' or 'bat'leth.'"