Enthusiastically Ambiverted Hopepunk
I’ve mentioned Something Positive a time or two in the past, but in case you’ve missed it, it’s a great little web comic. Highly recommended. So when I stumbled across this quiz tonight, I had to take it…
Which member of something positive are you?
Quiz created by heatherbat
iTunes: “Of Time and Rivers Flowing” by Havens, Richie from the album Where Have All the Flowers Gone: The Songs of Pete Seeger (1997, 2:30).
I bought ink for my printer today — an Epson Stylus C82.
The ink — one cartridge each of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black — cost me \$70 from Office Depot.
The printer, which isn’t even sold by Epson anymore, can be picked up on Amazon starting at \$39.
The current comparable printer from Epson — the Stylus C84 — can be picked up on Amazon (complete with ink) for about \$84, only about \$14 more than what I paid for the ink.
Why even bother buying ink anymore? Seems to me that it’s practically more cost effective to just buy a printer and use it until the ink runs out, junk it, and buy a new one. Go for a printer that’s a little bit cheaper than the C84, and I’d be willing to bet that it is cheaper to treat them as a “disposable” item.
That’s just flat-out ridiculous.
iTunes: “Masters of War” by Dylan, Bob from the album Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, The (1963, 4:34).
While I’m sure that a benefit run to support the Seattle Animal Shelter is a very good cause, when we’re living in an era with some rather well-known odd kinks, maybe naming it the “Furry 5K” wasn’t the best choice in the world…
At least I wasn’t the only one to have that thought!
iTunes: “Mister Superstar” by Marilyn Manson from the album Antichrist Superstar (1996, 5:04).
This could be an entertaining way to spend some time this weekend — the annual U-District Street Fair.
For 35 years the University District StreetFair has been the kick-off event for the festival season in the Seattle region. Attracting more than 50,000 people and nearly 400 booths to the District, the StreetFair is an energetic and exciting celebration of arts and crafts, community, music, and food. You’ll find a whirl of color, craft, creativity and downright craziness! Join the thousands of people who attend. There will be two entertainment stages, and unique local and regional arts & crafts and an array of international food. The StreetFair is a free event, located in the heart of the University District on University Way NE, and is produced by the Greater University Chamber of Commerce.
Sounds like a good opportunity to grab the camera and go wander off people watching for a few hours.
(via LJ Seattle)
iTunes: “Atomic Dog” by Wreck, The from the album Black Box (1991, 4:03).
Two interesting Google-related bits today.
Firstly, a paragraph about outsourcing jobs mysteriously disappeared from the Google Weblog at some point during the day. Mark Pilgrim pointed this out (along with /., MeFi, and Hello Typepad) and quite rightly took Google to task for the unremarked changes:
This kind of revisionist history is unacceptable, regardless of who does it. If you don’t want it saved for all time, don’t publish it on the Internet. Putting “blog” on the top of the page does not absolve you of all responsibility.
NetNewsWire‘s “show changes” feature caught the edits, though, so here’s a quick screen capture showing just how the post was reworded:
The second bit is more on the amusing side, and has less to do directly with Google. I got a piece of comment spam earlier that, when I looked at it, made me laugh, simply because in an effort to make it look almost like a real comment, the spammer had mixed links in with a paragraph of real text. It just so happens that the paragraph they chose was one from Google’s website, discussing how pages are indexed after being submitted to Google. I’ve replaced the links with bolded text in the following snippet, of course:
When a URL is submitted to Google, Sex Toy Shop we look for it in our Hotel Booking next crawl. If Low Interest Credit Card you’ve already submitted your Buy Cialis URL, your site could easily Atkins Diet appear in our new index, which will go Nude Celebrity up when the current crawl is completed. However, Online Casinos if no other site links to yours, it Dating Personals may be difficult for our crawler to find Tag Watch you. Conversely, if many sites link to Seiko Watch your page, there is a good Car Hire chance we will find you without your submitting your Register Domain Name URL. Occasionally, websites are not reachable Ladies Watches when we try to crawl them because of Coral Bookmaker network or hosting problems.
It almost makes sense when you read it…
iTunes: “Another One Bites the Dust (Wyclef Jean)” by Queen feat. Free/Jean, Wyclef/Pras from the album Small Soldiers (1998, 4:22).
That was fast!
Mere hours after I put up my silly little challenge, Matt responded with a ready-to-go stylesheet that’s very pink!
I’ve dropped Matt’s stylesheet in, so in theory, it should be what everyone’s seeing right now. ~~In practice, though, as of 10:30pm May 11th, the new stylesheet doesn’t seem to be getting served. Eventually it should kick in, though, and “Manly Pink #1” should be live!~~ [Okay, the stylesheet finally updated after about half an hour — we’re good to go.]{.underline}
The call for submissions is still open, of course, if anyone else wants to play. Should I get any more concepts tossed my way, I’ll put them up when I get them, and in the meantime, I’ll start looking for a good stylesheet switcher (Javascript or pure CSS [I think that’s possible…]) so that there’s a choice between the old default design or the Manly Pink version(s).
Of course, now I need to go get those t-shirts and put the photos of me wearing pink up….
Update: Now that new designs have started to appear, here’s my original stylesheet: styles-default.css.
iTunes: “We Must Awaken” by K.M.F.D.M. from the album Money (1992, 5:02).
Anybody want to redesign my site for me?
It’s gonna need pink. Lots of pink. And big, hard, nippleless breasts.
What in the world am I babbling about? Well, quite simply, I think that Shelley has a good point about some aspects of the Blogger redesign…
Speaking of looks, if you read Phil’s comments, you’ll see I was not happy about Zeldman’s Ms. Moto and Mr. Moto templates. The one for Mr. Moto shows a classic gray, very professional looking weblog with a photo of a building in one of the posts. However, the one for Ms. Moto is all in purple/pinks, and shows a photo of a Barbie doll in the example post.
What is the message from these templates? That men have professional looking sites, while women favor pink and dolls? I am surprised at an experienced man like Zeldman perpetuating this type of stereotype.
As Mark Pilgrim said in Phil’s post, yes men and women may both like pink sites. I don’t have a problem with pink; it was the gender association (not to mention the doll–was that an accident?) that grabbed me. There were other templates that also featured pink, or rose, but none of them made an association with a gender through the name.
No big deal you say? By itself, no. But after three years of girlism and baring breasts as fund raisers, not to mention being told time and again how ladies are supposed to act in this environment, and how women webloggers only write about home while men write about politics and tech–I am weary of how much weblogging promotes stereotypes. I stopped pointing out how woman don’t seem to get the same notice as men in weblogging when it comes to writing in order not to perpetuate a stereotype; the least others can do is not make associations between female bloggers and Barbie dolls.
Mark “The Pink” Pilgrim has hinted that he’ll probably do a redesign, perhaps based on pink and dolls. Dolls with big, hard nippleless breasts. If so, and I see several men sporting the new Ms. Moto look, I will be less inclined to be critical.
So, guys show me that Ms. Moto is genderless and protect Zeldman’s honor at the same time. If you have Blogger, pick that template, but don’t forget to add in a doll or two. If not, then do something comparable in your own toolset. Then I’ll know pink and dolls aren’t just ‘girly’ things, they’re also for manly mans. We’ll have a contest. Maybe Mark and Zeldman will judge.
I am so up for this. However, I’m not really that much of a designer (especially when it comes to using graphics or color), and I just dealt with the frustration of a mere tweak of this design, and I’m not terribly sure I want to start from scratch again.
So, a challenge.
If anyone out there is crazy enough to give me a design to use, I’ll use it. In fact, if I even get people telling me that they’ll work on it, I’ll go down to the local Hot Topic, blow a little money, and then send the prospective designers pictures of me to incorporate in the design (even though I’m conspicuously missing the big, hard nippleless breasts) in my 14-eye Doc Marten boots, black Utilikilt, and each of the following three shirts: the pink skull, “Pink is the new black“, and “Tough guys wear pink“.
Anybody up to this? Should anyone actually want to tackle this, I only have a few simple requests:
And really, that’s about it. I’m up for just about anything, and I’ll gladly work with someone to make sure that their ideas and design drop in here without too many issues.
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot I can offer for compensation, other than the general fun of doing it. If you come up with something that might work as repayment, though (aside from the obligatory “Design by…” link on the page), feel free to suggest it, and we’ll see what can be worked out.
iTunes: “Got Me Wrong” by Alice in Chains from the album Sap (1992, 4:12).
There’s a very cool article about WWII-era Seattle in the P-I today, when about thirty women were “drafted” into becoming cab drivers when many of the city’s men went off to fight for their country. One of those many little tidbits of history that tend to fascinate me.
ONCE THIS CITY seemed to burst with soldiers and sailors waving goodbyes or homecoming hellos amid the ache of a very different war. Some came back in coffins. Some landed, singed and bandaged, in the rear seat of Nadine McKee’s Yellow Cab No. 21.
With stateside men in short supply, 23-year-old Nadine “Mick” McKee (now Henry) was the youngest of about 30 Seattle women happy to be “drafted” just after Pearl Harbor as Seattle’s first female taxi drivers, liberated and unleashed behind the wheel.
The assumption that they would want to lend a hand for the sake of Uncle Sam was unquestioned. But the new feeling of freedom blowing in their hair through an open cab window was a wind of change that didn’t come easy. For nearly four years between 1942 and the end of World War II in 1945, McKee traced and retraced Seattle’s streets nine hours and 300 miles a day in a 1941 Plymouth four-door. Carrying GIs and civilians, she broke the gender barrier but never dared break the speed limit much less the rigid rules of co-ed conduct.
iTunes: “Battle of Evermore, The” by Led Zeppelin from the album IV (1971, 5:51).
Last night while up at the local grocery store, I was looking for clothespins — an item which, unfortunately, QFC doesn’t carry. All I needed them for was to help dry my Utilikilt after washing it, as rather than running it through an electric dryer, they recommend hanging it so that the pleats don’t get goofed up.
Meanwhile, for the past couple of days, I’d been trying to arrange the delivery of a package from UPS which was consistently showing up at my apartment between five and six in the evening, when I’m at work. I redirected the package to work, and it showed up sometime this morning.
Turns out the package was my birthday present from mom: a set of skirt hangers, along with a note written on a printout of the Utilikilt washing and drying instructions.
Look: a gift that doesn’t annoy or make noise or anything! How dull. Mom.
I think that’s great. Dull? Perhaps — but just what I needed.
Thanks mom!
Brad, Brad, Brad — so close, and yet so far away.
Actor Brad Pitt said Sunday that fashion-conscious men may be wearing Greek-style skirts soon after his big-budget film about the Trojan War opens this week.
“Men will be wearing skirts by next summer. That’s my prediction and proclamation,” he said with a laugh. “The film answers to both genders. We were going for realism and Greeks wore skirts all the time then.”
Some of us don’t need to see Brad Pitt running around in a Greek-style skirt to be comfortable enough with our masculinity to wear something other than pants…and look damn good while doing it! ;)
iTunes: “Sweet Jane” by Cowboy Junkies from the album Natural Born Killers (1988, 3:23).