Categories
Places

Nice Day

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I heard a rumor that the weather has been a bit nasty in parts of the country. Since we all know that I’m a sharing person, I thought I would share this absolutely beautiful spring like day in San Fran with those of you who are suffering from cold, snow, biting winds, and various other acts of Mother Nature going “Think you’re hot, huh! Well, take this!”

I went for a walk along my favorite beach, and grabbed a few pics for you all. One’s down below, and the others are Walk pic two and Walk pic three.

No, no. You don’t have to thank me for this act of sharing and generosity. Glad to do it.

Guess what! The Bloggers with Attitude weblog ring now has 28 member weblogs!

Categories
Weblogging

Mr. Rogers Evil Twin’s Neighborhood

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I asked for and I received. Last week I wondered why someone didn’t create a weblog named “Mr. Roger’s Evil Twin’s Neighborhood”.

Well Chris, affectionately known as Stavros the Wonder Chicken as well as various other things I can’t print in polite company did just that. Not only did he create the weblog, he added me as an editor.

So folks I introduce you to the newest experiment in community publication:

Mr. Roger’s Evil Twin’s Neighborhood. From the Guy in the Red Leather Suit.

Categories
Technology Weblogging

Closing this generation of techblog

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I closed TechBlog down and I’m keeping it closed. My technology is as much a part of me as every other aspect of my life — I’m not going to arbitrarily split it off. When I want to “TechTalk”, I’ll say what I want here, in Burningbird.

I have to jump on to two postings of John Robb’s: one on RSS feeds and one on what he calls the Next Generation P2P Systems. I’ll cover the RSS topic in this posting, the P2P topic in a posting later today. In fact, it will probably be split into a separate page as it’s not going to be small.

Part of the weblogging process to me is visiting each person’s unique site. The words and the surroundings form a unified whole that communicates more than just the words themselves. I like being notified when a person’s weblog is changed, and check weblogs.com regularly. But to strip a person’s thoughts and plunk it into a queue that gets spit out to me on this plain white background — this isn’t a true group forming and communication process, is it?

Read more…

Categories
Weblogging

Fucknozzle

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Weblogging makes the world so much smaller, and sometimes the impact of this constriction can slap you in the face with the force of a bazooka.

Mike responded to RageBoy’s current Meme of the Minute — Fucknozzle — with a brilliant but raw seque into the AIDs situation in South Africa, including the absolute inability of the current government to deal with with this crises effectively.

At times it seems as if we’re caught up with frivolity in the face of so much difficulty and darkness. Yet, this frivolity is the one thing we have that we can share — an anchor of silliness and humor, a break, a moment. We focus on something small and intimate or fun and silly or sentimental and cozy because these are things we can control.

I can’t stop the fighting in Afghanistan, but I can make you laugh.

I posted the following in Mike’s comments:

Perhaps its a case of there’s so much that needs to change, so much you would dearly love to change, but can’t, that you grab the few things you can control and focus on them.

Grasping at the few strands of empowerment in the huge sea of absolute powerlessness.

I find myself desperately wishing I could help in South Africa, and also knowing that there’s little I can do.

Little I can do about the orca orphan either, but I can wrap my mind around it, if that makes sense.

With the spread of this new RB Meme we are exercising that one thing we can control — we can share our experiences and lives in our weblogs, and we can read what each other writes, and in the process we can reach out and say Hi, or that’s awful, or that’s great, or cry virtual tears with each other, and tease and joke and share a virtual laugh.

So, world, here you go: Fucknozzle.

Categories
Just Shelley

I am a Romantic

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Is romance dead? I’m not talking about a trip into Hallmark, resulting in the dispersal of either quick wit or Profound Thought of the Moment. I’m talking about moonlight and roses, dancing until dawn, looking dreamily into each others eyes. Romance. Capital ‘R’.

Movies from the 30’s and 40’s showed ladies in long dresses being waltzed around the room by dapper men in tails. Or men sending smoldering looks across the room at their lady love. Or couples exchanging passionate kisses that you can actually feel sitting in your chair watching. No tongues. No groping.

Then the 50’s made romance silly or crude, the 60’s made it obsolete, the 70’s made it either trashy or angst filled, the 80’s put a price tag on it, the 90’s made it depressing or trite, and now here we are in a new millenium, and I’m not sure if romance, or I should say Romance, will ever show itself again.

Did we lose Romance when we burned our bras and marched for equal rights for women? Did we as women slap one too many men when they moved to open the door for us, creating whole generations of men who are hesitant to display anything even remotely resembling a gesture that can be construed as sexist?

Was it sex? Sex is a great romance killer. Think about it — why waste your time waltzing around the room, plucking a rose for your love, sending a secret note, or taking long moonlight walks when you can be in bed, doing the Big Thing? I think the crude would refer to it as “Cutting through the crap and getting to the real stuff”

Talk can also be a romance killer. We’ve progressed in our relationships to becoming good friends, exchanging and sharing thoughts on any and all topics. I think this is great — but there’s this little secret part of me that longs for the beautiful dress and being whirled around the room, the offered bloom, the look, the gentle whisper light touch.

I am a romantic. No, I am a Romantic