Rhymes with Courtney

@Blue Bottle Mint Plaza

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I've always been one to jump on the latest and greatest social networking sites (my home/status page is testament to this). I like to try out these sites out of my own curiosity, although every time I join a new site, I hesitate for a moment and ask myself, "Why?"

Ever since Six Degrees [now defunct] in the late nineties, I was compelled to make connections with the people I knew, through the magic of the internet. The world wide web made our own worlds smaller, and we were enchanted with the idea of connecting and reconnecting with people from near and far. With Friendster, we saw people get obsessed with collecting friends... some even likened it to Pokémon (Gotta catch 'em all!), which was rising in popularity at the same time. Friendster forever changed the definition of the word "Friend".

MySpace brought social networking to a younger (read: mainstream) audience and made itself a part of the vernacular. From then on, it got ridiculous. Social networking sites sprung up faster than anyone could count, and to this day, invitations to join someone's network litter our inboxes, and people foam at the mouth for invitations to the beta version of the newest networking site.

I feel that part of the appeal of social networks is in the ability for those of the introverted persuasion (e.g., geeks and nerds) to be able to connect to many like-minded people. We became social networking junkies, binging on forming online friendships. Why not? It's so easy... we can be friends with someone by simply clicking a button!

Yesterday, I found myself purging my social networks of people I feel little or no connection with. It was still hard for me to delete/remove/de-friend some people from these lists, so I let some of them be. What if they found out I didn't have them in my Friend List anymore? What would I say? How would I explain it? Is it easier to keep them on my Friend List to avoid confrontation? Would this confrontation even exist?

And why the heck am I so worried about this?

In reading Esquire's 60 Things Worth Shortening Your Life For, I found a few things that don't appeal to me...:

6. Lyle Sankey's "Vision Quest" Bull Riding Adventure Experience, Branson, Missouri.
25. Testing your cold-weather driving skills in Arjeplog, Sweden.
42. Secondhand smoking.

...Things that made me laugh:

31. Getting a Road Job.

Sometime before you die, and potentially right before, you must enjoy a blow job while driving a car in excess of eighty miles per hour. Everything about a blow job is better at high speed: the power, the thrill, the feeling you're about to lose control and leave a memorable obituary. A few caveats: The interior design of automobiles has changed since my road-job days, and it seems like it would be impractical in these newfangled models with their obstructive cupholders. It won't work in a Prius, for example, which is a damn shame, because imagine the self-satisfaction of zero-population-growth sex with low carbon emissions. It would probably work in a Hummer. Other considerations: It works best in the Great Plains, where the highways are long and straight; it's safer, and more fun, in broad daylight, particularly if you slow down as you pass a truck; and most important, drinking and driving and dunking don't mix. I can't recall exactly how you talk a woman into going down on you in a speeding car, though. I think it's mostly hand gestures.

-- Larry Doyle

1. Danger dogs.
2. Jersey breakfast dogs.
22. Oysters Mosca at Mosca's in Avondale, Louisiana.
26. Combo No. 4 at the Varsity in Athens, Georgia.
27. The dark-chocolate-and-peanut-butter gelato from Il Laboratorio del Gelato in New York.
28. The fugu (poisonous blowfish) tasting menu at Morimoto in New York and Philadelphia.
35. Duck-fat potatoes.
38. The Carpetbagger steak
44-48. The Five Most Decadent Burgers in the United States of America

And drink:

19. The Ramos ginfizz.
33. Drinking alone.
39. A "three-bagger" of Sazeracs at Tujague's.

I've recently become enamored with the music vlog Concerts à Emporter ("Take Away Shows") from the French music blog La Blogotheque. And I feel compelled to share it with you.

The concept behind the show is simple: catch up with musicians passing through Paris (for the most part, amongst other major cities) and have them perform live... impromptu, on the streets, wherever they may be. There is something quite zen and calming about many of these performances. Take, for instance, the latest video, featuring Andrew Bird strolling leisurely along the stone streets of Paris with his guitar, attracting the attention of nary a traveler:

This performance from The Shins on a bright sunny day makes me feel warm and ready for spring. I love how they  break out with Alone Again Or as they stroll to find a place on the Paris streets to perform.

I dunno if it was apparent to anyone, but I'm a huge Sim geek. I've played all iterations of SimCity since its inception, The Sims and various other titles such as SimAnt, SimEarth and SimIsle. I've been known to talk about Will Wright like he was God.

I played almost every version of The Sims, including the life-sucking Sims Online. I played Sims 2 when I had access to a PC when it first came out, but alas couldn't run it on my old PowerBook.

Now that I have my new MacBook, the obsession begins again.

Of course, the first thing anyone does when starting a new Sims game is create Sim versions of yourselves...

Courtney Sim

2 comments

...and of your loved one(s).

Cecil Sim

...and then you try to see how they behave.

Upon entering her new home, my Sim was disappointed in my choice of lamps and easy chair, and clapped in delight at the full-size bed. SimCecil loved his little twin bed but hated the bathroom lighting, and immediately went to watch comedy TV.

Our Sims eventually met and exchanged a few words about fortune telling(?) and the weather, then SimCecil decided to put the moves on SimCourtney. She was not pleased.

Funny how much time I end up investing in SimLives. I just gotta be sure to keep Real Life in check ;)

Car Trouble
Originally uploaded by niznoz.

Maybe I should post something like this on my car so those jerks don't break into my car again.

BTW, I'm having a hell of a time replacing the window they broke. No one manufactures glass for my "unique" car anymore, so I'm looking around with junkyards and such.

My new MacBook is taking a nice scenic route through Alaska.

Hurry hurry

I hope it's having fun...

I've been re-evaluating many different aspects of my life because of the new year. This recently brings to mind a part of my life that is most certainly a big part of my identity: my online life.

Having not written on my more public, hosted blog in months, I think it may be time to really let this one die. There have been multiple iterations of my blog which has been resurrected many times on different domains. I've gone through MJ's Lifecycle of Bloggers multiple times. But I think this time, it's a more permanent change.

I'm all over the web. I'll admit that I'll jump on a new site's bandwagon very quickly, to try things out and be one of the first to do so... Beta, Gamma, whatever. My love affair with social networking sites comes and goes, and the time that I spend with individual sites varies quite a bit.

I think I have the right idea with my current index (home) page, which is basically an ever-changing page that collects all the information in one place. I guess it's a bit of what Merlin calls a "Status Page". The magic of RSS enables me to have a dynamic page without needing to update it myself. I think I want to take this a step further and have this page be all I have publicly on my domain... my own personal hub, if you will. So this means, the blog on that domain dies. Well, not exactly, it just ceases to be updated and is taken off the main page. The archives will probably remain.

Vox is now going to be my primary blog, but of course, that may be subject to change. Having my dynamic home page seems like a more forgiving way to be able to change blogs and networks. For now, I dig Vox, its features and its community for the most part, and it's been good to me. So, for the time being, this is where I stay.

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On another (but related) note, this also brings up the domains left behind from lives past. If anyone's interested in any of my old domains, let me know. I let the auto-renew cycle, and I honestly don't need them anymore:

• geekychick.net
• endofthetour.com
• sfbaybloggers.com (yup, giving this up too)

This is seriously the worst time for my car to start smoking.

Radiator and hoses need to be replaced. Fack.

Happy Holidays, indeed!

Just remembered this: said Halsted as we discussed some complaints about our mothers (we love 'em but can't live with 'em):

I wish I had a command line interface mother.

I love my geeky friends and the geeky things they say that I can totally relate to.