Really cool -- I'll be making one of these. Maybe making and selling them from the road. Oh yeah.

I spent this afternoon in a way I haven't spent an afternoon in a long time. I actually surfed the web, or "waved the net" as we used to say back in the day. The internet is really a blossoming thing. There's a lot of good writing and beautiful design going on out there. It's cool. Gives me hope for humanity.

Longmire does Romance Novels. Really priceless stuff:

That's something I can aspire to. Gotta keep growing the hair though. Found via daypop.

It's rough; I'm the lone authentic drunk person. Wish I could do more.

The above was written last night. This and below in the aftermath.

Learning the lessons of Friday night, I engaged myself with strong drink early, and at a retail price. I'd played host and East Village guide to my friend Jessica -- a rich tradtion that I pass on with relish from my Aunt's first welcoming me to New York. Jess is engaged to my friend Dave. Sometime in October they'll cease to be living in sin. We ate a great meal at Acme and ended up at a newish Jazz joint somewhere in alphabet city where they charged around $10 for a glass of whisky, which is what they're allowed to do now I suppose.

The city is changing. There are lots of new building around, most quite ugly and out of place. There are police barriers around the Astor Place Cube. The trajectory was clear when I left, but the arc has continued high and long.

Learning the lessons of Friday night I braced myself with a few large bottles of Pabst to go with my Greenpoint Chinese food, and purchased a half-pint of Beam en route to the bar; guzzled brown-bag style on the walk and finished off seruptitously in a back booth. It was my friend Kristi's birthday, so the crowd was good and friendly. People I'd not seen who I pestered with whisky quesitons and oogled on the sly. I oogle now. It's another thing I've picked up.

And when I got bored I called good old Julia who was a few blocks away at a Lawerly apartment party. I came a-calling and spent too long talking to some girl before going up on the roof to get some air, where I somehow spilled my party cup of wine all over my white thermal shirt, which sort of put an end to that conversation. Destroyed my credibilty I believe. It was a frustrating affair anyway. Better time talking with Henning in any case; I attempted to give a piggyback ride on the way to the L-train and collapsed, skinning my knee and bruising my left eye a bit.

The subway and walk home are a bit of a blur, but I'm confident it included Palace Fried Chicken because I can still pick it out of my teeth now. And I now know for a fact that there's a leak in my Thermarest.

What have we learned? That the patterns of behavior you remember still exist, but are potentially more expensive. That people you know are in medical school or getting married or working real jobs. That your friends may or may not still be in touch all that much over the years. That the feeling you had of wanting to grow up a bit when you left was held pretty much in common and everyone still wants to change their lives. That it hasn't happened yet and that it doesn't feel like it's in a hurry to.

If you are sad and lonely, and have no place to go
call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough
and we'll go honky tonkin'...

It's rough; I'm the lone authentic drunk person. Wish I could do more.

The above was written last night. This and below in the aftermath.

Learning the lessons of Friday night, I engaged myself with strong drink early, and at a retail price. I'd played host and East Village guide to my friend Jessica -- a rich tradtion that I pass on with relish from my Aunt's first welcoming me to New York. Jess is engaged to my friend Dave. Sometime in October they'll cease to be living in sin. We ate a great meal at Acme and ended up at a newish Jazz joint somewhere in alphabet city where they charged around $10 for a glass of whisky, which is what they're allowed to do now I suppose.

The city is changing. There are lots of new building around, most quite ugly and out of place. There are police barriers around the Astor Place Cube. The trajectory was clear when I left, but the arc has continued high and long.

Learning the lessons of Friday night I braced myself with a few large bottles of Pabst to go with my Greenpoint Chinese food, and purchased a half-pint of Beam en route to the bar; guzzled brown-bag style on the walk and finished off seruptitously in a back booth. It was my friend Kristi's birthday, so the crowd was good and friendly. People I'd not seen who I pestered with whisky quesitons and oogled on the sly. I oogle now. It's another thing I've picked up.

And when I got bored I called good old Julia who was a few blocks away at a Lawerly apartment party. I came a-calling and spent too long talking to some girl before going up on the roof to get some air, where I somehow spilled my party cup of wine all over my white thermal shirt, which sort of put an end to that conversation. Destroyed my credibilty I believe. It was a frustrating affair anyway. Better time talking with Henning in any case; I attempted to give a piggyback ride on the way to the L-train and collapsed, skinning my knee and bruising my left eye a bit.

The subway and walk home are a bit of a blur, but I'm confident it included Palace Fried Chicken because I can still pick it out of my teeth now. And I now know for a fact that there's a leak in my Thermarest.

What have we learned? That the patterns of behavior you remember still exist, but are potentially more expensive. That people you know are in medical school or getting married or working real jobs. That your friends may or may not still be in touch all that much over the years. That the feeling you had of wanting to grow up a bit when you left was held pretty much in common and everyone still wants to change their lives. That it hasn't happened yet and that it doesn't feel like it's in a hurry to.

If you are sad and lonely, and have no place to go
call me up, sweet baby, and bring along some dough
and we'll go honky tonkin'...

As I've written before, I've been mightily impressed by the "Dark, Sexy, Political Sci-Fi Show" that is the modern remake of BattleStar Galactica. Now I'm mightily impressed by the people in charge of marketing it.

I've already watched all the episodes, but for anyone deterred by the complexities of bittorrent, the Sci-Fi channel has put the first episode online, commercial free.

This is rather unprecidented and strikes me as really smart. In addition to putting a whole episode up, there's extensive documentary material online as well. It would seem that the television industry is showing more signs of innovation than the film business. I'm just happy that someone is finally pushing the envelope.

It's a hot question these days.

All I can add is that from my experience on campaign 2004, people who blogged are generally more ego-driven, more likely to enjoy hearing themselves talk about politics. I'm not excerpted from that (I often epitomize it). For whatever reason, Women in America seem to do that less.

On the other hand, I saw more women managing yahoo groups, moderating discussion forums, and keeping up actual organizational connections. I won't speculate on why this is, but I will note that these activities often produced much more political and social value than blogging did.

Without wading too deeply into pseudo-sociology, I think there's potentially something gendered about the attention-centric ethos of pure personal publishing (read me! read me!) vs. the outcome-centric ethos of organizing (lets get something accomplished). There's also something potentially gendered in the difference, for instance, between "outward facing" web publishing (e.g. the man-heavy blogosphere) and more "inward facing" ventures (e.g. livejournal, which has a lot more prominant female participants).

My gut and recent experience suggests that women online seem more driven by connections and conversations; men by recognition and reputation. That could be an insightful view into the heart of the American Equation, or it could be a temporary blip in the development of online culture. Or I could be totally wrong.

While I'm back east (from now until sometime in mid May), I'm intinerant. I'm a bum. A computer consultant bum. Accordingly, here are digimatized photos of the places I've slept:

Frank's New Spot:

Me 'n' Frank's Bikes:

Tressler's Vacant Pad:

I think this is potentially interesting, so I'll keep it up.

Final vote time over at the principles project. Next weekend there will be a real-life conference here in NYC to take the next steps. It looks like I may be heading up future web initiatives for a while. Tally ho!

I like the lively debate that's going on here. It's really gratifying to spark comments.

Part of my wide and hazy ambition for the future is to construct an alternative media empire which can potentially turn you and me into 21st-Century folk heroes.

Who's with me?