Tvindy

It Never Ends

Tomorrow is MP3 Tuesday, so that should put a stop (at least temporarily) to my constant entries on the book project. In the meantime, since it's still Monday, I guess I can get away with talking about it for the fourth consecutive day.

I'm really excited that schmed has responded and shown interest in participating with his The Legend of Chunderpuss post. (Any entry that begins with "It was a dak and stormy night" is sure to be a classic.) I was thinking that the photo from The Passing of Chunderpuss would be good as one of the cover images.

What's really great about schmed's participation is that he is quite possibly the only conservative reader I have ever had. It would be kind of silly if every single entry in the book ended up being written by someone on the left. So with that in mind, I was thinking he could maybe also contribute this post, which, although horrifying (from my perspective), is well-written and sincere. And here's an image that goes with it that could also be slapped on the cover. (I'll be sure to make it very small.)

For Snowball, I like two posts in particular: this one and this one. They were written years apart and really underscore just how much X has changed and grown as a person.

Julijul is also taking part. I haven't had time to thoroughly read everything in her blog. I thought 9 Years ago was a possibility. It's an interesting concept, publishing a journal entry from years ago for all the world to see. It is also quite personal. And I laughed out loud when I read You'd think I'd learn by now, which may very well be the most trivial blog entry I have ever encountered.

I'm still anxiously awaiting word from Bill, Receptionista, Jenny, Vicki, Snozzle, Alica and Essay as to whether or not they want to participate. I suppose I should start e-mailing people.

Once again, the posts I've mentioned are suggestions. I'm just drawing attention to what's out there and saying what I think should be included, but I definitely don't reserve any authority to have the final say on what posts or what blogs end up being represented. What I'd love is for other people to start making suggestions.

Let's Talk Some More about the Book

This is day three of me going on about the book project. I figure the best way to emphasize something on a blog is to write about it on consecutive days. But also, this is something that really excites me constantly inspires me with more thoughts and observations.

Today, for example, I was reflecting on how not all excellent blog entries would actually be suitable to the book format. Posts that draw heavily on images and links to provide a context would lose a lot of meaning in the conversion from hypertext to print. This is a shame, since it eliminates many otherwise excellent pieces of writing.

This is especially true for a blog like Mulubinba Moments, which tends to work at a highly visual level and uses many links. I spent the afternoon scouring it for good book material, and even with the plethora of amazing posts, there just wasn't much that looked like it could survive forced removal from its native online habitat. I did find this, however.

It will be possible to include images in the book, but they will be in black and white and limited to the page size of a small paperback book. There is also the cover. That will be in full color. I'm thinking of filling it (front and back) with images relating to the printed entries. These would be pictures taken from the actual blogs. They would appear unlabeled on the cover and would only become meaningful to the reader after reading the associated entries.

I'm thrilled by the people who have already agreed to take part. So far, they are Will, Bakerina, Tim, Snowball and I (note my super-correct usage of the predicate nominative). I'm hoping many more contributors volunteer over the next few days. Once again, any blogger is welcome to participate, even if they happen to be visiting this site for the very first time.

Also, please feel free to recommend posts from other people's blogs. I really have no idea what to contribute from mine, so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Also, does anyone have an idea for a title? Perhaps it could be something like "Blog Rapture: the greatest posts ever written". Hmmm . . . Maybe not.

More on the Book

Since yesterday's entry, I've become even more enthusiastic about this idea of publishing an anthology of masterfully written blog entries. I really hope there is enough interest out there to make this happen. So far, Will and Bakerina have responded, saying they're in. With me, that makes three contributors. I'm hoping for at least twenty. If each person contributes two or three entries, we could then have a book containing fifty blogging masterpieces!

I'd like to emphasize once again that this is open to any blogger who wants to contribute. The links I supplied yesterday were merely examples off the top of my head of excellent posts that I happened to remember. I reserve absolutely no right whatsoever to have any final say on what gets contributed or who can participate. (I am however, prepared to do a great deal of begging on behalf of entries that I feel are such incredible masterpieces that leaving them out would be a crime against humanity.)

What I hope is that most of the entries that end up being submitted are the result of bloggers recommending the work of fellow bloggers. It seems to be really hard for people to judge their own work. Most of the truly great posts contain at least one apology from the author for the low quality of the writing. Orionoir, who may very well be the greatest writer in all of blogdom, recently deleted all his previous entries (representing over a year of work), because he was unhappy with what he had written. I personally have no idea what to submit, so I hope people can suggest entries from my own work.

Bren suggested that I go with lulu.com rather than CafePress, and I'm convinced. Lulu.com would allow us to sell our book at an even cheaper price (less than $10 for a 200 page paperback), yet with all the same advantages of CafePress. Additionally, for $150 we can be assigned an ISBN number, which would allow our book to be sold on Amazon.com. (I'm willing to pay this out of pocket.) That way, we can actually link from our blogs to the Amazon page for our book. How cool is that?

I'm hoping that we can get the book published in January of 2005 and then follow it up with a new book every January. We can have "2005" and "Volume I" printed on the spine, and in a decade we'll be able to line up a full ten volumes on our bookshelves.

As to how it should be organized, I see the book as being a compilation of fifty masterpieces from about twenty contributors. They would be in fairly random order with no two entries from the same author running consecutively. Each entry would include its title and the name or pseudonym of the writer. It would be one of those books like "Chicken Soup for the Soul" that can be read bit-by-bit. The book would start with an introduction, explaining the format and describing what a blog is. At the end would be an "About the Authors" section with a paragraph on each writer including the URL of their blog and the date that each entry was published. The cover would have various images relating to the posts and blogs featured, such as Will's drawing of the angry sugar bowl and the photo of Chunderpuss. Does anyone have a suggestion for a title?

So, who else wants to contribute?

Yet Another One of My Bright Ideas

Okay, here's my latest idea. This one goes a little beyond memes, but I think it could really be worthwhile if enough people choose to participate.

With all the phenomenal writing that has appeared on our various blogs over the past several months, wouldn't it be cool for us to get together and publish a physical anthology of our greatest posts? I checked out various self-publishing companies online. Surprisingly, CafePress turned out to be the best option, since it would allow us to publish the book for free.

The way I envision it is that several of us agree to participate and have a couple of their entries published in the anthology. Since most people (myself included) find it hard to evaluate their own work, we can make suggestions as to what the best entries of our fellow bloggers are and urge them to choose those. That should make for some interesting debates.

The final product would be a paperback, containing hopefully as many as fifty entries in no particular order. Each entry would identify the name (or pseudonym) of the author and the URL of her/his blog. We'd make a nice cover using combined artwork from various blogs, and there would be an introduction at the beginning explaining what the book was.

I don't really see this catching on and becoming profitable. Cafepress lets its merchants specify how much above the base price they want to charge as profit for themselves. My feeling is that there should be no added cost. This makes it cheaper for everyone and avoids the difficulties associated with distributing minute portions of already tiny profits among several people.

In the unlikely event that our œuvre actually becomes popular with the reading public, we can always up the price later or even issue a second revised edition with extra features. Heck, we could even republish it with iUniverse, so people could buy it on Amazon. But I'd just be happy for the book to exist, even if were only purchased by a handful of people. This is something we could do every year.

And it should go without saying that no one's material would ever be included or altered without their permission, and anyone can withdraw at any time (before publication).

So what say you? Is this a cool idea that should be pursued? The plan outlined above is just a rough idea of how we might do it, so if anyone has better ideas or thoughts on the process, we can certainly make changes. The core concept is that there is a lot of phenomenal writing out there in people's blogs that is more than good enough for print and that deserves to be recorded and recognized before it quickly fades away into the forgotten archives and then the ether at the end of the blog's life.

Participation in the book can be as simple or involved as you want. You can do as little as agreeing to let a couple of your entries be published to submitting suggestions for blogs entries and helping with the writing of the introduction and design of the cover, perhaps even administrating the CafePress account yourself.

Just to give you an idea, here is a handful of examples off the top of my head of posts that I think are truly bookworthy:

• cosmo girl!
• The Color Of Intimidation
• In the Hot Seat
• Sigh
• Homesick
• The Legend of Chunderpuss

My Thanksgiving Dinner

Guess the Straight RA

A few weeks back, I went to a University Housing event entitled "Guess the Straight RA". (RA = resident assistant) It served as a forum for discussing issues of sexual orientation on campus and centered around a fun activity where a panel of RAs introduced themselves and answered questions from the audience. Then they left the room, and we got to vote on their respective orientations. The results are pictured above. (Note that this only shows how we voted and not the actual orientations.)

Strangely, no female RAs participated. When I asked why, I was told that not a single RA on campus had been willing to participate. That's kind of odd, but the one RA I know (the one in charge of my floor) has openly stated that she believes homosexuality to be a sin.

My Great-Grandfather

For this week's MP3 I'm going to share with you the audiotrack to a television interview that was done with my great-grandfather when he was ninety-eight. I'm almost too young to have known him. His hundredth birthday occurred when I was just two-and-a-half. That birthday party was the last great family reunion to occur before the different lines went their separate ways. And I remember it -- and him.

I certainly don't recall everything. For example, the drive to California is a complete blank in my mind. What I do remember is having just arrived at his house. My parents were headed to the living room to greet all the relatives, and I was frightened to go into that big room with all those loud strangers. As soon as I appeared at the doorway, all these old ladies started staring at me and going on to each other and to my mother about how adorable I was. It was quite frightening.

Then, from across the room, my great-grandfather said in an authoritative, but very friendly, voice, "Come talk to me, Kinsey". So I did. He was sitting on a sofa (or perhaps an armchair), and I sat at his feet, and we talked. I don't remember a single word of that conversation, but I do remember that he was extremely easy to talk to. He asked me questions and listened to and understood my answers. And I could talk to him, and he would listen. At my age, it was rare to encounter an adult who would or could have a meaningful conversation with me.

He also didn't just talk to me for a couple of minutes and then dismiss me. We talked until we were done. (And considering that all these people were there to celebrate his birthday with him, I find this extraordinary.) The conversation may have ended when my mother brought me a slice of cake, and I was too busy eating to keep talking. By this point, I was no longer the center of attention in the room as I had been upon entering and during the first part of the conversation. I felt a lot safer and no longer had to contend with the old ladies as a group.

My great-grandfather passed away just a few months later. I've always wondered if he took the time to talk to me, so that he would be remembered for another generation. If so, he succeded brilliantly. (I had a grandfather on the other side of the family that I last saw two or three years later and of whom I have no memory at all whatsoever.)

My father has served as the keeper of the family records since he was a child. He's had in his possession, since before my great-grandfather passed away, a couple of reels of tape that were from a television interview of him when he was 98. Without a reel-to-reel tape player, there was no way to play them. A few years back, I purchased a gigantic super-duper multi-function player on eBay. It took me some time to learn how to thread it and adjust the speed, but once I had mastered the technology, we listened to the first reel. As far as we know, this is the only sound recording of his voice ever made.

The second reel was a problem. It just wouldn't play. I finally surmised (by reading the label on it) that it was actually videotape. Apparently videotape used to be threaded onto reels. Who knew? Through a local camera store, my father was able to find a company (the only one remaining in the US) that could convert it to VHS. They took months to complete the task. Of course if we'd waited just a couple more years, we could have had it put on DVD, but I've since taken care of that.

Watching the video that went with the audio was great fun. We were surprised to recognize the chair he was sitting in. My parents inherited a number of pieces of furniture from his household after he passed away, and that was one of the pieces. It still sits in my parents' living room, but it's been in their possession for so long that we barely remembered its origins. It's not very ergonomic and often goes for years without a human being ever sitting in it. (As children, my brother and I used to take turns riding it as we spun it around.) It's really a chair for cats. All cats love sitting on that chair.

So this week's MP3 is the half-hour audio to the interview. Even though he's not related to you, I think the interview will still be interesting to some people. Historically, it's interesting to listen to someone that old talk about the hippy and Vietnam generation. There are more screenshots from the interview below.

Spy on me

I've long been fascinated with keystroke logging programs, not for spying on others, but rather as a means of tracking my own activities. I love gathering information for posterity. (That's why I take so many pictures.) And I think it would be cool to track my online activities at various times and then save the files. Thirty years from now it will be cool to take a look at what I was doing on the computer way back in 2004.

Yesterday I downloaded a thirty-day trial version of a program called ActMon and let it run. It took me awhile to figure out how to get it to generate a report, but once I did, I received an astonishing amount of data on my activities over the course of an hour of computer use. It takes a screenshot every minute, records the URLs of every site visited, and tries to record my keystrokes (but can't because it doesn't know how to cope with a dvorak keyboard).

I won't share the report, since I'm not sure how much sensitive information (such as passwords) may lie buried in it. But the screenshots seem to be safe (slightly embarassing but safe). And the cool part is that they give a thorough documentation showing how I came to post yesterday's entry. (For some reason, the program began tracking me while I was in the middle of a game; that's why there are all those fish pictures.) I've compiled all the screenshots into chronological order here. I may eventually remove this album, since it takes up several megabytes.

Wouldn't this be a great idea for a meme? I'd just love to see the computing activities of my fellow bloggers.

Virgin Mary In Grilled Cheese

I usually save up my interesting links until I can post several at once, but this one is time-sensitive. (The bidding ends tomorrow.)

Proof of the Existence of Trampolines

I finally managed to get some photos of the trampolines here at the U of O. That's what they look like. In the background you should be able to make out the two supercharged yellow trampolines.

I'm very excited, because I will soon be cleared to do backward somersaults without the harness. You can't beat that with a baseball bat.