Liloia.com

Orkut: Please won't you be my neighbor?

If only we humans weren't such connection junkies, we wouldn't feel compelled to join yet another online community. The frustration, contempt, humor and apathy that many people are expressing toward Orkut is due in part because this site, like it's social networking kin, is lacking one of the most basic tools of human connection; the commons.

All networked up with no place to go.

Joining Orkut is not unlike staking your claim to a shiny new house in an exclusive invitation-only neighborhood. Once you're in, you drag in everyone you know. Why? Because it's no fun to sit alone in a network of one. So now I'm in my house, on a street where all of my friends live. But now what? We're all staring out from our shiny new homes, nodding to each other. "Yes, there's Dave. Oh, there's Chris. Look at us, all networked up with no place to go."

You see, I already have established ways of communicating with the people on my Friends list (blogs, email, IM, phone). I don't need a profile page to keep me in contact with Xara or Sooz. I know where to find them. They know where to find me. For the rest of you Non Friends... well, Tara has quite enough on her plate and is not accepting applications for the position of Friend at this time. Thanks for your interest. Seriously, am I going to find a new friend or business associate by "cold calling" people because of some tidbit in an artificial and forced Orkut profile that was created while desperately trying to get through a sixty-page registration process?

There are meeting areas on Orkut, but they are segregated by topic and squirreled away in the depths of Communities. I took a look at my Communities today and realized that for each one I identify and associate myself with, I already have an established method of staying in contact with those people (and make no mistake, they are all the same people) like a listserv, blog or discussion board. There is absolutely no incentive for me to dilute the strength of our group by making contact via this untested, unintuitive venue.

There are probably groups on Orkut that I don't identify with, but that I might be interested in conversing with. Perhaps in the Gay and Lesbian group, they've got a great discussion going about the film Boys Don't Cry. Maybe I wrote my senior thesis on that film and my points would be a welcome addition to the discussion. I'll never know, because I won't see it.

I wouldn't join an Anime group because my interest in that topic is casual. But in a common Orkut meeting area, I might see a post in which someone mentions enjoying Sprited Away and asks for names of similar films. I might jump in and offer Princess Mononoke and we could end up talking about the English screenwriter for the film, Neil Gaiman, a longtime favorite author of mine.

At the intersection of our segregated interests is where we find the richest forms of social connection. Orkut curtails the organic development of the network by forcing us to categorize ourselves very specifically and discouraging general discussion. The stickiest community sites offer a "hang out" area, typically a message board and to a lesser degree a chat room. Where can I "hang out" on Orkut?

There are two types of people in this world, Friends and Not Friends.

I went to David Weinberger's house once for a Dean for America letter writing party. I read his blog(s) and his books. I enjoy his work. But am I his friend? Not really. He might see me in Harvard Square and vaguely remember a girl who sat at his dining room table and whined about the deterioration of her penmanship since the dawn of the computer age, but he doesn't know me. So, landing in that gray area between Friend and Not Friend, David will remain unconnected to me on Orkut.

On the flip side, Clay Johnson is an uber-friend. 1) I trust him. 2) He's very active online. Between those two factors, Clay is someone from whom I need more that just a profile and photo. I want to be able to keep track of what he's posting, who he's reading, who he links to. But on Orkut, he's just a picture with equal weight as every other picture in my network, which is useless to me.

Bring the community to me.

My email comes to my inbox, my RSS feeds come to my desktop aggregator, and my IMs arrive whatever computer I happen to be using at the moment. Even the much-maligned Yahoo Groups allows me to configure messages to arrive with my mail; where I'm already present for much of the day. I refuse to log onto Orkut (which offers no "remember me" cookie) each time I want to interact with my network.

And... the most annoying thing ever... when I receive a message from my network, I'm sent only a notification that I have a message. The text itself is a well-kept secret until I actually go to retrieve it. (This may have changed in the new iteration -- still checking it out.) Don't force me to come to your site, make me want to visit with a rewarding activity.

Come to my exclusive party, bring anyone.

When I heard that Orkut was invitation-only, I was hopeful. I envisioned a cutting-edge online community in which each member is held accountable for the actions of those they invite. Inviting someone implies that you vouch for them. The network grows more slowly, but with carefully selected entrants. And members are less tolerant of abusive behavior when it has negative consequences on their own membership. Think hard, do you really want to invite Crazy Bob the Network Admin? He tends to flame people whenever the subject of Janeway vs. Sisko comes up. Do you really want to ask Karen to join? She has a tendency to forward all of her funny spam to the anyone whose email she can get her hands on. Do you want to be held accountable for those two?

But that's not what Orkut is about. It's rather like those slick sidewalk guys handing out photocopied flyer invitations to an "exclusive" loft party downtown. Sure, you can only get in with an invitation, but every nutcase in town can get one. You can even buy them on eBay. The invitation part seems to have been just a ploy to get the mavens and their connected friends in the door first. Invite technorati, let them play, sit back and watch buzz unfold. Too bad the buzz seems to have a little sting to it.

Pickled Dragon anyone?

Ok, the story listed in the article this picture comes from is weird enough as it is, but we can do better.

I am looking for the best quote to go along with this picture, that doesn't specifically refer to the original story. The winner will receive one free visit to Liloia.com...wow you won! Good Luck.

What gives?

The latest news out of Burlington does not inspire much confidence (so far) — and I'm a Dean supporter. The only primary sources of information are the uninformative prepared statements on the campaign blog. All I want are answers to questions that are none of my business. But the campaign is not the candidate and I still back Howard Dean. So does Trevor.

During my sojourn at Dean HQ, I never met Joe Trippi. I met his dog... nice dog, quiet dog. And I heard his wife on the phone in a nearby cube... nice wife, not-so-quiet.

Olivier likens the campaign to a slinking ship. I don't believe this is a disaster of Titanic proportions, but there's a shark in the water and Arthur Fonzarelli is getting his waterskis on.

Oh and "Sources told CNN that staffers have been told paychecks would be delayed for two weeks." Clay, I hope you held onto some of those Trader Joe's snacks. Looks like you may need them in the coming weeks.

Move out already!

Goalie's Chelsea souvenir washed away by mum

The lesson of this story is that perhaps 23 is too old to have your mom doing your laundry.

Dean blogosphere lost and found?

I lost my digital camera at the 2am Dean rally in Portsmouth last week. I had it right up until the end -- I got a great parting shot of Mathew Gross working on his MT page, blogging the event. But when I got home, it was gone. I suspect it fell out of my purse in the shuttle back to the parking lot. I was carrying so much, it could have easily been left on the seat without being missed.

So... we've got this huge network of bloggers covering the Dean campaign, I thought I might make a plea to all of you. If you found a camera at the Portsmouth rally; a Kodak EasyShare, no strap, containing pictures of a little boy in an orange jacket and lots of fangirl photos of Mathew Gross, please let me know. I'll pay for shipping it to Boston, I'll even take you out to dinner. I just feel like one of my essential blogging tools is missing -- especially since Dave has been happily moblogging away.

It's a cheap camera, I could probably replace it out of the savings account. There wasn't much sentimental value either, (I mean, how many pictures of Trevor does one person need?), but it's the aggravation factor that's killing me. It's not even a month old and I've been without a digital camera for over a year while I saved my extra money for this one. Now, *poof*.

Maybe someone who reads Liloia.com will pass this post along to the person who found my little generic camera. Who knows... stranger things have happened in the blogosphere.

Planning for the future?

"From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go," says O'Neill, who adds that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11."

-- "Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq?", CBS News

Disappointed green pea watches be-back leave.

"Confessions of a Car Salesman" is a phenomenally long article, but it's also a must read if you're even thinking about setting foot on a car dealership lot any time soon. It could save you thousands of dollars.

If you don't have time to spare, at the very least, skip to the tips at the end of the article.

Dean Machine

We are coming back baby!

*****

Kerry Lead Shrinks to Three Points in New Hampshire

Jan 26, 12:31 PM (ET)

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

MANCHESTER, N.H. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential contender John Kerry holds a shrinking three-point lead over Howard Dean on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, according to a Reuters/MSNBC/Zogby poll released Monday.

Dean shaved four points off Kerry's advantage in the latest three-day tracking poll, as supporters who wavered after his dismal third-place Iowa finish and screaming concession speech appeared to be returning to the fold.

Kerry led Dean 31 percent to 28 percent in the new poll, with John Edwards jumping three points to narrowly trail Wesley Clark for third place, 13 percent to 12 percent. Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman remained static at 9 percent.

"There is no question that the race has tightened up," pollster John Zogby said. "Dean stopped the bleeding in the middle of the week and he has slowly regained some of the support he had lost."

**********

Hang in there, Kerry still has time to self destruct. Apparently he doesn't think much of the South. Me, I love it. :)

Mistake of Looking South

During a town hall meeting on the Dartmouth campus, Kerry noted that former Vice President Al Gore would be president if he'd won any number of other non-Southern states in 2000, including New Hampshire, West Virginia, and Ohio.

"Everybody always makes the mistake of looking South," Kerry said, in response to a question about winning the region. "Al Gore proved he could have been president of the United States without winning one Southern state, including his own."

"I think the fight is all over this country," Kerry said. "Forget about those red and blue states. We're going to change that now, and we're going to go out there and change the face of America."

Kerry spokesman David Wade insisted Kerry thinks campaigning in the South, "is important, too. Fritz Hollings [D-S.C.] wouldn't have endorsed John Kerry if he didn't believe he was committed to, and would and could carry states in the South against George Bush."

Wade noted that the minority leader of the South Carolina state house and former Georgia Democratic Sen. Max Cleland has endorsed Kerry and is campaigning on his behalf.

In addition, Kerry will travel to South Carolina late this week to campaign and take part in Thursday night's debate

Pinewood Derby

Ahhh, memories. Torrey (genomebasher for frequent readers here) and his son spent the last few weeks building their car for the Pinewood Derby at his cub pack's meeting this past Friday night. Just talking about it brought back a lot of fun memories that I have of making my cars with my dad.

Here is his car. I gotta give this kid mad props for putting a stormtrooper in the car as the dirver. Hardcore.

Ow.

I think I am getting a sinus headache, although I don't know what they feel like. It kind of feels like I am both stuffy and not stuffed up at the same time. Also, do you know the feeling you get when you go swimming and accidentally get water up your nose?

The cold air walking to the train in the morning is what is really bothering me. Tara grabbed a scarf for me last week, which is awesome but sometimes it feels like I need a whole mask and goggles. My eyes feel like they are starting to gel and freeze when the wind picks up. Then I get to the train, all bundled up and there is a guy walking from his car in a windbreaker. Man, that makes me feel like I am the biggest tool. I feel like the kid in "Christmas Story" wearing the snow suit.

Dean Supporters, Don't Give Up...

Even though he's in the Clark camp, Michael Moore has some encouraging words for Dean supporters.

"...let's tip our hats to Deaniacs everywhere. They've set the tone and the bar and have jump-started the movement to save our country. Good friends in the Dean camp, please don't give up. We need you now and we will need you in November."

I used to be a quilter.

It's not quilting I dislike, but the obstacles to quilting. Maybe you're imagining Betsy Ross in a corner rocker stitching together scraps of fabric, but that's not quilting in 2004. There are 3'-by-4' acrylic cutting mats and razor sharp wheels for slicing fabric strips. There are sewing machines that cost more than your first car and a mystifying technique that goes by the intimidating name of "stack and whack".

The limiting factor, (besides the insane amount of money it takes to keep up on these things), is space. The underside of my bookshelf houses two large tubs of fabric, in addition to the other two supply boxes in the basement.

Contrary to what Eleanor Burns thinks, quilts take more than a day. But it turns out that your family can't do without the kitchen table for weeks on end. And if you leave the project on the coffee table you'd better make sure that the pattern calls for coffee rings and crusted cereal embellishments. My friends have sewing rooms and tables dedicated to their craft; I can barely get a table dedicated to dinner or a desk that doesn't succumb to the clutter of 23 magazine subscriptions.

I've been summoned by the allure of knitting. Two needles and a ball of yarn... how much more simple can you get? No gridded rulers, freezer paper, or 1/4 inch masking tape. And at the very least, when the apocalypse hits, everyone will want me in their tribe. After all, I can make clothing out of string.

Soup

Who knew that making soup from scratch was this easy? (Well, I suppose pioneer people knew.) Yesterday, I made about 20 servings of soup using about fifty cents' worth of ingredients.

You just:
1) Chop up and saute a bunch of vegetables. Turnips are key.
2) Thow in boiling water or broth with spices.

Simmer for a while and you've got a huge pot of excellent soup.

What's up with that?

You're HOW old?

Tell me your name, and I can automagically tell you your birthday and zip code. No... really.

My secret is AnyBirthday.com's database of 135 million public records.

I put in the first and last name of a certain favorite author of mine and received his zip code and birthday in return. A quick search on Google reveals that this data was publicly available anyway, but you may want to opt out if this kind of information sharing makes you squeamish.

Tool Piracy

Today in a back issue of Wired that has been sitting in my inbox (an actual basket with papers in it... remember those?) for weeks, I saw a tidbit, little more than a glossary entry, about tool piracy:
"Coined by tool supplier Stots to describe the illegal sharing of woodwoorking jig tempates. Stots sells a template with a license agreement glued to it."

A few people have talked about the copyright implications of this license, but there is also an important marketing and consumer behavior lesson here.

Woodworking jig tempates are decidedly unsexy, but tool piracy illustrates the fact that people, by nature, want to share. Depending on the basis of your business model, sometimes you call this viral and sometimes you call it piracy. Develop your product with sharing in mind and yours will be a ubiquitous product. Develop it for exclusive use, and you'll have a big fight on your hands, trying to stop human nature.

Boy... not right.

This is Trevor's uncannily good likeness of Robot Jones. The head is so big because it's about to blow up. Heh.

Late

It's 2 AM and I am still awake. Wide Awake. We watched a slew of movies today, played with the boy, made pancakes and ran up to Medford for some Krispy Kreme. I gotta try to go to sleep now because in 11 hours Michelle is picking me up to go see LOTR....again.

Night.

Upgrade

I just upgraded the site to the new version of Movable Type which was primarily released to handle spam comments and spam trackbacks. Hopefully I start to see an improvement in that soon. We haven't gotten too many of them, but the ones we do get are a pain.

Oh, and I am using orkut now too. It is pretty cool so far, but time will tell if it is of any use.

Orkut and you... and you and you and you.

I've been exploring Orkut this morning, and Dutch vulgarities aside, the interface and features are definitely better than Friendster. Orkut is faster (at least for now), more intuitive, and the communities/forums are more easily accessible.

I'm not sure what the scrapbook function is for. I didn't find an explanation in the help files, nor was it apparent from looking at other people's scraps. Is it used like a guestbook or a journal?

But, like Friendster, Orkut has yet to prove its usefulness in making social connections easier. After several months of Friendster use, I have yet to meet a new person; however, just a few weeks after joining Boston People Connection, Dave and I had both made about ten new acquaintances each. All of which we have since met in person. Perhaps Friendster and Orkut focus on the connection at the expense of action?

Helicopters

I said way back here, that there were an insane number of helicopter crashes.

Now look at this. Someone finally put the list together for us to see all at once. Isn't this insane? What are we doing wrong? Why are we even over there?

For anyone serving there now, or who may have served in the past, thank you. That said, I can't stand this war. Get out.

Hurm

I don't know if I should be disturbed or amused by this.

Five for Friday

I usually don't subject anyone to the Friday Five because the questions always seem a little... how to put this... AOL. But someone left their coffee packet in the hot water maker and I ended up with coffee oatmeal this morning. Rather than waste it, I ate it. (What a time saver... your cuppa, with plenty of fiber.) So now I have a surplus of jittery energy, which is exactly what you need to get through the inanity of the Friday Five.

At this moment, what is your favorite...

1. ...song?
If there was one that I had to listen to over and over again, it would probably be Enya singing The Council of Elrond from the Lord of the Rings soundtrack. It's scary and lovely and regal with just a touch of lighthearted hobbitness stuck on the end.

2. ...food?
Suicidal Germans and half-and-half.

3. ...tv show?
Television is a weird thing with me. I don't like most of it. I don't have any shows that I keep appointments with. But I watch an awful lot of crappy television because I want to comment on it (and I'm a pop culture junkie). I used to swear by The West Wing, but it turns out that I loved the spitfire Sorkin dialogue and now the show just drags for me. I used to like Six Feet Under and Curb Your Enthusiasm, but we got rid of HBO. I guess I like Samurai Jack, but (as wth most cartoons) you'll find more reruns than new episodes in the time slot. I will sheepishly admit to watching Teen Titans and being a little excited when the new one comes on. And I end up watching Justice League far more than I intend to, simply because of my proximity to the boys. But I make sarcastic comments a la, "Why doesn't The Flash just run over there really fast and rescue everyone?" and waxing prosaic about Batman's inability to fly, so they ask me to shut up. I like Unwrapped, because I love peeking into factories. Probably some sort of genetic thing inherited from my father. I would watch a show about a chicken processing plant in rapture. I've been watching the NASA Channel in amazement recently, but only because of how incredibly boring they've managed to make science. And I'll flip on Dateline from time to time so I know what I'm supposed to be outraged about this week.

4. ...scent?
Jet fuel and swedish meatballs -- especially when it's right around Exit 13A off the NJ Turnpike. You know what's there. Yeah, you do.

5. ...quote?
The response to this incredulous question of why the teenage all-star cheerleader was nude in a room with two men:

"I cannot understand why any girl would go to a guy's motel room if she didn't know him!!"
"Because the other guests complain when you have sex in the lobby."

Too good not to share.

Dave lets us in on the story behind the Dean Scream.

I am Howard Dean.

I had a scream.

Email isn't the only way the Dean Scream is being co-opted and distributed. Seth is right that the mixes were "passed from person to person, with no help from Yahoo or Google," but for many of us, the method transmission was our aggregators and blogrolls, not email.

I had listened to three of these mixes by early afternoon -- all of them linked on weblogs. (Song files are still a whit too large to pass freely to friends via email.)

Here are just a few of the Dean Scream mix posts that ended up in front of my eyeballs via the blogosphere:

• Doc Searls
  
• Big Rick
  
• Lileks.com (actual song file)
  
• Cory Doctorow
  
• Ben Hammersley
  
• Jonathan Barlow
  
• Jim Treacher
  
• Jason Schultz
  
• Derek Slater
  

UPDATE:
Add this mix to the list -- it's potentially the catchiest one so far: (Thanks, Rick.)
Rob Base, DJ EZ Rock, Howard Dean "It Takes Two" www.bigrick.fm remix

Thursday

I can't believe that today is Thursday already. My sisters birthday was two days ago and I still haven't called her. I have been having another one of those weeks where my life is one long line of meetings after meetings followed up by going home at night to fall over. I am an awful brother.

I am in a meeting right now (#2 of 5 today - when am I supposed to get my work done?) where we are training on yet another business application that is supposed to help me organize my sales data. I am skeptical about it since we have three other applications that are currently used. What makes this one better, or more accurate? It does allow me to change skins which is neat, and it allows me to write my own reports, but we will see.

I have to call Sarah today otherwise she will probably banish me from her life, well maybe that is an extreme statement, but I do need to call her. Sorry Sarah, Happy Birthday.

Just Showing Up

At 9:30pm Boston time, a little voice, husky with sleep, wakes me up.

"Mommy, I'm tired of sleeping."

I sit up and check the clock. He's been asleep for over three hours -- about as good a 'nap' as he's had in two years.

"Okay," I say. "You can read quietly in your bed." He pads away without a response. I think it was a better answer than he expected from me.

I wonder if any Iowa results are in and I turn the television on, volume muted. Dave stirs beside me.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you up. I just want to check the caucus results."

On CSPAN, a ponytailed man in Dubuque is tallying numbers in the closed captioning on the bottom of my screen.

"1220 FOR KERRY, WHICH TRANSLATES TO 5.8 DELEGATES. WE ROUND THAT UP -- IT SAYS HERE IN THE RULES -- TO SIX."

1220 for Kerry? I think to myself. What does that mean? Is that relatively good or relatively bad? The man keeps speaking and the subtitles don't quite match up with his lips.

"SO WE'VE ENDED UP WITH SIX DELEGATES FOR KERRY, 2.4 FOR EDWARDS AND 2.1 FOR DEAN."

"Did he just say 2.1? That can't be right," I think, remembering the masses of orange hats peppering the newscasts and blog pictures this week.

Dave climbs over me and heads for the kitchen.

"I need a drink. It's hot in here."

And it is. These old radiators suck all of the moisture out of the house at night. I turn the volume on, since Dave's awake anyway. The ponytailed man is in the midst of some arcane calculation that involves the number of Kerry supporters multiplied by the volume of a sphere, divided by the angle of the moon's declension. I'm suddenly angry at the entire state of Iowa. "Why is the process so complicated?" I huff toward the kitchen. "How is anyone supposed to understand it, let alone win it?"

Dave comes back into the bedroom, chugging a liter of seltzer. He offers me some, but I decline. I'm overheated and not quite ready to cool down yet.

"Look at this crap," I mutter. "They're sending in the votes and people are still coming in. People are still coming in!" I don't understand what I'm watching and neither does he. I flip channels and stop at every program with a news ticker across the bottom. Some well-coiffed chick is asking an old white guy, "How could this happen to Dean?" The old white guy is clearly gloating -- a closet Kerry supporter I suppose, "Well Lisa, it was all of the mistakes he made in the last week..." I talk over his next words.

"Mistakes... what mistakes!" I pick up a koosh ball from the night stand and fling it at the television. "Mistakes, my ass!" Dave laughs his sore-throaty laugh. He's loud enough that Trevor comes back into the bedroom and starts to snack on the pepperoni and cheese that Dave has brought in. Dean has conceded the Iowa caucus to Kerry, but in my house, all eyes are on me with an unasked question: Are we still going?

A midnight trip to New Hampshire is on the line. We're supposed to join the group that's meeting Howard Dean's plane as he arrives to kick off the NH caucus. Dave will go if I ask him to -- he knows it's important to me -- but he's clearly dreaming about an alternate future in which he gets to sleep through the night. I'm thinking about it too. This trip will cost us a lot. Not financially, although certainly gas and coffee money will be spent, but in terms of lost sleep, a groggy workday and a convoluted school schedule. It would be so easy to cancel the trip and get the family back on schedule.

Dave is wondering about my answer and I stall him. "I'm writing a post," I say. "I'll let you know when it's done." Average Joe comes on and the geeks buy me some time. Dave and Trevor don't know it yet, but we're still going to New Hampshire tonight, because you don't abandon your man when he's down. You don't let the guy arrive to a halfhearted welcome after a night like the one he's just had. You don't say, "I'm sorry, democracy, I have to work tomorrow. Too bad free speech, I'm a little tired tonight."

We're all going to be dragging on Tuesday, and some of us may have to take a half-day, but it's for a good phenomenal cause. I don't wield a weapon in the desert to defend democracy, I don't run for public office to protect liberty. I write to create the America I see in my mind. I write letters to caucus-goers in Iowa, I write notes to strangers in New Hampshire. I write encouraging emails to fellow supporters and I write emphatic letters to editors of local newspapers. I write little checks to Dean for America and I write exceedingly long posts on Liloia.com. And tonight, I'm going to work to make life better for my child, my family, and my country by just showing up. I hope to see you there.

Tara

ChannelDean

The battle to be an informed voter in the information age is a time-consuming one. It entails sifting through thousands of search results and clicking through a lengthy blogroll daily in order to stay up-to-date.

Dave Winer has created a tool to transform the information-collecting task from a hunt and gather activity to something more like a greenhouse, with fruits ripe for the picking. ChannelDean is a political newsfeed assembled by Mathew Gross and editors affiliated with the Dean campaign. As a Dean supporter, the Dean bias in the feed suits me just fine. Your mileage may vary.

ChannelDean Feed
ChannelDean FAQ

Linkin Park

Last night I headed out to the Centrum Center out in Worcester for the Linkin Park show. We started out meeting some other Linkin Park Underground members at an Applebee's accross the street from the theatre.

Most everyone was cool, and we all had a good time. It was actually nice to meet Dave and Nate. Isil..can you send me their email addy's? Smart guys who work in science and technology. It's hard to meet other geeks sometimes. More on that topic in another post.

I tried to sneak into the Linkin Park Meet and Greet. No luck. Someone has a picture of me trying to sweet talk the ticket agent who was so cold that Kelvin couldn't appropriately calculate her mood. Next time perhaps.

Story of the Year was awful. I am sorry to those people that like them. Their music is choppy and their stage presence is painful to watch. Who does the windmill anymore? Their one redeeming moment was a passable rendition of "Enter Sandman" that had Paul and I thrashing.

Hoobastank on the other hand was great. I loved their sound and they were tight on the stage. Also, they seem to have a large following of young women. I think I will have to go see them again. :)

POD was ok. That's all I can say.

Linkin Park was AWESOME!

They are one of the few bands that actually sounds better live than they do on CD. Their enthusiasm drove the concert, particularly seeing Mike Shinoda smile everytime the crowd got riled up. Unfortunately for me, I knew all the lyrics, moshed in all the pits and forced my way up to the front of the crowd. Today I have no voice, my legs are killing me, and I am pretty sure that I was punched in the face twice last night. Man, it has been a long time since I have been to a concert that cool.

After the show I was insanely tired, sweaty and dehydrated. On the way out I grabbed a blueberry slushy.

For more pictures, check out my moblog

FurnaceCompare

My friend Chris has started a pretty cool website that I thought I would share with you.

The site is called FurnaceCompare and for those of you that own homes or are thinking about buying/building a home this is a great tool. Chris collects data on thousands of brands of furnaces including safety ratings, efficiency, manufacturer, etc, etc.

If you have to buy/upgrade your furnace or are picking one for a new construction this is the way to go. For 9 bucks you can find out if the furnace your contractor is offering you is great, or just a dud. I think that it is probably worth the 9 bucks now instead of 1000 later on. Anyway, not to be too much of a commercial, check it out.

Triple Play

My cousin Donna was published in the Cape Cod Times this weekend with an article about life with triplets:

"Holding three sippy cups of milk, 12 hours after the day began, I open the same door, they look at me, their smiles get bigger and they all say "Mommy!" Yes, it's Mommy they want now. They want to be cuddled, to be sung to, to be read a story. And so I sit on the floor to sing to them, because with three on my lap, we don't fit on a rocking chair."

Tapioca Cravings

Hey -- Where could a girl get a cup of bubble tea in Boston?

Teacher's Pet

Trevor and I just got out of seeing Teacher's Pet, because if you can't go to a Linkin Park concert, a musical Disney cartoon starring Nathan Lane is nearly as good. (Okay, maybe not, but I'll take what I can get.)

The movie was innocuous and cute, but not terribly funny. Trevor cackled at the previews for the upcoming Garfield movie, but I didn't hear him laugh at all during Teacher's Pet. He gave me a wary smile when the cat's skin peeled back to reveal a screaming cat skull, as if to say, "I liked that, is that okay?"

Nathan Lane is always fun to watch (or in this case, hear) because he injects a lot of energy into his performances. There were also many other talented people in the cast, like Kelsey Grammer, Jerry Stiller, Megan Mullally and Estelle Harris. Enough talented actors that I hoped to be dazzled, but ended up feeling only mildly satisfied.

I was, however, impressed by the catchy musical numbers that no one felt the need to stretch to gargantuan proportions. Why make a five minute song when 30 seconds will tell the story just as well? Sometimes just a dab will do ya.

As a Disney picture, expect to see a plethora of self-deprecating-but-not-really Disney jokes and a distinct hammering home of the Pinnochio Gambit. Rated PG, but nothing offensive, short enough that a preschooler can last without a bathroom trip. Bring your Palm and maybe organize something while you're sitting there. You're probably not going to want this one on DVD.

Max and Jinx, friends forever.

With my Winamp playlist on random, I suddenly stumbled on the main title to the movie SpaceCamp. What a great movie that was. (Caveat: The last time I saw it was around 1988, so my opinion is basically that of a fourteen-year-old.)

Back then, space shuttles were new and cool and didn't blow up every decade or so because of defective parts or flying foam chunks. We all wanted to be space shuttle pilots. Space was cool and clean and technological and sexy.

Now we know from the NASA Channel that space is boring and grungy. It's dirty because you can't wash properly. It's dangerous, but not in a cool way. Very Important Things break constantly because the Russian mafia fills it's pockets with space program funding and because some dude in Michigan wasn't paying attention while making a shuttle piece. There's not enough funding to replace aging parts and shuttle computer systems are almost as old as I am.

In 1988, all I wanted was to be accidentally launched into space with a crew of pre-teen geeks. In 2004, I imagine the shuttle would hit T-minus One and fall creaking onto it's side in the Cape Canaveral dust.

Where is the love?

"He [Congressman and Speaker of the House J. Dennis Hastert] spends his jam-packed days meeting with leaders from the most powerful organizations and corporations in the country. He can't afford to take an interest in your opinion..." --San Francisco Chronicle

If letters to my Congressman are tossed into the garbage unopened any my phone calls are met with the faux-sympathetic agreement of an apathetic intern who is thinking about lunch, then how do I voice my opinon? How do I get represented like I was promised in this farce of a democracy? The American political system is on the fast road to becoming one big Greek tragedy. I wouldn't be surprised if someone managed to get their eyes gouged out by the end of it all.

For dad and his collection of new, unwrapped dress shirts from 1979.

This article could have been just as accurately titled, "17 Reasons Why My Republican Father Likes Howard Dean."

More! Words! Free!

I just started consistently reading my blogroll within an aggregator (FeedDemon) and I agree with the recent complaint that excerpts are annoying. I've changed the RSS feed on Liloia.com to include entire posts (with formatting). This may be one of those instances where you solve one problem only to create three more, but it looks good in my aggregator. Tell me if it doesn't work in yours.

Interpreter of Maladies

The first meeting of our as-yet-untitled monthly book club went stupendously. For some reason, I had assumed that The Good Life was a bookstore. Book club... bookstore. Not much of a stretch, right? But the lovely bonus of meeting in a bar are the plentiful martinis. (I tried bringing my Absolut Cosmo into the library once, but they weren't very appreciative of my good taste in mixed drinks. Even when I promised to share.)

According to last night's oh-so-scientific sample, if you gather twelve strangers around a table in Boston, 50% of them will be involved in information technology. The other half will be too far away for you to hear. And... like any book club worth it's salt, we only spent about 20% of the time talking about the book.

Question

Does anyone know of a good app (script) that can be put on a site to collect referer information? We had one up on the site for the last few months, but I didn't really like it and it kept breaking our code. I am looking for something that will give us info like "If someone came from Google, what did they search for to get to us."

Punk Rock Aerobics

Working out isn't just for house frau's anymore.

PuNk RoCk AeRoBiCs

One more thing.

Oh yeah, and don't forget.

Dean for America

6 days to Iowa!

Can't wait

until this week is over. I have been leaving the house before 6 and getting home around 6:30 every day. Then I stay up and do homework at night, either for class or as an attempt to keep on top of the work I am missing.

They told us today that class will end tomorrow. Thankfully. I'll be able to get two good nights sleep before I go to the Linkin Park concert on Saturday night. I signed up today for the meet and greet that the band has with it's fan club members before each show. The chances that I will get in are pretty good, so I am stoked. In honor of LP I will go moblog a picture of them from somewhere.

Training

Working with scientists is not always a good thing. Today one of our classmates excitedly jumped up and took over our class in order to work out all the mathematics to describe the probability of two power sources in a machine both failing at the same time.

Suffice it to say, the answer was .071% Whew!

Morning.

Tuesday morning. Arrived at work before 7 AM this morning so I could get through all of my emails before heading down to day 2 of Six Sigma training. And guess what? I actually accomplished my goal! There are still things that I need to do, but nothing urgent so I can hold off or try to do it during class today.

One thing that I am finding is that most people never deliver according to the deadlines that people set out for them. It seems to be the standard of most organizations that I have witnessed for people to basically blow things off. This only confirms my belief that the world is filled with a bunch of slackers. :) Honestly, I am addicted to responding to all of my emails immediately, prioritizing my work and being on time with my required projects. The general population here has definitely had it's effect on me, so I am relaxed enough to not stress about everything, but I still work my a** off.

On a related note, last night I came home after being in training all day long and had about this much work to do (Dave holds hands three feet apart). I didn't even open a single folder. The three of us were all in a giggly mood and we goofed around at dinner and then spent some time afterwards making cookies and cleaning the hamster cage. It was really nice. I am hoping to leave about the same time today and avoid work tonight as well!

Moblogging

I was crawling around Bradleys Almanac after finding him via Boston Common and I came across this. fun fun. This is a moblog for camera phones and guess what? I have one! Clay had setup something like this for us a while back which was text based, but this is a whole new fun thing. I can't wait to try it out tomorrow on the way to work.

Go take a look.

Six Sigma

Starting tomorrow I will be attending full day training classes to obtain my green belt in Six Sigma. I know it sounds like I am working on some martial arts degree, but in actuality this is going to be a really great thing for my career.

Six Sigma is a continuos improvement philosophy which is used by companies to study different processes within thier organizations and to improve performance or save money. This philosophy was developed mostly by Motorola and Allied Signal in the 80's and 90's, but Six Sigma really got the most press coverage as Jack Welch used it to create significant savings for GE in the 90's.

There have and still are a lot of other processes out there to improve a companies performance, but as far as I can tell Six Sigma is the most comprehensive and includes as part of it the idea that you need to add incentives for your employees to adopt this new mindset and implement it into their daily lives.

I am pretty stoked about getting this training and becoming an official member of the Six Sigma community. I have participated in numerous projects in the past and I am personally a fan of the continuous improvement that this can have for an organization (I admit it, I have read about 6 books on my own about 6 sig..)

Wish me luck, and I will update the blog with more information about my project as it comes together.

Dean For America

1000th Satisfied Customer: Me

The Google Toolbar: Thwarting advertisers across the globe.

The S Factor in Action

American Candidate is an upcoming reality show in which viewers will vote for a candidate for the next presidential election:

"The show will debut in Summer 2004 with 12 contestants from all walks of life. Over the course of the series, those 12 will face off against each other and will be narrowed down through audience participation. The final episode will be a showdown among the remaining contestants, and one person will emerge victorious — the "American Candidate."

Haven't we learned the folly of televised democracy yet? When you let the masses decide, you get the Least Common Denominator result. You get the thing that's least offensive, yet least interesting (Kelly Clarkson, Clay Aiken, Reuben Studdard). You get mediocrity (Stolen Summer). You get the thing that's nice to look at and doesn't challenge anyone in an uncomfortable way (Jenna Morasca). You get the feel good winner (Eddie McGee).

The show's producer likens the entry of the American Candidate into the presidential race to Nader's 2000 run. We can only pray that the person chosen is a republican.

Oh yeah? Well, my President can eat three pounds of mealworms in two minutes!

I would not, could not like this flick.

I wanted so badly to triumphantly return to my site and proclaim that the critics had completely missed the humor in The Cat in the Hat. I wanted nothing more than to tell everyone how much I loved this movie and why most reviews were dead wrong.

It is with a heavy heart that I must report that The Cat in the Hat was one of the worst movies I've seen this year (2003). And I knew what I was getting into. I read the reviews, I heard the buzz and the anti-buzz, but I had to see for myself. It was the "Ew, this is rotten." "Really? Lemme smell," instinct. And it was rotten.

The entire premise of the movie is flawed. It's built on the idea that jumping on couches is so much fun that kids are willing to give anything to partake, which is unbelieveable and monotonous. Now if the kids were vying for a chance to play with an X-Box, I'd believe it.

Mike Meyers never really seemed to find his comedic footing as The Cat. That feline was devoid of personality until it came time for a parody. But even the parodies were overly long, uninspired, and left cleverness by the roadside. The jokes were the kind that might have ended up on Dave Letterman's George W. Bush's Joke That Isn't Really A Joke list. Like this:

Cat: (lying on the floor after falling from the ceiling) See? Cats always land on their tushie!
Kid: I thought they landed on their feet.
Cat: Now you tell me!

Hilarious stuff, eh?

It only gets worse, with a collection of nose-picking, navel-digging, vomiting, hairball-spitting, sneezing-on-hand and booger-grabbing gags. Did the Farrelly brothers make this movie?

And though I always appreciate a few jokes and innuendos tossed into kids movies for the parents, I do not appreciate raunchy humor that my child is going to A) understand or B) mimic later. Not once, but twice the Cat begins to loudly exclaim, "Son of a Bi--!" The first time, he's cut off, the second time he's beeped out. Not very subtle.

On the bright side, Amy Hill gave a stellar performance as the lethargic Mrs. Kwan. She has amazing range, alternately playing a paperweight, throw rug, couch cushion, and flotation device.

And... at the very least, it's a short movie.

Brrr

Dang it's cold out there. Can we move to Florida for a week? :(

I resemble that remark.

An anti-Dean ad currently airing in Iowa:

"I think Howard Dean should take his tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show back to Vermont—where it belongs."

How absolutely absurd. Everyone knows that tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freaks drive Jettas and Passats.

Don't Wash Your Face

As if there wasn't enough in this world to scare you silly...

New research finds that tiny amoebas, common in clean tap water, can burrow into your eyes and blind you.

Scientists advise keeping tap water AWAY from your eyes. And while you're at it, don't breathe too often.

Puter's Hosed.

A long, long time ago in a land far, far away...(ok so it was Madison, WI) Tara and I worked for SITEL providing technical support for AT&T World Net ISP. This was waaaaay back in the land of 1997 when the internet was relatively new to the public. I had played as a young man on BBS's and the original Prodigy dial up (this was probably 1985-6 but I claim no accuracy of the date) placing fake orders on the Sears Electronic catalog.

When a customer called up and clearly had a computer that was severly broken, we would jokingly state (after we were off the phone of course!) "dude, your 'puter is hosed!"

Well guess what...mine is fully hosed.

I came back to work yesterday, slapped my laptop into the docking station and booted it up. and up. and up...it kept looping the windows splash screen. Ugh. This week is a really busy one, I have a lot to do. I was on vacation for the last week and then next week I am in Six Sigma training all week.

For the last two days I have been popping into people's cubes that are away from their desks, or out for the day so I can get some work done. All my music is gone, preferences, favorites, ugh.

A Typical Night

For Christmas, my mother gave me a caramel apple kit and Dave gave me a kitchen blowtorch. And so, yet another Liloia evening was spent coating things in caramel and lighting them on fire.

I never promised you a rose garden...

Salary arbitrage means that a guy in Manila will do your job for a tenth of your salary. It's not his fault, he just wants to make a living, same as you. But he can offer his services for pennies on the dollar because he doesn't live in a state with the third-highest cost of living in the country.

Is it really unfair (or surprising) of companies to seek the cheapest source for their human capital? After all, we don't fault them for choosing one-ply toilet tissue for the company restrooms or cheap coffee for the kitchen. No one ever said the primary responsibility of a corporation was to hand you a check twice a month. This outsourcing outrage is as fruitless as being angry at a snake for being a snake. People who want to stop this trend need to think of a way to incentivize (Ah 1999, I miss you. *sigh*) corporations to use homegrown talent. (And tone down the patriotic rhetoric that smacks of nationalist zeal.)

New to You

Have a hop over to LuckyPlate.com, which was just added to our Blogroll. It's a brand new site from my friend, co-worker, and sometimes even supervisor, Kathleen. K2 plans to meld academic and recreational topics in her blog. I, for one, will be tuning in to catch any posted photos of her faboo kitchen as well.

K2 has a PhD, but don't let that intimidate you. Any doctor who can use a self-created words like "stoopie" and "numbidy" in normal conversation and still sound intelligent is OK in my book. And you have not lived until you've seen her swanky moves on a trampoline.

Sunday Debate

I just finished watching the democratic presedential debate in Iowa, and I am glad to say that my candidate, Mr. Howard Dean seemed to come out on top. With Wesley Clark and Al Sharpton not in attendance the six nominees in attendance focused on a few keys issues:

• Healthcare
• Foriegn Policy (Current War in Iraq)
• The Economy
• Bush

4 of the 5 candidates in attendance focused a lot of attention towards questioning Howard Dean, his proposed policies and his track record. For almost every instance he held up well and answered effectively. Their combined efforts in challenging Dean's campaign caused the following to occur:

Dean was able to get a lot of face time during the debate. This will help those who had the opportunity to watch the debate a chance to get to know him better.

The American people were able to see that the other candidates clearly view Dean as a threat to their nomination, and that he is a strong candidate that needs to be considered if they haven't already.

Go Dean Go!!

That sinking feeling, with a beat you can dance to.

http://www.ericblumrich.com/gta.html

The Da Vinci Code

I flew through this book with such relish that I was done within 24 hours of cracking the cover. At its core, The Da Vinci Code is a mystery, but it's such a smart one that I didn't get my usual "I hate mysteries" heebie jeebies. The story is packed full of unique keys, secret codes, hidden hiding places and secret societies. And who doesn't love a good secret society?

Dan Brown clearly did some hefty research for this novel, but I think it shows (off) a little too often. There's a bit too much, "Hey, look what I learned!" mixed in with the fiction. Sometimes it's even hard to tell the two apart — but that's not a horrible thing, this is not meant to be a textbook, after all. It was deliciously decadent to slip into the role of questioning the motives of one of the most firmly-rooted establishments in the world; the Church.

The plot is intricate and fast-paced, which draws your attention away from the one-dimensional characters. And the cliffhangers, admittedly transparent gimmicks, do what they're supposed to do — they make you want to read the book faster.

The Da Vinci Code is fantastic for what it's meant to be... an entertaining read. Anyone who criticizes it for being plot-driven or inaccurate is just being pompous and biased against popular fiction.

What DID we do?

Dave just brought to my attention that I went to Netflix.com and checked my rental queue to find out which three movies are sitting fifteen feet away in my living room. I say, what did we do in the days before the Internet? I would have had to get up out of my chair and walk into the living room to check the envelopes on the DVD player. The power of the Internet is FAR-REACHING and AWESOME.

Would you rather work for John Kerry or be dead?

At work, I'm usually fixing things and not often building them. Typically, I get requests like, "Tara, Appication XYZ is broken, could you go see what's wrong with it?" I scan down someone else's script, find the problem and fix it. On Thursday, I got a chance to be a builder. Armed with a list of demands requirements, I picked up where I had left off on New Year's Eve, despite being distracted by all of the smart and quasi-famous people strolling by and stopping in for a chat. It's amazing how many intriguing people hang around the DFA office and what you can pick up just by listening. There seems to be a preponderance of Type A's who don't leave the office until well after midnight.

Headphones and loud music drowned out the chatter enough for me to make decent progress, but the shortened day flew by and soon we were off to dinner and a movie. We tried to entice some friends to come with an invitation to see Paycheck, but when they declined, the Liloia clan 'fessed up that we all wanted to see Cheaper by the Dozen instead. After all of their years in the public eye, Steve Martin is still hilarious and Bonnie Hunt is still adorable. The movie was cute, funny and appreciated by all of us. And it turns out that movies don't cost $12.00 a ticket in Vermont either.

Jonathan K-T captured a picture of the awed moment of sunshine that I mentioned earlier. But it was a fleeting moment, which led straight into an icy snowstorm on Friday morning.

I had hoped to return to HQ for a few more hours of work before the drive home, but snow forecasted all the way back to Boston made us reconsider. Leaving early proved to be a wise decision when our little Kia fishtailed back and forth across the mountainous highway in the ice while heavy tractor trailers sped by at 65. At one point, as we passed an overturned SUV and slid sideways toward a steep dropoff while trying to stop in traffic, I thought to myself "I don't want to die to the Super Mario Brothers theme song" and shouted back to Trevor to mute the GameBoy.

Dave didn't relax his white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel until we were safely into the rainy patches of New Hampshire. I had hoped to stop and hear a few candidates speak on the way home, but no one was in the mood after the last 90 minutes of anxiety. You can hardly feel more out-of-control and helpless than in the passenger seat of a car that's on the verge of spinning out. It's not as if you can make casual small talk with the driver or take a nap to pass the time. We'll definitely be back to visit Vermont — the least of our reasons is to see the Ben & Jerry's factory that we skipped when we skidded past Exit 10 on the ice. But I could never live in Vermont permanently. Not until they get a Target or two up there. We made a final stop at the Medford, Mass. Krispy Kreme shop to show Sarah how the hot, original glazed doughnuts are made, then headed home.

I was impressed by the raw energy of the Dean Machine in action. Staffers routinely express their sincere desire to change their country for the better and they truly believe that Howard Dean is the man who will accomplish that goal. They're working hard, they're exploring new territory and they're clearly having fun. There's just one thing that has to be said to the campaign staffers: Do you think Kerry's people have botulism growing in their fridge?