Looking at a “Gang Signs” chart, I asked myself “Why should gangstas have all the fun?” The end result: the “Geek Signs” chart, pictured below. Enjoy!
Click the image to see the original version.
Categories
Category: Uncategorized
There’s Single, and Then There’s Single
Can you believe it’s been 16 years since this movie? Weird.
In the article Further Thoughts on “Toronto the Naughty”, I described local nightlife activist and Newmindspace co-founder Kevin Bracken as “single”. My buddy Pete Forde said “no, he’s not single; he’s in a relationship,” to which “yes, he’s single; he’s not married.”
It’s interesting how bits of your language change as you move from one phase of life to another; I recall using the term “single” in the same sense that Pete used it. I’m reminded of an observation in Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations: Only people who have already met their spouse say that cites are dead.
My Car Ownership Status
A 1998 Honda CR-V.
In the article Gas Pains, I mentioned that I typically spend the equivalent of US$75 on gas every 6 to 8 weeks. At least four people wrote in via email to say something along the lines of “You have a car?”
This isn’t the first time that someone’s been surprised at my car ownership status. A former co-worker of mine at Tucows who used to butt heads with me regularly over developer relations once expressed surprise at my owning a car by saying “You have a car? But…but you’re an anarchist!”
(“Bon vivant”, sure. On certain days, you might be right to go with “libertine”. But “anarchist?” Hardly.)
I drive a 1998 Honda CR-V that barely has any scratches or mileage. The car’s 10 years old and has less than 100,000 kilometres (around 60,000 miles) on the odometer. It’s not used for commuting to work, occasionally used for going out on the town and on weekends for shopping trips and over to my sister’s house for our weekly family dinner. It’s good for the environment, but more importantly, it’s good for my health (as I bike to work as well as for small grocery runs) and for my wallet.
But yes, I do have a car.
Those Context-Driven Ads
I run Google’s AdSense ads on both this blog and Global Nerdy. AdSense uses Google’s search engine tech to scan this blog and present ads related to the text of my articles. The idea is that people are more likely to click on ads that a related to whatever they’re reading. The rules don’t allow me to disclose what I make in a very specific way, but I am allowed to say that it covers my wardrobe budget or allows me to take the Ginger Ninja out to a very nice restaurant reasonably often.
There are some downsides. Being software, it has no idea of contextual subtlety and will display ads that send a message or opinion opposite to my own. The Gas Pains article mentions George W. Bush in a number of places, and since John McCain is strongly connected to George Bush as far as Google’s search engine is concerned, guess what ads appeared:
Screenshot courtesy of Charles Starrett.
Ah, the vagaries of computer-based recommendations. I’ll have to set aside some time to go into my AdSense settings block Republican ads (despite my being based in Canada, about 60% of my readers are from the U.S., so I’d rather show ads for my preferred candidate, Obama, who seems to be the choice of a number of prominent techies). I may not be eligible to vote, but I am eligible to influence.
Thanks to Charles Starrett for pointing that one out!
IonCleanse’s True Believers
An IonCleanse poster hanging in the storefront of a chiropractic office near my home in High Park.
I’ve received a number of responses, via email, comments and in person, to my IonCleanse article. A number of people believe it’s real. I still think it smacks of quackery. I should check up with Pete and see if he’s raised enough money to take the IonCleanse challenge.
Siouxsie Sioux.
Yet another sign I’m getting old: an alt-rock icon from my teen years turned 51 today — Susan Janet Ballion, better known to the world as Siouxsie Sioux (pronounced “Suzie Sue”). She and her band, Siouxsie the Banshees, were a mainstay of my music collection, and if you were a regular at Clark Hall Pub (the engineering pub at Crazy Go Nuts University) during my 1989 – 1994 DJ run, you’d probably hear one of the singles during my alt-rock sets. Somewhere in my parents’ basement is a near-complete collection of Siouxsie and the Banshees vinyl LPs; I’ll have to dig them up sometime.
In her honour, here are some Siouxsie and the Banshees videos for your enjoyment. Happy birthday, Siouxsie!
Here’s Hong Kong Garden by Siouxie and the Banshees, from 1978:
And now, some Siouxsie and the Banshees numbers from my teen years, the eighties. I’ll start with Christine from 1980:
Here’s Cities in Dust, from 1985:
Here’s their 1983 cover of Dear Prudence, which made it to a number of my mix tapes:
I’d be remiss if I didn’t show you the video for the one Siouxsie and the Banshees number that featured an accordion (or at least a very well-synthesized accordion): Peek-a-Boo, from 1988…
And finally, here’s Kiss Them for Me, from 1991, the Lollapalooza era:
[This article also appears in Global Nerdy.]
I took this shot of Darren Rowse at the b5 Ranch outside Austin, Texas in March 2008.
The photo is from this entry in my personal blog, The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century.
My fellow b5er Darren Rowse, of ProBlogger and Digital Photography School fame, was featured in a Chicago Tribune article titled Blogging Paying off for a Few, which takes a look at how some people have been making a living through blogging.
Here’s the part of the article featuring Darren:
In Melbourne, Australia, Darren Rowse has been generating a six-figure income since 2005 from ProBlogger.net and several photography blogs. His blogging career started as a hobby four years ago, when, as a minister, he blogged about starting a new church, he said. That blog led to another; soon Rowse had 20 different blogs, but most didn’t generate enough interest so he shut them down.
When Rowse launched ProBlogger.net to offer advice to other bloggers in 2004, he hit on a need in the marketplace, he said. ProBlogger’s revenue comes from advertising, affiliate marketing, sponsorships and job boards, he said.
“In the early days, I had to be quite proactive,” he said. “As it grew, I found advertising agencies would come to me.”
His experience spurred him to co-found b5media, a Toronto-based network of more than 350 blogs in 15 areas of interest that draws more than 10 million visitors a month. The collective power of b5media attracts advertisers, and the company pays writers to produce blogs for the network, Rowse said.
To be successful, the blogger must be knowledgeable about the topic. It also helps if you’re passionate about it, he said. “Can you see yourself blogging about this topic every day? Quite often, people do it only for the money and can’t sustain it,” Rowse said.
Links
- Chicago Tribune: Blogging Paying Off for a Few
- ProBlogger.net
- Digital Photography School
- and of course, b5media!
That’s right, Wiener Water Soup. Here’s the recipe, in its glorious entirety:
- 1 pkg. wieners
- 3 c. water
Combine wieners and water in a two quart saucepan. Bring to a boil until wieners are cooked. Throw the wieners in the garbage. Serve soup. Serves 3.
Jason Kottke summed it up nicely: “Cooks.com lets anyone submit recipes.” He found it via Serious Eats, who in turn found it via Dancing at Gunpoint and Copyranter.
I think the recipe meets Gordon Ramsay’s criteria for good food, being both simple and rustic.
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.
(This recipe reminds me of Limp Bizkit’s third album, whose title suggested that they knew their fans very, very well: Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water.)
Categories
Gas Pains
Image from BrianKaneOnline.
In July 2000, the city average retail price across the United States for unleaded regular gasoline was US$1.59 per gallon.
Around that time, George W. Bush was the Governor of Texas and the presumptive Republican candidate for that year’s presidential election. Here’s an excerpt from an article in the New York Times:
Gov. George W. Bush of Texas said today that if he was president, he would bring down gasoline prices through sheer force of personality, by creating enough political good will with oil-producing nations that they would increase their supply of crude.
…
Implicit in his comments was a criticism of the Clinton administration as failing to take advantage of the good will that the United States built with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia during the Persian Gulf war in 1991. Also implicit was that as the son of the president who built the coalition that drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait, Mr. Bush would be able to establish ties on a personal level that would persuade oil-producing nations that they owed the United States something in return.
…
Asked why the Clinton administration had not been able to use the power of personal persuasion, Mr. Bush said: ”The fundamental question is, ‘Will I be a successful president when it comes to foreign policy?’ ”
(You should read the rest of the article, as it’s quite funny/sad in retrospect.)
What’s the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded in America today? $3.80.
I felt that pain a couple of weekends ago in Boston. The Ginger Ninja and I had all sorts of commitments that required us to travel all over Massachusetts, so we rented an intermediate-sized car. When we arrived, all cars in that size class were taken, so the rental company gave us a Ford Explorer (the 2008 model is pictured above) at the same rate. As per standard procedure, we filled the gas tank before returning it; being a gas-guzzling beast, it cost a whopping US$75…for a weekend’s worth of driving. That’s my typical gasoline spending over 6 to 8 weeks!
It doesn’t look as though Dubya’s “sheer force of personality” is going to help lower gas prices, judging by this recent Associated Press story:
Saudi Arabia’s leaders made clear Friday they see no reason to increase oil production until customers demand it, apparently rebuffing President Bush amid soaring U.S. gasoline prices.
It was Bush’s second personal appeal this year to King Abdullah, head of the monarchy that rules this desert kingdom that is a longtime prime U.S. ally and home to the world’s largest oil reserves. But Saudi officials stuck to their position that they will only pump more oil into the system when asked to by buyers, something they say is not happening now, the president’s national security adviser told reporters.
I’ll close this article with a comic about personal appeals to King Abdullah (and a subtle Obama reference, to boot):
[Thanks to BrianKaneOnline.]
While we might disagree on specifics, I think that Kevin Bracken is on the right track about promoting Toronto’s naughtier side, something which he proposed in the Torontoist article titled Toronto the Naughty and to which I quickly linked in an article titled Kevin Bracken: “You say ‘ecstasy-fueled sex tourist hellhole’ like it’s a bad thing.”.
Naturally, we’re going to have different perspectives, but that’s to be expected: Kevin’s a twenty-something single guy who seems to go clubbing every week, while I’m a married 40-year-old whose regular clubbing days are behind him (although I had a pretty good run; plus, I was a paid go-go dancer, something which I’ll bet Kevin never was). But I think we’d both agree that any good tourist burg can — actually, make that should — have a “fast and loose” side peacefully co-existing with a prim and proper one. New York, London, Paris, Prague, Tokyo and many other must-go places have mastered this yin-yang balance quite well, and there’s no reason that Accordion City couldn’t do the same.
The real problem is that the promotion of Toronto’s naughty side is something that can’t be done by the folks at City Hall or the people they commission to promote tourism. Anything they’d produce would simply be a reflection of themselves: a melange of Mayor David Miller’s Doris Day-esque leadership (by the bye, Mr. Mayor, that’s not a compliment) and councillor Rob Ford’s special brand of dickishness (which I must admit does have the silver lining of his reputed frugality with public funds). The sort of promotion is better done by the people who actually go out and enjoy Toronto’s nightlife: people like Kevin, and to a lesser extent, me.
With that said, here’s my first attempt at contributing to the promotion of Toronto the Naughty:
