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friday, september 29 Memories are such funny things. Sometimes it takes a key to unlock something that the mind has tucked away. The passing yesterday of Trudeau was such a key for me. So many memories of my mother and step-father and of our summers in Prince Edward Island. Eventually, those keys become markers which one never forgets. I have a whole set of "do you remember where you were when you heard ____________." When JFK Jr.'s plane went missing? When Hong Kong reverted to China? When Diana died? When the earthquake hit Kobe? When The Wall came down? When the US bombed Lybia? When Challenger Blew up? When Chernobyl melted down? When John Lennon or the Pope was shot? Anyway, I'm crawling around in my head too much today. Thank god it's Friday! ![[pause]](img/pause.gif){kind=small}  A whopper FOJM update with twenty-six new photographs including the likes of
Daniele,
Tom,
Rick,
Garrett,
Ed,
Steve,
Lewin,
Cristen,
Jessamyn,
Rachel,
Bruce,
Bronwyn,
Isaac,
ch,
Daniel,
Heather,
James,
Jennifer,
Lynsey,
Howard,
Vojtaz, and
Erica.It's never too late to submit yours. Here's the poop. Check out Julian's Fray Day photos. They're fab! I hear that the hampsters are miffed. Don't forget! Rabbit rabbit! Yesterday? Furry tuchas. "Stay together, friends. Don't scatter and sleep. Our friendship is made of being awake." - The Waterwheel, The Essential Rumi  thursday, september 28  You're staring in the face, or rather the derrière, of harrumph! gear v 2.0. Nothing quite says harrumph like a big, furry tush, don't you think? This photograph was taken at the Metro Toronto Zoo back in either '93 or '94. At the time, I found the subject rather disobliging, but in the end (no pun intended) it turned out to be a good shot. It was a very interesting day at the zoo. Some of the naughty monkeys had determined that a quick hop from a tree within the enclosure, would enable them to sit on the surrounding wall. They taunted the zoo keepers with a few hops back and forth from the trees beyond. Not quite Jumanji, but almost. American Lite. Is anyone else familiar with this alternative to "Canadian?" I've heard "snowback" and "canuck" has been around forever, but American Lite? I almost want to throw a TM after it for good measure. Doesn't it sound like some sort of nauseatingly yellow, processed food spread? You tell me. What's your favourite way to referrer to those north of the US border? Enquiring mind wants to know. Today is officially BlahTM day here at harrumph! I wish I could have given you more notice, but it crept up without any warning. Rabbit rabbit. Not til Sunday, but I wanted to make sure you had enough notice to plan accordingly. Lies, lies, lies. Yesterday? Loooooser! "Your name is Spring. Your name is wine. Your name is nausea that comes from wine!" - The Blocked Road, The Essential Rumi wednesday, september 27 I'm a loser. "Although the essay you submitted to "The Great TiVo Giveaway Contest" was compelling, we're sorry to inform you that your entry wasn't a winner." While everyone and his dog seems to be winning those TiVos, I didn't. Now don't go thinking that this girl is moping at the computer. No sour grapes here. No pouty Heather. No temper tantrums. I've never won anything in my life so I wasn't prepared for happy news. I'm fine, really. Here's my entry: Why should I win a TiVo?Why don't you try your luck. Go, run, enter! Course you need cable and have to spend a few buck a month for the TiVo schedule, but that is beside the point. I'm warning you now, if you win, well move over, baby. I'm coming over to watch the last ten minutes of all those TV shows I snooze through. Expect a list of my fav TV shows shortly. Good guests don't come empty handed, so I'll bring the Pringles and the Diet Coke*. [via Metafilter] * Diet Coke dearth has been resolved. This girl is breathing a huge sigh of relief. You can stand down. Go wish Jason a happy birthday! Halycon is my hero! Yesterday, Jesse sent me this in the news "mirror shot." My eyebrows are still stuck at my hairline. Part II of my advertising storytelling is now available at AdCritic. Perhaps Part I will appear soon so we can do this properly. Yesterday? Crazy conversation. "When I see your face, the stones start spinning! You appear; all studying wanders. I lose my place." - A Great Wagon, The Essential Rumi tuesday, september 26 A conversation with Matilda* yesterday went something like this: Matilda: I got the picture of the seal. Thank you. Did you take the picture? Heather: No, I bought that post card when I was up in Point Reyes. We saw a Harbor Seal near the beach and I thought you might like the post card. Matilda: I saw a snake at the beach. Mummy made me walk around it. Heather: Oh (I wanted to say Ewww, but I'm not going to pass on my dislike of snakes)! What colour was it? Matilda: Green. Heather: Was it big? Matilda: No it was small. I touched a rat too. Heather: A rat. Wow. Where did you touch the rat? Matilda: At school. There are two. One white and one brown. Heather: Do they have names? Matilda: Yes, but I can't remember them. Mummy almost stepped on a bunny. Heather: Where was the bunny? Matilda: At the petting zoo. * Matilda is my darling, five-year old god-daughter. She's a smart as a tack and her conversations leave my head spinning. When Nicole first called to tell me of her arrival in this world, I thought here name was Ma~. Evil is afoot in San Francisco. Both the Alpha and Upper Terrace markets are almost devoid of Diet Coke. Something has gone very wrong with Diet Coke delivery in this neck of the woods. This is not a good thing. In fact, this is a very bad thing. To give you some idea of my addiction, well, December's last minute, "oh-my-god it might happen but it probably won't" Y2K preparedness consisted of twenty gallons of water and twenty gallons of Diet Coke, nothing more, nothing less. I'll keep you posted but be prepared to air lift vast quantities of the fizzy brown stuff to save me from guaranteed insanity. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, etc, etc. Webtype.org is back. Yesterday? Commercial success. "Last year, I admired wines. This, I'm wandering inside the red world. Last year, I gazed at the fire. This year I'm burnt kabob." - Burnt Kabob, The Essential Rumi monday, september 25 So I haven't really been paying attention to the ads that are padding the Olympics so I might have the companies screwed up but these are two real ads that I've seen independent of one another. First ad. Budweiser (? - I'm a bit hazy on this). Scenario: The circus. A gentleman is turning a big wheel which is some sort of guidance for the human cannonball cannon. He's distracted by an individual selling brew up in the stands and misaligns the cannon's direction. The human cannonball is shot from the cannon and flies through the air only to dive head first into an elephant's derriere. The elephant protests with a roar and with only a moment's hesitation the spokes model ring chick does the traditional "ta-dah." Fade out with audience chanting "one more time." Second ad. Nike. Scenario: Again, the circus. A group of circus performers surround an elephant which is lying on it's side, obviously in some trouble. One of them comments "I'm not doctor, I'm the human cannon ball" (or something similar). Elephant is revived by passing Nike enabled biker. All's well that ends well. Is it just me, or aren't these two ads just made for one another? Unintended storytelling? I like it! In order to celebrate FOJM surpassing 200, I've created a postcard (which is also on the t) and a few items that are available, at cost, through Cafe Press. If you'd like a postcard (or two), drop me your snail mail. Don't let the pictures fool you. My entry in Behind the Curtain: a day in the life of webloggers is an anomaly. I don't have many three "thing" days, let alone one or two "thing" days. Most days find me camped behind my computer doing any number of things far less glamorous. Then again, I could just shut up and pretend that I have a life. Sometime last year, I crafted a string of gibberish by squeezing a phrase back and forth through Alta Vista's Babel Fish. "Love is like a big fat cactus" became "as it is like the great person in the fat person of Kaktus!" Well, Carl has made things just a little bit easier. Example? "Hey, baby! Bite me" becomes "hé, the boy bites it!" You get the idea. Jezebel has her own Action Figure. Thanks to waferbaby for the honour. Coming to a toy store near you, just in time for the holiday season? Well, perhaps not. Ten Tips for Building a Bionic Weblog. Yesterday? Fray follow up. "Be wide as the air to learn a secret. Right now you're equal portions clay water, thick mud." - Bismillah, The Essential Rumi sunday, september 24 So much to say about Fray Day 4. So many people and so many stories. It was all good. Check out the Photo Sticker Booth Project. The board has been scanned and uploaded in a series of images. Here's my badge. Kind of like pin trading at the Olympics doncha think!  Jack is a rock star. So are Rebecca and Jesse. Peter is wanted in sixteen states for unspeakable acts with small, furry creatures. Dinah is having impure thoughts about the wee lad in the corner of her sticker frame. Lance and Shauna say it all. Brad says hi (hi Brad!). Maggie says hi (hi Maggie!). Jish needs a foot stool. Kylie is a doll. Halcyon has much to smile about. Judith has multiple personalities. I could go on, but you get the idea. Look out! It's the Jezebel Action Figure! Behind the Curtain: a day in the life of webloggers. The day before yesterday? Fearing Fall. "The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved, 'You are the sky my spirit circles in, the love inside love, the resurrection-place.'" - I Have Five Things To Say, The Essential Rumi friday, september 22 Fall. It's fucking Fall! Can someone please tell me where the hell Spring went to? Last time I checked, I could have sworn it was Spring. You're most likely making all sorts of mumbly sounds about Summer, but aside from one or two warm days, San Francisco just didn't seem to follow the seasonal change script. I'll just have to take your word for it that at some point, somewhere, the mercury (or current mercury substitute) rose above seventy for a prolonged period of time. Not that I miss the "eau de garbage" which perfumes New York for most of August. Nope, New York can keep that. But Fall? Fall means late September. Late September means Halloween. Halloween means Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving means holiday shopping. Holiday shopping means Christmas carols and there is almost nothing I hate more than Christmas carols. I'm getting ahead of myself.  Fall means that the leaves tumble from the trees in an over the top display of glorious colour. I haven't seen one red leaf, aside from the five that Claire sent as a reminder. Falls past have been an emotional roller coaster. My mother passed away at Canadian Thanksgiving. For years afterwards, falling leaves meant that I would fall apart. My birthday this year gave pause as I realized that I had been alive longer without my mother, than with her. But the leaves aren't turning, and my spirits remain high. It doesn't mean that I have forgotten. One never forgets. I'm hoping that it means that I'll be able to remember. Remember times before the darkness of cancer that cast a shadow over one particular fall. I hope I'll see you tonight at Fray Day 4. Merci milles fois to all those who sent borders for The Photo Sticker Booth Project. I'll take snaps so you can see how everything turns out. Yesterday? Oh, poop! "The same wind that uproots trees makes the grasses shine." - The Grasses, The Essential Rumi thursday, september 21 Shit happens II. Grade five, or the fifth grade for you yanks, Arch Street Public School, recess, north playground. Heather is in one of her frequent veklempt, pouty, "nobody likes me, everybody hates me modes". She wanders down the fence which separates the playground from the parking lot and plunks down to glower. Plunks down that is directly in a big 'ol pile of super smelly dog shit. From this I earned the moniker "dog dirt girl" which stuck for a few weeks until Richard something-or-rather (super red hair and freckles galore) misspoke Heather Champ as Heather "Chimp" (more about this later). Dog dirt girl. I still remember the indignity of being hosed down in the schoolyard by the janitor. That was my first major run in with the result of some dog's excrement. Thankfully, I've had far less personal involvement with the stuff since then. The only notable event occurred recently with a new pair of super high tech waffley sneakers. The pattern on the sole was a thing beauty with a complexity similar to of the grand canyon. With all those nooks and crannies, it took days and days to clean. We all know that even the smallest iota smells like a Great Dane just took a dump in your lap.  Course, this wouldn't happen if dog owners just dealt with it. Be a boy scout! "I don't have a bag" isn't any sort of excuse. Chances are that fido's going to drop a load at some point so you might as well be prepared. Twice last week, I passed someone stupidly standing there while their wee, furry bundle of love did their business. They both sort of shrugged and walked on. I really hate that. Be responsible or you're going to ruin it for the rest of us.Oh, and the name thing. You'd think that champ is such a simple word. Five little letters. C-H-A-M-P. It's French for field, once pronounced more like "chomp," now anglicized and rhymes with stamp and a few other things. Not too much opportunity for error, or so one (mainly me) would think. Heather Chimp, Chan, Chang, Chant (current condition of my auto insurance), Damp, Tramp (how'd they find out?) have all crossed my path in mail, message or conversation. I'm jealous of Steve. I bet he doesn't have these problems. Any ideas on what my super powers are? Waferbaby needs to know. Tanks 'o bunch! Have I mentioned how brilliant Davezilla is? Check out the anagram interviews. Sheer genius. Yesterday? Kibble and bits. "First, when I was apart from you, this world did not exist, nor any other. Second, whatever I was looking for was always you." - I Have Five Things To Say, The Essential Rumi wednesday, september 20 Fb, rhz nbi gmxx gshg T'y ehutzp Gsm Zb ksb'f amtzq rngtr? My toilet trauma has flushed out a few comments: From Nick: "Canada has become a major supplier of illegal 3.5-gallon toilets. These toilets were banned by Congress in 1992 under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act, which decreed that henceforth U.S. citizens had to buy 1.6-gallon toilets, which would conserve a lot of water if they worked, which unfortunately most of them don't, the result being that U.S. citizens now spend more time flushing their toilets than on all other forms of exercise combined." - Focus on Canadian Toilets, Dave Barry. Is that a toilet in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me? From Daniel: "My ex-roommate had a saying for the selective flush method of water conservation: 'If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.'" Erm, no. From Dave: "Again, about the toilet thing. Use public restrooms whenever possible to avoid messing up your own. Or go to a neighbor's house to visit and just happen to ask about borrowing their bathroom for a few minutes." Um, Judith? Croissant update: Nassim is just fucking with me now. When I walked into the Upper Terrace Market this morning, he tried to pawn off my prize on some poor unsuspecting customer. Little do either of them know the wrath from within, that would pour forth like a torrent if I, Heather Champ, were crossed. Grrr! What flavour am I? Peppermint, natch! "Fresh, classic, and crisp, you're as tasty as they come." [via Pussycat 2000] Write like a Champ. [thanks to Prol for the link title] Photo Sticker Booth Project. Baby, it's not to late to participate. Yesterday? Nothing doing. "There is a community of the spirit. Join it, and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street, and being the noise." - A Community Of The Spirit, The Essential Rumi tuesday, september 19 Sunday's trip to the Musée Méchanique with Kylie has raised a disturbing question. Do I have a future? One wise sage (the crystal ball woman on the right side, halfway down) predicted: Except for one small dark cloud, your immediate future appears to be quite bright and cheerful. The dark cloud covers a period of a few days in about a month's time when you will hear of an accident to a loved one which will cause you some concern. However, no serious consequences will arise, and you will be free from all worry after a short time of anxiety.PLEASE NOTE: I would like all my dear family and friends to remain indoors, windows latched, curtains drawn, from October fourteenth through nineteenth. Pizza and TV Guides will be delivered for the duration of your confinement. I don't think this is too much to ask. Think of how you'll save me much unnecessary stress and anxiety. If you love me, well, you'll do this for me. Did you catch the bit about "immediate future." It doesn't say anything about long term. Seeking further enlightenment, I took another shot but this second oracle (the somewhat scary looking magician, left side, halfway down) failed to reveal anything. I deposited my quarter, the fellow went through his mechanical gyrations, and at the moment when all shall be revealed, nothing happened. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. Should I take this as a sign that the machine had merely run out of paper or was it a larger gesture? Is nothing something? Is nothing everything. Or is nothing exactly what it appears to be? A big, fat goose egg (I wonder how geese feel about that? If I were to push out a big, fat goose egg, I for one, would say that was something). Ideas like this make my head hurt, kind of like the brain freeze pain one acquires while scarfing down ice cream too quickly. We're starting to tread back onto the "thingness of the thing being" mine field so I'm just going to step back, take a deep breath, and watch Bob Barker. Have you all enjoyed these months of haiku? I highly recommend The Essential Haiku as a worthy addition to anyone's library. The time has come to move on. From today, we're going to spend some time with The Essential Rumi. Jelaluddin Rumi was born in the year 1207 and until the age of thirty-seven was a brilliant scholar and popular teacher. But his life changed forever when he met the powerful wandering dervish, Shams of Tabriz, of whom Rumi said, "What I had thought of before as God, I met today in a human being." From this mysterious and esoteric friendship came a new height of spiritual enlightenment. When Shams disappeared, Rumi began his transformation from scholar to artist, and his poetry began to fly. Write like a Champ. [thanks to Prol for the link title] Don't forget the Photo Sticker Booth Project. Operators are standing by to receive your call! Yesterday? Flush with anxiety. "It's a habit of yours to walk slowly. You hold a grudge for years. With such heaviness, how can you be modest? With such attachments, do you expect to arrive anywhere?" - Bismillah, The Essential Rumi monday, september 18 So, I have to mend my wasteful ways. This girl is a water pig! Last weeks water bill revealed that I average thirty-nine gallons day! Thirty-nine! My youth in the north east never included any issues with water conservancy. Turn on a tap and the crystal clear liquid gold would flow forth. I can't remember any restrictions and most summers were day long adventures with running back and forth through the sprinkler. But, I'm in California now and things have got to change. No more letting the water run and run while I brush my chompers! Nope! That's out! There is another avenue of water conservancy that I could peruse, I'm just not sure about the whole "flush only when you do the 'number two'" thing. I hope I haven't offended your tender sensibilities. My nose is wrinkling. I'll have to ease into this one. The possibility of an "eau-de-porta-potty" atmosphere isn't that all enticing. "Hi! I'm Heather and this is my litter box of a bathroom." If you drink anywhere near the eight to ten cups a day recommended water intake, well, there's bound to be a problem. How else can I save water? I'm all for paper plates, plastic cups and the like but then you just run into the garbage/landfill trap. And I don't want to piss off the guy who takes it all away. He's downright nasty. I heard him cussing a neighbour out under his breath the first or second week I was here, for some infringement of garbage rules and regulations. But water conservancy isn't the only change round these parts. Living in the East Village taught me that I could head out of the house and no matter what I was wearing, there would always be someone with deeper fashion issues than myself. San Francisco has introduced a whole new aspect with new levels of casual - say it slow, like caa-shoo-aal. Hey, I had high tea at the Ritz in flip flops and Levis. Little old me sandwiched between the gloved matrons - and no one seemed to bat an eye. I promise you this though! I'll never stop shaving my legs. There aren't enough vowels in my vocabulary for that level of caa-shoo-aal.  Hey guess what!
Those
crazy
boys
from
Montreal are FOJM 200. Twenty-two new updates bring the current count to 202!New inductees also include Tommy, Scott, Matt, Vince, Ryan, tones, Gee, Tom, Bryan, Redrick, Paul, Robert, Tom, Joe, thephil, Jedrek, Tom, and rachael. Come visit the site that Zeldman calls "a lovely study in group narcissism" :) Write like a Champ. [thanks to Prol for the link title] A List Apart has found new digs until the mess has been sorted out. Friday? I'm game. Fleas, lice, a horse peeing near my pillow. - Matsuo Basho, The Essential Haiku friday, september 15 I've never been one for the lottery, so I've decided that game shows shall be the salvation for the continued drought in my bank account. Don't scoff. I think that I can do this. Jeopardy is the natural choice. I have half a brain and Alex Trebek is Canadian, so I have that angle covered. I could hold my head up high and not feel like a complete ninny, but somehow, it's just not me. Too stuffy and erudite. They'd suss me out in a New York minute and boom, I'd be off the set and out studio. Wheel of Fortune? Actually, I'm not half bad in figuring out those silly secret phrases but it's missing that certain je ne sais quoi! Yes, they've stepped into the this century. Vanna doesn't turn the letters anymore, she just sort of presses some secret switch, and voila! It's all hooey. Someone secreted behind the scene could do it just as well, but then who would model those marvelous gowns? The New Hollywood Squares? It's too much about them. It's too much about Whoopie. Whoopie this and Whoopie that (that's not the kind of whoopee I'm interested in). If I'm going to embarrass myself in front of you, the viewer, and a fine studio audience, then I want it to be all about me, baby! And shopping. It has must be about shopping. So, I've settled on The Price is Right. I want to hug Bob Barker so he gets that oogey, uncomfortable look. I want that ugly dining room suite. I want the lifetime supply of Rice-A-Roni. I want that fabulous trip to Sweden. And, dammit! I want that..... NEW CAR! Squeeeeaaal! Training starts next week. I'm going to begin with big clapping. The kind where you flex your fingers outward so that you don't break a nail. Second week, I'll add excessive jumping up and down. Is it too much? Big clapping and excessive jumping up and down? And for the pièce de résistance... Shrill shrieking! Squeeeeaaal! Squeeeeaaal! Stay tuned!  And in other daytime news, this just in from The Young and the Restless. Some character (I don't normally watch this so they are all indistinguishable) "Blah, blah, blah...the new brash and sassy web site. I've put together a list of people that I think that we should get to work on it." I should have been paying more attention. Hmm. Anyone we know? Have you been contacted? I think we all know a few people who are well qualified - brash and sassy that is. I'm betting on Jakob Nielsen or David Siegel. Hey! Quit slacking! Make me some art. Webmistress Jo has created Printfont, a site that has handwriting fonts from web designers including yours truly. I'm going to use mine to write letters from home. Claire's always complaining about not being able to read my postcards. Others include Jeffrey Zeldman and waferbaby. Tomorrow morning I'll be out at Ocean Beach for California Coastal Cleanup Day. Let me know if you'd like to tag along. Behind the curtain: A day in the life of a webloggers is still accepting participants! Go on now, shoo.... The day before yesterday? Feeling euphemistic. Arashi Mountain the path of the wind through the bamboo grove. - Matsuo Basho, The Essential Haiku wednesday, september 13 Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me! I rented Mission to Mars. Paying for it in the theatre was bad enough, but, why, oh why, did I bother to rent it? Why is it that any movie that involves a journey to Mars is such a dog? Red Planet doesn't promise to be much better. Somehow the vision of Val Kilmer as intrepid space explorer isn't doing much for me. I guess I'm still recovering from The Saint. Simon Templar has never suffered a greater indignity. Mission to Mars, directed by Brian de Palma.... What happened to de Palma? I didn't think that Body Double was such a bad flick. Sure, it made me a wee bit nervous around men with big augers (no, that's not a euphemism for anything - auger as in "a tool resembling a large corkscrew, for boring holes in wood," or in women as the case may be, and not, well, you know...). Yes, Snake Eyes was a bit of a dog and he did direct Mission Impossible (the first one which was more about the team thing, like the series, in contrast to MI-2 or whatever the hell it's called, which was strictly about Tom Cruise, "sexy" man of action). Tom Cruise, oh lord, don't get me started. Can someone please explain to me what it is about Tom Cruise that induces aortal palpitations in some members of our species? Me? I don't get it. Never have. Risky Business? Nope. Legend? Snicker. Cocktail? Nada. Jerry Maguire? Zip. But I'm sure that he's not losing any sleep over this. Enough of pansy actors, back to men with big augers. Oh, look! It's Lance's [New Sex Toy]. Penis Envy and Fuck You have been banned by the proxy server people in Etisalat (UAE government telecom provider). Harvey Keitel put them up to it! I know it. He must be a friend of Tom's. See, nothing good ever comes of bad thoughts. Neale's running The First Annual Wetlog Survey. I may be highly prejudiced, but I think he's right on the money when it comes to parameters of the "sexosity" scale. Yes, it's all about men with big augers today! Rock Out San Francisco: "Upset about closures of rehearsal spaces, studios and clubs? Get hip! Angst is out; Rock Out San Francisco is in, and we need YOU!Yesterday? Everything you need to know to understand Nerds. The willow yields to let me pass beyond the hedge. - Kobayashi Issa, The Essential Haiku tuesday, september 12 I came across this gem in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon last night: "Something that might actually be relevant to this," Randy says. "I was just realizing that if you have a set of cryptographic protocols suitable for issuing an electronic currency that cannot be counterfeited - which oddly enough we do - you could adapt those same protocols to card games. Because each one of these cards is like a banknote. Some more valuable than others.Isn't that just perfect? So many conversations with my co-workers both past and present, ridiculous and sublime, suddenly make so much sense. I feel empowered, like someone demonstrated the secret handshake, or gave me the keys to the kingdom AND the executive bathroom. I'd pretty much put two and two together, but to see it written down, in print, having made it past editors, etc., well, that's all the validation I need! Ha! Just try and talk over me now, you bozo. I've got your number. I'll expose you for the pup you are. Dance Dance Revolution. Have you seen this? The arcade version has a sort of jukebox with two "dance" pads in front. Each dance pad has four arrows radiate outward on the pad, pointing up forward, back, left and right. The arrows light up when stepped on. You have to follow a pattern of arrows in time to some oh, so canned music which also offers various bits of encouragement. It's very trippy. I know what I want to be when I grow up. Forget Navy Seal, forget ballerina. I want to be a Dance Dance Revolution superstar. If I quit my job now and go into training, I should be ready to take on the world in, oh, honestly, never. I'd most likely throw my back out on the first day, but it's so seductive. There's a machine down at the arcade in the Sony Metreon. I'm thinking of sneaking down during the day, midweek, and giving it a shot. If I go AWOL, you'll know where to find me. Behind the curtain: A day in the life of a webloggers is accepting participants until midnight of September 17th. It should be quite interesting. The list of participants is intriguing. I'm thinking of creating an "I am Jason Kottke" border for the photo sticker machine. Who knows if the teeny tiny type will be at all legible but I think this particular meme could go a few more rounds. I've asked Lance for something similar. See how much fun we can have? Hmm? I thought you would. Yesterday? Participation day. Exploding Dog is back! Over and over the she-crow's voice crying in the dark. - Kobayashi Issa, The Essential Haiku monday, september 11 It's Participation Day here at harrumph! Photo Sticker Booth. So, you can't make it to Fray Day 4 and still want to participate? Or, you will be attending and you're feeling artistic? Well, I have a solution for you. I've rented one of those photo sticker booths that create the sheet of sixteen teeny, tiny photo stickers. We can replace all the canned borders, you know, the Hello Kitty borders, or the fuzzy teddies, etc., etc., with our own - up to thirty six in all. Here's the poop: File dimension: 640 x 480 Resolution: 72 DPI File format: .BMP, uncompressed 24 bit colour The sticker booth recognizes black (RGB 0,0,0) as the masking colour - the place where your face pops through the border. Make sure that you create a black central area and in any area where you want the image to be seen. Email me your submissions. Gerry, the woman who I'm renting the unit from, is looking for a new home for this and one other photo sticker booth. They are reasonable priced and in good condition, so let me know if you are interested in purchasing something like this.
FOJM Updated!
waferbaby,
artboy,
Dexter,
Cat,
Karl,
Maura,
Christine,
Daniel,
Derek,
James,
Brooke,
Joe,
Katy,
Antonio,
Carlos,
John,
Neil,
Ken, and
Lynsey.Some of the highlights? Katy sends a great set of three from The Tate Gallery in London, Derek gets a haircut, waferbaby has the shakes, Joe confesses and artboy succumbs to the addiction. You too can participate. Submit your own mirror photograph with name, location, date, title and a description. The longest dimension should be no greater than 300 pixels and please try and keep it under 20K. I'm trying to update weekly so you have a few more days if you'd like to be included in the next batch. Who will be FOJM 200? Friday? A driver's dilema. Only birds sing the music of heaven in this world. - Issa Kobayashi, The Essential Haiku friday, september 8 So, if someone had told me that they were going to imprint my weight on the driver's license, then I wouldn't have been so damn honest. I'm sure they would have sniffed out my ruse and had me step on on a scale. "Excuse me Ms. Champ but I think that you're not being completely honest about how much you weigh." "Oh really... what gives you that impression?" "Well, you've put down eight-five pounds." "Yes, and your point is?" "I find it hard to believe that you, a woman who looks like she hasn't missed a meal in quite some time, and at... what height? Ah, five foot seven, could weigh eighty-five pounds and not look like Kate Moss' twin sister." "Have you seen Kate Moss in person?" "I hardly think..." "She's huge, the size of a small tug boat." "Ms. Champ, I'm going to have to ask you to come with me." "And while your at it, could you shave a few years of my age? Let's say April twenty-ninth, nineteen seventy-one. That was a fine year - Not that I would know." [pause - how about a time out for bad behavior?] Gasp! Cornered! Heather: The Waferbaby interview. Prol commiserates on Event Horizon trauma (scroll past Lance and Return of the Jedi). Trudeau is ailing. My mother met my step-father through Trudeau's initiative for bilingualism. I also have Trudeau to thank for my hit and miss French. Have you ever said anything that has caused someone's eyebrows to jump into their hairline (comme "mange moi!")? Pierre, I wish you a speedy recovery. [Thanks Ron] The current Kitschbitch design makes me snicker. In the heat of the moment, my crazy mum would always forget the North American version of that gesture. I remember other drivers waving hello at us, not realizing that she was being appalling rude. Yesterday? Loose change. Greg Knaus whacks a mole with a mallet. rebecca waxes eloquently on the history of weblogs. It once happened that a child was spared punishment through earnest solicitation. - Kobayashi Issa, The Essential Haiku thursday, september 7 Ok... So who sold me out? You were recently referred to me as someone who was ready for a CHANGE, a financial breakthrough, so I'll get right to the point.And email like this makes me crazy. Yes, yes, I know. Hit delete and move on, but sometimes, you have to appreciate the lengths that some people go to lure you into reading their missives. Fake subject lines with "Re: The information you requested" or "Hey, long time..." Sneaky bastards. Such subterfuge! I guess in this post cold war market, you take what work you can get. But back to the referral. Who thinks I need change? Sorry, that should be CHANGE. Quite frankly, I've had my fair share of CHANGE this year and I almost think I might have scarfed some of yours while I was at it. Yes, CHANGE is a good thing. It's taken me quite awhile to appreciate the benefits of CHANGE. I just want to be clear. We're not talking about that stuff that jingles in your pocket, baby! But while we're on the subject, do you have change for a quarter? [pause] The Edward Woodward revenge/payback/justice television series stuck on the tip of my tongue yesterday, is in fact The Equalizer! Who can forget the funky, cool theme music written by Stewart Copeland? Thanks to Jesse and Mike for the prod. And continuing the list of deep sleep flicks, I would be remiss in not adding Event Horizon to my list. Can I confess that EH scared me silly? I saw it in the theatre and I don't think I slept for a week. It joins Prince of Darkness and The Evil Dead on my personal list of all time scary horror flicks. Judith has put a couple of our glamorous photo booth snaps online. There's nothing like contrast to make a girl feel special.... Follow the thumbnail. Yesterday? The darker side of email. The big cat frisks its tail, toying with the butterfly. - Kobayashi Issa, The Essential Haiku wednesday, september 6 Well, I'm just about done with the whole email thing. The bloom has fallen from the flower. Don't want to go into it in too much detail, but let's just say that a certain former boyfriends mother tracked me down and sent me a rather "frank" email. This was an angle that I hadn't considered and it brings to mind a whole cast of characters that I might expect to receive email from one day. Hmmm. Anyone from my step-fathers family? Joy! I'm sure that they are still looking for bits and pieces of the family silver which my step-father gave to my mother as a wedding present. They didn't take too kindly to his generosity and lost no time in asking for it back when she passed away. Don't you dare tell them that I found two serving spoons from the set, when I moved. It will be our little secret. Or how about anyone that I attended Alta Vista Public School with, from grades six through eight? With the exception of Ron that is. He already made my day by posting a link to our grade eight class photo (that's me, front row, left hand side - the only girl in a dress and earth shoes - baby, I had style even back then). I'm one hundred percent positive that I'll hear from my French immersion teacher in grade seven. Let's just say that I don't think he has a cabinet full of teacher of the year awards in the parlour. Don't worry, I'm not sitting around watching reruns of that Edward Woodward series (the name escapes me, you know, the revenge thingy) plotting. Nope. I'm just going to hit the delete key and possibly mutter "bite me!" [pause - I really need to come up with some sort of divider] I've created a new banner for FOJM. Grab the code below if you'd like to display it - you'll earn my undying respect and love.  5KB<a href="http://www.jezebel.com/mirror/friends" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.jezebel.com/images/fojm-banner.gif" width=234 height=60 alt="Friends of Jezebel's Mirror" border="0"></a> Yesterday? Guardian angels. Cover my head or my feet? the winter quilt. - Yosa Buson, The Essential Haiku tuesday, september 5 Guardian angels. Driving back to San Francisco up highway five yesterday reminded me of those bleak stretches of the 401 between Kingston and Toronto. On my first solo highway drive, though I didn't know it, I had the misfortune to lose a fan belt somewhere around Desoronto. Some little time later, my father's Chevette began to bubble and pop like a tea kettle getting ready to boil. The temperature gauge climbed past the point of no return and I limped off at the next exit. I pulled to the side of the road in front of the four or five houses that hugged the road in the otherwise barren landscape. Popping the hood, I peered in hoping to see something that would scream "it's me, I'm the thing that's misbehaving," but everything looked normal. A woman in curlers came down from one of the houses with a bucket of water and suggested removing the radiator cap, but there was a niggling at the back of my brain that this was the worst thing to do. I declined, much to her annoyance, and was left alone at the side of the road staring at the engine willing it to confess the root of the problem. A few minutes later, a van pulled over and a man on crutches, his wife and small daughter piled out. He took one look at the engine and pronounced that I'd lost my fan belt (and I thought I was on my way to losing my mind) which would account for the overheating. He had a friend down the road who owned a junkyard where we could find a replacement. He deftly measured for what was necessary and then we all piled into the van and headed down the road. Within half an hour I was back on my way, continuing my journey to Waterloo to find student housing. I was so anxious that I neglected to get his name. I think of my Guardian Angels, and their generosity in helping a stranded teenager every time I drive on a highway. So, to my Guardian Angels, where ever you may be, thank you. [pause] Oh, just shoot me! How could I forget 2001? The Fly was also brought to my attention, but somehow, that little voice (is it Vincent Price?) saying "help me, help me," well, that's not really what I had in mind for my teleporting adventure. Thanks to all who had suggestions for my list. Favourite new quote: "...when I was Queen of the Neighbourhood..." Today, well, I'm Queen of the Neighbourhood. Tomorrow it can be your turn. I disavow any and all knowledge of learning or of having danced the Macarena at Jon and Laura's wedding. The day before the day before yesterday? Fly girl. Village with a thousand eaves and the sounds of the market in the morning mist. - Yosa Buson, The Essential Haiku saturday, september 2 Fly me to the moon. I've decided to take a completely different tack on the whole flying debacle. I'm going to prepare myself for higher forms of travel, which I know, are just around the corner. It's the year 2000 right? How much longer could it be before I can fold space & time and pop into Claire's living room? And next time, I'll avoid that twelve hour transatlantic crossing by going into some sort of chemically induced sleep - no, not drug or liquor induced! Something far more high tech. Something from the new millennia. There's quite a bit of information out there, so, I'm going to study hard and be one of the first to embrace these new opportunities. How? Well, I've decided that I'm only going to watch movies where characters jump through space via some sort of wormhole/conduit or are put into "hyper sleep" to avoid long periods of travel. So far, I've put Alien, Alien Cargo, Contact, Dune, The Fifth Element, Galaxy Quest, Lost in Space, Stargate, Supernova, Matrix and Wing Commander on my list. This will be a very scientific study. Please let me know if I've left out any suitable material that might further enrich my learning process. Thank you. Don't worry, you'll be the first to know when it happens. [pause] I had an opportunity to participate in Conform. Think the telephone game for designers. Completely missed rabbit rabbit this month. Very veklempt! Hope y'all had your act together. The lovely dress that I'm wearing to the wedding today... Stumbled across it quite by accident. Who knew that Kenneth Cole made anything other than swanky shoes? [via eatonweb] The day before the day before yesterday? Kibble and bits. Sad nodes- we're all the bamboo's children in the end. - Matsuo Basho, The Essential Haiku |
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