Al Gore Built a Time Machine, Too

Are you guys familiar with "The Internet Archive Wayback Machine?" You should be. The Internet archives everything folks. Everything. This tool allows you to see what a site used to look like (assuming certain restrictions). So just type in a web site or blog you like, and get ready to hit light speed, get super stringed, whatever.. It's not only fun, but kind of scary powerful. Sure, the site doesn't archive everything, but it archives enough... Hours of fun; guaranteed.

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Check out the archives for Hyperwest.net.

The Pursuit of Happy (Lorelai) Gilmore

Let's play a game. Supposing I was bi-polar, manic, whatever you call it, here's the names of my (public) blogs over the past seven years, in order: Yellow Brick Road, Inner Life, Anachronic, and Diorama. The next one will be Afterbang; for reasons to be explained later.

Typically, I just selected the names of my blogs for some (seemingly, to me) random reason. And then I just ran with a theme. For example, Yellow Brick Road was always written from a two person perspective; it was "The Wizard" and "The Tin Man." The Wizard was me; the Tin Man was me minus the heart.

I've always loved Wizard of Oz (movie, books, lore, etc) but I never really knew why. Anyway, the blog was at first read by three people. Me, Scandalynn, and GJN. That's it, three readers. I was just playing around with it because Jmz introduced me to blogging -- through his own blog and gomakross.org. I thought it was a great tool and much easier to update than the "thoughts" page of my rinky dink homepage from college (original versions dont' exist sadly).

The prime time for anyone to start reading/writing blogs is post-college. You're still curious about what your friends are doing, you're in a low paying administration job (if you're lucky) and you have time to surf the day away. Everyone I've started blogging has pretty much been working and bored out of their mind. Anyway, since I wrote YBR with two voices; people assumed it was two people. Most of my friends assumed it was Pan and I trading off. I let them believe it as long as they wanted. I had five readers anyway.

Here's the review it got (9/9/2001):
"Yellow Brick Road does not carry a yellow colour scheme. It does not mention Dorothy (though the writers are called 'The Wizard' and 'Tin Man'), and there is certainly no mention of any Elton John music. The design of the site is, frankly, poor. A lot of the download time is taken up a a pretty rubbish graphic on the side of the page, and instead of any internal navigation to speak of (archives, about, contact) there are only links off-site and a long, long series of posts dating back to the year 2000.

But the site redeems itself. It's strange, and unexpected; if I wasn't reviewing this site then I would leave it immediately without reading anything simply because the design is so uninspiring. It redeems itself by being different. There are two writers, and for every post they carry a conversation, each taking a different viewpoint, carrying a different opinion. It works very well (not always, but more often than not). The site would score higher if it was more a site and less a page; the design needs work but thankfully the content is just right."

Here's the link for all the header images for YBR. The site used to feature only a weirdly shrunken version of Dali's Hallucinogenic Toreador; my favorite painting ever.

I recall Transcended Joyce commenting on it, saying that it was a blog with (paraphrased) "the most posts on one page she'd ever seen."

If (Good) Looks Could Kill

You know, I had no idea about the whole UofV story? Except that someone was shooting lots of other someones on Monday morning -- which I heard about briefly. Kind of insane right? I caught snip-its of the past few days; but on the drive home from LA to SD; I swore that was just made up. And when one gas attendant -- dude looked like a lady -- looked super scared to even offer me some basic information ("No, our bathroom is broken"); Jmz was like "Oh, he's probably scared because it was a Korean guy."

"A Korean guy what?" Oh.

The ramifications of this is pretty hard to predict; one thing for damn sure: nothing good can come out of this. Does this lead to Vincent Chin #2___? Who knows. But seriously, the fact that this guy left behind startling images/words/videos can only spread the fear that already exists in our inter-racial society.

And Old Boy was a good movie; sort of.

If Middle-Easterners and semi-brown people had much to fear post 9/11; do the yellow people have to fear post 4/16? I'm avoiding the news as much as possible until I wrap my mind around a few (personal) things but this is something that's hard to avoid. Holy shit Batman; I am Batman...

If there's anything anyone could have changed about their lives this past week, I'm sure this would be it. People are trying to figure out who and why. But really; does it matter? It happened, and that's where we stand. Last, first, or otherwise.

Am I going to wish that our predominant stereotype is effeminate, nerdy, and unintelligible? There are so many unhappy people in the world; help me... help you. help me, help you. Ambassador of Quan.

ToeJam & Earl-ing the Thin Red Line

Apparently I'm okay now. I have my laptop back; the computer has made me sane. Or wait. Was it the new orange Shuffle I got today? Dubbed "Electric Kool Aid," its 1 gig goodness will surely evaporate all worries. Or at least drown them out.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find lanyards once you actually look for them? I had to settle for a blue and white striped Roxy one. Yeah, Roxy...

I went on a shopping spree, had quite a few more focused talks (one professional and quite honestly, the only time I've felt completely at rest the past few days; talking-wise), and seen quite a number of friends. Plus, in a few whirlwind days I managed to accomplish just about everything I needed to do in San Diego. Eat burritos, Jamba, boba, chinese, and everything in-between. I got my "Music Medic" idea; using my utility belt to seek-and-destroy people with horrific musical taste. And jammed in-between? Made a few more people scared, mad, and perhaps terrified.

Pretty fun week for me however. Got in some good talks, some good DDTs, and the only real regret I have so far is that I wasn't able to squeeze in any Squabble.

I have gifts for you guys; some physical, some verbal. But I'll get around to it when I can. For now, I'm just going to try to reverse document; not to explain; but to total recall. Then I'll get onto explanations. Maybe.

Um, did I mention I had my bank account (de)frauded for like $1000+? Fun times. I did get the tattoos I wanted though; so with every bad there comes three goods. Or was that the other way around?