God 2006

A nice poem from poetry.com passed along to me by my Uncle Larry:

I once knew a CEO who
Carried a statuette of Ganesh
A foot-and-a-half high, hard and bronze
He lugged it to remember God
It always seemed to me that Tom
Should try to find a plush toy Ganesh
God should not be so cumbersome
I'd greet Tom's comings and goings
From my omniscient position of receptionist
Relaying his messages, as he came in from the parking lot
Often empty-handed, asking if he forgot God

Mary Williams

Copyright ©2005 Mary Williams

QotD: I'm Grateful For... 2006

Let's make a list.  What are 20 things in your life that you're grateful for? 
Inspired by wyndslash.vox.com.

(okay, Voxers, it's really too tricky to tell where the quoted text ends and my post should begin. Time to solve this.)

1. The way you can find cool things about people everywhere around the world. Take, for example, some of the folks in this great series of pictures by Michael Wolf from Hong Kong: http://photomichaelwolf.com/100x100/

2. How fun a mild alcohol high can be. Mmm, a Knob Creek Old Fashioned, 2oz of boozy delight!

3. My sweetie Joe is the best and most wonderful fellow I could imagine. And I mean fellow in all kinds of senses, not just a good boyfriend, but also a pleasing traveling companion, also a foodie and a geek and an urban explorer. A like-minded soul.

4. My friend Fil knows how to relax me and make me laugh, and not just with the great collection of cartoons on DVD.

5. My friend Robin takes the most amazing portraits. One of these days I'll get myself in front of her wonder camera.

6. Avocados taste fucking incredible.

7. Dark chocolate is even better.

8. The view from my windows makes me smile, especially the little twinkling lights over the valley under the Sutro Tower at night.

9. I have never and will never regret having bought a leather chair & ottoman that cost as much then as a good laptop computer. Luxury, you're a great piece of furniture.

10. Indoor plumbing. Oh yes, traveling, especially in Africa, reminds one of the value of this.

11. Also, while I'm at it, a (currently) endless supply of safe & good water piped directly into my house. I'm not taking this for granted.

12. Good writing implements. Is it just me or have pens gotten better & better over the last 30some years? Thanks, Pilot.

13. Dry feet when it's chilly. You only miss this when you step in a puddle, but really, mmm, dry warm feet.

14. Electricity! It's night and I don't have to go to bed yet because of it being too dark! Go, electricity!

15. The Web. Hello, friends!

16. My Grandma Susie who I love all the time. 90 years old and still going strong. I got an email from her the other day, how cool is that?!

17. My mum Jinx who I was so lucky to be born to. What a cool person to know and, y'know, if ya gotta have relations who want to stay closely connected, what a blessing liking them is.

18. Digital cameras. Click click click click click. "Oh that one came out good, I'll save that." and no film processing costs - hooray!

19. My longtime pals B.J. & Beverly who are there for me whenever I need them and who keep me happy - and reminded that sometimes I just gotta go eat that delicious greasy fish & chips at the Edinburgh Castle pub!

20. Hot showers. Wow do they feel good.

If you know me, you know I could go on and on and on and on and on... I love this world, with all its faults. I wouldn't trade it for anything or, as I believe is the only option, nothing.

Brevity is the sole of wit. Whew. That's less than 140 characters. 2006

Today I signed up for Twitter as metagrrrl.

[retroactive post written July 16, 2009]

On Vox: Awww, that's so nice 2006

Here's a heartwarming little story about saving hedgehogs from their sweet tooths.

» Read more on Vox

Awww, that's so nice 2006

Here's a heartwarming little story about saving hedgehogs from their sweet tooths.

#####

Well, this was my first experimental cross-post between Vox (which has more media and community features) and TypePad (which is the engine running www.metagrrrl.com these days).

I'm disappointed by the linked text not being linked in the excerpt on MetaGrrrl. That pretty much renders Vox non-useful for link sharing for me. Odd that they've done so much on sharing photos, audio, video, and books and don't have anything for this. Maybe I need to figure out what this "collections" thing is... [Nope. No help there; it's just buckets for groups of the other media.]

I also wonder if the image of me that appears beside the Vox post will change in TypePad if I change it in Vox; that "you only see the current icon" feature has always seemed to me to be a shortcoming of LiveJournal, rendering, as it does, many old posts & comments about people's user icons incomprehensible.

My possible role in global peacekeeping 2006

Me: hallooo!
S.: hAWWOOOOO! i got a nintendo DS!
Me: woo! are you having the big fun?
S. : oh yes! with my nintendogs
S.: and now i must go and pounce my girlfriend!
Me: I endorse this. Make with the smootches!
S: the pouncing is endorsed?
Me: yes
Me: It is Endorsed Pouncing.
S.: you are, like, the UN security council of pouncing?
Me: I can neither confirm nor deny this assertion. For reasons of global security.

Pulling it all together 2006

It may be too early in Vox's life and in my exploration of its features to decide this, but I've begun thinking about what to do about the distribution of my writing & pictures on the web.

I have:
- MetaGrrrl, the blog I've been writing since October of 1998;
- Discardia, the adjunct blog for my longer essays on the holiday I invented & its corresponding philosophy;
- Discardian, the tip-a-day blog for Discardian ideas which I started last New Year's Eve and plan to run for one year (until mid-January, thanks to a vacation from it I'm just winding up);
- MeGrrrl, this Vox blog which I started in June;
- my Flickr stream, which has become a huge part of telling my story.

In the past, I've pulled other side projects back together under the MetaGrrrl site umbrella and that's still my first instinct.

Perhaps in this age of feeds, the problem I need to solve is how to merge the Vox posts and the Flickrstream to become the primary flow of activity on the main page of MetaGrrrl.

The two Discardia-related blogs just need to be better interlinked and have an improved front page to showcase the archives & perhaps bring up a random post from the past each day once I finish adding to it regularly. That same random link could be teased in the MetaGrrrl sidebar.

I still intend to fill in my life before 1998 if that problem with backdating posts in Typepad ever gets solved (you currently have to page back one month at a time which is a pain in the ass).

It's all a big project, but perhaps conquerable in a few weekend chunks. Something good to keep me distracted while Joe's away on his travels...

Home again 2006

Wonderful travels with Joe in Japan.

A good visit to Britain including a pleasant walk round the city walls of Chester which I enjoyed very much.

But now I'm home and its so good to be here.

Landed yesterday at SFO just before 5pm, finally entered my door around 6:30pm. Kept myself up until it was fully dark outside sometime after 8pm and then slept in my gloriously comfortable bed until 7am.

Now the sun is coming through the windows, I've been looking through the pictures Joe took in Malaysia over the last couple days, read Jinx's account of the great Cleo Laine concert she went to last night, and the smell of fresh rice almost ready has started to sneak out through the house from the rice cooker.

It's good to be home. It's even better to bring memories and good food ideas from my travels back to make home even more pleasant than it was before.

Japan travels... 2006

... are currently primarily documented in Joe's Vox
http://dreamword.vox.com/
and Flickr stream
http://flickr.com/photos/joegratz/

Hooray! Tokyo! 2006

Having a great time. Some pictures up in Joe's photostream (argh, why is it apparently impossible to upload multiple photos to Flickr without them coming in out of order?) and some more to come.

Really a great city and very friendly. We're having a wonderful time.

Foods tried so far:
- ramen (first night)
- sushi (both big meals yesterday, first at Tsukiji Fish Market, second in basement (food area) of a big department store, Matsuya in Asakusa)
- bagel with grilled pork (breakfast today)
- cold soba noodles (afternoon meal)

Also mochi, inari, chocolate cake, and probably some other things I'm forgetting.

It's hot here and so, despite all the walking, we're finding two meals plus some snacks to be sufficient.

Next, tomorrow, we head on to Kyoto.

DSCN1783

(To the right, a picture of Joe with another Tokyo visitor).