(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Hi LJ people! This is the last time I'm a-gonna send my blog posts to my LJ. I'm trying to write more, and I don't think a lot of my stuff is topical or necessarily that interesting to you folks. Feel free to bookmark or sign up for the feed, though, if you do happen to enjoy it. And I'll still be around on LJ!

I used to froth and rant at Wendy’s advertising slogan “It’s waaaaaay delicious,” which makes Wendy sound like she dropped out of school in fourth grade, but I have a new fast food slogan nemesis. (What? I’m a big fan of nemeses.) It seems that Pizza Hut’s latest round of commercials end off with “Now you’re eating.” Now.. you are eating. It’s like the only lure their food has is that you can put it in your mouth and swallow it. “Now you have found food sustenance.” Next up: car commercials with the slogan, “Now you are operating a motor vehicle.”

There are four basic elements of my life:

Job/Career
Relationship
Friends
Guild, blogs, and other labours of love

Thus far I seem to be able to maintain no more than three of these things at any one time. Which three I can handle shifts from day to day, but it is still the maximum. One day I'll figure out how to get that fourth ball in the air.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Points system for dog watching in Vancouver:

+10: Your dog is small and ugly.
+5: Your dog is small and cute.
+0: You are walking your dog.
-5: Your dog is wearing clothes. (Note: bandannas are acceptable.)
-10: Your dog is wearing designer clothes.

Scientific conclusion: No one likes to feel underdressed next to a dog.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Achievement systems have become hugely popular in gaming over the last few years. I sort of understood from a distance why this was so, but the concept didn’t really seem that compelling to me. Then one day the game I play the most got its own set of achievements, and suddenly I was up until 2am trying to hug a certain number of ducks or whatever just for that split second of lights and happy music. They are, indeed, addictive.

So what about achievements in real life? I was looking over Diddit, a relatively new site that wants you to keep track of things you do in your life, and was reminded of the achievement model. Diddit doesn’t take it far enough, but it kind of has the right idea. You can set up lists of things you’d like to do with your life, and when you tick them off you can publish your life achievement to Twitter or other broadcasting media.

Here’s what I think a site would have to do: gather a panel of experts from 10 or so core life areas (stuff like health, travel, family), and have them come up with a whole whack of achievements. Users could add their own , but I think most people enjoy doing things that have been preset for them by an “authority”. Assign a points system to them, and a good search/comparison engine. Integrate achievement announcements with as many different services as you can muster. Give it quirky homespun graphics and a stupid name that ends in an ‘r’. Profit!

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Looking at my site logs, two Google search referrals stand out:

a) “hate macrame owls” - Me too, anonymous Googlenaut! In the meantime, let us make faces at this collection of macrame tables and chairs.

b) “how to be less self-centered” - Oh wow, dude. Did you ever get sent to the wrong site.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

So it is time for me to fess up: not all of my personal anecdotes are 100% true. I mean, often they are, but sometimes I rearrange events or add a little character motivation or occasionally insert that line that I SHOULD have said but didn’t. I had someone earlier this week say that that made me a filthy liar and my reply was, “I’m not lying! I’m editing.”

And, to my mind, it’s true. I don’t fabricate entire events out of whole cloth, or turn people who zig into people who zag. But my innate tendency when I’m telling a story is to punch it up a bit. And I think I’m not alone in this, or at least I have David Sedaris on my side and that’s pretty good backup.

Really, so much of life now is about good self-PR. The whole social media thing? It’s all self-PR, which is part of the reason I so enjoy it. What is the “Jessica” brand? What does it believe in? What does it promote? What did it have for lunch? These are critical questions!

So does punching up the odd anecdote to make it more impactful* or more coherent or, yes, more flattering, constitute lying, or good old fashioned editing for your intended audience?

* “Impactful” is not strictly a word but it SHOULD BE.

____________________________

Down with Facebook! For all my Twittering and Digging and Blippring, I hate Facebook. It was kind of okay at first, and neat to catch up with old absentee friends. Then the interface got all cluttered with crap and I realized that I don’t actually care about that many people and my email box was hit with a plague of messages like, “That Person You Hated in High School wants you to join their Pirate Ninja Squad!” Despite the fact that some of my good friends still hang out there (Chris, dude, I am talking to you. Get a goddamned Twitter and save me some pain.), I refuse to participate.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Hi LJ people. This was a really long bit comparing the current popular social bookmarking sites, but I shall spare your f-lists the pain. If that's the kind of thing you like to read, go visit mah blog. Thank you, and good day.

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Link dump:

9 Comics to Read After Seeing Watchmen. Everyone is all blah blah bad word of mouth blah, and I think they’re clearly insane. It was a GREAT movie, all three hours of it. I was a fan of the book, but not a fangirl, and felt entirely satisfied by the movie treatment.

Chocolate cake in five minutes, using a coffee mug and a microwave. Now this is my kinda cooking.

PS: I thought about putting a pretty graphic or two in this post to increase the visual appeal and better attract readers, but then I realized I don’t care. Suck that, Web 2.0.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

I am feeling prolific and linky today. Maybe it’s a Friday thing, or reduced game responsibilities, or the fact that I’ve had almost no office work to do all week.

City of Vancouver votes to allow urban chickens! Get this motion passed by my cats and we might be on to something. Really, though, raising chickens in the extra bathroom isn’t very practical. It would be much more sensible to build giant plexiglas tubes around the whole apartment and have them wander about like hamsters. (Side note: the author of this how-to on removing a hamster from a tube should chat with this half-baked theorist on pneumatic hamster tubes).

Helicopter shots of Venice. Absolutely stunning, and almost enough to make me think about going back to Italy. “Hey, here’s an idea: we’ve got 118 islands, why not build a city all over them?!”

So I mentioned Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but I just discovered the competing film, Pride and Predator. Clearly the one with walking undead will be superior. Elizabeth is a smart and proper lady, it’s not like she’d lower her standards to courting alien bounty hunters. Please. It does makes you wonder how the film world happens upon this synchronicity…

Guerrila Camoflage for IKEA. The next war will not be fought on the battlefield, or even on computers. It will be on huge concrete fields of sensibly priced Swedish furniture.

Oh, and finally, I have to give a shoutout to David Lynch’s Twitter. Sometimes he shares a thought or two, but mostly he just posts the daily weather in Los Angeles in perfectly structured English. It is very odd and it pleases me to no end.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Time Magazine thinks Facebook’s “25 Things About Me” meme is dumb.

Jon Stewart hates Twitter.

The LA Times argues that social networking hasn’t made us any more social.

I am pretty in to the whole social media thing — I am a faithful reader of Mashable — and I have a history of being very strongly in favor of making the web a huge personal publishing platform for everyone. My stance has always been that if every mom had a way of sharing their thoughts the world would be a better place.

Lately though I’ve been wondering if all these new content platforms are actually.. killing content. Who is creating the neat websites that we used to blog about? (Note: not me.) Books become essays, essays become blog posts, blog posts become 140 character status messages. (Amusing: the book Twitter for Dummies is 288 pages about 140 characters.) It seems like it’s not entirely impossible that within two years we’ll be communicating solely through acronyms and bulleted lists. Will it still be content at all, or just self-contained egocentric notes being shouted out in a storm of voices?

And if I really feel strongly about this, shouldn’t I be helping by creating actual unique genuine content that is more than a sentence? Hmmm. All this thinking about stuff is making my fingers tired, so let’s just have a list of things about me! (I am not interesting or patient enough for 25 items, so instead here are 10.)

1. I didn’t attend kindergarden, or grades 4 and 6. I just didn’t.
2. The town I grew up in didn’t have access to funky hair colors way back when, so I dyed my hair blue with bleach and kool aid.
3. I sailed a replica of a wooden Spanish longboat at the Brest, France maritime festival in 1992.
4. My Dad almost named me “Shasta Daisy”.
5. My favorite Beatle is John.
6. I threw a glass of water at a hobo once. I also punched a really obnoxious street kid in the nose.
7. In grade 10 my friends and I secretly ran a fake Student Council president campaign for the mysterious and non-existent “Bob Aran”.
8. My mother once told me, “No matter how poor you get, never buy second hand shoes”, and I still feel that’s a damn fine life lesson.
9. I don’t like conflict, particularly when I was younger. Instead of quitting jobs or making appointments I have had brothers die or be horribly injured, family members go missing, and broken my leg a few times.
10. I have never broken any major bones, although I did pop a chip off my left index knuckle once. It hurts in really humid weather, which kind of pleases me because it seems poetic.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Lately I’ve been in to uncovering digital/online art communities and browsing through all their stuff. Art is a total mystery to me. I sometimes sit down and try and draw things, or color things, and they inevitably disappoint. Which is amusing, because my dearest friend from high school and spiritual little brother is an artist for a living, and when we get together he will occasionally respond to something I’ve said with, “Yes! That is art!” and I am all “What? Where? Did I blink and miss it? I don’t understand!”

Anyway, this is a longwinded way of pointing out that these old school book covers for modern movies completely kick ass.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

I had this moment last week where a song I hadn’t heard in ages came on the radio at a restaurant and I was instantly flooded with vivid memories. It was “Where Have All the Cowboys Gone”, and it played over and over and over at the little tourist shop where I worked one summer. Sitting there last week I could actually smell the clothing steamer, and my fingers were alive with the memory of folding a million shirts on my cardboard folding board.

Anyway, it gave me the idea of a writing exercise: think of an evocative song from my past, and write about the memories. I did my first one on the plane to Vegas. It’s a little clumsy and maudlin, but I’m out of practice and didn’t want to edit too much and air travel terrifies me. (Half writing exercise, half therapy!) With that in mind…

Joey, Concrete Blonde (1991)

It was Fall, I think. Cold enough to have to keep the heat running in the car, but not far enough in the year for jackets.

We sat in the car, Mom in the driver’s seat and me beside her. We were parked at the big recreation center outside of town, almost exactly halfway between our home and that of my boyfriend at the time. It had long since shut down for the day, and we were the only car in the lot.

She must have been driving me home. She had done it before, and it was always one of those awkward things. “So.. what were you two up to tonight?” “Oh, you know.. stuff. Watched T.V. Just.. stuff.” A pause would stretch into silence for the rest of the drive.

But not that night. That night she pulled over, kept the car running, and tried to explain all those things that Moms want their daughters to know and sixteen year old daughters are too smug to learn. She talked, I listened. The Concrete Blonde cassette played through twice, making that ‘clunk’ noise of the automatic side switcher every twenty minutes or so. Each time I heard that thunk I would inwardly roll my eyes and wonder when the lecture would end. Eventually I think she felt she had said enough, and with a sigh she headed the car back towards home.

I learned very little. How do you teach your daughter to never have her heart broken, to never be reckless, to always be loyal to herself? You don’t, of course. But I imagine sometimes one would get the urge to try, sitting in the middle of nowhere as slow ballads blend together in the background.

Going through this total manic phase -- all weekend I basically have had to be pelted with anvils to slow my brain down and get any sleep. I think it's probably impending Spring and sunshine. Suddenly all I want to do is create! Write, interact, ponder, code, design, grow, be inspired. My brain is ruthless and will not stop until it is sated.

I am giddy with ideas, but I need to sleep soon before leaving on Wednesday and before I die. Vegas is not a town for catching up on your sleep, particularly not with a dozen guildies to drink under the table.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

I came across the Lifestreaming phenomenon while I was looking for a way to keep track of the books I read in 2009. Basically it’s the idea of keeping a central, automatically updated list of everything you do socially online. It’s sort of the hyper-extention of what we used to do in ye olde dayes of blogginges, keeping manual lists of things we read and movies we watched.

Obviously when I discovered the idea on Friday I thought it was stupid. What sort of narcissist would collect streams of data about themselves and gather it in one location? Who cares what I’m reading, or what I posted on my blogs, or what I said on other people’s — ooh, it can do that? What about.. ohh. And does it work with an RSS stream? I see. How.. interesting. /twitch.

(Have we spoken about my little voice yet? My little voice tells me to do many things, but mostly it likes obsessing over weird nerd projects. Stay up for 48 hours getting glue in my hair creating tiny sprockets for a paper clock? Okay! Eschew living beings while I obtain some achievement on my pixelated elf? Awesome! See the sunrise because I have to figure out how some new web geek phenomenon works? Yes please. I am probably the happiest when it’s 2am and I’m waist deep in some useless project with no end in sight.)

So here we are, about 10 hours of effort later and of course I have one of the blasted things. It combines the internet traces of books I read, movies I watch, games I play, and music I like, along with my blog posts, bookmarks, comments on other blogs, tweets, and GTalk status. Why? God, I don’t know. I still think it’s narcissistic and has no purpose. I just also think it’s shiny and organized, and I feel so structured that it makes my toes curl. Damn you, trendy new web phenom. (Then of course I had to redesign the site to go with the new feature, and properly tag and catalog all my old posts.)

I also got almost all my archives from 2000-2006 back online, so that’s an actual contribution of content to the series of tubes. I’m hoping it all evens out in the end.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Pride and Prejudice And Zombies. “… a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.”

The concept of this book fills me with such joy, y’all, I cannot even describe it.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

I don’t know why I thought of this, but on the way home from work today I suddenly remembered this party in Grade Nine where a bunch of us sat around and played this board game. When it was your turn, you would take four random “event” tiles — things like “Eat a cake” or “Go to the dentist” or “Travel to India” — and rank them in order of which you would prefer. The other players then had to guess in what order you ranked said events.

Anyway, my opponent for this one memorable round was none other than Mr. Adrian. I ordered my tiles, and then he guessed. The first two events are lost to the mists of time, but the last two were “Lose your voice” and “See the Pope”. Adrian bet that I would rather do the latter than the former and he was.. wrong. And then incensed. “That’s crap! You’re lying! Who would want to lose their voice?!” he cried out. I tried to explain, but he stomped away and refused to play anymore.

And so, a number of years later (who can say how many years, darlings? -distracting hand wave-) I would like to explain my decision once and for all.

Benefits to losing your voice:

• You get to stay home from school/work.
• You can demand that people bring you ice cream.
• Losing your voice is the kind of affliction that people get in my favorite old novels, like consumption or accidentally falling in love with your cousin.

Reasons to avoid the Pope:

• We would likely have nothing to talk about. Do you think the Pope watches Top Chef?
• Not being Catholic, to me the Pope is just kind of this dude in a big hat.
• I would have to go back to Rome, and that worked out poorly the first time. It was approximately 18,000 degrees while I was there, and we would run out from the shade, admire some seriously gorgeous and significant piece of architecture, and then retreat back to our hostel and drink many litres of water.

I REST MY CASE, ADRIAN.

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I noticed on the way home that there is a Sephora opening up less than a block away from my home. I will say farewell now to all my disposable income, as I expect to soon be spending it on bizarre European lip plumping creams and mascaras made from NASA technology. I won’t use any of these things, mind you, but I will buy them and stare at them, and love them with a fierce joy.

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Proof that I am regressing:

The scene: the elevator this morning. Two pleasant looking Asian girls are having a conversation on one side. I am slouched over, half-awake on the other.

Girl One: “I don’t know, I put, like, twelve balls in my mouth this weekend, and now I don’t feel so good.”
Girl Two: “Oh yeah, I’ve done that. I totally know what you mean.”

Jessica: <unattractive, inappropriate snicker>

Back to the salon last week to see Urs and get a few pounds of hair removed from my head. I love my weird little communist collective hair place. The customers offer you coffee (half of them look like they just live in their barber chairs), and apparently the special for this week was a free "scalp inspection", which you all will be pleased to know I passed with flying colors. But to get back to my story, as Urs was just settling in to start cutting he paused, scissors in hand, and locked eyes with me in the mirror. "You like funkee, yes?" "Yeah, funky, go for it." "I can do... awesome funkee?" I had to think about it for a second. I mean, clearly the modifier indicated that this was beyond a standard level of funky, which was mildly concerning, but it was also advertised as awesome. I like awesome! Unless it's the strict dictionary definition of inducing awe, which could be bad. But what the hell, right?

So, anyway, I have bangs now.

I'm starting to get that old familiar ache of mediocrity and routine. I have this poetic urge to hop on a bus to nowhere with a notebook, pen, and a head full of acid, only people on the bus smell and there's no high speed internet and eventually I'd get hungry and past experience has proven that acid makes me want to dig out the evil parts of my brain with a spoon. (Protip: on acid, all parts of your brain are the evil parts.) What would you do while tripping out on a bus for hours, anyway? Back in college my friends and I once taped our mushroom-induced profundity, only to find the next day that our brilliance was reduced to giggles and people shouting about how their hands were really big. I'd probably end up burnt out and lost in Wyoming** with a notebook full of stick figures grining through giant sharp teeth, and really given that outcome I'd rather stay home and wear comfortable pants and watch Gossip Girl again.

Maybe I'll just be like most people and get drunk and get an ill-advised tattoo. "Grammar 4 Lyfe" in red ink with roses climbing over the letters. Yeah. That'll liven things up.

** I'd like to give a shoutout to Mari here, my compatriot in drunkenness on New Years Eve. At some point I was grasping to name "that state that starts with a Y", and she shouted out "Wyoming!" which was indeed the one I was thinking of. Booze makes me smrt.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Baby It’s Cold Outside: Jessica’s Spontaneous Pho Experience

So, I don’t cook. I’m not even being coy, I really don’t. I happen to be fortunate enough to live in the middle of the city surrounded by cute cheap restaurants, and even when I feel like eating at home it tends to be microwaved rice served with mushroom soup. Yesterday, however, I was suddenly struck by the urge to make pho. It was a strange feeling. Could one non-cooking white girl spontaneously make pho at home? It was time to find out, and I had to document the efforts for future dinners.

The Pre-Amble
1. Look on the Internets to see what usually goes in pho. Make a grocery list which you will forget about and leave at home when it’s time to go shopping.
2. Time to go shopping! I went to the local Asian and standard supermarkets. Some things will likely be unavailable. Improvising is good.

Kitchen Work, Phase One
1. Cut up a bunch of onion and a hunk of ginger into really small pieces. Saute them with a little olive oil in a big soup pot. After a couple of minutes, throw in some stewing beef, also cut into really small pieces. Add salt and pepper.
2. Lament your lack of knife skills. Oh, sure, I CAN chop an onion, given a blade and some time, but it’s usually a laborious process that involves at least one onion explosion and one near miss on my fingers.
3. Add herbs. I included dried cilantro because everyone was out of fresh. I also threw in some anise, because no one had star anise and I don’t know what the difference is anyway, and crushed chili peppers. Oh, and nutmeg. I think pho is supposed to have cinnamon, but I couldn’t find it in the cupboard and I figured they’re the same color. Plus, I like eggnog, and nutmeg reminds me of eggnog!
4. When everything is nice and brown and cooked, add two boxes of beef stock and a bunch of fish sauce. Now is also a good time to stare pensively at the quantity of fluid in the pot and add another helping of the above spices.
5. Find the cinnamon behind the peppercorns. Think about it for a second, then add a big helping of cinnamon. What the hell.
6. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer.

The Waiting Game
1. Wait three hours and try not to think about how tasty it will be or how you wish you were eating it right now. I recommend television, video games, or just taking a nap, which is what I did.
2. Taste it occasionally, make a little face, and add more spices or water as appropriate to undo whatever you did last time you tasted it. If available, have someone else taste it so they can tell you what they think is wrong with it, and you can tell them to shut the hell up because it’s not their soup anyway.

Kitchen Work, Phase Two
1. Get a big bowl! No, bigger.
2. Boil some water for the rice stick noodles. They should cook for about 3 minutes, then rince in warm water.
3. Thinly slice a little bit of onion, thai hot pepper, and green onion, and put in the bowl. Tear up some fresh basil and throw it in, and add a big helping of bean sprouts because they are way good for you.
4. Add some very thinly sliced beef. There was some prepackaged at the Asian grocery store. Add the noodles.
5. You could strain the broth, and in fact I’m sure most people would. I’m hungry and impatient, though, and the onions, ginger, and stewing beef had pretty much disintegrated anyway so whatever. Poor broth into the bowl until the beef slices are covered.
6. Eat it with a spoon and chop sticks, making sure to frequently let out little ‘yummy!’ noises at anyone who is around.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

Let’s do this the short way. People I do not wish a Happy New Year:

• My old boss from earlier this year. You are offensive, juvenile, and I stole that can of soup from your personal stash in the kitchen.
• Tracy, the girl who works in my building now that seems to still hate me after a decade for no good reason. That pink clip-on hair extension you used to wear in college? It was ugly. Yeah. I went there.
• The singing hobo down the street. I think he knows why.
• The people currently responsible for the Priest class in Warcraft. Stop making me wish I was a paladin, dammit.
• Nicolas Cage. I know I’m a little late on this, but I watched Ghost Rider a few weeks ago and it grieves me deeply that I will never get those three hours of my life back.

People I wish a very special New Years to:

• My family. Sorry I’m so incommunicado. Being better about that is my resolution for 2009, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be there for the shindig this summer.

The rest of you bastards are all right in my book. I’ll see many of you tonight.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

IGN outlines the Top 10 Hangover songs.

Life in the Fastlane reviews hangover science and debunks some myths about cures.

Slate has a cute little article on the history of the hangover.

Not that I have any reason for this link theme. Nope. None at all.

(Originally published at Pith and Vinegar: blog version.)

A number of years ago today I was born.

In the past year I:

• Saw Louis XIV and Bruce Campbell live
• Sold the first and only place I ever owned
• Moved to the big city
• Changed careers and employers
• Started saying ‘rad’ a lot despite my best intentions
• Had a mango delivered internationally
• Bleached, dyed, streaked, highlighted, lowlighted, straightened, and curled my hair
• Organized a weekend party for people I’d never met
• Had my first Jaegerbomb. Had my first dim sum.
• Did things and went places that would make my mother blush
• Started my blog again
• Laughed and laughed and laughed and cried and danced just a little
• Had just under 2000 gtalk conversations
• Took the train, and even got to my final destination once
• Got drunk and brandished inflatable swords at strangers
• Ate a $50 steak, and a chicken foot. Not at the same time
• Met lots of new people and made some splendiferous new friends
• Declared war on hobo street musicians

It has been a good year.

Woke up cranky. Reinforced immediately upon waking up with a few words that never get the response I want. I leave, and then coffee shop I go to every day at the same time to order the same thing is out of my choice of muffin. I stare at the cashier, stunned, irrationally angry, imaginging finding the person with the last chocolate chip muffin and throttling him until he relinquishes it to me.. and order a different flavor.

Outside it is dark and raining heavily. I've forgotten my umbrella, but going back to get it would probably mean saying more things to that weird scared place in my insides so I just push on. The singing hobo on the corner stops belting out "Joy to the World" long enough to call me a bitch for not giving him change. I flip him the bird.

Everyone is irritating. There are a pair of bookend blondes in front of me, with perfect hair and matching Burberry boots, umbrellas, and, most aggravating of all, earmuffs. I have been awake for 15 minutes, and already I want everyone to go away. I want everything to disappear while I figure out where the hell I'm going, in the big picture. As I'm standing on a street corner waiting for the lights, the rain turns to snow in what seems like an instant. It sticks a bit, and there's a hint of that weird insulated feeling that snow makes. My hair is sprinkled with white, everyone is sprinkled with it. I look around and break into heartfelt laughter.

Fuck the muffin thwarter, fuck the rain, fuck that fucking hobo, and fuck that weird scared place inside of me. Fuck it all. At least I've got snow.