Pith and Vinegar

this and that

2009-03-19T17:07:20Z

(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.”

juggle!

2009-03-18T18:14:25Z

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.

tips for vancouver urban living

2009-03-17T19:53:04Z

(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.

life achievements

2009-03-16T19:17:04Z

(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!

————————————–

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.

lying or editing?

2009-03-11T19:40:04Z

(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.

social bookmarking and other things i pretend to know about

2009-03-09T20:51:31Z

(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.

—————————————–
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.

i’ve been reading the internets again

2009-03-06T22:55:43Z

(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.

slave to social media fashion

2009-03-04T17:39:44Z

(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.

it’s art

2009-02-26T16:44:02Z

(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.

what what what what what what what

2009-02-16T20:41:34Z

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.

is it time for the sun to come up already?

2009-02-15T20:56:39Z

(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.

oh. my. god.

2009-02-15T10:13:06Z

(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.

jezzicuh @ 2009-01-15T11:25:00

2009-01-15T19:26:36Z

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.

good morning sunshine

2008-12-12T17:01:36Z

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.

jezzicuh @ 2008-11-02T20:30:00

2008-11-03T04:32:54Z

You have received [Epic Weekend].

monday musing

2008-10-20T15:36:20Z

It was chilly and rainy this morning, but the air smelled clean and all the lights of the city and traffic reflected off of little pools of water in the low points of the pavement. The pleasing responsiveness of my umbrella as it popped into position made me smile. Guys in pinstripe suits on skateboards whizzed past women in towering monster shoes, both trying to pretend they don't see 40 on the horizon. The busker on the corner was singing the Disney paean "Hi Ho, Hi Ho", and if I had any change in my pockets it would have been his. The walk to work is just long enough to make the tips of my fingers and nose tingle a bit from the cold, and then it's up to my desk for a big cup of coffee and a warm muffin from the store.

I might survive this Monday after all.

PS: As some point this weekend WinAmp had a psychotic episode and now it only plays "Blind" by Korn over and over again. And over. And over. I don't even particularly like that song. It's like my MP3 player has become some sullen teenager who instead of listening to me ("Wouldn't you like to play some nice Crystal Castles now?") has just shut itself in its room playing bad "boy" rock very loudly. I'm going to make it clean its room, and then we'll see if it's ready to play nicely.

As a teenager I had much better sense and played "Blasphemous Rumors" by Depeche Mode at high volume when I was sulking. To her very last day just hearing a line or two of that song would give my Mother the creeping urge to throttle me.

write faster! FASTER!

2008-08-26T00:00:51Z

So it's official.. in my mind, anyway. I'm going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, although my work may not be pure fiction.

I like their "don't edit, don't think, just write" theme. I can edit tiny bits forever and ever. The whole package might be just the structure I need to kick my butt into action. Anyway, I have two months to come up with an outline and muse over content, and then it's time to shut up and write a damn book.

starts with u

2008-08-20T14:50:08Z

The lovely and talented hetaera15 issued a challenge yesterday: "Comment and I'll give you a letter; then you have to list ten things you LOVE that begin with that letter. Afterward, post this in your journal and give out some letters of your own."

Well, how could I not respond to that! I was given the letter 'u', which is tricky although there are a lot more 'u' words around than you might think. Anyway, a list, in no particular order:

Upsidedown cake (pineapple) - As in the ones my Dad makes.
Urban living - I adore living in the city. Everything is three blocks away!
Understanding - I love knowing how things work, and that "Eureka!" moment when something clicks.
Usability - The key to making good websites and documents. My mantra for information design.
Union Jack - Everything is better when it's British.
Undo - The savior of my career. "Oh no! Ctl-Z Ctl-Z Ctl-Z!"
Uniform - I have my OCD moments, and I get a deep joy out of things lining up correctly or being evenly spaced or whatnot.
Ubik - A Phillip K Dick novel, and therefore something awesome.
Uvula - Okay, not uvulas per se, but my little brother Ant doesn't have one (weird!) so this word reminds me of him.
Unflappable - I love being around confident people. I love my own moments of confidence.

this is why I lose stuff

2008-08-06T20:00:03Z

A quick emergency cleaning of my handbag at lunch turned up:

- two expired Starbucks cards
- a hotel key card from the Crowne Plaza in Seattle
- ticket stubs from an Amtrak train, the Seattle aquarium, Louis XIV, the Vancouver Wine Festival, and a Kids in the Hall show
- two business cards that belong to people I've never heard of before
- 52 (!) expired bus tickets
- a plastic fork and 5 ketchup packets

hair on fire!

2008-08-03T01:58:41Z

So, what you can't see is the full force of the black in the front, and in the fringe in the back is an orange/yellow that makes it kind of look like my head is on fire, but this is the red, at least.

meanwhile...

2008-07-23T23:13:12Z

Too much coffee and weirdness. I can't concentrate enough to make a serious blog post, and I can't share enough to make a proper journal entry.

Plans for the weekend:

* Finally go across the street and talk to tattoo artist (ask probing questions like, "Boy, I bet you guys get so busy you don't have time to sterilize stuff, huh?"). Take sketch of shaded pilcrow with a crooked halo.
* Book appointment with terrifying Scandinavian for professional hair dye in anticipation of new job (red-copper, I think)
* Visit with maiden Southern aunt who is in town. Don't mention...
* Wearing cute new clothes (crinoline and corset!) to Sin City Anniversary. (The poster is awesome.)
* Drink and dance until my feet bleed and ears ring and my brain rattles emptily
* Update blog properly
* Cure cancer

well alllll right

2008-07-21T15:47:45Z

Sitting in a car with friends, the music pleasantly oomphing along, a cool breeze flowing in the windows to temper the bright sun. The green hills remind me of San Fransicso a bit as they roll down to the inlet and the water flecked with the whites of sails. Soon there will be beer and conversation and big soft pretzels with mustard that burns your tongue, but for now there's just a fleeting moment of blissful Quiet.

I went on a quick trip this weekend to Seattle. It was very nice.

Daily Twitter Stuff

2008-07-16T09:09:47Z

08:02 There is some crazy guy standing here at the bus terminal shouting, "Tomorrow is almost the weekend!". Amen, crazy guy. #

Daily Twitter Stuff

2008-07-07T22:01:30Z

13:07 Today's fictional band name: Subterranean Dimetrodon. Obviously they open for Masionic Reptoids. #

Daily Twitter Stuff

2008-06-28T09:08:23Z

12:53 Off tonight to Cirque du Soleil, or as I call it, "bourgeois circus". #