[ Posted by kevin
Sun, 14 Jan 2007 21:16:40 GMT ]
"A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" (Dave Eggers)
This is an autobiography. I wish someone would have told me that, because I hate autobiographies. I'll go as far as to say that no-one's life is that interesting... everything needs a plot.
That said, this guy has a fascinating writing style. For a really dull book, it had some interesting moments. Many of what he says is very poetic, and rang with that quiet bell of truth that you can recognize sometimes. His paranoia and genuine love of his brother and friends, while at the same time desire to use them in his book (yes, it's meta like that), was endearing in a quirky sort of way.
It was very different from my usual fantasy-fare, so was a refreshing read.
Technorati Tags: review, puppy
Posted in Concerts | 4 comments
[ Posted by kevin
Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:20:50 GMT ]
I was thinking about this relative to my old post about designing web pages for different screen sizes.
I shall blog about this another day (if I'm going to share it with you instead of capitalizing on it by keeping it secret, but wait, then no-one would adopt it and it would fail. Perhaps that's then the real success of open source?)
In related news, apple recently got a patent for designing UI's based on screen-independent width values. Like all patents, seems kinda obvious, but here we are not doing it.
Technorati Tags: css, design, javascript, patents
Posted in Coding | 2 comments
[ Posted by kevin
Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:15:36 GMT ]
Doesn't a monkey sound exotic? Surely it would cost several thousand dollars, not to mention being inhumane to own one anyways.
But you can get these fantastic creatures called 'cats' for free. In fact, every major city has several houses set up to house the ones they can't give away fast enough. Crazy!
I'd pay a lot for such an exotic pet. They're so ... feline. So inhuman. It's really fascinating, how much it teaches us how animal humans are by what we share vs. don't share.
Technorati Tags: cat, social interaction
Posted in Society | 3 comments
[ Posted by kevin
Sun, 07 Jan 2007 23:39:00 GMT ]
When I was in high school and an undergrad in college, I would find a passage in a book that really spoke to me in a special way. Something that I swore was written just for me. I'd read it to someone, and they'd say 'heh', and not be that interested. I dare you:
"This is obscene. How dare we be standing around,t alking about nothing, not running in one huge mass of people, running at something, something huge, knocking it over? Why do we all bother coming out, gathering her in numbers like this, without starting fires, tearing things down? How dare we not lock the doors and replace the white bulbs with red and commence with the massive orgy, the joyous mingling of a thousand arms, legs, breasts" - page 134
I love the poetic-ness, the feeling that there must be something bigger, some grander purpose to socialization. That feeling you get when the conversation is just a bit too dull, and you're like "why am I here?" When you're looking at the girls and wishing you had the nerve to say something, the wit to think of something clever that would make them love you, that would make the whole room recognize your genius. OK, well maybe a bit less ego-centric than that, but one giant shared-love experience, that we're all ok. We all crave that attention, that acceptance, isn't that what an orgy represents anyways? One giant community fulfillment?
In case you couldn't tell, I've been thinking a lot lately about what makes a community, and why we bother finding or joining one. I'm not sure that I ever really have - certainly friends, and groups of friends, but never neighbors in a very real way, or any other physical or ideological grouping. I yearn for that grander purpose to start fires and tear things down - I had a taste of it in the WTO protests in Seattle 1999.
Yes, it's been awhile. Welcome back, Kevin.
Technorati Tags: religion, purpose, sex, social interaction
Posted in Society, Ambitions | 3 comments
