Sunday, February 25, 2007

ShutDown Day


ShutDown Day asks us to turn off our computers for one day
As of this posting, 17,216 people agreed to shut it off on March 24th, and 2,575 said they could not. I'm going to shut it off to test myself, if for no other reason.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Daniel in his element




So I was uploading the video below when I heard a familiar sound in the backyard....

Snow Mopeding

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Bookmooch


Logo artwork courtesy of BookMooch.com
Following my recent love of Librarything I found bookmooch.
It's a bookswaping site, here's how it works:
It starts by adding books you want to give away.
For each book you add you get so many points. People usually email right away when you add a book requesting it—two I posted got snatched up in under an hour. You gain points for sending books, of course, but you can also get points for each book you add to your inventory of books to give away. Biting the bullet and paying for shipping sucks, but is sweetened by the low cost of media shipping and the warm glow of knowing this book will be read, and knowing you’re going to get a book you want free of charge make it totally palatable. Browsing for books is easy, but so far I’ve had luck just adding books to my wishlist.

VD



So in case you missed my torrid of myspace comments, here's my favorite valentines this year from meish. Simply brilliant. Happy VD, ya'll.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Graceland review



Graceland by Chris Abani was an excellent book, good pace, excellent detail, and wonderfully full characters.
Elvis, the main character, stays true to the themes of a lot of African literature, forming some of his most salient relations with the women in his life. A maturation story of sorts—a maturation nearly truncated by the corrupt and desolate political, social and economic environments of Lagos.
The tension between rural, "traditional" Igbo cultural and the urban Lagos is another common theme in African literature and thankfully Abani is not overly sentimental, managing to show the differences without romanticizing the rural.
Abani had fun with character names: Redemption, his best friend, Comfort, his stepmother, Innocent, his cousin, they are all ironic and apt, taking their roles in Elvis’s life.
The whole organ-harvesting thing was rather sensationalist-- and it made Lagos seem like the worst city in the world, but, as the author points out, Lagos has the highest population of both billionaires and paupers.

read it and let me know what you think.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Super Heros



Artist Dulce Pinzon chose the Mexican immigrant worker in New York as exemplar for her project "The Real Story of the Superheroes" . Often un-noted, the Mexican immigrant works long hours for minimum wage and still sends money back to Mexico (there's an anthropological term for that, I can't think of right now).

Time Lapse Video of Guy Driving Across the Country