This is so cute. Excerpted

This is so cute. Excerpted from an e-mail from my mom:

Even though I am sure that it was not my opinion you were seeking, I am still telling you that capitalizing is much better and easier to read. Also the reduced usage of the f… word particularly improves your writing.

aww.. moms, ya gotta love ‘em.

So my current project at work is to write (and edit, and design, and build) a user manual. It’s kinda fun just because i have never done it before. I can still be into my work without pledging allegiance to the company, right? Once you become an adult, the line between “looking at the bright side” and “selling out” get blurrier and blurrier…

If you ever find yourself writing a user manual, check out this article:

AskTog: How to Publish a Great User Manual. It’s quite good. And even if you’re not, it’s kinda interesting. Check it if you have a coupla minutes and some spare bandwidth.

Please Please PLEASE – download

Please Please PLEASE – download the version of Summertime i’ve posted today. It’s by Billy Stewart and is the perfect mix of jazz horns and soulful crooning. I find it fits incredibly well with a wednesday at the end of august. Well, it fits on any august day really.

Take it!

I also have another version of it by The Roots and Bobby Womack which i love as well. I’ll post that too when i get a chance. I have to do 3 weeks of work in the next three days, so i’m a touch distracted. I can’t complain, it’s my own fault. But i get these weird obsessions with songs where i download 10 different versions spanning 50 years and listen to them all in a row. I’ll post my “Angel of the Morning” tracks one of these days too.

Just returned from my two hour french lunch. This place rocks. I can’t believe i’m not as big as a house yet. In fact i’m managing to lose weight somehow. It must be all the mayonnaise [...puzzled...].

This is the first night

This is the first night i’ve felt sort of like a normal person in paris. If you happen to notice, i’m trying to start my sentences with capital letters. I stopped doing that for speed’s sake once i got myself involved in this whole internet fiasco. And then i just started liking the way it looked, small letters that is. But now i’m realizing that since you can’t easily double space between sentences in html, it’s damn hard to read. I’m still opposed to capitalizing proper nouns and such. But who knows!? I change my style every other second. let me know if you have an opinion one way or the other, i’m actually interested to know.

So yes, i’ve gotten myself a free internet connection. Shit’s still free on the web in france. Woo hoo. I was in new york this weekend, and man i’m so happy to be here. It was hot and the place stank to high heaven. But more to the point, it is just an amazingly beautiful place here. The whole time i was in the city (note: i always refer to new york city as “the city”. there is just no other “the city”) i felt like i was in a slum or something: The trash on the curbs, the crumbling gargoyles, all the bland 6 story walk-ups. There just isn’t a comparison. My building is like 400 years old! and it’s beautiful! When i first moved to new york from LA, i was at a frat party and met this guy who had just come from london. we were talking about our first impressions of the city.

All i could say was, “It’s so old.”

And he was like, “Really? I find it all so new.”

I get it now. But unlike LA, the city is in utter disrepair. It’s sad, really. Buildings can last; I’ve seen proof.

I also gotten my bed and closet/mirror contraption delivered from ikea today. a couple notes on ikea. First, i went there and of course it is in a huge suburb of paris, which looks like every suburb i’ve seen in the states. Weird. It’s also in Roissy. Which is where the crazy S&M mansion in The Story of O is. What a freakin’ letdown. It’s a huge suburb with six lane streets and no sidewalk! Note two is that the entire store is exactly the same as the one in the states: all the merchandise, every single little pretend kitchen they’ve got. Everything! Except for the prices, those are much lower. heh heh.

So, yes, here i am at home, feeling like a normal human being. When i was back in the city, i visited my old place to see my little kitty and pick up my winter clothes and some odds and ends. It was really traumatic. The subletters have rearranged everything, and i must admit it looks pretty nice. I’ve just got no eye for spatial arrangements. If there’s a job i’d be absolutely the worst at, it’d be interior decorating. But anyway, it looked nice, and it really spooked me. I love that apartment. And being there, seeing that couple all happy and settled took the breath out of me. I sat in the windowsill and thought about everything i had hoped for when i first moved in there. For like a month i thought i had everything. I had the a job that was appropriately challenging and appropriately well-paid, a man i could say anything to, an apartment i loved, i had even quit smoking. And then one by one everything began to fall apart. And sitting there in my apartment that was someone else’s, in a city that was no longer mine… this overwhelming sense of failure came over me. I walked over to the other window in (what used to be) my bedroom and watched the neighborhood kids play basketball. A pastime i unthinkingly made a habit in times of depression, boredom, fatigue, and just plain mind numbing zen. It was hard. They say you should never look back, and i can understand why.

feeling at home, and loving my camera

you know – i have

you know – i have this recurring fear that people are making fun of me all the time. i think this is because i can’t understand what they’re saying. hmmm… or maybe i’m just self-centered.

more later.

Best search term so far:

Best search term so far:

mean popular kids on google

I don’t see my self showing up here, must be at the very end. But this is curious. I wonder what this person was looking for.

The Industry Standard Suspends Publication

The Industry Standard Suspends Publication

when the main rag of the industry dies, isn’t it basically the equivalent of the four horseman riding in?

  • Aug 17
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it’s playing with camera time.

it’s playing with camera time.

back in brooklyn

outside my office

why am i awake?

well, lo and behold i’m

well, lo and behold i’m back in the big smelly apple. Two interesting dichotomies i’ve come up with concerning my old home (nyc) and my new (paris):

1. in new york it smells outside: the trash, the decomposing rats, the guy that deposited his slightly digested lunch in that corner there. in paris it smells inside: eau de perspiration, i think it’s called.

2. in paris personal freedom is supreme. in the states corporate freedom is.

the first is, well, self explanatory. the second just takes a minute of thought but is self-evident also. sitting in a park having a beer? in paris of course. then on the flipside is the inability of parisians to even conceptualize forming a proper line, ever. being able to buy a mop whenever you want? in ny, duh. but then when it comes to whether or not you have decent health insurance you are completely at the mercy of whatever iron deficient creep is sitting in a cube adding up numbers in your office. anyway, nothing earthshaking either i suppose.

so, nothing like a day in wall street to kill a girl’s appetite for the city. our ny office reminds me of one of those excruciatingly dull indie films. the desks of the people that got laid-off 2 months ago are in the exact state they were left in. the desk i was sitting at still had the phone list of 5 months ago (which has had more changes than stayed-the-same’s) still tacked up behind the chair. i trashed that and scrubbed my desk down, just cause. if i were staying there for more than 2 days, my girlie instinct would’ve probably led me to clean the whole damn place. it’s like peeking into the room of a serious nutcase, where you can just tell just how bad things are from the manic disarray and the almost purposeful lack of care. and that’s just the aesthetics. the dir. of marketing basically lost it at a meeting before noon. and when i came back from lunch the sys admin manager had finally come in and was typing his letter of resignation. and this is just the obvious stuff. are all companies like this? or just the ones i work for? i have also noticed a disturbing pattern developing: all my bosses get fired. wtf?

things have a veneer of stability in paris, but this i fear is a very thin facade. meanwhile, i’ve got one project that i’ve supposed to have been working on for the past 2 weeks but i’ve been procrastinating like flaky college kid. i’ve got till monday to come up with something halfway decent to show my boss when he comes back from vacation. it’s starting to feel hopeless though. i got my camera today too, which is like handing said flaky college kid a sunny day and tickets to an outdoor festival. i’m screwed. i have miraculously avoided being really jet lagged which is a small victory; however i’m an exhausted mess even though i happen to be awake at the proper time. like i told eric today when he asked why i’ve come for only 4 days, i’ve basically come to drink some beer, pick up my winter clothes and totally fuck up my biorhythm. bombs away folks…

Interesting Salon article: Candy from

Interesting Salon article:

Candy from strangers

Teen girls flash some skin on their “cam sites,” and fans shower them with gifts. Who’s exploiting whom?

and then an emotional (and convincing) rebuttal from one of the “camgirls” (god that’s a gross word) interviewed in the story. It’s always good to be reminded that journalists are far from infallible.

I’m prolly just showing my age here (24 – haa!), but it’s an enormous relief that the internet wasn’t around when i was in high school. I didn’t think so then but now i realize, it sure coulda been worse.

I posted 2 new mp3s

I posted 2 new mp3s for your day’s sountrack. Maxwell has a new album out. Changed is pretty funky track, not as slow as his usual fare. The other is Digital Love by Daft Punk. This song and this group is HUGE here. I don’t have the club mix, which is what i hear all the time, but you’ll get the point. It really reminds me of a song from a John Hughes movie or something, but a bit updated. And really, english singing with a french accent is kind of endearing.

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