taking it too far ...

I'm not a luddite, but I think people can take technology too far.

I blog (obviously), have a few friends who are avid bloggers, and have a MySpace account that's handy for keeping in touch with certain folks and that has helped me reconnect with others. I've done online dating. I have dormant IM, Friendster, LiveJournal, and LinkedIn accounts. And I also keep a private (paper) journal where I document things that the rest of the world has no business knowing.

Some of my friends patently refuse to join MySpace or to get involved with online communities because they think they are lame / a waste of time / a way to get attention. I also "know" people online who overshare to the point that I sometimes question where fact ends and fiction begins.

Things got interesting for me when I started dating someone who is somewhat reluctantly part of online communities. I outed myself to him as a blogger before our first date. When I did so, he asked me why I 'm a blogger. My response ... I blog to:

• Document my life.
• Get in the practice of writing each and every day.
• Use blogging as a way to think about, process, and externalize issues that I would've internalized in the past.
• Keep in touch with loved ones near and far, without spamming them.
• Stay current in my occupation (online communications).

Several months later, we're still dating, so I suppose you could say that he took it well (even joking that it provided a ready answer to the "what's she like?" questions from friends).

Anyhow, this article neatly summarizes why I don't take online communities too seriously ...

Modern Love: Someone to Watch Over Me (on a Google Map)
By THEODORA STITES
Published: July 9, 2006
I'm 24 years old, have a good job, friends. But like many of my generation, I consistently trade actual human contact for the more reliable emotional high of smiles on MySpace, winks on Match.com and pokes on Facebook. I live for Friendster views, profile comments and the Dodgeball messages that clog my cellphone every night.

I prefer, in short, a world cloaked in virtual intimacy. It may be electronic, but it is intimacy nevertheless. Besides, eye contact isn't all it's cracked up to be and facial expressions can be so hard to control. My life goes like this: Every morning, before I brush my teeth, I sign in to my Instant Messenger to let everyone know I'm awake. I check for new e-mail, messages or views, bulletins, invitations, friend requests, comments on my blog or mentions of me or my blog on my friends' blogs.

Next I flip open my phone and check for last night's Dodgeball messages. Dodgeball is the most intimate and invasive network I belong to. It links my online community to my cellphone, so when I send a text message to 36343 (Dodge), the program pings out a message with my location to all the people in my Dodgeball network. Acceptance into another person's Dodgeball network is a very personal way to say you want to hang out.

I scroll through the messages to see where my friends went last night, and when, tracking their progress through various bars and noting the crossed paths. I check the Google map that displays their locations and proximity to one another. I note how close Christopher and Tom were last night, only a block away, but see that they never met up.

I log on to my Friendster, Facebook, MySpace and Nerve accounts to make sure the mail bars are rising with new friend requests, messages and testimonials.

I am obsessed with testimonials and solicit them incessantly. They are the ultimate social currency, public declarations of the intimacy status of a relationship. "I miss running around like crazy w/you in the AM and sneaking away to grab caffeine and gossip," Kathleen commented on my MySpace for all to see. Often someone will write, "I just posted to say I love you."

I click through the profiles of my friends to the profiles of their friends (and their friends of friends, and so on), always aware of the little bar at the top of each profile indicating my multiple connections. A girl I know from college is friends with my friend from college's best friend from Minnesota. They met at camp in seventh grade. The boyfriend of my friend from work is friends with one of my friends from high school. I note the connections and remind myself to IM them later. On Facebook, I skip from profile to profile by clicking on the faces of posted pictures. I find a picture of my sister and her boyfriend, click on his face and jump right to his page.

Pictures are extremely necessary for enticing new friends — the more pictures the better. I change my pictures at least once a week.

There are hidden social codes in every image. Shadows and prominent eyes: not confident about their looks. Far away and seated in beautiful scenery: want you to know they're adventurous. Half in the picture: good looking but want you to know they're artistic, too.

Every profile is a carefully planned media campaign. I click on the Friendster "Who's Viewed Me" tab to see who has stumbled upon my profile recently, and if people I don't know have checked me out, I immediately check them back. I get an adrenaline rush when I find out that a friend of a friend I was always interested in is evidentially interested in me, too.

Just imagine if we could be this good in person. Online, everyone has bulletproof social armor.

Finding the perfect online community is not as easy as it looks. Some are too small. Dodgeball is so tiny it's almost too personal and requires constant attention. Not only does my online profile need to be updated regularly but the text messages demand prompt responses. To stay in the loop, it is even occasionally necessary to meet up with the members of my Dodgeball network in person.

Meanwhile, MySpace is so big that I can't even seem to find a place to start my own mini-network and branch out. I have 10 profiles, but not nearly enough friends.

I am constantly searching the Internet for new communities. Are there enough people on Plazes.com yet? Am I hip enough for Nerve? Can I be a part of Geocaching.com without having a GPS? Are the people on Fark.com my kind of people?

Fark.com members apparently opened their homes to other Fark.com members who were stranded after Hurricane Katrina. This makes their community seem beautiful and touching. Definitely worth starting a profile. Plazes.com is based on posting your GPS address on Google maps and finding people not just through interests but exact location. I, of course, have a profile and log in every day. But I don't know anyone else on it yet, so I'm not really ready to tell my friends.

WHY, you ask, do I have to be a part of so many online communities? Isn't it hard to keep track? I need to belong to all of them because each one enables me to connect to people with different levels of social intimacy.

Don't know you but think I may want you to be part of my network? I'll contact you through Match.com or Nerve. Just met? I'll look you up on MySpace. Known each other for a while, but haven't been in touch recently? Friendster message. Friends with my friends and want to get to know you better? Dodgeball or MySpace. Good friends and want to connect more often? Dodgeball. Really good friends? Instant Message.

I now think of most people by their screen names. Even when I see them in person.

Through IM, I talk to my friends in Japan and Jamaica as much as the friends I see every weekend. Likewise, I have friends on my buddy list who live in my neighborhood, but we only talk on IM. We would never dream of hanging out in person. We have enough connection online for our degree of closeness and don't need to enhance our relationship by spending time together offline. As Friendster puts it, some people are just second- or third-degree friends.

I also use IM as a tool for keeping track of my exes. I know when they sign on and I read their away messages. I can keep track of what's happening in their lives without their ever knowing I still care. Good or bad day, sick or asleep, I see what they're doing. I know if and when they're on the Internet. Sometimes they get smart, though, and click the little eye on the AIM Buddy List that makes them "invisible." It's a much less aggressive move than simply not responding to a message.

After I have checked the status of my communities I move along to the blogs. Blog content is so niche; if you like a blog, then the other people reading it must be just like you. Every site wants to feel like a community. More and more, the popular blogs and sites are going in the opposite direction of everything else and trying to extend into the offline world. Sites such as Flavorpill, Meetup and GeoCaching actually encourage and facilitate real interactions between their respective members. Flavorpill throws monthly parties for their subscribers.

Attending these parties, I found myself in awkward social situations I couldn't log out of, so I joined SecondLife. Every member of SecondLife is given an avatar — a three-dimensional body with a choice of clothing, hairstyle, body type and gender. Members of SecondLife have SecondLife jobs, families and friends. The population is over 200,000.

The virtual people in SecondLife talk to each other in intimate gatherings. They spend the day gossiping, shopping, fighting, giving each other tattoos, kissing, marrying, even engaging in prostitution and filing complaints of sexual abuse. I recently enlarged the breasts of my avatar, and men immediately started grabbing me. I could have filed abuse complaints about this if I'd wanted to, but I didn't. For a while I had a virtual boyfriend, Darren, but he hasn't contacted me recently.

OSTENSIBLY, there are no flaws in this world. You don't have to eat, and no one gets sick. All the members choose their body type, so no one is unattractive. You may think you'd act differently on SecondLife, in your perfect body and specially created persona. But I've found that I act much as I do in real life, and my SecondLife relationships tend to fail the same way my real-life relationships do. Virtual love is still complicated.

For now I've been placed on a lush tropical island to learn how to maneuver. Once I improve at virtually picking things up and moving them, sitting, walking and jumping, I'll be moved to the main city. But I've been called a newborn enough times to know I'm not ready yet.

I can't wait to log back in.

Hanging out in the real world one weekend, I went to a Flavorpill party. I was sucking down a cigarette with the head of Flavorpill when our cellphones rang at the same time. We flipped them open to see who was contacting us. He turned to me and said, "Dennis? He's really got to go someplace new."

I looked down at my screen and noticed that Dennis had sent out a Dodgeball message that he was at a bar on the Lower East Side — the fourth such message that week. I turned to the Flavorpill guy and said, "I didn't know you were in Dennis's network."

He nodded. We laughed. I exclaimed: "You aren't in my network. Why aren't you in my network?" I couldn't believe it. Here we were in person and both in Dennis's network, but not in each other's. That almost never happens.

Without looking at me, he responded, "Rock it."

"Rock what?"

"Rock my network."

savoring la dolce vita

Americans are very future-oriented and Europeans are very present-oriented.

It could be because we lack real history. Or it could be because most Americans have bought the disposable lifestyle that marketers are selling. Either way, conspicuous consumption and an ever-spiralling rat race have led to "starter" houses and "starter" weddding rings. Many Americans live what I term "the Costsco lifestyle" — more/cheaper is better (nevermind that the quality is actually shite). We eat fast food that's literally killing us. And many of us spend years of our lives fighting traffic in our daily commute to work, all so that we can buy that McMansion and afford the McMaid.

I was "most Americans" until I started travelling abroad. But what really cemented my distaste for the American way (of living large) was living in France for a month two summers ago.

Okay, so Europeans are ridiculously proud of their history and even fifty years ago were completely past-oriented. But a few things (most notably an end to colonialism and two world wars that wiped out entire generations of young men and ravaged historical places) have changed that. Today, the Italians, French, and Spanish understand that it's worth it to sit for three hours over a fresh, high-quality meal; to dance until 4 in the morning; and to spend the entire month of August at the beach. In short, they understand that life is about saveur.

I returned from Paris smitten with a lifestyle that's very much about quality. I vowed to move abroad once I had a few prerequisites (graduate school completed, some seed money) in place. My rough timeline is to move in 2010. That's 1,280 days away. Meanwhile, I'm living la dolce vita, even if it does mean that I feel like I'm swimming upstream much of the time.

Let's embrace la dolce vita
They're a far superior breed, more civilised, sociable, sensible and healthy than we are. Isn't it high time, asks Cristina Odone, that we British lived like the Italians?

Italians are diehard Anglophiles. "Il Barbour" is a fashion essential, London their favourite European destination, an English nanny proof of social status. Every summer, when I visit my Italian relations, they ask longingly about life in "l'Inghilterra".

But while Italians admire so much that is English, when it comes to food and drink, they always laugh at what they consider a terrible joke: Marmite, shepherd's pie, warm beer - Mamma mia! The English (indeed, all the inhabitants of the British isles) forego the holy ritual of sitting at table, and instead, eat standing up, on the hoof, or while watching television. Barbarians!

Add to this, the fact that the British drink alcohol as if Prohibition were round the corner, spend too many hours at work, think walking is something you do with weights in your hands, and you can see why Italians think their dolce vita is infinitely more civilised.

Not only more civilised, but more conducive to perfection. Take Italian footballers: they've proved themselves rather a superior breed to the English lot, this World Cup. Totti, Toni, et al have showed that the Italian way produces muscles, nerve and hair as well-conditioned as Ginola's.

Sophia Loren, so gloriously sexy at 71, is posing for the Pirelli calendar, a gig that wouldn't give most 20-year-old British starlets the time of day.

Italians are healthier. An Italian man can expect to stay healthy 10 years longer than his British counterpart, according to a Leicester University study just published. The difference between an Italian woman and a British one is 14 years of health.

So how can the British become more like the Italians?

Let's start at the very beginning - with the bambini. British middle-class mothers will spend far more time, energy, not to mention money, on ballet, judo, Kumon and piano lessons than on ensuring that their children eat nutritious meals.

Shop for children's food in a British supermarket and you'll find precocious labels ("chicken tikka and rice") masking gloppy, brown goo or lurid green purées. Many of these contain enough artificial flavourings and starch to compare with fast food. No wonder that almost two million British schoolchildren are overweight.

Italian bambini, instead, are taught that food is sacred: this is the country that spends £2 per child per day on schoolmeals (while Britain spends 40p), and where CIR, the co-operative that holds a virtual monopoly on school-food catering, will only serve meals made with ingredients found within a 30km radius.

Which is not to say that ready-made sauces are banned from Italian children's diet - or indeed their parents'. Today's Italians don't want to spends hours at the stove, as their mamma used to do. But, as London-based cookery writer Susanna Gelmetti points out: "Even while taking a short cut, you can avoid the sugar, starch, gunk and artificial flavourings found in mainstream brands."


When Gelmetti launched her label of pasta sauces, "Dress Italian" and "Dress Italian: Bambino", to cater for those who wanted to cut time spent in the kitchen without giving up the fresh ingredients, she was gratified by the response: "We stayed true to the Mediterranean diet - tomatoes, basil, onions, olive oil - and people were ready to pay that 20p more." She is now convinced that Britons are willing to "go Italian".

This is not just a question of taste. Meal times in Italy remain the traditional gathering of the clan - while Britons are more likely to sit with a tray in front of the telly. Italians find this blasphemous: strip meals of their ritual and you lose an appreciation of food, family and friends. If you'd rather share your sausages with the cast from EastEnders than your spouse, it's really time to book yourself a session at Relate.

In an Italian household, food is the top item of expenditure - in Britain it comes well after transport and leisure. James Lakeland, the fashion designer favoured by Sophie Anderton and Carole Caplin, grew up in Italy, where he found that people from every background made sure their provisions were of the best: "You could skimp on the square footage of your home,'' he says, ''but you made sure your parmigiano was parmigiano Reggiano, and your olive oil was extra-virgin olive oil."

Binge drinking leaves Italians positively perplexed: the point of alcohol, surely, is to enhance food and conversation, not to become paralytic and sick. Should someone invite you to have a "drink", they mean just that: one glass of prosecco, Campari or white wine before dinner. This is accompanied by appetising salatini or hors d'oeuvres. At meals, red wine and plenty of mineral water lubricate every piatto and children are given wine (diluted with water) so that they never regard it as a tempting forbidden fruit.

While the British are burdened with the longest working hours in Europe (43.6 on average), the Italians stay healthy by limiting theirs (38.5). Luca del Bono, who runs Beat Capital public relations, is adamant that his London office should respect the Italian model: "I expect my staff to work hard when they are here, but I don't believe that bums on seats are any indication of productivity,'' he says. ''In any case, we Italians work to live better, we don't live to work."

Del Bono hails the Italian lunch hour as "not a 10-minute break spent munching a sandwich at the computer, but a proper, two-to-three-hour interval in the middle of the day."

Most Italians still drive home for lunch and a nap. The British view sleep as suspect, and anything over eight hours, the sign of a wimpish disposition. But the penichella is the Italians' antidote to stress, a chance to call time-out and recharge their batteries.

Finally, there is the question of exercise. In Italy, more than a quarter of journeys are made on foot, while in Britain only 12 per cent are. These sedentary lives are jolted into action only every now and then by a "power walk" or a gym session that leave you sweaty and breathless. Italians would never tolerate such a departure from the bella figura. Far better simply to walk from errand to errand, from meeting to meeting, without straining yourself, without fuss.

The healthy dolce vita is a triumph of moderation and a tribute to a Mediterranean tradition that predates the Barbour and the nanny - and produces la Loren and il Toni.
Via Leo

there's no 'my kid has cancer' in team

Leo said "there's no 'we' in team" the other day and it reminded me of this story.

There's No 'My Kid Has Cancer' In Team
By Jake Dobbins
Sales Manager
December 6, 2000 Issue 36•44
All right, team! Look alive! This is the big one. This is the week we finally pull into the sales lead, and that means total focus.

Now, as you no doubt know, the free trip to Vegas for the year's highest-selling office is within our reach. If we can keep the momentum of the past week going, we can pass the Denver office and take this thing. But that means we must all work together as a team. Every one of you is a cog in a well-oiled sales machine.

And I don't want to hear any excuses. That means no more 45-minute lunches. No more lingering around the break room. And, most of all, no more of this "But my daughter is going in for chemotherapy tomorrow" business. From anybody. I'm not going to name any names, but I've heard that one a couple of times this week, and that's a couple times too many. I hope I only have to say this once: There is no "My kid has cancer" in "Team."

I know, I know. Cancer sucks. Hey, I'm not happy your kid has it, either. But the way I look at it, cancer's not a reason to get slacking, it's a reason to get cracking! You think your kid's chemo is gonna be free? You gonna say to the doctor, "Hey, I decided not to go to work this week because I'm too upset about my kid's cancer, so how about you give me that chemo for free?" See how far that'll get you! (It certainly won't get you to Vegas!) As we say in the business, no COM-mission, no RE-mission.

I've seen too many salespeople take a nosedive in this business because they let their terminally ill kid hold them back. They start visiting the kid in the hospital, their cold calls drop off, and their sales numbers suffer. Next thing you know, it's not just the kid who's dying, but the hopes of an entire sales team that wants to win a Vegas trip!

You hear what I'm saying? You're part of a team, here. If you miss a pitch, you might miss a sale, and if you miss a sale, we all might miss winning that trip! Believe you me, we've all got plenty of problems we could use as excuses to miss work, but we don't want to let our team down! Do you see Jerry staying home because of his trial separation? Or Brian because of his car trouble?

What do we sing "The Team Song" at the start of every day for? You think it's just so we can hear Glen howling off-key? (Ha, ha, I'm just pulling your leg there, Glen.) What it comes down to is, we're Teamers, not Tumors!

And, while I'm on the subject, what about that trip a certain someone took to Disneyworld recently? You think the rest of us wouldn't love to spend five days whirling around on teacups? You can go to Disneyworld next year, two years from now, ten years from now! I realize the Make-A-Wish Foundation paid for the trip, but that's not reason enough. Hell, I've got tons of frequent-flyer miles piled up, but you don't see me taking off for Bora Bora smack-dab in the middle of our final sales drive, do you?

Did you even try to give the sales pitch to your kid's doctors? The nurses? The Make-A-Wish guys? See, that's what I'm talking about. You're letting opportunities slip through your fingers, and that hurts the team! We'd be the leaders for that Vegas trip if not for your lollygagging and lack of focus. Team has four letters. T-E-A-M. Here's an easy way to remember it: Take Every Avenue Manageable. Do you see the letters "T-H-E D-O-C-T-O-R-S S-A-Y T-H-E C-A-N-C-E-R H-A-S S-P-R-E-A-D T-O H-E-R B-R-A-I-N" somewhere in there? I don't.

This job is about one thing: moving vacuum cleaners. Everything else is a blind alley, kiddo.

mission accomplished

Enjoy Slate's birthday card to W.

Via Amber

we are not afraid

It's been one year since the London bombings.

I have to say that I admire the British response: somber defiance.

Check out the "We Are Not Afraid" campaign, OpenDemocracy.net, and Citizens Against Terror.

san diego red dress run 2006

It's finally time! I'm doing the Red Dress Run tonight.

The run begins and ends at 1050 N. Harbor Drive (Broadway Pier), near the cruise terminal. Run Start (Hares Off) is at 6:45 p.m.-ish.

Trevor, Nolan, and I bought our dresses last weekend. Nolan's is a fetching psychedelic number with swirly grey, black, and white patterns that form a dizzying symphony in knit polyester.

Trevor's sleeveless cocktail dress is made of a flowy crêpe material and features a plunging neckline and a gathered empire waist, accented with a small rosette underneath his (tasteful) decolletage. Mine is the exact same. But my cleavage isn't as nice as his. (Damn my jogbra!)

If you want to watch the spectacle, be my guest. And bring a camera!

FYI: it's too late to register (the thing filled up months ago), but it's never too late to have a drink and laugh. And to watch hundreds of men and women take to the streets in red dresses and fierce accessories as they raise money for the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

joyeux anniversaire, ma belle

a l'heure
Originally uploaded by comment dit-on.

It's Diana's birthday.

Hope it's filled with good food and great friends!

And that we both get to look out this window again sometime soon.

rioplatense in the house

¡Hola, Mercedes! I hope your mother is feeling better soon.

the original jogo bonito

Pelé

Via Aaron

dogmatic

Brown shirts and armbands optional.

Nazi ship to become vehicle of faith
Wed Jul 5, 2006 07:58 AM ET
ZAGREB (Reuters) - Croatia's defense ministry has donated a World War II Nazi ship to a local Roman Catholic monastery, which will turn it into a sailing church, the Jutarnji List daily newspaper reported Tuesday.

The landing ship DTM-219 was used by Nazi Germany to transport tanks and infantry. It was given to communist Yugoslavia after 1945 as part of war compensation, it said.

The ship, currently anchored at a Croatian navy port, will be towed to the city of Sibenik, in the central Adriatic, where it will be adapted at a local shipyard.

It will be used as sailing church for the young, who will be able to sail the Adriatic, pray and meditate as part of church-sponsored religious cruises, the daily said.

Some 90 percent of Croatia's 4.4 million people are Roman Catholics. The country, which gained independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, hopes to join the European Union by the end of this decade.

das dummkopfen

This may be the funniest thing I've seen in awhile. And it proves that stupidity knows no nationalität. There are idiots everywhere.

Police arrest suspected concrete ball makers
Police believe they have solved the mystery of Berlin's concrete soccer balls.

Two young men suffered slight foot injuries in recent days after kicking concrete-filled balls chained to lamp posts and trees in the capital.

The words "Can u kick it" were sprayed in pink paint close to each of the balls, at least six of which were left in the streets.

Police said they arrested on Wednesday two men, ages 26 and 29, who apparently had set up a workshop to produce the offending balls.

Officers found three new concrete-filled balls, spray cans and chains.

The suspects were being questioned by investigators and could face charges of bodily harm. There was no immediate comment on their possible motive.
Via Leo

zizou, bitches!

Les bleus sont victorieux!
The Champs-Elysées after the French victory against Portugal:


So, it's on to an all-blue (La Squadra Azzurri vs. Les Bleus) final.

bonne chance, les bleus

So I'm torn. I was in Paris for the Euro Cup in 2004 and rooted for Portugal. I came home from that trip with a Portugal jersey and a France jacket.

But my francophilia means that I'm supporting les bleus in today's semi-final match.
I won't be wearing these "special supporter"s, though. Look closely at these string bikinis — they're bonbons (candy).

Via Paris Daily Photo

quotable

Indeed.

"A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself."
- Josh Billings (12 April 1818 - 14 October 1885), pen name of the American humorist born Henry Wheeler Shaw.

a dedication to the chihuahua in my building

Every so often, my inner Andy Rooney comes out and I complain about people with little dogs. You know the ones — the dogs that are more properly characterized as accessories, as opposed to 'dogs.' (Sidebar: not all little dogs are evil. Nor are all people with little dogs evil. But the fact remains that there are lots of folks who buy a dog when they should just buy a purse instead.)

Anyhow, back to the dogs: it doesn't help that they're often yappy and high-strung. Take, for example, the chihuahua who lives in my building. It spends much of its life whimpering in a high-pitched tone. It turns out I'm not alone in despising the loathsome creatures ... while at the Hillcrest Farmer's Market this Sunday, Leo and I overheard this conversation:

Old, blatantly gay man to his equally old, blatantly gay partner: "God, can't he read the sign?! It says 'no dogs.'"
Partner (in an absentminded tone): "Except for service dogs."
Old, blatantly gay man: "C'mon. That vermin is no service dog."

... which brings me back to the chihuahua in my building. It's 11:52 p.m. and I'm ready to go to bed. But I don't dare open my windows again for fear that I'll hear that varmit. No wonder David Berkowitz went on a rampage.

looking beyond the veil

The styles of Muslim women range from mini-skirts to head-to-toe coverings.

Photographer Kate Brooks talks about capturing fashion - on the streets and on the runways - from Iran to Oman.

Via TIME photoessays

cass' bread pudding and whiskey sauce

Bread pudding
4 eggs
2 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp vanilla
3 cups bread cubes, dried
1/3 cup golden raisins or dried cranberries

Beat together eggs, milk, sugar, spices, and vanilla. Place bread cubes in large pan. Sprinkle with fruit, cover with remaining bread.

Pour egg mixture over bread. Let milk soak into bread, press down on the bread to make sure that all the bread is soggy.

Bake at 325 for 40-50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool slightly and serve warm with whiskey sauce.

Whiskey Sauce
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg yolk (add the extra white to bread pudding)
2 TBSP water
2 TBSP bourbon

Melt butter in saucepan, stir in sugar, and water. Beat egg yolks in a bowl ... slowly add some of the melted butter mixture into the bowl so the egg does not cook, then add it all back into the pan. Bring to a boil, remove from heat, and stir in bourbon. Serve warm.

"he's the e.f. hutton of hip-hop"

"I keep it realer than most,
I know you're feelin' it
Cristal on ice, I like to toast,
I keep on spillin' it."

Jay-Z Puts a Cap on Cristal
By DOUGLAS CENTURY
Published: July 2, 2006
HIP-HOP made Cristal a household name. Can it also unmake it?
Jay-Z called for a boycott of the Champagne after its maker seemed to sniff at its popularity with rap stars, some in the music, night life and beverage industries are predicting a long-term flattening of the $300-a-bottle bubbly.

The first evidence of any effect the boycott might have come Tuesday night in Los Angeles at the BET Awards, which drew an A-list of African-American entertainers like Kanye West, Sean Combs, Mary J. Blige, Prince and Jamie Foxx. But something was missing.

"You normally see Cristal around these festive events, and it was noticeably absent this year," said Marvet Britto, the head of a New York public relations and brand strategy company specializing in the African-American market. "If you saw Champagne on a table, it was Dom Pérignon and Veuve Clicquot." Ms. Britto said this was in stark contrast to last year's MTV Music Awards in Miami, where "you saw people walking the red carpet with Cristal like a badge of honor."

"That's Jay-Z's influence as a tastemaker," she added. "He's the E. F. Hutton of hip-hop."

And what exactly did this E. F. Hutton say about Cristal, whose name he once liberally dropped into his songs as a symbol of the plush life? Two weeks ago, the rapper announced that Cristal would no longer be served at his chain of 40/40 nightclubs, and he called for a consumer boycott. He was reacting to a quotation by Frédéric Rouzaud, the president of Champagne Louis Roederer (maker of Cristal) in The Economist magazine.

Asked by an interviewer if the association with rap's bling-bling set could hurt the brand, Mr. Rouzaud was quoted as saying: "That's a good question, but what can we do? We can't forbid people from buying it." (Mr. Rouzaud later issued a statement saying that the company had "the utmost regard for, and interest in, all forms of art and culture.")

In a phone interview last week, Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, said he didn't appreciate the tone of Mr. Rouzaud's initial remarks. "Surely he meant to say, 'Thank you,' right?" Mr. Carter said, referring to the free publicity his and other rappers' music and videos have given the brand over the years. "Anything but a 'Thank you' is racist."

MR. CARTER had also vowed to expunge references to Cristal from his songs at a concert at Radio City Music Hall last Sunday that marked the 10th anniversary of his first album, "Reasonable Doubt." He did so in some songs, but in others — perhaps because it's harder to come up with rhymes for Dom Pérignon — he left the mention of the brand.

"When I was conscious, I could change them," he said by way of explanation. "When I perform sometimes I go in so far. That's where you're supposed to really operate the whole time, on an unconscious level."

Mr. Carter, who once famously rapped, "I'm not a businessman; I'm a business, man," was ranked at No. 16 in Fortune magazine's "40 Under 40" list in 2004 with a net worth of $286 million. Largely retired as a performer, he keeps busy as president of Def Jam records and as a part-owner of the New Jersey Nets basketball team. He is keenly aware of the power of music to build brands. The materialistic mid-90's school of rap he championed, along with Notorious B.I.G. and others, was a beat-heavy version of the Robb Report, full of references to luxury products.

happy birthday, rick

In the words of Dylan, you are "the coolest authority figure ever."

Hope this picture and story remind you of the good times working with us in San Diego ... it was also great seeing you and many of the usual suspects at John's party last week.

Incidentally, this is what you get when you google the onion dog balls.

a classic breakup song gets its answer

I dig Lloyd Cole and his brand of break-up songs.

And I'm digging Camera Obscura's "Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken" right now. It's the Glasgow chamber-pop sextet's gloriously bubbly (and ridiculously infectious) answer to Lloyd Cole's "Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?"

Camera obscura is one part Belle and Sebastian, one part 60's girl group. And it's really a shame that I didn't have this song in particular around as I got over someone last year.
Update: Holy shiznat! They're playing the Casbah on July 18. It's $10. Who wants to go?
Via NPR Song of the Day

the best of cg

Susan G. sent me a good post (the top 5 myths about America) from the best of craigslist recently. Here it is, along with several others:

• Top 5 Myths About America
• I cannot express adequately how much I think we should bone
• Top Ten Signs You're a Fundamentalist Christian
• Why You're Not Getting Any (And How to Fix it)
• select memos to my internet dates
• Drinks with Dino
• it's over, I'm leaving you...
• RANT: A Letter to the Only Working Toilet
• Rant: Grocery Girl
• Genuine missed connection

deco port chocolate sauce

1 cup cocoa powder
2/3 cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
1 cup heavy whipping cream
¼ cup DECO chocolate port
½ cup butter
1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract

Combine the cocoa powder, granulated sugar, and the brown sugar in a heavy 1½-quart saucepan. Add the cream, port, and butter. Stir over medium heat using a sauce whip until the mixture starts to bubble. Keep stirring for one minute, then remove from heat and add vanilla.

Let the sauce cool down before storing it in the refrigerator.

Yield: About 3 cups.
Via Sonoma Valley Portworks

goalfish

Meet Albert, the world's smartest goldfish.

Over the past year, the calico orandan has learned to fetch, swim through hoops, and play soccer.

He's even earned a spot as "fish with the largest repertoire of tricks" in the next edition of Guinness World Records.

Albert is the progeny of Dean Pomerleau, a 41-year-old software engineer who, in a bid to assuage his daughter's demand for a puppy, decided to try out some dog-training techniques on her brother's pet fish.

With coffee stirrers, toothpicks, rubber bands, and a pushpin, Pomerleau built a food delivery system that allowed him to entice Albert with tasty morsels and reward him for positive behavior.

Within weeks, the fish was scooting through an obstacle course of tunnels, limbo poles, and hoops - he could even nudge a mini soccer ball into a goal.

Pomerleau has since established the world's first fish-training academy, written an ebook on piscine education, and is thinking of starting a World Cup soccer tourney for the scaly little guys.

Alas, his daughter isn't satisfied.

Says Pomerleau, "She still wants the dog."
Via Nolan and Joe

berlin, auguststraß

amor by .:artemisia:..

Porque o amor
é a coisa mas triste
quando se desfaz.
-Antonio Carlos Jobim

what shamu taught me about a happy marriage

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm very much a fan of dating a person as-is.

Assuming the fundamentals are in place, there is the reality of fine-tuning that sometimes needs to take place in the interest of harmony and of having the best possible relationship. The simple fact is that we all have needs. My sense is that we should let our partners know if they are (or aren't) meeting our needs. And I really like this woman's approach to the whole situation, including her recognition that in a closed system, both parties must adjust to reach a new equilibrium.

Modern Love: What Shamu Taught Me About a Happy Marriage
AS I wash dishes at the kitchen sink, my husband paces behind me, irritated. "Have you seen my keys?" he snarls, then huffs out a loud sigh and stomps from the room with our dog, Dixie, at his heels, anxious over her favorite human's upset.

In the past I would have been right behind Dixie. I would have turned off the faucet and joined the hunt while trying to soothe my husband with bromides like, "Don't worry, they'll turn up." But that only made him angrier, and a simple case of missing keys soon would become a full-blown angst-ridden drama starring the two of us and our poor nervous dog.

Now, I focus on the wet dish in my hands. I don't turn around. I don't say a word. I'm using a technique I learned from a dolphin trainer.

I love my husband. He's well read, adventurous and does a hysterical rendition of a northern Vermont accent that still cracks me up after 12 years of marriage.

But he also tends to be forgetful, and is often tardy and mercurial. He hovers around me in the kitchen asking if I read this or that piece in The New Yorker when I'm trying to concentrate on the simmering pans. He leaves wadded tissues in his wake. He suffers from serious bouts of spousal deafness but never fails to hear me when I mutter to myself on the other side of the house. "What did you say?" he'll shout.

These minor annoyances are not the stuff of separation and divorce, but in sum they began to dull my love for Scott. I wanted — needed — to nudge him a little closer to perfect, to make him into a mate who might annoy me a little less, who wouldn't keep me waiting at restaurants, a mate who would be easier to love.

So, like many wives before me, I ignored a library of advice books and set about improving him. By nagging, of course, which only made his behavior worse: he'd drive faster instead of slower; shave less frequently, not more; and leave his reeking bike garb on the bedroom floor longer than ever.

We went to a counselor to smooth the edges off our marriage. She didn't understand what we were doing there and complimented us repeatedly on how well we communicated. I gave up. I guessed she was right — our union was better than most — and resigned myself to stretches of slow-boil resentment and occasional sarcasm.

Then something magical happened. For a book I was writing about a school for exotic animal trainers, I started commuting from Maine to California, where I spent my days watching students do the seemingly impossible: teaching hyenas to pirouette on command, cougars to offer their paws for a nail clipping, and baboons to skateboard.

I listened, rapt, as professional trainers explained how they taught dolphins to flip and elephants to paint. Eventually it hit me that the same techniques might work on that stubborn but lovable species, the American husband.

The central lesson I learned from exotic animal trainers is that I should reward behavior I like and ignore behavior I don't. After all, you don't get a sea lion to balance a ball on the end of its nose by nagging. The same goes for the American husband.

Back in Maine, I began thanking Scott if he threw one dirty shirt into the hamper. If he threw in two, I'd kiss him. Meanwhile, I would step over any soiled clothes on the floor without one sharp word, though I did sometimes kick them under the bed. But as he basked in my appreciation, the piles became smaller.

I was using what trainers call "approximations," rewarding the small steps toward learning a whole new behavior. You can't expect a baboon to learn to flip on command in one session, just as you can't expect an American husband to begin regularly picking up his dirty socks by praising him once for picking up a single sock. With the baboon you first reward a hop, then a bigger hop, then an even bigger hop. With Scott the husband, I began to praise every small act every time: if he drove just a mile an hour slower, tossed one pair of shorts into the hamper, or was on time for anything.

I also began to analyze my husband the way a trainer considers an exotic animal. Enlightened trainers learn all they can about a species, from anatomy to social structure, to understand how it thinks, what it likes and dislikes, what comes easily to it and what doesn't. For example, an elephant is a herd animal, so it responds to hierarchy. It cannot jump, but can stand on its head. It is a vegetarian.

The exotic animal known as Scott is a loner, but an alpha male. So hierarchy matters, but being in a group doesn't so much. He has the balance of a gymnast, but moves slowly, especially when getting dressed. Skiing comes naturally, but being on time does not. He's an omnivore, and what a trainer would call food-driven.

Once I started thinking this way, I couldn't stop. At the school in California, I'd be scribbling notes on how to walk an emu or have a wolf accept you as a pack member, but I'd be thinking, "I can't wait to try this on Scott."

On a field trip with the students, I listened to a professional trainer describe how he had taught African crested cranes to stop landing on his head and shoulders. He did this by training the leggy birds to land on mats on the ground. This, he explained, is what is called an "incompatible behavior," a simple but brilliant concept.

Rather than teach the cranes to stop landing on him, the trainer taught the birds something else, a behavior that would make the undesirable behavior impossible. The birds couldn't alight on the mats and his head simultaneously.

At home, I came up with incompatible behaviors for Scott to keep him from crowding me while I cooked. To lure him away from the stove, I piled up parsley for him to chop or cheese for him to grate at the other end of the kitchen island. Or I'd set out a bowl of chips and salsa across the room. Soon I'd done it: no more Scott hovering around me while I cooked.

I followed the students to SeaWorld San Diego, where a dolphin trainer introduced me to least reinforcing syndrome (L. R. S.). When a dolphin does something wrong, the trainer doesn't respond in any way. He stands still for a few beats, careful not to look at the dolphin, and then returns to work. The idea is that any response, positive or negative, fuels a behavior. If a behavior provokes no response, it typically dies away.

In the margins of my notes I wrote, "Try on Scott!"

It was only a matter of time before he was again tearing around the house searching for his keys, at which point I said nothing and kept at what I was doing. It took a lot of discipline to maintain my calm, but results were immediate and stunning. His temper fell far shy of its usual pitch and then waned like a fast-moving storm. I felt as if I should throw him a mackerel.

Now he's at it again; I hear him banging a closet door shut, rustling through papers on a chest in the front hall and thumping upstairs. At the sink, I hold steady. Then, sure enough, all goes quiet. A moment later, he walks into the kitchen, keys in hand, and says calmly, "Found them."

Without turning, I call out, "Great, see you later."

Off he goes with our much-calmed pup.

After two years of exotic animal training, my marriage is far smoother, my husband much easier to love. I used to take his faults personally; his dirty clothes on the floor were an affront, a symbol of how he didn't care enough about me. But thinking of my husband as an exotic species gave me the distance I needed to consider our differences more objectively.

I adopted the trainers' motto: "It's never the animal's fault." When my training attempts failed, I didn't blame Scott. Rather, I brainstormed new strategies, thought up more incompatible behaviors and used smaller approximations. I dissected my own behavior, considered how my actions might inadvertently fuel his. I also accepted that some behaviors were too entrenched, too instinctive to train away. You can't stop a badger from digging, and you can't stop my husband from losing his wallet and keys.

PROFESSIONALS talk of animals that understand training so well they eventually use it back on the trainer. My animal did the same. When the training techniques worked so beautifully, I couldn't resist telling my husband what I was up to. He wasn't offended, just amused. As I explained the techniques and terminology, he soaked it up. Far more than I realized.

Last fall, firmly in middle age, I learned that I needed braces. They were not only humiliating, but also excruciating. For weeks my gums, teeth, jaw and sinuses throbbed. I complained frequently and loudly. Scott assured me that I would become used to all the metal in my mouth. I did not.

One morning, as I launched into yet another tirade about how uncomfortable I was, Scott just looked at me blankly. He didn't say a word or acknowledge my rant in any way, not even with a nod.

I quickly ran out of steam and started to walk away. Then I realized what was happening, and I turned and asked, "Are you giving me an L. R. S.?" Silence. "You are, aren't you?"

He finally smiled, but his L. R. S. has already done the trick. He'd begun to train me, the American wife.

Amy Sutherland is the author of "Kicked, Bitten and Scratched: Life and Lessons at the Premier School for Exotic Animal Trainers" (Viking, June 2006). She lives in Boston and in Portland, Me.

trevor's got dao son's back ...

(Returning a missed call from Trevor at 11:24 p.m.)
H: Hey, I missed your call.

T: Dude, you missed two calls. Today was my last day of work ever! I'm at Scolari's Office with my friends from work right now. We're drinking and singing karaoke. You'll never guess who walked in a little while ago.

H: You're right. Who walked in?
T: That guy from Dao Son.

H: Ti?
T: Yeah, the guy who puts in the orders just walked in and belted out "Baby Got Back" like no one's business. How cool is that?!

H: S-w-e-e-e-e-t! That. Fucking. Rocks. Tell him "Yo, T! Happy says whaddup!"
T: Will do ... no really, he walked in and was awesome! How funny is that?!

deluded language freak seeks help for corrective tourette's

I have corrective tourette's. At least that's what Allison calls my subconscious utterances.

Let me explain. We had a professor last semester who always said the "width" (correctly) and the "heighth" (incorrectly). I can't tell you how many times I turned to see what Allison was laughing at, only to discover that she was laughing at me. I was always surprised when she pointed out that I'd just quietly muttered a "t" sound after the professor in question said "heighth."

It's not deliberate or malicious. I don't know why I do it, when I have no intention of ever saying anything to the professor. I suppose it's one (weird) way to counter my own cognitive dissonance.

And then there's my entirely obnoxious habit of correcting other people's grammar. I've mostly learned to temper it and bite my lip when "farther" and "further" or "continually" and "continuously" are misused. But I'll admit that it makes me a little bit itchy each time I remain silent.

tacos, anyone?

I had a fun exchange on all that is wrong with marketing and 'mericans today after sending this link, for the Taco Tender, to Leo this morning. I mean, who really needs this stuff, anyhow? And do you know any kids who use tongs to put lettuce on tacos? I didn't think so.

Then, Slater sent me this story, on the ruckus caused by folks who think the pink taco restaurant's name is a sobriquet for something else.

Proof positive that Middle America is
a) too uptight
b) doesn't have enough real problems to worry about (Darfur, anyone?)

Oh, and that sex sells. Damn those evil marketers ...

this one's for saku ...

I love the Onion. Here are a few stories to get you started ...

• Breakup Hints Misinterpreted As Marriage-Proposal Hints
• Plan To Get Laid At DragonCon 2001 Fails
• Local Man Ruins Date By Just Being Himself (note La Jolla in the dateline)
• God Finally Gives Shout-Out Back To All His Niggaz
• New Girlfriend Tests Poorly With Peer Focus Group
• U.S. Vows To Defeat Whoever It Is We're At War With
• God Angrily Clarifies 'Don't Kill' Rule
• Black Guy Photoshopped In
• National Machete Association Speaks Out Against Machete-Control Legislation
• Vacationing Woman Thinks Cats Miss Her
• Metric System Thriving In Nation's Inner Cities
• Girlfriend Changes Man Into Someone She's Not Interested In
• Area Father Must Have Read Some Drug-Slang Brochure Or Something

study break: german bear shot

This (real) news story completely slayed me.

Hunters kill 1st German wild bear in 170 years
Official: ‘Rabbits are also deserving of sympathy’; animal lovers decry killing
Updated: 1:30 p.m. PT June 26, 2006
SCHLIERSEE, Germany - Bruno, the brown bear who sauntered into Germany through the Italian Alps and eluded pursuers in a month-long mountain odyssey, was shot and killed Monday, to the dismay of many animal lovers.

The first wild bear to be seen in Germany since 1835 was shot by government-sanctioned hunters in an Alpine meadow in the early morning, putting an end to a sometimes humorous saga that has made headlines around Europe, even in competition with the World Cup.

Bruno was part of a project to reintroduce bears in northern Italy, but he roamed into Austria and Germany. In recent weeks he regularly popped out of the woods to make brief but brazen appearances — on one occasion, plunking down for a rest in front of a police station in the Bavarian lakeside resort of Kochel am See. But a pack of crack Finnish tracking dogs was sent home in defeat after failing to corner him so he could be tranquilized and sent home.

The shooting brought immediate condemnation from environmental groups and some politicians, and Bavarian environment minister Werner Schnappauf — who gave permission for the bear to be killed — received death threats.

The 2-year-old bear had dined on sheep, killed rabbits and broken into beehives.

‘No other solution’
Officials said it was only a matter of time before the 220-pound Bruno attacked a human.

"There was no other solution," Anton Steixner, an official from the Austrian state of Tyrol, told reporters.

"Even animal rights activists should understand that this bear killed sheep and tore into rabbits purely for pleasure," Steixner said. "Rabbits are also deserving of sympathy."

But Tony Scherer, mayor of Schliersee, the Bavarian town near Spitzingsee lake, where Bruno was killed, disagreed.

"The death penalty has been abolished," said Scherer. "This bear didn't do anything bad — for me it is absolutely unnecessary for him to have been shot."

Bruno was killed instantly by a single shot from 150 meters, officials said. They would not identify the three hunters involved in the 4:50 a.m. shooting, citing possible threats from animal lovers.

Evaded captors for weeks
The 2-year-old bear was spotted in Bavaria in May. DNA samples from hair he left behind were used to identify him as JJ1, part of the project in Italy.

Bavarian authorities gave permission for hunters to kill the bear, then backed down in the face of the ensuing outcry and decided to try to capture him.

But the bear kept ahead of his pursuers.

On the weekend, Bavarian officials said they would reinstate permission for hunters to shoot the bear on Tuesday. After the bear was killed on Monday, however, they said informal permission had been granted starting Saturday.

‘It won’t bring Bruno back’
The head of the German Animal Protection Federation said his organization was considering legal action.

"I am horrified, indignant and sad — for weeks it was apparently impossible to catch the bear; the permission to shoot him is barely given and he is already dead," Wolfgang Apel said. "We will examine all legal avenues, even though it won't bring Bruno back."

Franz Maget, a top member of the opposition Social Democrats in Bavaria, urged that Schnappauf resign.

"Bear-killer Schnappauf has failed as environment minister and should hang up his hat," Maget said. "The permission to shoot him was a mistake and possibly violated the law."

To be put on display
In Austria, the animal rights group Four Paws denounced the shooting and called for a police investigation.

But Schnappauf's deputy, Otmar Bernhard, said that while Bruno's death was "regrettable," it was the "only solution."

"He walked past hikers, hikers walked past him — that is extremely dangerous and not acceptable," Bernhard said.

Bruno was to be dissected by veterinarians in Munich later Monday, and then prepared to be put on display in Munich's Museum of Man and Nature, Bernhard said.Via Leo