Play That Thing

Looking through this week's websites was really kinda fun. It's soothing to know that the closest Plymouth Duster for sale is in Wisconsin. Wisconsin - what kind of a state is that? Is anyone from there? What are the people like (other than the people who want to unload a cherry red and licorice black Plymouth Duster)?

Wikimapia was really interesting - I totally felt like low rent CIA - checking out my Mom and Dad's house near the Jacksonville Airport and my sister's place in Atlanta. I got a little lost looking for my other frined up in Bronxville = I think I ended up in Wisconsin, actually. Badgers, right. That's their college team, right? Badger State. Red and white (and cherry red and licorice black). Badger? Why not a Woodchuck or a Groundhog or an Otter. Anyway, cool site.

But the real humdinger, the real winner, the coolest of the cool this weel has to be Library Thing. I'm a huge fan of arranging, or cataloging, of counting, of organizing. What a cool site to feed into that sort of lust - compiling all of your books - seeing what other people have in their libraries - to be frank, my favorite thing about MySpace has always been listing books and authors and artist and films and music that I like. I can't wait to delve a little deeping into it - seems like a really interesting way to keep track of your home library - and see what other people are reading.

On other note - a different note - a side note - a those-who-were-only-scanning-this-for-work-related-topics-and-you've-gone-to-far-here-there-be-dragons note - my Fringe show opened this week. Murder On West 18th. It's been a hard, strange, a-little-draining kind of a show to be in. Which is funny since I'm in it for about half an eye blink. Sarah (my girlfriend) and Bateman (my roommate) are the leads - they do a really good job. Our crowds have been decent - even though the show itself isn't very Fringe-y. It's a film noir type show. Bateman plays an Ex-G.I., Sarah plays a singer/femme fatale, another guy's a gangster, and I'm a detective (although I don't detect too much, really). I think what has made this Fringe kinda hard is that while we've all been doing Murder, we are also involved with doing these free, guerrila-style shows for Susan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays/365 Days. It seems like every minute of the week (and the last few weeks) is eaten up with Be Here, At This Time, Go Here, Run Fast, Stand Still, Move, Go, Stand, Speak, Loud, Louder, Stop. Usually, this little world, this little theatre world, this hobby world is my escape - my chance to...I don't know really...I'm not quite smart enough...I don't have the vocabulary to put it into words...to explain how much it...opens...for me. But since I am also in the middle of an unexpected, professional crisis...I don't feel like I can...give as much...can...leave as much blood on the alter, so to speak. And since I can't do that...I feel...limited...since I can't let go of all of these raw emotions...can't find a solid use for them...I can't seem to find the right way to redirect them...to utilize them. It's like being half-way through a door.

If A Picture Is Worth 1000 Words....

...a Meez must be, like, a dissertation.

Hither And Yon

Checked out some of the sites on SEOmoz. Liked Lulu. Zoho. And Pandora.

OCLS on MySpace...next my Mom's gonna have one of those things.

The ToEat site was...{insert some diplomatic way of putting it here}...every time you touched the map to guide it towards a different street...I keep getting sent back to the Continental United States.

Try Sushi Hatsu on Washington, btw.

Wrapped In Plastic

There's such a buzz in my head - like a toy train that's been left running for too long. Tiny metal fragments melting to slag, to liquid. It's been hard to...muster. The day just feels a little too much like Little Bighorn or the last-dash-grab for a Cabbage Patch Kid. Outdated. Outmoded. Unfriendly. Throb-throb-throb. Beat-beat-beat.

There was something about the Web 2.0 video, wasn't there? Something kinda hopeful and helpful and rookie and shiny and enthused and powerful and special and slick and smart and maybe I'm just not quite in the mood to be blown away by it right now. It is really interesting. It does make you think - next year might as well be 100 years from now. Things move so fast. We are all so - connected - almost, probably, mostly, near-connected. Rethinking is the order of the day - that I can related to. Think and rethink and ponder and wonder and plan and scrap those plans and reshape and rebuild and dynamite past the cul-de-sacs.

A friend of mine was telling my about a friend of hers who is in grad school, a philosophy major, really into it. He wrote a paper about - I can't remember was the name of the concept was called - but it's the theory that people, humans, us -- we will always care more about the people closer to us than to people who are farther away. You care more about your family than your neighbors. You care more about your neighborhood than the one across town, or the one in another city, or state, or country. But - now - there's this...potential...that all of that kind of thinking - and my assumption, not knowing too much about this philosophy, is that that kind of thinking helped us develop strong ties that made us strong tribes and then cultures and cities and all of the rest of it. That kind of thinking may have to be...reworked, rewired in us. It might not be the most useful type of behavior for the next 100 years...or the next year.

I don't know what I'm talking about, I suppose. I feel like there's a layer of gauze between me and what I'm trying to say or...something.

Blunt Machete

Man - I want to love Bloglines...I want to sit across from it and bat my eyes and flirt and ask if it comes here often and if it's a Libra and if it enjoys long walks on the beach...but that site is a little clunky to navigate (which is the website equivalent of having bad breath)...I see the potential...I'm imagining what our kids will look like and where we will spend our summers...but the site (for me, anyway) was a little confusing and dense. I managed to sign up to a few feeds...but I'm not exactly thrilled about it...I don't know what I needed...something sleek and sexy and streamlined, maybe...something that made the whole process (which should be a fun process) feel a little more like an explosion of puppies and candy and IKEA furniture.

I guess I'll have to keep tweaking and jerking and punching and prodding at it until I get a better feel for it - because I do see the potential.

Grokker was more fun - and I'm a sucker for those flow charts and graphs that you can pull up, Map View. It was an OCD guilty pleasure.

Didn't get a chance to try the Yahoo Pipes...hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to check that out.

Well - I think that this week marks the end of my being able to really help out my co-workers with Learn 2.0...which makes me ever-so-slightly sad. I felt a little like the cock-of-the-walk...just because I knew about Blogger (even though in the back of my head I kinda knew my time was numbered)

This past weekend I was in New York (Bronxville, mostly, near Sarah Lawrence College) but I had the chance to go into the city on Sunday and it was just...it ruled. Hung out in the East Village, then when up to Central Park....it was just...I don't know, really amazing. Only the second time I've ever been - funny to think of all those people running around all the time...and you're down here.

I don't know - I'm getting a little too misty and navel-gaze-y for a public work related blog.