The Lifestyle Blogging Mystique
Do you take the Friday Five? Does your blog include a Weather Pixie? Are you on Live Journal?Then this writer for Bully probably hates you:
In his articles St. John neglects to mention another de rigeur symptom of BPD (Blogger Personality Disorder): the dreaded photo gallery. You know, a bunch of hopelessly self-absorbed, crappy, digital-pointed-at-the-bathroom-mirror self-portraits (Bazima refers to hers as a "project")--oh, and there must always be at least one shot, taken out of a car window, of the sideview mirror, complete with "Objects in this mirror may be closer than they appear"--the mother of all freshman-road-trip, poseur/loser photographic cliches.
It is not the typical blogger's self-absorption that bothers me so much as the completely earnest, unironic way in which they go about saying the same goddamn things everybody else does. You have to be a really, really stupid fuck to think there's a single redeeming quality or scrap of originality or freshness to any of this crap. And yet, there they are, day after day, building their self-mythologies, ratting out their friends, staring into the bathroom mirror, trying to perfect that webcam pout so that a few freaks in Cincinnati, or Philly, or Astoria, will beat off to their picture.
Wednesday, July 2, 2003 02:52 p.m.
If You Liked Vixen80, You'll Love Sweatergrrl7!
WSJ reports Yahoo Personals now offers a bizarre special feature
Starting Monday, when users view a profile on Yahoo Personals, they get the option to click on a link that says: "People who liked this person also liked these people." For instance, Yahoo users who liked the 35 year old calling himself "Single Bilingual" also liked the looks and profile of "Fit and Focused."
Wednesday, July 2, 2003 02:04 p.m.
Neoconservatism -- It's For the Children!
Here's an interesting observation on Not Geniuses about the tender age of some conservative pundits. I think Kyle Williams is what happens when you stick William Kristol and a Kim Anderson calender in a blender.
Perhaps that's an appropriate segue into discussion of the last "Conservative Ladies Luncheon." Daniel Crittendon came and yapped about why ladies should be mothers -- stay at home mothers. She did make some interesting points, and is a clever woman, but never once did it occur to her or the audience that perhaps the homemaker "boom" is only evidence that the greater workforce is moving toward a telecommuting model.
As the name of the event implies, it was a lot of fun in a kitschy, unintentional way. And of all the think-tanks, Heritage provides the best sandwiches.
Next month will especially exciting when everyone's favorite crazy, blond, deadhead stops by. I'm almost as excited about that as I am about the new Mr Show DVD coming out in August
Tuesday, July 1, 2003 05:14 p.m.
Don't Bother
No, I'm not a fan of the Don't-Call List. Fortune explains its inevitable loopholes:
Long-distance phone companies got an exemption for their nightly slam calls. There's an irony in there someplace.
Airlines got an exemption, which I suppose is cool if they're calling to let you know that they've gone bankrupt and your flight is cancelled.
Banks and credit unions got an exemption, probably to offer the newest consumer credit package: zero-percent auto loans with zero-percent savings accounts.
Insurance companies got an exemption, too, so they can call and tell you that your rates are going up as a result of their lousy investments of your premium money in the stock market.
Wait, there's more...
Like the Hamidi case, its another problem of trying to implament physical property laws to intangibles. Witness the confusion -- among libertarians even -- here (in the comments), here and here
Secondly, there's always the risk that when we're not looking, the Feds will feed this database --that conveniently links our numbers and email addresses --to exactly the same people we're trying to avoid.
Update: Don't even read this post. Go read Radley's entry "Libertarian's Lose Their (Commerce) Claws" instead. A snippet:
It's been three years since I took Con Law, but if memory serves, you'd have to wait for the New Deal cases for the Supreme Court to pry the Commerce Clause open wide enough to allow for federal regulation of telephone solicitations.
Who You Lovin? Who You Been Huggin? Was it Chloe Sevigny? Then tell the world, Williamsburg-style. Gawker Elizabeth Spiers interviews Ken Courtney, designer of the "I Fucked __" series
Monday, June 30, 2003 05:27 p.m.
Spamming You With Libelous Content In a Free Society
The California courts ruled on Intel v Hamidi today. It's one of those obscure cases that nevertheless will make a big impact on how internet correspondence is viewed and policied. Hamidi liked to spam 30,000 of his fellow Intel employees blasting their practices. Well, last week we learned email can't be libelous, but that was not much of a surprise. That's why Intel tried to get Hamidi with an obscure, antiquated law called "trespass to chattels." They were taking a leap with this one, trying to identify ones emailbox as personal property. There's probably a lofy philosophic argument here to be made, but not by me. Why don't you ponder for yourself why emailboxes aren't physical space and thus the chattels clause can't be used here. Now go read EFF on the case. They think we should avoid using tresspass theories at all costs as it's just a slippery slop for a lot of bad stuff -- stiffling free speech, competition not to mention:
The essential problem is that trespass theories create a new kind of intellectual property with no limits. This could result in a very different Internet, one where every email message, every ping, every http request could be the basis for a trespass claim. ISPs and server owners would simply have to deliver a notice in order to trigger trespass protections.
Monday, June 30, 2003 04:34 p.m.
I Miss Europe The Telegraph says 90% of all euro notes have traces of cocaine.
Monday, June 30, 2003 02:27 p.m.
IP, Freely
One thing bloggers like to keep secret is our mutual obsession with IP addresses. It's natural -- writers want to know their readership -- yet sounds so sneaky to the unsuspecting (ir non-blogging) public. Alina emails me with a query:
FREDDURST Jun 30 2003 1:56:55 pm 1 0:00
Is this a fluke on my sitemeter, Jo?
Monday, June 30, 2003 12:32 p.m.
Party People Get Down Zoe's having an
interesting exchange with another
blogger about last Saturday's
extravaganza. I've been to about a dozen
"942" parties in the past year and that
one -- Zoe's birthday celebration -- was
by far the weirdest.
Zoe can tell you why she thought it was
weird, but it as weird for me for
entirely different reasons. That evening
was like a real life Friendster, and it
wasn't even my party.
Alina, Radley, and Jerry stopped by at
varying times that evening. Julian wasn't there,
but some of his people were. My friend
Susan, someone I met in Prague that moved
to DC last fall, came by. Krista, my
former roommate who returned from South
Africa this week, couldn't make it, but
tried to. There were Rep Ron Paul staffers
and Cato Institute interns. These are all people (libertarian people) that know
Zoe, and therefore the rest of the 942
collective, via me.
When I met Zoe -- a little over a year ago -- I at first thought she was totally cute and dressed really snazzy, but I was also struck how open she was to my politics. The typical response of a lefty, even an American Prospect-style new left like Zoe, is hostility and presumption. But we began chatting about our similarities -- our political views that are off the "spectrum."
After several legendary conversdations at Sparky's, she became someone I considered not just a close friend, but a friend for life.
Zoe's party Saturday is evidence of the mesh lefties and libertarians can take if they give each other a chance. It wasn't "shirts and skins," you ouldn't tell them apart (although, the several Koch fellows that stopped in were dressed in blue shirts and khakis.) I don't see Zoe's friends as "Zoe's
friends" anymore, and she probably can
say the same about my set.
Before anyone begins to suspect that our
alliance was for just networking purposes, I'd like to state loudly and clearly that I
respect, admire, and enjoy Zoe's company
more than 99.9999% of the people I know.
Considering our differences, Zoe and I
never fight about anything. Then again, I
convinced she's a latent libertarian
minus a few IHS seminars
So happy birthday to Zoe. She's turning 23 this week. And she's already done much more with her life than most people twice her age
Update: Zoe says even the Ambassador from
Venezuela was there. So weird
