the tinyblog

It required 5 screws and a plate to patch me back together. My night last night was a dope filled haze.

I came out of surgery hurting something fierce. They had offered me a nerve block (read: voluntary paralyzation) but I said I wanted to see how I felt when I got out. I woke up hurting something fierce. I asked for the nerve block but my anesthesiologist had gone home and the only other one was still in a surgery. Kendall, my kind nurse, out of compassion for me hit me with one fat slug of morphine and one fat slug of dilaudid. Shortly after, the anesthesiologist became free and came over to maul my armpit with some fat needles.

Ten minutes later I was in my hospital room with a quickly numbing arm and loaded to the gills. My mom was there and I would pass out for ten minutes at a time, and then suddenly start talking and then pass out again. After she left I started coming to a little in waves. I kept having these daydreams where I thought I was moving some object and then realized that I was really just laying there.

As the morning began to dawn I looked out my hospital window and saw Venus, the only thing in the dusk sky. I pointed it out to the nurse, who was stunned. "How do you know it's a planet?" she said in her thick Guam accent.

"Because it's so big and bright, and it doesn't twinkle." She brought in another nurse to quiz me about it.

My arm was now made of stone. I touched my fingers and it felt like I was touching someone else's fingers. As the morning came, life...and pain began to creep in anew. I was glad.

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...but there is nothing, apparently, that can protect me from myself.

Tomorrow (thursday), I go in for surgery to have that darn errant piece alternately wired, screwed, or plated on, depending on how nasty it looks in there. Dr. Thomas seems like a right skillful fellow, which pleases me to no end.

Also, one-handed typing is for the birds.

I will update you all when I return. Thanks to the miracle of modern short-stay surgery, it will probably be in a few short days.

Posted by tiny daniel at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

my latest Gruesome Accident Tale

Evidently I didn't do a good enough job when I broke myself a little about a week ago. So I went ahead and did a job on it that was a little more thorough for my sensibilities.

I was hanging out at the Fremont Troll with my sister. We were standing near its base on a slab of poured cement, talking. She asked me a question and I turned and began to answer her. I must have shifted my weight slightly, and my feet slipped off the edge of the cement, made slippery by a powdery sand.

I fell immediately on my side, and was not able to catch myself. My hip hit the cement floor under the bridge, and my upper body landed on a small outcropping of cement...my elbow mostly. It hurt like hell, and I lay there in the dust, writhing and stunned a little while my sister made sure I wasn't dead.

I wasn't, but I crawled over to a nearby spot of grass so I didn't have to lay in the dirt. After a short while I looked at the time and realized that I had to go to work. Still in a bit of mild shock, I insisted, despite my sister's protests that I was going to drive to work (shifting left handed). By the time I got there my arm had swelled up to the size of a baseball. When I would feel my elbow for it's point, I thought it strange that it felt like it wasn't really there...just sort of mushy tissue.

I lived through an agonizing shift (proof that I don't do much at night) and then drove myself directly to the ER where they x-rayed me and fond that the olecranon process (the tip of the elbow) had been pretty much snapped off. I saw it there on the x-ray, like a hat that had been tipped...like a little island sitting around in my upper arm.

The orthopedic surgeon started to talk about wires, screws, plates and when to schedule surgery. I got a little sick to my stomach and instantly started to think about the logistics of having only one arm (I'll have to blog entirely with my left hand!).

Needless to say, this is why there's been such a break in blogging. I do intend to continue maintaining the tinyblog, albeit left handed...but reviews may have to wait a little while. We shall see. I'd like to finish them because I have my next series in mind. Thank you again so much to everyone who reads and feel free to Email me with get well wishes, but it may take some time to respond as I am already a bit behind in Emails and type about 20 wpm if that left handed.

Posted by tiny daniel at 6:35 PM | Permalink

Question: Rinpoche, you mentioned tightening up our minds and toughening the edge of our awareness. Could you please say more to us about how we can do that?

Thrangu Rinpoche: Essentially the tough edge or sharp edge of awareness is the same thing as what is meant by effort in meditation. Sometimes when we meditate, we practice it and experience it as conscious relaxation of the mind into the meditative state. At other times meditation invloves a conscious and hard-headed refusal not to become distracted, as in the attitude, "I must not become distracted." At different times one should emphasize one or the other of these. In the situation where one needs to emphasize more effort, the one emphasizes a kind of sharpness of one's awareness, which is produced by this hard-headed intention, which is the refusal to space out.

Posted by tiny daniel at 6:51 AM | Permalink

For example, When "Mr. Right," "Mr. Dreamboat," "Mr. Knight in Shining Armor" is first standing in front of one, he is seen as solid or material in nature, singular, other than oneself, permanently the way his is (handsome, agreeable, kind, exclusively devoted to oneself, intelligent, etc. etc.) and a reliable source of pleasure and happiness. Later, when he is seen as a canine Lothario and the bane of one's existance, he is thought to be solid or material in nature, singular, other than oneself, permanently the way his is (thoughtless, cruel, unfaithful, uncaring, egocentric, stupid and unreliable), and a source of pain and unhappiness.

At such a point one usually condemns oneself for having been so stupid, while congratulating oneself on having finally woken up and seen the light. But in both cases one's mind is cloaked in ignorance.

Note: This issue is out in print, but not online yet. Shenpen Ösel is perhaps not for everyone, but it is quite worth reading.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:04 AM | Permalink

THU, JUN 21, 2001 NORTH SEATTLE COMM. COLL.
UNOFFICIAL STUDENT TRANSCRIPT
[..]
VICE PRESIDENT/DEAN'S LIST

SPR01
CIS 162 INTRO TO JAVAPROGRAMMING 4.0 5.0
CIS 244 INTRO TO C++ PROGRAMMING 4.0 5.0
CWE 100 CWE: COMP. INFO. SYSTEMS 4.0 2.0

Qtrly: Gpa Cr 12.0 Cr Earn 12.0 P/S Cr 0.0 Grpts 48.0 GPA 4.00

Cum: Gpa Cr 30.0 Cr Earn 30.0 P/S Cr 0.0 Grpts 120.0 GPA 4.00
Clvl: Gpa Cr 30.0 Cr Earn 30.0 P/S Cr 0.0 Grpts 120.0 GPA 4.00

Yeah, baby! Whew!
Schoooooool's out for SUMMER!

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:50 AM | Permalink

So, I promised a little more about the kid portrayed on my masthead. One day, I came home and started trying to write a poem. I was stymied, though, and although I tried to think of all kinds of deep thoughts, nothing would come. At about that time, Aidan's babysitter dropped him off and he came loping into the room. "Whatcha doing?" he said.

"I'm writing a poem."

"Oh." And then he proceeded to talk my ear off, and I started writing down every word he said. I was asking him questions, but I didn't write down my questions, only his answers. This boy is the original tiny. I present to you:

Interview with Aidan

did you know
that older men's lips are grost?

women's lips are soft
but some are squishy
some women wear lipstick
and some women wear chapstick

some women wear lipstick
but my mom mostly wears chapstick
some men wear chapstick
but my mom wears chapstick

you and me,
we wear lipstick

sometimes you wear lipstick
remember?
you wore lipstick
remember that time we made you a girl?

your lips were really squishy
like seaweed and clay and greens
and greens mixed with clay

my guardian angel kissed you
she has really squishy lips
she has big lips -- big as your head
angels are bigger than you
angels are much bigger than fairies

ask my guardian angel

Posted by tiny daniel at 6:15 AM | Permalink

In case anyone would like to know, the word tinyblog does not have any spaces or capital letters. I should know, I made it up. No really, it's not a real word.

Also, both "...what's wrong with that guy over at tinyblog?" and "...link via the tinyblog." are correct, but "What the hell is a tinyblog?" and "...then Johnny gave away one tinyblog, leaving him with four. How many tinyblogs did Johnny begin with?" are incorrect.

It's also acceptable usage to say, "I cooked some bacon atop the tinyblog." but it's not Kosher. Keep that in mind.

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:34 AM | Permalink

The ickle and decadent Robyn of Orbyn.com, in pictures!

Robyn says on her about page:

Orbyn.com, however, was never meant to be much more than an interactive favourites folder.

But then she also says:

I built this website on rock and roll.

She frequently inlines pouty photos of herself, and doesn't take herself too seriously. Hence, her self-portrayal as Bjork. She also puts her performing art background to use in order to masterfully portray a range of human emotions...once, even, by request.

Here are some of Robyn's gems:

the sabrina the teenage witch way of cutting-and-pasting
the correct response to a wolf-whistle
thank you!
no really, thank you! (the real story)
I hate technology (deluxe version)

Enjoy!

Posted by tiny daniel at 12:21 AM | Permalink

Ed Champion over at Blog You! finally noticed the tinyblog review thing and sent me a really nice, sincere Email explaining what they were trying to do at Blog You! and all that, and then wrote a snotty little side bar linking me in typical Blog You! form. I guess they're like Howard Stern, who insists that his public persona doesn't have anything to do with what they do in real life. They also said they would review the tinyblog when they got around to it. I wait with baited breath.

In any case, I thought I would just say a coupla things since I'm really the one who invited comparison between my reviews, and theirs. For one thing, after having spent a bunch more time looking at Blog You! I can tell you that I now understand the joke a little better, and am glad the site exists (for which I'm sure Tom and Ed are breathing a great sigh of relief).

However, Ed's explination that Blog You! is a poking fun at the form of a weblog, and sort of debunking it as a sacred medium (in his Email, which I am mostly paraphrasing) doesn't quite fly with me. He said that it's sort of "part of the joke" that they don't read any weblog very thoroughly, but then says that, hey, if they pulled any punches, then it would fall into the same insipid trap as any other blog *cough*.

I guess I'm just sensitive, but the idea of it not mattering whos feelings are hurt in the noble pursuit of truth just seems awfully suspect for two guys who use a "donald sutherland" rating system. I guess it just cheesed me when they reviewed Shauna so superficially, when I feel like if they would have read any ten posts they wouldn't have had to pull any punches to see that her weblog is one of the funniest and most unpretentious on the planet.

Granted, there's over 100,000 weblogs on Blogger alone, and certainly a lot of Ego. I don't deny that the form could be poked fun at... but I'm one for going easy on the little guy. I'm also one for giving credit where credit is due. Blogging is a diificult thing to do with pinache day in and day out. Somtimes 5 or 10 posts in a row are going to be average, but if 60% or so of a blog's posts are really good, I consider that outstanding. I'm sure that I could find weblogs that I could really give a hard time, but for the most part, I LIKE blogs, and the ones I'm reviewing (the ones on my sidebar, although I'm starting to get a handful of requests) are blogs I really love. I don't see any sort of betrayal of truth by pointing out the best of a blog, eh?

Blog You!'s intention is to seperate the wheat from the chaff, and so is mine.

Posted by tiny daniel at 10:42 AM | Permalink

On my referral logs I noticed that I got 2.6 metric buttload of hits from Meg on Friday. I looked and saw she'd linked back to my review but thought "Gawd, does she really get that much traffic?"

Then I was about to sign into Blogger and saw that she made blogger's "blog of note" last Sunday. Cool. Good to see the girl getting her props.

Posted by tiny daniel at 9:47 AM | Permalink

Not badly, thankfully, but in the stupidest possible way, and at work...meaning I have to file an L&I claim based on the fact that I was walking across desktops at 6:30am and decided to try and step down onto a wheeled office chair. I was trying to hurry up and answer my phone. I got the phone in my hand, and then landed with my entire body weight on my elbow. To my credit, I took the call. A service rep in Texas who wanted to ask me a bunch of questions...Slowly.

Turns out I managed to put a hairline facture in my elbow and have to keep it in a sling. I can't extend my arm all the way (or much) but apparently I can type. Lucky for you. Hehe. Too bad I drive a stickshift...this could get ugly.

Posted by tiny daniel at 5:55 PM | Permalink

And shouts out to Robyn:

Who evidently asked me, and a whole bunch of other people in a big hairy spam, to post this picture...hell if I know why...me and Luke just do what we're told.

You're next, Robyn!

Posted by tiny daniel at 5:34 AM | Permalink

Make some time for not.so.soft!

Her name is Meg. She's a newmeejahoor living in London. Hey...didn't I already write some kind of review of not.so.soft?

Yeah, I did. And it's 4:37am, and I've been reading Meg's weblog IN IT'S ENTIRETY for at least four hours now. My brain needs defragging, much like megs. Meg tells really good stories...and really interesting things happen to her. It's a good combination. So, I realized that Meg's blog needs to speak for itself. So I need you to pencil in some time for Meg. Really. So, if you come up with:

- Only a moment: read "6 questions"
- A few minutes: read "mamma crackwhore" and "tricking the magician"
- A lunch break: read all of the **** stories
- A while: read all of the following links
- A long, boring day at work: read all of the links and the 3 long stories linked at the bottom of meg's page, then go read The Onion. It's funny.
- Several weeks: read meg's entire blog, go read every review at Blog You! and write me an email telling me how many times you laughed (and tell me what you think of their review of meg), and then go get a milkshake, and then think about how nice it is to have a big wet sweet first kiss in the front seat of your car on a fine yet rather chilly wednesday evening after eating yummy fish and chips and tromping around Alki Beach for hours, go wank, go be nice to someone who's homeless, learn Shamatha meditation, and then go read The Onion. It's funny.

**** big liverpudlian mamma crackwhore and her bitch
**** a dog's name
at least she didn't think it was toilet paper!
anagrams of notsosoft
**** 6 questions
Who's in the house? I'm in the house!
M*A*S*H, the family heirloom
blackmailed!
I have spat in this pint!
I tried to train my cat, bob.
I know th' feeling
**** tricking the magician
brain has reached total capacity
meg monitor alert
defrag my brain
if you want me to pimp you out...
**** I suggest hurling it across the room
don't do it, don't fall in love
**** no beans!
the elusive mallard

Enjoy!

Posted by tiny daniel at 5:11 AM | Permalink

Miss Fancy Pants is a two.

Emily's numerological info nails her as a two, which says, among other things, "Twos try to retain control over their lives by using their strong emotional intelligence to anticipate and meet (comply to) the needs of others. By making themselves indispensible, Twos feel that they can assure themselves a place in others' lives."

How accurate, I thought, as I read her weblog...or what there is of it since her redesign, only since March. Most of her posts are as one of two. Her weblog seems to be primarily in relation to those around her, and includes many excellent links to the writing of others, or to her collaborative projects (which I'm not reviewing here). They are of particular interest to people in her demographic, a young and intelligent suburban girl. Her sweet little bio tells it pretty well.

In addition, she is a stellar web designer, and her CSS skills are to be truly honored. Everywhere you look on her relatively extensive site is good, solid, well-implemented design.

Speaking of the rest of the site, it is worth mentioning. She has a little photo blog on her sidebar which is very cool, and she has a storytelling section, that is worth looking at. My favorite of that section is this cool story about Peter Pan.

It struck me particularly funny her dismay at search requests invloving pants, which are honestly pretty darn tame...that girl needs to take a look at some truly disturbing search requests some time. I myself get a lot of requests for boys' armpits, armwrestling girls, and recently, plaster casted ladies.

Just remember, she's got a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel. I really liked these posts:

grandiose plans
he came back a different man

Enjoy!

Posted by tiny daniel at 2:37 AM | Permalink

I went out to Pub Trivia at the George and Dragon in Seattle tonight. We won! So did the Mariners!

Anyway, while I was there, I was telling my introvert friend (cute!) a little about my struggles with my passive-aggressive female supervisors and peers. She turned to me and said, "I thought you liked people...I thought you were all about people."

I laughed. It's true of course, but it's more by nature than by choice. Extending one's extroverted tentacles out into the universe just means that they get smacked a little more often. I certainly do get wary sometimes, and sometimes I swear to hermit up and forego the troublesome bastards entirely.

Natural exuberance and/or loneliness always wins out in the end, though. Even when I was in grade school, I remember sort of wanting to be the mysterious held-back one, who everyone wanted to get to know. I actually remember saying to myself, "Ok, Daniel, you're going to school today and not say a word to anyone, just do your homework and observe." I could never last the day. Someone would say something interesting and I'd just have to chime in.

On the city bus, in a room full of people, in the movie theater ticket line...people are scary, but they're just slightly more intriguing, which always seems to win out in the end.

Posted by tiny daniel at 11:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I went out and got sushi by myself the other day. I sat at the counter and next to this big burly guy. He ordered a 22oz. Sapporo and enough Japanese food to choke a horse. He was a massive guy with reading glasses...he looked somehow foriegn, well-read, and mysterious. I leaned over to him and said, "You look like some famous recluse writer."

He turned to me and said in a thick accent, simply, "That means nothing." Then he went back to drinking his beer.

Posted by tiny daniel at 7:23 PM | Permalink

Lukelog isn't ugly...

Luke overwhelmed me by sheer volume. I had to take random, almost Nielsen-like samplings of his blog in order to put together a complete picture. For Luke Martin, housemate of Meg, of not.so.soft, blogging is truly a way of life. I believe that Luke considers it to be his solemn duty.

Luke takes full advantage of his Londonite status, and catches all of the most amazing and obscure shows, movies, and internet sites, and reports back to us from his culture bunker. Frequently! There's something grounding about reading Luke's first thing in the morning (for me, anyway) post. The way he does it is really in the traditional(?!?) style of a weblog...short frequent posts that record one's travels through the world wide web. Keep in mind that the lukelog is also a relatively adult place. A surprising majority of his links are blocked by my corporate firewall. Way to go, Luke!

His first post even mentions the state of being tiny. And witness the power of his almighty, all-encompassing side bar. More blogs than you can shake a stick at.

Here's some of my favorite posts by Captain Fez:

TRANSMUTE!
Luke Martin, power house of contemporary Western thought
haiku movie reviews
meg thinks I'm a little slut
does this make microsoft my bitch?
booya, grandma, booya

Enjoy!

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:47 AM | Permalink

Hey, Le Bleu Blog is on extended hiatus, so I will wait for becky to come home before I review her blog.

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:44 AM | Permalink

I just remembered, there's a story about Aidan on the tinyblog. It's on the sidebar, and it's called greek-grak-grok-groke-gruke. I may tell some other stories about him if I think of some. He's a very special kid.

Posted by tiny daniel at 7:05 PM | Permalink

His name is Aidan, and that picture was taken about 4 years ago when he was a young tyke of age 4 or 5 or so, and I lived with he and his mom. I really love that kid even though I haven't seen him in a coupla years.

I took those two pictures of him one morning...the one where he's looking away was taken first, I think. I just remember being so moved by how he looked at me so innocent and uncomprehending at that tender moment. I was always looking for an excuse to use those photos.

Anyway, thanks for the kudos, guys.

Posted by tiny daniel at 1:24 PM | Permalink

Well, it's about time the tinyblog had a redesign, that's all I have to say. It still needs some work, of course, but I just wanted to get it up. I've been looking at the beige guy for quite a while now. Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated.

Posted by tiny daniel at 6:37 AM | Permalink

What's it all about at Harrumph?

It took me a few days to really wrap my brain around how to write a review for the nearly iconic blog Harrumph. I considered both skipping it, and taking it off of my sidebar so I wouldn't have to review it. But the I would miss out on Heather Champ's pretty little pictures, and a certain kind of dialogue that I have grown accustomed to.

One reason I was intimidated is that heather's archives are huge. Harrumph has been through three major incarnations: the original hand-coded pages, starting in January 2000 (!), her regular blogger pages, and then, more recently her "one post to a page" marvels. I didn't start reading until November of last year so I had a lot of Miss Champ to catch up on.

I feel a bit awkward offering actual criticism in these reviews, but to be fair I must say that much of Heather's day to day writing, as I have experienced it, is a little tepid. There's quite a bit of reference to her web friends and family, and many posts on the sweet mundanities of life, as in many blogs. It does get a little old at times. The redeeming quality to all of it, is it's clearly, as she states in her tagline "all about love, baby!" despite the somewhat gruff sounding domain name.

When Heather's blog works the best, is when she's combining her words with her visual ideas, because they are goddamn brilliant. Heather's visual presentation has only gotten better over time, culminating (so far) in her current layout. It features her now trademark dual-font masthead, and every day a short series of photos, often of the same object. As an amatuer photographer, I personally think it is fucking genius what she does with that pencam.

That's right, every post. If nothing else, Heather does the footwork, and that's what I most respect her for. She puts in the work every time to make each day's post look like a million dollars, and it does. Not to mention that she has her finger in a lot of other pies. She at least partially runs the former FOJM (friends of jezebel's mirror) now The Mirror Project, and she just seems to be at least peripherally involved in just about everything cool happening on the web. In addition, next to Kottke, I wonder if perhaps she is one of the most sidebar-ed blogs on the planet?

Also, I found very sweet her mild penis obsession. (1) (2) (3)

To her credit, her writing does sometimes surprise and delight, and I was happy to discover many gems in her sizable archives. Here are some of them:

this is your brain on camp songs
miss fiddle twiddle pick bang
got e. coli?
e. coli public service message
I punch the monkey
eulogy for her mom
heather champ is a potty mouth
oh caramello

Posted by tiny daniel at 10:37 AM | Permalink

Some people say daydreaming's for all the lazy minded fools with nothin' else to do. - mah man Jimi, May This Be Love

I came into the multimedia lab and there's this autistic guy who goes to school here. He had found a bunch of cartoon pictures of Sushi, and had cut out one piece of ikura (salmon roe sushi), and tiled it across the entire screen. He was delighted about it when I came in, "I wonder if it will make anyone hungry!" he giggled. I'm going to miss all my school friends. I hope to hook up with them this summer but still...somehow it's not the same as seeing them everyday in the lab.

daydream on...

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:07 PM | Permalink

Tonight is the launch party for the print magazine and web version of The Licton Springs Review, North Seattle Community College's literary and arts magazine. Another student and I developed a template for the site as a part of our CIS211 class, and then developed it more fully as an internship this quarter.

This is definately the most full scale web project I have ever done, and I learned an incredible amount during the process. It's 640x480 size, basically, and if I had to do it again, I would have made it either scalable, or designed for 800x600. It is, however a good clean concept and design and holds a lot of information and I'm pretty proud of it.

If for nothing else, go look for the art. I submitted some of my own photographs and they were accepted for the web version, and now appear there. Lots of the other art is fantastic as well, especially the paintings by Stain, the featured artist.

I have to go tonight to the launch party and present the Web version to everyone in attendance...I'm actually a little nervous. I don't know quite what to say for 15 minutes. Hmf. At least there will be free food.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:58 AM | Permalink

Exactly one dollarshort.org.

When I happened to click on DollarShort via Blogger's blog of note, I assumed that it was a well established, mature blog that I simply had never happened upon, or seen on any sidebars. The design was impeccable, the writing a honed voice, and...well, it just had that consistancy and supa'star quality that one finds in blogs like Harrumph.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that DollarShort was just over 2 weeks old when I stumbled upon it fresh from blogs of note. Even now, it's only a few months old, and already represents a body of work that the Author, Mena, should be more than proud of.

It is an unfortunate reality that sometimes the most vital blogs have mediocre design, and well-established blogs with great designs and confident in their readership slip a little...their content becoming a bit Kottke-ized (the greatest repsect to this venerable blogger of course). Mena, however, is perhaps new enough not to fall into this trap.

She is a lady who wears her social dysfunction and colorful family history with pride. She is frank and unabashed with her readings, and it never comes with that "I know, I know, I'm fucked up" kind of apology. I find her style similar to the tinyblog in this way...usually one post a day, one treatment of a specific theme, very autobiographical She just tells her story and tells it well. .

I remember sitting there a little stunned as Mena calmly related how her Mom used to tell her to "pack up her barbies" before trucking her off to Las Vegas because gambling runs in the family, and her parents were too paranoid to allow her to be under the supervision of a stranger for even a moment.

In addition to the writing, there's bonuses. One of her early posts was a comic-book rendition of a hellish childhood camp experience. Her husband contibutes in his own uber-pro way as well. When Mena recalled the fun of MASH, he wrote her a special, super-snazzy version of the game. When Blogvoices went out, he wrote his own customized BlogVoices-style comment system just for her. Shit, I need a husband like that.

I had a hard time picking my favorites, (and I would read each and every one, if you haven't already) even out of only 3 months of archives. I know I'm gushing, but I look forward to reading DollarShort every day:

Mena's imaginary brother Larry
The Poseidon Adventure
Easter Fun
How about some linguini, you fat fuck?
dirty, dirty sheep
dream confusion, 15 inch bugs
crucks

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:15 AM | Permalink

Thank you so much to anyone who reads. You may not know it, but I really appreciate it. You people know me better than some people I talk to every day.

I've really put myself out there on these pages, and I have only experienced openness and support from the people who read and people who I read. I wish only for your happiness. You are all blessed.

Posted by tiny daniel at 3:25 AM | Permalink

Sleuthing out clinkclank.

If it weren't for the "voluntary simplicity" layout and refined sensibility of the posts, I would think that the author of clinkclank was a freemason. There is something inscrutably mysterious about her site.

Usually when you go to a site is has a guestbook, links to an Email address, little side projects, a name, or at least an archive and some direct links to posts. The only thing I really know about the author of clinkclank is that she's a she, she lives in San Fran, she uses Blogger, and she likes Kottke.

She posts mellow, funny, well put-together posts...but once they're gone, they're gone. There's no archives, and nothing else anywhere on the site indicating who this person is. I tried fussing with the URL and using a search engine to find something interesting, but no dice...it's just the top level index page as far as I can tell.

About a week a week ago she mentioned putting up archives, but no dice...and soon that post will have moved off the page. Catch it while you can.

Posted by tiny daniel at 11:56 PM | Permalink

Who the hell is The Booge?

Go to The Booge. Scroll all the way down to the lower left hand corner and there he is, The Booge, the cat for which the weblog is named. Incidentally, I am told that it is pronounced, (boodje) as opposed to (booj) or (boo-gey').

That's one answer. The other answer is, it's rabid Frank Zappa fan Pat Goegan, occaisionally his lovely wife Lorrie, and at least once, his infant son Ben (who clearly can't code worth shit). Ben was still a long way away from being born when Pat first began The Booge, and is now a wide eyed troublemaker some year and a half later. Much of The Booge has been the story of a young father who thinks way too much.

The Booge has gone through several redesigns, and his latest is pretty darn sharp, although as I read through his archives I realised that the right-aligned text has got to go!

Pat is a serious guy, and he's not afraid to tackle the big questions with posts bordering on novels. Whether it's rants about the environment, or explorations of the unanswerable questions of life.

In addition, Pat is serious about his weblog. I once asked for his address so I could send him something, and he refused. I thought he was joking, so I gave him a hard time about it. Finally, he consented because he didn't want me to stop reading The Booge.

As if. Because more than anything else, The Booge is about community, and The Booge is the glue that holds other weblogs together. Pat knows how to nurture a weblog and make it a part of his extended family. In addition, he's personally responsible for the life of at least one blog. Much of The Booge is communication and gentle ribbing with other weblogs. It's not unheard of for Pat to post a comment to a post to a comment he made on someone else's weblog.

In a year and a half, Pat has posted an incredible volume, here's a few of my favorites:

coming soon to a crib near you
a test, how to know if you are ready to have kids
do appliances have a soul?
now you get your food in a crappy bag
nas is suck
existential guided visualization
the blank blogger window

And, as an extra added bonus...my very own beat poem to The Booge. Enjoy.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:05 AM | Permalink

Sorting through The Airman's Mess

By the tone of The Airman's Mess, one would guess that the author, hereby known as SaigonSam, was a hard drinking grizzled old 70 year old airman with finely honed storyteller's voice.

But then one reads further and discovers that he's a 22 year old Canadian Census worker (and pilot) who still thinks that Chicken Broccoli Liguini is the ultimate cuisine to serve a prospective serious date. He describes his recent high school reunion as "Sort of like in the excellent film Grosse Pointe Blank, except I'm not John Cusack. But I do have "99 Luftballons", as does the excellent soundtrack."

The Airman's Mess is not about design. There is nothing slick about it. It's about a good, unvarnished look at the life of a young man who also happens to be a damn good storyteller. Even something as simple as poetry written on the sidewalk on his way to the grocery store becomes prosaic from Sam's keyboard.

No one is ever referred to by their real name...everyone is referred to by their imaginary radio handle: Goodbar, eGirl, Cueball, Funboy. He introduces and revisits his characters with supreme skill, low-key and never maudlin. The real emotion is always implied, rarely explicitly stated. Somehow it comes through all the more powerful as a result.

He talks about his loneliness in a way that doesn't scream out to be pitied...it's just ordinary lonliness rendered with self-compassion. One doesn't know what happened between he and eGirl, but his quiet wistfulness speaks volumes.

The Airman's Mess gets my vote as the most deeply underrated blog in the air. Don't take my word for it though, read some posts about Sam losing his wank drive, half a beer...rounded down, a blue vinyl couch and taking care of your local census worker.

Posted by tiny daniel at 10:31 AM | Permalink