Louis Theroux Weird Weekends I interrupt this period of bloglessness to bring you this important announcement. The weekend I was in NYC staying with a friend from the UK, we watched some dvd's of this show, which is also on Bravo. Today on a whim I was checking out the website and found these must-see clips from an episode I'm now dieing to see (hint they have to do with Christianity and Dallas): <a href="http://www.bravotv.com/series/louis_theroux/episodes/christians/clip_turtle_lofi.html">better than turtle wax</a> <a href="http://www.bravotv.com/series/louis_theroux/episodes/christians/clip_family.html">not really a christian</a> <a href="http://www.bravotv.com/series/louis_theroux/episodes/christians/clip_angels.html">angels on your body</a> from the <a href="http://www.bravotv.com/series/louis_theroux/index2.html">site for the show</a> 27ElsewheredanielThu, December 12, 2002publishPQ pathetic quotient ...I self-talk/narrate my life now in terms of how I would describe in on my blog. but here is the reality: wake; coffee; computer; food; shower; computer; food; coffee; computer; repeat. i am thinking about living w/o any regular internet connection once we move to Sarajevo; not because it's not available, just because. sorry, <a href="http://faithmaps.blogspot.com/">stephen</a>, but this isn't community. brilliant human networking, yes, but not community. he says this after working on the code for his blogging system 8 hours yesterday. no, staring blankly at the code for his blogging system for 8 hours yesterday. ;) 26MinutiadanielTue, December 10, 2002publishArlington Virginia is my home (ATM) <img src="images/arlington_bobpecksign1.jpg"> a sign near our place that i have been meaning to take a picture of for a while now. <img src="images/arlington_ulike1.jpg"> "U Like Good Taste Gourment" is what the sign says. almost across from the empty bob peck lot. <img src="images/hsu1.jpg"> last night we went to see three of my friends play at staccato, a cul little club in DC. first up were the Hsu sisters. meant to take shots during their set. oops. anyway, amazing music. <img src="images/jakes1.jpg"> jake stephens was second. a view from the loft. i like all the little things in this shot. courtney was last, we had to leave before it was over to catch the train and get to bed. didn't get a shot of court but <a href="http://127.0.0.1/djdc/index.php?archive=blog_2002_11_18.xml&id_pass=9">have already</a> so it's ok. 25ImaginingdanielMon, December 09, 2002publishfinally, all you ever need in life (um...almost...) in one place ...someone has finally done it: <img src="http://www.craphound.com/images/caffeinemachine.jpg" width="200" height=" 266" align="left"> Presenting the Caffeine Machine, "a fully functioning coffee maker integrated into a computer case. You pour the water into the funnel at the top, it goes down the tube into a book-shaped water tank where it sits until you hit the power switch, at which point the heating coil boils the water, sending it back up another tube and into the coffee grounds basket." The site has a walk-through if you have a yen to make your own. <a href="http://www.pimprig.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=mediaGallery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=411&orderby=dateD">Link</a> (via <a href="http://boingboing.net">boingboing</a>) 24ElsewhereDanielSun, December 08, 2002publishyet another one for the -what the hell- dept. theyblinked <a href="http://www.theyblinked.com/blog/2002_12_08_theyblinked_archive.html#85685178">went to church today and experienced a musical christmas extraveganza</a>: so, i went to a musical today. at a church. sar and ayesh were in it. they did great. nonetheless, i walked away dumbfounded at the theme. it was a Christmas musical... with a military theme. "what the hell?" i thought to myself. how does that not seem totally skewed to other people??? "am i really the only adult here that this seems wack to?" i thought to myself. anyway, after 25 minutes of as many battle songs and children in fatigues that they could cram into the service the odd juxtaposition of Jesus-in-the-manger and children singing about marching, crushing and winning came to a close. hmmmm <a href="http://www.danielsjourney.com/index.php?archive=blog_2002_12_02.xml&id_pass=2">i guess i wasn't wrong with #5</a>... 23ElsewheredanielSun, December 08, 2002publish "Well, I never saw it, but apparently it was frequency, duration and then she rated every incident on a scale of one to ten, then she ran graphs to show the quality over time." "Of your sex life?" "Yes." read the whole story at <a href="http://www.harpold.com/500/paddock/00000201.html">harpold.com</a> (via <a href="http://ftrain.com">ftrain</a>) 22ElsewheredanielSun, December 08, 2002publishBlog for news on what is happening in Venezuela I had been following these events about 2 months ago, then lost track. I'm glad I found <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/">this blog</a> (here's the <a href="http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/rss.xml">RSS feed</a> I'm reading), which is giving first-hand accounts of the events unfolding daily. 21ElsewheredanielSun, December 08, 2002publishlastest seven magazine is out Just got the december issue of seven magazine up and out, it's a rad alt.worship issue. <a href="http://www.sevenmagazine.org/index.php?archive=122002_06">Here's my contrib to it</a>. 20CommentdanielSun, December 08, 2002publishFor Love or Money (or Fame) (Money and Fame possibly never forthcoming) Love Why is love such a hard thing to obtain, such a hard thing to grab, a dandelion seed floating in the air, moving just out of reach with every stab into the empty atmosphere. We know of its value, we know all the clich&eacute;s, we know what to say, we know we like it (a lot). But we can never grab it. As I look around at the world and wonder how we can treat each other this way, every day I live in a microcosm which shows me that I, above all, am unable to even attempt such a lofty goal, failing every day in my better intentions, instead succumbing to my own needs, desires, expectations, insecurities, inabilities. I am most definitely the one billionth person to ask "How do we love?" It's a question that will never be completely answered despite a world full of pat answers anywhere from "Jesus is Love" to "Just Do It." Perhaps living in the tension of that question and its non-answer is, after it is all said and done, the essence of life itself. I've seen your flag on the marble arch but love is not a victory march it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah well, maybe there's a god above but all I've ever learned from love was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you it's not a cry that you hear at night it's not somebody who's seen the light it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah 19CommentdanielSat, December 07, 2002publishre: travel I got a cul email from a cul <a href="http://living-room.blogspot.com">guy</a> in Australia who had a cul <a href="http://living-room.blogspot.com/2002_12_01_living-room_archive.html#85616854">post</a> about a cul marketing campaign (can you believe it?). It is closer to <a href="/miriam">Miriam's blog</a>'s ethos, so <a href="http://www.danielsjourney.com/miriam/2002_12_01_archives.html#85644711">she posted it today</a>. That first sentence sounds like a line in a Dashboard song I've covered in the past. 18ElsewheredanielSat, December 07, 2002publish The dog has been staring for a good hour, something he commences every day at 7:14 AM and works hard at, an inch or two from my face, until my eyes remain open and I roll out of bed to take him down the ladder, into a collar, and out in the world to unclench. On this morning I also need to unclench with some urgency. It's not as bad as some days - when you wake up from fever dreams of speedboating across clear lakewaters with a terry towel in your mouth and a boiling vat of kerosene in your lap... continued at <a href="http://www.textism.com/article/642/">textism</a> 17ElsewheredanielSat, December 07, 2002publishsay it: we luuuuuv SUVs <a href="http://www.idontcareaboutair.com/bumpers/create.shtml"><img border=0 src="http://www.idontcareaboutair.com/bumpers/saddam_bumper.gif"></a> from <a href="http://www.idontcareaboutair.com/">idontcareaboutair.com</a> <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0212.mencimer.html">Bumper Mentality</a> by Stephanie Mencimer The Washington Monthly via <a href="http://www.ambiguous.org/archive.php3/2002/Dec/6#quinn2002126.1">ambiguous</a>: the amusing thing about this for me is that i saw the marketing data (yes, a lot of it really does read a bit like that) back in '95 on suvs from a couple of car companies i did web work for. at that time it was all about giving the minivan market something that let them deny that they were part of that demographic. i still look at suvs to this day and think "you're not fooling anyone, you're just driving a funny shaped MINIVAN of DENIAL!" i think if i started a bumpersticker campaign for suvs, it would probably be stickers that read "pity me, i paid too much for my minivan." via <a href="http://boingboing.net">boingboing</a> 16ElsewheredanielSat, December 07, 2002publishall religions are wacky "At minimum I believe that God -- if she exists -- drinks cheap whiskey. That'd explain why things go to hell once in a while..." <a href="http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/2002/12/04.html#a1780">The Scobleizer Weblog</a> 15ElsewheredanielFri, December 06, 2002publishrequest: If anyone has an mp3 of radiohead's "creep" send it me via IM. 128Kbps or under preferred. 14MusicdanielFri, December 06, 2002publishgood expat blog i have mentioned before <a href="http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook">Russell Beattie</a> is <a href="http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/index.jsp?date=20021206#154715">coming back to the States</a> for a few days after a long time away. But six-two? Ha! My femurs are actually longer than the distance between two seats! 13ElsewheredanielFri, December 06, 2002publish <a href="http://fotolog.net:8080/eshepard/?photo_id=8111">our favorite mass distributer of hot-water-run-through-roasted-ground-beans</a> ..then go and check out some more pics from this cul site... 12ElsewheredanielFri, December 06, 2002publishTeasing you with character sketches First a little backstory: So I just walked home from the Dremo's open mic, where I played second-to-last to a handful of die-hards who came out and stayed out despite the snow. And I just walked home in the sub-sub temperatures and have arrived positively reeking of smoke to my cozy apartment four-or-so blocks away. I played my new version of Cohen's Hallelujah--yes, the 1M'th cover version of that song, but at least this version is mine--and it went over quite well. So the first cat to play was actually a duo with a drum machine. I won't tell you much more, but the dude had reading glasses--he was a very cul, older cat... ... Jimmy was the grandson of Carolina sharecroppers and a vietnam vet who brought his asian bride Nikki back with him after his fourth tour. He was an old R&B cat. Nikki learned bass and they played the Red Lion Tavern North in Charleston and raised two sons before moving to Virginia. He had a voice like a Hershey's bar and played everything from Marvin Gaye to Shania Twain for his dedicated audiences of drunks and escaped husbands and mothers. ... Daniel talked to himself. This was a problem. He'd get looks--expecially when he yelled out "Fucking Nazis" in what could only be described as mild torret's syndrome...but then the cell phone--or "mobile" (long "i") as they are known in the "old country"--was invented. Suddenly every sharp dressed man and woman was also talking to his/herself, and Daniel fit right in. Except for the "Fucking Nazis" part. 11FictionDanielFri, December 06, 2002publishInfo Overload Ok I'm done. Current song: Information Overload by Living Colour sometimes i feel like my mind will explode sometimes i feel like i've got no control... ...one of my all time fav songs... I'm off to be billable for about a week straight. Don't expect much. Take your time with that semantic web linkamania post. 10MinutiadanielThu, December 05, 2002publish Just two things for the "so strange as to be almost unbelievable" bin: <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&amp;item=927013748">a picture of a cat looking at a website, for sale on eBay</a>. the bidding is up to $1,125. life is a joke and i am the butt of it. or maybe i just need to title all my pictures after famous people and auction them at eBay. and did you know it's not only <a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20021202/D7NLOHC00.html">illegal to be gay</a> in the military? this reminds me of a story. not about being gay, but about jerking off. my freshman year roommate had these friends at some boston school (BC i think, just FYI Aaron, except BC doesn't have frat's do they?), and in their frat, they would hide in each other's closets. they would jump out on unsuspecting <a href="#" onclick="javascript: alert('You sicko! You would click on that! For this, we send you back to the top of the page');">self-pleasers</a>--after they had finished their jizness (supposedly)--and yell "Masturbation police!" I can see it now: the Office of Gay Activity Awareness: Making America safe for all Heterosexuals. 9ElsewheredanielThu, December 05, 2002publish I've mentioned the <a href="http://www.w3c.org/2001/sw/">semantic web</a> a few times in the past. It is a subject I am both a student and evangelist of. I would talk a lot more about it if I understood it enough to put it into simple terms for {you}(?). But again, in an effort to use this space to sort through some of my backlog of info, here we go. Scan the bold type for topics that interest or intrigue you. XFML: <a href ='http://xfml.org/'> XFML xml format for shared, faceted taxonomy of metadata</a> <a href="http://diveintomark.org/archives/2002/12/03.html#this_is_xfml">diveintomark: this is XFML</a> <a href ='http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/000506.html'>Ease What does XFML look like</a> <a href ='http://xfml.net/'>XFML Wiki</a>  so what's a wiki? glad i asked... <a href ='http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiGettingStartedFaq'>Wiki Getting Started Faq </a> yeah, but what's taxonomy? glad i asked... <a href ='http://www.lexonomy.com/publications/aTaxonomyPrimer.html'>Lexonomy A Taxonomy Primer </a>from this consultant's site <a href ='http://www.lexonomy.com/'>Lexonomy </a>so people, like, real consultants and stuff, are totally working with these things? like, this isn't a fluke? could i do this? are there more? hmm... <a href ='http://semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000005.php'> Semantic Studios Publications Semantics Innovation Architecture</a> from <a href ='http://semanticstudios.com/'>Semantic Studios</a>  So you know this XML RSS stuff has to do with the semantic web too, and over here at <a href="http://design.danielsjourney.com">design.danielsjourney</a> we (love referring to ourselves not only in the third person but in the plural...soon we'll be talking to ourselves not just in private, but in public as well!) are working hard at building <a href="http://swm.danielsjourney.com">SWiM</a> on a very extensible information architecture that will help us maintain a semantic paradigm, not to mention add feature after feature with few architectural changes (if any). more RSS info: <a href ='http://www.syndic8.com/~wkearney/blogs/syndic8/'>Syndication News from Bill Kearney</a>   and yet another XML format! wow can we have one for each day of the year? please? <a href ='http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/'>RDFWeb FOAF the 'friend of a friend' vocabulary</a>. although i do like this tagline: <a href ='http://rdfweb.org/'>RDFWeb semantic web vapourware for the masses</a>   this of course all depends on standards for client tools. here's a good site re that: <a href ='http://www.webstandards.org/'>The Web Standards Project</a>  not to mention good information architecture underneath our tools and web services: <a href ='http://www.newarchitectmag.com/documents/s=2452/na1202b/index.html'>New Architect Bottoms Up</a>  of course to create standards and architecture that actually work, we need to understand user interface, how the brain works and how it works in relation to technology, even more specifically, how it works in relation to information and how we can best represent that information through technology. this is a subject <a href="http://nonlinear.blogspot.com/">i have been very interested in</a> for a long time (the psych grad in me coming out). anyway, there is a dept at UC Berkeley that is working on this stuff, and it's tre cul: <a href ='http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/index.html'>BAILANDO Project Homepage</a> <a href ='http://bailando.sims.berkeley.edu/infovis.html'>BAILANDO Project Information Visualization </a> and here's one more UI article, unrelated to the UCB projects: <a href ='http://www.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/02/11/28/021128opwebserv.xml'>Multimodal user interfaces</a>  this is related--deals with the actual hardware piece of UI more--and also just tre cul for the tweaker in all of us: <a href ='http://riot.com.au/systems.php'>riot.com.au - systems</a>  here are some good tech blogs as well: <a href ='http://www.fettig.net/'>Abe Fettig</a> <a href ='http://www.onfocus.com/'>Paul Bausch</a> (cofounder of blogger) <a href ='http://www.hebditch.org/'>Stephen Hebditch Blog</a> <a href="http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=6491&mode=thread&order=0">Doc S ON blogs and how they fit into this</a> (sortof--never been a big Doc fan, but I know alot of peps are) and yet another content/knowledge management product: <a href ='http://www.novissio.com/index.html'>Novissio - Bringing knowledge to life</a>  another techy thing we really need in order to achieve <a href="http://integration.danielsjourney.com">my dream of sustainability for all</a> is micropayments. Found another offering in this area yesterday: <a href ='http://www.peppercoin.com/'>Micropayments and Electronic Payment Systems for Microtransactions PEPPERCOIN </a> <img src="http://www.wired.com/news/images/thumbs/cheguevara_t.gif" align="left">and speaking of sustainability, part of that is subverting existing marketing structures, and in thinking of that, and surfing, I realized that this is true: <a href ='http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,56677,00.html'>Wired News Apple It's All About the Brand</a>. I'm quite put off that they would use imagery like this. They've subverted (in a bad way) the subversive. 8DesignDanielThu, December 05, 2002publishFonts I'm catching up on some of my favorites today. I have a TON of links there that I set really quickly while I'm surfing important sites. Currently, I'm experiencing quite a bit of information overload. You'll see what I mean as I blog these links in an attempt to sort through and organize this stuff. Fonts: can't design without them, and the more the better, methinks. A couple weeks ago I found all these sites with tons of free fonts: <a href ='http://www.1001freefonts.com/main.htm'>1001 Free Fonts - download free true type fonts</a> -- pretty self-explanatory <a href ='http://www.blambot.com/'>Free Comic Fonts</a> -- ditto <a href ='http://www.fontalicious.com/'>Fontalicious</a> <a href ='http://www.fonts.com/'>Fonts.com</a> <a href ='http://www.chank.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=942364144ae9e9a4e3c186618f1ee123'>Chank</a> -- this is a really cool site/artist...definately check out the pictures of their studio. <a href="Wired News 'Elvis of Fonts' to Bust Out Rock Star ABCs">There's also this Wired article about him.</a> <a href="http://www.mcu.org.uk/articles/accessibletext.html">More about what font to use on your page</a>. I've taken to disabling all font types and sizes in my browser--I see everything in 10pt Verdana. I don't mind Times, but Arial is just stupid. 7ElsewheredanielThu, December 05, 2002publishFree Stock Photos <a href="http://www.freestockphotos.com/Apocalyptic.html">...of the Apocalypse...</a> 6ElsewheredanielThu, December 05, 2002publishSnow! <img src="images/snow1.jpg" alt="snow"> <a href="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/redirect_magnet?loc_id=USVA0023&par=internal&site=magnet&code=632537&promo=english"> <img border=1 width=270 height=140 SRC="http://oap.weather.com/fcgi-bin/oap/generate_magnet?loc_id=USVA0023&code=632537"></a> 5MinutiadanielThu, December 05, 2002publish Still testing me ol software. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2002-11-14-edit_x.htm">Fractured Bosnia offers USA cautionary tale on Iraq</a> USA Today A balanced view connecting Bosnia and potential future conflict considerations. Interesting that in Bosnia we were helping the defenders and in Iraq we will be the aggressors. Important distinction methinks. I definately believe intervention in Bosnia was required and even then not adequate, by the way. Elsewhere, <a href="http://www.theyblinked.com/blog/">theyblinked</a> has a new locale and <a href="http://www.theyblinked.com/blog/2002_12_01_theyblinked_archive.html#85400311">waxes all utopic</a> on community (that link wasn't working last time I checked, but then it was still near the top...wow blogger stinks doesn't it?). I recommend mortals just scan the first couple paragraphs, but somewhere around Paradosis it gets interesting. Very much reminds me of some of Riddell's (one of my fav authors) writing. Only thing is I think it is, for most people anyway, fiction. If you have that kind of community consider yourself totally blessed. Finally, I have already received two cul emails in response to my "Un-Christian Nation" post of earlier today. Thanks! Just a start, depending on how I feel about it, maybe the finish too. 4BalkansDanielTue, December 03, 2002publishSWiM test 1M Is this going to work? Does this work? Is that possible? What will I say? What will I say in a second paragraph? This is going to go right up on the site? No one cares. No one cares that my little program works 10%. If this is on the site then 0.2 is 50%. The first option (line breaks--hey, that's all Blogger does either, and its so dern easy) of 1.2.1 is done. 3DesignDanielTue, December 03, 2002publishfuture article for sevenmagazine.org Just posting some first thoughts that will become an article at some point in the future: America: The Un-Christian Nation 5 all-American values that make America the least Christian nation in the world As my journey of faith takes me farther and farther away from the evangelical roots in which it was born, I have become fascinated with both the way that brand of Christianity has so explicitly joined itself to the ideas and values of being an "American," and with what I would consider an authentic Americana, that being a true, non-commercial culture of the United States. While I do not have the space with which to explore either of those topics fully, that very exploration has led to a personal revelation-of-sorts: that the same national values that American Christianity has warmly embraced are precisely the values that make it the most disempowered and mocked faith in the world today. So without further ado , here are the "5 all-American values that make America the least Christian nation in the world": 1. Individuality 2. Greed 3. Inhospitality 4. Ignorance of suffering 5. Fascination with war As for me, I'm moving to Europe in the first half of 2003. I'm outta here, off to study this beautiful country from a safe distance that will undoubtedly make my heart grow fonder. But for now, I'll just bail for the land where I've most experienced community, generosity, hospitality, an understanding of suffering, and a striving for peace. 2CommentdanielTue, December 03, 2002publishhi ho hi ho its off to code we go I'm actually just testing out SWiM. I just got my archive feature working. With SWiM, you archive whenever you darn well feel like it (it will also eventually have the blogging status quo weekly/monthly archiving option). I have done a couple archives already, setting up the config files by hand, but now I have a little form where I just give the archive a title, and it sets everything up for me, updating my menu etc. etc. I personally like being able to archive whenever I want, because that way I can keep my files' sizes both small and consistant, archiving whenever I feel it appropriate given the number of posts over n days. Anyway, that means that I have done <a href="http://www.danielsjourney.com/index.php?archive=blog_2002_11_18.xml&id_pass=2">0.6 before even 0.2</a>, but it was ness. 0.2 is absolutely next, possibly before I publish this post, followed shortly by 0.2.1 and 0.5. 0.3, 4, and 7 are a little bit further out, with the rest seemingly way out there, but I think the Dec 31 timeframe is still doable. Also updated the menu (to left) with weekly archives pulled from the ol' Blogger data, for smaller file sizes and faster load times. Also updated the <a href="syndicates.php">news aggregate</a>, look out for more features on the way there, customization and all that, but my friend Jason, who is now officially onboard to create the desktop SWiM product, is right now building a newsreader for Outlook/Express or any other nntp-reading application. Very excited as FeedReader got really buggy on me, out of the blue, a couple weeks ago and I've stopped using it as a result. Besides, I want my email and my RSS in one app--and it's about to happen. Anybody out there who doesn't publish RSS--please do! I was doing it even when I used Blogger; it was a pain in the ass, but I can show you how. Of course, SWiM will create RSS by default (already does--and pretty fancy if I do say so myself--just click on the rss_xml link to the left, or go to the news agg and my feed comes up as the default {of course ;)}). Finally, made imagining a link, because I realized it was going to be a koon's age before I got that stuff organized. I'll keep working at it, but for now you get a dump of all my images--fun! ;) 1DesignDanielMon, December 02, 2002publish