emlocke

Category: Blogging & Internet

  • Emily is Twittering . . . until she gets distracted.

    I’ve added a new link category to help you find me elsewhere on the web, including my Flickr photostream and Sugar, Sugar, the tumblelog I started tumbling (this is so embarrassing) while on vacation at the beach last month. It rained every morning, and if it didn’t rain in the morning, it rained in the afternoon. I had a lot of quiet time and I spent some of it adding a new layer to my mixed media web presence.

    Using Tumblr is like pasting together a string book of newspaper clippings on a theme. In the 10th grade, my string book was themed: “Typos and Misprints.” It required more close-reading of the local papers than has probably ever been done by someone outside of the press offices. My tumbling theme is “For the sweet life.” I’m posting images, quotes, videos and links that I’m sweet on.

    I’ve also linked to myself on Twitter. Can someone tell me why this tool isn’t called twittr? Because even if you appreciate that ‘e’ you know that neologically, it doesn’t belong there. There are days when I feel like my brain is on Twitter—thoughts come in a choppy stream of 140-character phrases. I don’t know if I’ll translate that to the web very well, but I’ll register for any site where I can customize my own page.

    Twitter would be more fun if I were also a texter. I’m guessing that all the people from whom I’ve refused text messages are going to be mad when an online gadget is what finally sways me to subscribe to a texting plan.

    Relax, I’m not going there yet.


    Sarajo Frieden via ffffound.

    This is what I’m listening to this week:
    Circle by Paramore
    The Sounds of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel
    Out Loud by Dispatch
    Save Tonight by Eagle Eye Cherry
    Come Back Home by Lisa Loeb

  • Toasting every day is puffer than I thought


    From ffffound.

    Visually represented here are three of my favorite pastimes: playing on words and literary devices (spoonerism, in this case) typography, and talking about feelings.

  • Wonderland cake message

    I have the cranial throbs of caffeine withdrawal, the scent of the powderfresh deodorant that I packed by accident is suffocating, I’m so thirsty that it feels like my tongue is tied in a knot in the back my mouth, my feet are going tingly from extreme air conditioning, and my sciatic nerve is burning a line from my tailbone to my hip.

    I can’t imagine being in much worse shape for an interstate bus ride (though I’m glad I’m not hungover like the two morons next to me. The title of this post is a clue to a crossword puzzle that these guys are working together. They are totally stuck on that one. Should I give them a hint?).

    And yet, I’m riding north on Interstate 95 at about 65 MPH, and even with the sun’s glare in the corner of my eye, it’s not all that bad. My discomfort has been eased somewhat by the clean, firm seat, the excellent traffic conditions, the broken Starlight mint that I found in my wallet, and the free. Wireless. Internet.

    Funny how the signal was stronger going through the tunnel in Baltimore than it was on the open road just beyond Joppa, Maryland.

    Boltbus is a new-this-year mass transit coach with service to and from Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC. New-this-year means the buses themselves are new. I didn’t find three years worth of crumbs in the crack between the seats and all the passenger air vents are in working order. The seats are [p]leather, so they’re less likely to absorb passenger odors overtime.

    Oh, and the bus has a wireless receiver on board (a few new bus services offer internet access, but Boltbus is the only one I read about with power outlets for charging laptops or cell phones, too).

    I’ve avoided buses (and any mode of transportation that doesn’t provide at least a few more amenities than a reclining seat and an even number of wheels) since one miserable night on a one-lane expressway in New Zealand, but my Boltbus experience hasn’t triggered any traumatic flashbacks.

    The clientèle seems pretty diverse agewise and my fellow passengers are definitely not all technology geeks. That must be because the free WiFi isn’t the only perk—ticket prices start at around $10 and increase as the bus fills up. I booked my trip at the last minute for a holiday weekend and I paid less than $50, including the processing fee, to get to DC and back.

    Beverage service wouldn’t hurt, is all I’m saying.

    (A “Wonderland cake message” is “eat me.”)

  • Sometimes I like to Facebook in my third or fourth language

    I learned and remembered a few things about the foreign language I used to study through Facebook en Español. (The site runs in at least 15 different languages—the option is at the bottom of the page.)

    You use the definitive article when referring to the days of the week. I would have used en instead of el, as if I were saying “in Wednesday.”

    Even though el libro de cara knows that I’m una mujer, it can’t figure out for sure that that would make me una Graduada.

    In Spanish, you don’t just have a political stance, you have a political posture.

    The Facebook link to “View photos of me” is apparently not a command, as the verb is not conjugated in the imperative tense.

    Fascinante, ¿no?

    How aburrido was your Sunday?

  • Let’s take all the fun out of casual dating

    Because Facebook has already taken the fun out of recreational stalking and Hopstop has taken the fun out of navigating five major U.S. cities, one state, and two small suburban regions.

    I’ve got three browser windows open while I plan tomorrow’s social rendezvous. One is for Yelp.com, where I try to put other reviewers’ 1- through 5-star ratings and comments about pricing, clientele, and atmosphere through the “Emily Filter.” One is Hopstop.com, where I’ve entered the street addresses for a handful of bars/restaurants to calculate travel time from work and from my apartment. The third window opens the website of whatever venue is up for consideration, where I’m hoping to find happy hour menus.

    I’m spending as much time choosing a place to meet as I will actually having dinner and drinks (especially if I pick this place, where so-and-so on Yelp complains about slow service . . . )

    I think I need another website.

    I need a website that combines Yelp reviews with the semi-standardized data from Zagat Survey and also feeds info from individual restaurant websites. I want a calendar feature to help coordinate everyone’s schedules. I want to see listings based on desired mood: casual date, intimate date, double date, friend date. I want street maps with marked subway stations and I want to be able to enter the subway lines that both parties will be riding on the way to and from the place and highlight the most centralized locations.

    And I want to be able to check off an option like, “We might not want to ride home together” and see route alternatives that won’t force me to prolong an awkward evening while I wait for a train. I also want names and addresses of surrounding places in case “We might be up for dessert.”

    I want this site to crawl my Facebook friends list for contact info and generate a friendly e-mail to attendees that says something natural like, “Let’s check out this place” or “Haven’t been here before, want to try it?” I want to recapture the pleasures of spontaneity and experimentation and the simple value of good company over the statistics of social dining.

  • Those days when it feels like New York City is all under one umbrella-ella-ella

    I started reading Overheard in New York long before I moved here and started overhearing things myself. When I first started working in New York, I didn’t actually spend much time immersed in public spaces, and after I finally became an official resident, I listened to my iPod or talked on the phone practically at all time while I waited for or rode the subway, shopped or wandered city streets and the park. When do people have a chance to overhear each other in this town?

    Overhearing is an art. You can’t perk up your ears and start canvassing for material. The purest way to overhear is to not be listening. If your aural personal space is invaded by another person’s wit, humor, ignorance or stupidity, you can legitimately lay claim to their words and submit them to the site as the overhearer.

    I sent in a handful of conversation clips and one-liners over the summer when I started walking a different set of streets in Chelsea and Greenwich Village almost every night after work and spent a lot of time exploring new Brooklyn neighborhoods on my own. The city kept me company and I didn’t use my iPod or my cell quite as much (yeah, the batteries kept dying.)

    I had pretty much given up on seeing any of those quotes in “print” when I got an e-mail from Overheard at the beginning of last week: “The quote you submitted . . . Look for it on the site!” I was so excited to type the URL and scroll down, skimming for my name, wondering which one, which one?

    Five-year-old: Ella, ella, ella, ella, ella, ella…
    Suit dad: Alright, look! I don’t know what that means, but if it’s a bad word I want you to stop saying it!

    –F train, 23rd St

    I think it was one of the first quotes I submitted and not only was it posted on the site, the editors used it for the weekly headline contest. Nobody consulted me in regards to naming the winner, but I think the editors made the right choice.

    If overhearing is an art form, then this piece is a true collaboration. I’d like to thank Five-year-old for getting that song stuck in everybody’s head (Rihanna probably deserves props, too) and her Suit Dad and for projecting his frustration at such a high volume and Lou P. for his witty headline, even if he completely missed the pop music reference.

  • He was supposed to take me with him and introduce me to adorable nerds

    My little brother returns tomorrow from his first trip abroad. He’s been in Barcelona (probably the number one city on my To Travel list) for about a week to attend and present at DrupalCon 2007. It’s a conference for people who use Drupal software for web development.

    According to Drupal.org, “Drupal is a free software package that allows an individual or a community of users to easily publish, manage and organize a wide variety of content on a website. Tens of thousands of people and organizations have used Drupal to power scores of different web sites.” That include everything from corporate web sites to personal web sites and blogs to community web portals and social networking sites and even internet applications. As far as I understand it, the software is capable of providing the framework for almost any type of online content, including blogs and podcasts, photo albums and forums.

    I also know that it is an open-source software, which means that users can become developers and contribute modules and patches that add more features and functionality for others to share. You’re already familiar with the open-source concept if you’ve added certain applications to your Facebook profile, or installed one of the homemade widgets that Mac users share on Apple.com (I like Clockish and Moody).

    I use WordPress to power my blog and there are thousands of plugins that other users have developed, based on the core of the open-source software, to add useful and fun features to WordPress sites. Automattic has some of my favorite WordPress Widgets. Their Google Search Widget has even become a standard feature of the most recent versions of WordPress.

    I think the idea of open-source software development is so exciting. The technology is way over my head, but I do understand sharing, and that’s really what open-source is, in the sentimental sense. I’m so glad there are creative, generous, computer nerd-types (like my brother) out there who are willing to share their smarts and make blogging and web design more fun for me.

    Photo of Will in Barcelona by jsmiccolis.

  • I guess fleeing the country probably isn’t the answer

    My brother Will recently introduced me to LifeHacker.com. Click on that link at your own risk, as you will not just be embarking into a new browser window. LifeHacker.com is a way of life disguised beneath a URL and a slogan about how technology complicates our lives. Sifting through today’s morsel-sized posts, all delectable for their brevity alone, I discovered that it is possible to steer Google search results away from past internet indiscretions (incriminating photos, decade-old posts to Titanic message boards, etc.) I learned how to disable the startup sound on my MacBook (I don’t need to hear the electronic auditory equivalent of the rising sun dawning on a new day every time I boot up–especially at 3AM when I turn on my computer to watch puppy videos on YouTube because it helps me fall asleep.)

    I even watched a video demonstration about retrieving a cork that has fallen into a bottle of wine, even though that particular hardship has never befallen me. But I’m going to store that little life-byte away for future reference. That is, if I can find a place to put it; I’ve collected so many notes and nodes in the month that I’ve been visiting the ever-updated blog that I’m probably going to need a bigger brain. Therein lies the hidden meaning of the term LifeHacker. Am I taking control and streamlining my life by hacking into it? Or is the philosophy hacking into my life?

    Is there a hack to curb emotional and mental dependence on LifeHacker.com? Would somebody round up a blurb’s worth of info about active logic and independent problem solving? Is there a downloadable, or better yet, a browser-based web gadget that will compare a current problem with the existing contents of my brain and tell me when I need to refer to the LifeHacker.com archives because a solution hasn’t already been processed by my hippocampus?

    I had break a similar dependency on Google when I lived in a flat in New Zealand without internet access or a functional computer. Circumstances forced me to brush up on life skills that the glow of my laptop screen at home had brainwashed out of my mind: reading paper maps without zoom buttons; scanning books and articles without the ‘find’ function; looking up movie listings in the newspaper. Oh, I also taught myself to keep a running list of things to Google the next time I did have access to the internet.

    LifeHacker is a dynamic resource full of solutions for technological problems, productivity issues, and even more personal hang-ups that you may or may not know you had. But browser beware, because the chances that you’ll find a fix for a persistent and pre-existing problem often seem slim. I couldn’t find any information about an Auto-Complete command for one particularly tedious aspect of my job. There didn’t seem to be a new-fangled solution to my exploding closet dilemma. My searches for “bikini” and “flee the country” both returned zero results. I’m going to stick with casual browsing of the blog once or twice a week for now, but refrain from fully adopting the LifeHacker LifeStyle.

    The moment they launch a category called “How To Be Emily,” though? I will hack out a way to tattoo that RSS-feed on my hippocampus.

  • Your mailbox is over its size limit

    An excerpt from the infamous interoffice e-mail forum. Pre-Brooklyn, from my commuting days. My mailbox reached its size limit again, and I couldn’t purge this gem of an Emilyism.

    From: Emily
    Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 11:24 AM
    To: ‘Al’; ‘David’; ‘Sarah’
    Subject: RE: I need a nap.

    Cohorts,

    You know how Hobbits have Second-Breakfast and Elevensies? Consider this an Elevensies-Intra-Office-E-mail.

    I am having a good hair day. I also decided that I want to learn to arch just one eyebrow. I think it would be devastatingly clever.

    Today, my mailbox was over limit for the first time. I have never felt so important.

    Wouldn’t stop, even if I could,

    Em

  • Ready or Not, I’m All Wound Up

    He is winding the watch of his wit;
    by and by it will strike.

    – William Shakespeare

    In 2004, I resolved to leave shorter messages in the voice mail boxes of my loved ones. What was meant to be a benevolent effort to stop wasting others’ cell phone minutes backfired before the ball dropped. For the next twelve months, my recordings rambled on, unchanged in length or senselessness, only augmented by this hurried salutation:

    “This message is really long, and you know, I resolved to leave shorter messages this year, so I’m going to hang up now, really, I’m hanging up, really…okay, bye!”

    In 2006, I resolved to listen to the stereo in my car at a lower volume. With the windows closed, I kept the dial at 22 or below. With the windows open, I could pump it up to 26. My success with this resolution depended on the digital volume meter holding me accountable to the neon blue numbers on the display. Maybe if I had someone to hold up a stop-watch every time I left a message on the phone, I would have had a fighting chance with my failed resolution of 2004.

    Maybe it was just silly to resolve to squelch one of my most primal urges. How can I fight the need to ramble?

    Which brings me, through the essential blogging device fondly known as the segue, to my 2007 resolution. How can I fight my primal need to write? I’ve been waiting too long for wit to strike.

    A few months ago, someone told me, “I don’t think I’ll ever be happy unless I’m writing.” It made such certain sense to my head that he could have been reading my mind, but my heart felt pierced, as if it were suffering a slow, persistent loss. I should have started writing something at that precise moment. Instead, I started thinking about writing – the act, the product – and happiness – the state of being, the noun. It complicated what should have been effortless. Writing is a primal aspect of who I am. How can I fight it?

    My New Year’s Resolution for the rapidly approaching 2007 is to start blogging again, and to start writing again. But not right this moment. I have a party to attend. So I’m going to go now, really, I’m going, really…okay, okay, goodbye.