as i mentioned two blog posts before, we are going to kill technorati with this link fest. perhaps we are going to trick google’s sensitive linking algos — we will all be labelled as spammers by the end of the week.
chris tagged me, (the chris whose last name i tragically mispronounced at netscape-a-palooza), so now i have to sprint across the virtual field away from others in hopes that i don’t lose this game of tag. without any further ado, five things you unfortunately might not know about me:

1. i don’t remember learning how to read music and i played classical recorder before clarinet.

2. i had each year, on average, zero to one friends before the age of eighteen.

3. i hate having wet socks more than anything in this world.

4. i have credits on a movie that is listed on imdb, but i never worked on the film directly.

5. the next language i want to learn is mandarin. (that makes language number five if you count latin, four if you don’t, and no i didn’t count programming languages in there)

because i’m not a huge hater of technorati and because i think this silly meme has lasted long enough, i’m not passing it on. yep, that’s right, i lost this proverbial game of tag.

so when internet chain letters attack, i think spammers are behind them. now with this list 5 things blog meme, i’m pretty sure someone wants to take down technorati. think about it: if everyone links to everyone, technorati ingrown links will multiply like the pennies in that infamous doubling puzzle. i bet someone is already writing a whitepaper about this meme.

this carry-on sized suitcase made by c.comberti was the result of a long search through two department stores and a luggage store. my last small carry-on suitcase, a 30 dollar black no-name brand from chinatown in nyc, lasted four years before the wheel housings broke. this new fancy blue one is something you don’t want to buy.

1. the main zipper is of such poor quality that it catches and doesn’t zip at certain places, and not only when the suitcase is stuffed.

2. the front pocket is too deep and unpadded.

3. there is a hard plastic hook on the back which presses into your thigh when carrying the suitcase up and down stairs. the hook caused a bruise on my leg.

4. the pull out handle is rickety and looks like it may break.

verdict: don’t buy this suitcase.

I love the Gimp, don’t get me wrong, but why is there a preset size for Toilet Paper and none for Business Card? Why is this toilet paper size a US standard? Are toilet paper rolls wider or skinnier in other countries? Also, why would you want to print toilet paper in 300 dpi? Isn’t that sort of wasteful? (and yes this is GimpShop running on OS X [on my pimped out g4 tower], I also run plain old Gimp on my FreeBSD laptop).

I wrote this a few days after September 11th, 2001. It was buried in a backup of a backup:

There are so many people in this world. I never thought I’d witness extreme sadness and horror mirrored in those “so many people.” When I moved to New York City in June I felt overwhelmed by the hugeness of the city and the number of talented people just like me in close proximity. In the afternoon of that Tuesday when I ventured for the first time outside, I saw three young firefighters in their yellow rubber pants, their jackets off. One of them—burly, strapping, manly—had tears dripping quietly down his face. I turned away, looked the other way. How had my city changed from fend-for-yourself faces to thousands of faces showing their sorrow, quiet anger, betrayal and fear? Manhattan became eerily quiet.

I returned to that island of people, buildings, artists, mixed cultures, dirty streets on Friday—three days after that day. My three days of sanctuary and sorrow in Brooklyn are an experience I wish to forget. They were filled with nightmares, periods of shock, panic attacks when the fighter jets would fly overhead, the sounds of sirens, my tears mirrored in every person on the street, the horror of the television showing my war-torn neighborhood, my white footbridge with the reporter in front of it. Even the reporter was in shock. She was filled with a tired sort of emotion, fear of another attack, and pain from the loss and ugliness behind her. Her interviews of people on the street were disgusting because they only conveyed the surface of the pain and left out so much.

No words can describe the feelings of evil, of ugliness, of wrongness when viewing that pile of steel with ones’ own eyes. It hangs in your stomach to resurface later. I walk by the MISSING posters on Canal Street. Pictures of loyal husbands, beautiful daughters, and kooky best friends hang on the graffiti-plastered warehouse walls. I feel like my new friend Olivia. She discusses the posters sadly, “I want to tell them [the families of the victims] that they aren’t missing. They’re dead.” To get to my apartment in Manhattan I walk many blocks from the few subways that are left running downtown. The streets are quiet—barricades are up to let only authorized vehicles into TriBeCa and lower Manhattan. Some of the people that live in my neighborhood have moved back. I walk through the plastic smelling smoke. I don’t turn to look at the pile. I show the army man my identification, my checkbook showing I live in the building at the end of the block. He smiles when I walk back around the corner of the building with my pillow and various bags. “At least you’ve got your favorite pillow now,” he says. “Yeah,” I comment quietly. I turn away from him and walk in an uptown direction to avoid the view south of my apartment.