Filed by Lance at 12:31 am under General
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Never mind today’s debut of Google Buzz, which is — I suppose — aimed at being Facebook and Twitter’s rival. Here’s when we know there’s too much internet on the internet:
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Filed by Lance at 2:45 pm under General, Pop Culture, The Arts, The Media
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Here’s a clip of the most recent episode of The Cleveland Show. The point here is not the relative merits of Family Guy or American Dad! versus this MacFarlane project, but this clip is a classic rule of three with a nice button at the end.
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Filed by Lance at 10:59 pm under General
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Tip Your Waiter has the good sense to organize itself as an RSS feed. Some other groups, like New Colony, have an RSS feed built right in to the main page of the site, and broadcast news and information regularly. I’ve been wondering, though, if there’s an easy way to keep in touch with other groups on a regular basis. There are so many groups in Chicago to keep tabs on, some of which don’t regularly send out newsletters or don’t publicize smaller events as heavily. In a busy environment like Chicago, there’s a lot of stuff that gets glossed over if it isn’t screaming for attention.
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Filed by Lance at 7:15 pm under General
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I have to admit, AIDS, AIDS activism, and AIDS awareness are usually under my radar.
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Filed by Lance at 12:04 am under General
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Here’s a brief update, and then the rest of this post won’t have anything to do with symmetrically-named 20th century writers, I promise. So after my next paragraph, I won’t allow myself to write anything about either William Carlos Williams… or Ford Madox Ford. But I will write about a portable, wearable projector and a plastic cloud.
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Filed by Trevor at 9:39 am under General
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“Look, here is the deal: whatever the past was, I can say that the worst day of his life was the day his wife died. Period. Be there for him. And nothing else matters in the slightest.” — Tom
Hi. I’m Trevor. I used to write here, then I allowed Bil to slowly take over for reasons that now escape me. But that’s OK.
Lauren passed away on Monday. That’s where I’ll start. Everyone’s known it was in the cards for years because Cystic Fibrosis doesn’t let anyone out alive. And it’s really quite silly to think that knowing there’s a giant expiration date on their forehead at all mitigates the tragedy of their passing, even if they did survive years past their prognosis.
I can’t claim this tragedy, though. I’ll save that for her husband, who at my age is already a widower and is no doubt replaying the tape of last week when he suddenly got sick and couldn’t visit the ER because he would only exacerbate the spread of infection in her lungs.
Brad and I hadn’t talked on the phone in over six years, but I’d been texting him for some time as Lauren’s condition began to worsen. So when I woke up yesterday with a missed call at 9:18 and listened to his words give me no concrete information save for his voice but it’s probably just early because it’s barely after 7:00 there and he probably had a long night at the hospital so he’s just a little froggy, I didn’t want to check Facebook before calling him back because at least then he would know what my voice sounded like when I still had hope.
Later on in the day, all I really wanted to do was give my best friend a hug. But I didn’t, because I was scared. And now I wish that I had anyway.
I have failed Brad more completely than I have anyone else in my life. As roommates our sophomore year of college, he was involved in a gruesome car accident on I-15 and was out of school for the rest of the year. I visited him in the hospital once the entire time. I don’t know why. In my memory I distinctly hear my voice rattling off all kinds of extenuating circumstances, but I’ll never know what my true motivation was. There’s a vintage Coca-Cola placard that sits on one of my shelves that had been his birthday present to me that year and was in the car so there’s a little tiny scratch still visible on it and I keep it high up where I can see it and everyone else just as a reminder of what a shitty friend I was and what it feels like to throw someone away.
I said I love you, and he said I love you too. And that was the best thing. Except I wanted to be saying it to his face and not on a cell phone in weekday traffic in a stupid northwest suburb.
No one deserves this. Go home and hug the people you love, without fear and without restraint. And I promise I will follow my own advice.
Filed by Lance at 6:56 pm under General, Shameless Plugs, The Arts
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Begin, my friend
for you cannot,
you may be sure,
take your song,
which drives all things out of mind,
with you to the other world.-from William Carlos Williams, Theocritus: Idyl I – A version from the Greek
Filed by Bil at 12:54 pm under General, The Media
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When we were children, our toys were just small-scale models of our cars. Now we are men, and our cars are just large-scale models of our toys.
Check out the fun and functional concepts unveiled at the recent Tokyo Auto Show:
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/10/tokyo-auto-show/
Filed by Lance at 2:05 pm under General, Social Issues
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I’ve always liked Fall. I don’t like hot temperatures, for one thing, and I love seasons. I’m not talking about a slight increase in average precipitation, either. I mean, gimme 100 degree swings between snow (I love snow) and that other season when I wish there were snow (I love snow). The colors, little kids running around in adorable costumes, cider, fireplaces, and everything else make it all the better.
(Keep reading…)
Filed by Bil at 8:54 pm under General
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Why I Am Not Afraid to Take Your Money, by Amanda Fucking Palmer
She’s got a damn good point. Artists are people, people need money to pay for food and a place to live. Artists need to pay money to create art (it’s true, art costs money).
Please read this article. Please, please, please read it.
Yes, you.
