onfocus

Happy Birthday, Blogger. You're one today. Look how you've grown. Oh, the things you will do!

jake just let me know that ani difranco has new ep called Swing Set. It has six songs. It's probably worth the price for her rendition of Dylan's Hurricane. I haven't heard it yet. Where did I put my Napster?

I cross the golden gate bridge to get to the office. Today, I got up to the toll plaza with my arm out the window, holding a bridge ticket. The guy in the window sees my license plate and asks if I'm a nebraska husker fan. (yeah, I still have Nebraska plates on my car.) I say, "sure". And he launches into several disparaging jokes about my alma mater. And he just kept going! stopping traffic! "Is this legal," I was wondering. I had my ticket out...waving it in front of his face...he wouldn't take it until he was finished. And as I drove away he kept going, yelling at me as I zoomed off! It was all good natured fun. I think. go big red.

one morning there was a rooster in the yard. I thought he belonged to the neighbors (they have chickens). Nope, he wasn't theirs. He hung around for a few days. I don't know what happened to the rooster. I have this picture...

words of the day:

interstice - a : a space that intervenes between things; especially : one between closely spaced things b : a gap or break in something generally continuous

interstitial - relating to or situated in the interstices

It seems that interstitial may be turning into another word for a flash-based "commercial" on the web....but no one wants to say the dreaded "c" word. so we have this monster. Try a search on google for interstitial, and you'll see what I mean. The promise of high bandwidth brings the promise of your favorite website interrupted every 15 minutes by a heavily branded flash animation. *shudder*

ack! just when the little stand by my bed was down to three books, I add a bunch more. Here are some new ones in the queue:

• Jihad Vs. McWorld by Barber & Schulz
• The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Freidman [thanks craig]
• No Logo by Klein
• Remedios Varo by Kaplan [thanks caterina]
• A Year With Swollen Appendices by Eno [thanks ev]

what a good consumer I am. It's a book glut. Make it stop!

I used to write poems
about nothing
but poems.

maybe that was my first experience with what buddhists call a koan. maybe it was just confusion...but in a good way, if you know what I mean.

I'm currently reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig and was surprised to find one of my favorite questions in there. I first heard this question in a socialist literature class in college. I'm not sure in what context it was brought up. Anyway, this one question kept me up at night for a while trying to put things together for myself: Did Newton discover the laws of physics or invent them?

meg translated the descriptions that go along with the clips.