Has anyone read Virtual Communities by Howard Rheingold? You can read it free online at

He is a great writer and although the book is somewhat dated, most of the issues are very thought provoking. What is even more exciting is that I converted all of the chapters to audio MP3s with the AT&T voices I bought a couple months back. It's fun listening to the computer read it to you and you could always load it into your MP3 player.

Chapter 1 -

Chapter 2 -

Chapter 3 -

Chapter 4 -

Chapter 5 -

Chapter 6 -

Chapter 7 -

Chapter 8 -

Chapter 9 -

Chapter 10 -

So I think this being sick thing has taken my weird food cravings to the next level. I am now eating korean indian fushion meal. It is kimchee and tofu with spinach paneer and rice. I have a feeling this is something only a spice ignorant white person would eat, hahaha. It makes my throat feel better. Maybe I will package it as a throat tonic.

Whoa, the upstairs people [inlink]ajay,147[/inlink] sound fun. Hi upstairs people, tis iz (e:flacidness) ok thats all i had to say was hi.

TK just hijacked this journal but I got it back now. I am still very sick. One of my students came to me to ask what she should do about grad school. She is currently enrolled in some telecommunications graduate degree at Canisius but really wants to pursue her dream of being a 3D animator.

She said she doesn't want to learn philosophy and such and wanted to really concentrrate on the animation. I was so torn because I myself had the same fork in my road. I ended up going to graduate school for my MFA for media studies at UB as most of you know. The questions is, did I make the right choice, or should I have persued something job oriented? Will I become a much more enriched, informed artist whose work reflects the critical analysis of the theories presented to me. I guess that has already happend. I dropped by interest in aesthetics and glitz and started working more towards social purposes. But where has this brought me.

I made me hate 3D stuff, which is not what I ever intended. It mad eme realise how mind numbing and meaningless it is. It just seams so fake and worthless. The pinacle of this is when I spent $20 on my American flag 3D airboat [inlink]paul,145[/inlink].

So what am I trying to say here. Now I am a conflicted, guilt ridden, overzelous, social-techno freak and I like it. Maybe I would have been happier being a 3D animator. Maybe it would have felt empty. Anyways, all this crap was running through my head when she asked me. I told her to just pursue her dream, why couldn't I ever follow my own rules. Who am I to know. I hate being sick.

I guess I am happy with my choice. Accept l probably (99.99998% likeliness) chose the wrong school and the wrong language and continent but the right thing in terms of not having gone into 3D animation. I really ended up prefering web programming and digital communication, right?

After fending off illness during the visit from our plague ridden guests, and even remaing germ free while (e:terry) and (e:mike) were sick, I am sick. My throat hurts so bad. I had to cancel my office hours today because it hurts to talk and wanted to save my energy for class tonight.

I got the cutest email from (e:holly) , well actually her mom sent it to her, saying reading her journal made her feel close to (e:holly). It makes me happy to hear things like that.

I was checking my phone messages, which I do once a month and found a message from today that was left by the Buffalo Gay men's Chorus. It is a miracle that I got the message because I never check the phone. They apparently saw the article in the paper and called about a web site design.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

If you read this before I get back to you, feel free to IM me at paulsidekick or email me by clicking on the link in my user link list.

Whoa check out his news feed from Channel two news from the top of the rss reader. Is ephedrine classfied with methamphetamines now or is it a precursor?



ARRESTS SHOCK WESTERN NEW YORK RACING COMMUNITY

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Western New York's harness racing community is still reeling from the news that a group of racers are accused of being involved in a drug-smuggling operation.

A federal grand jury has indicted five Buffalo-area residents with being part of one of the biggest methamphetamine operations in North America. Federal agents say the operation involved dozens of people from Manitoba and Ontario, Canada to California and Mexico.

In July, harness racer Louis Russo of Batavia was arrested after Customs inspectors at the U-S-Canada border at Niagara Falls found more than 400 pounds of ephedrine packed into bags hidden in his horse trailer.

Also arrested were four other people with connections to harness racing, including Hugh Stevens, a racehorse owner from Derby, and his wife Sandra, owner of a nightclub in Lackawanna.

All five deny the allegations.

I found this to a local blog that is "The campaign for greater buffalo History, architecture and culture" Does anyone know who these people are?

I thought I was high tech with my sidekick but check out the stuff at dynamism They carry the new Sony u70, a 1.2 lb minitop that has a 20GB hard drive and runs windows XP.



(e:chris) , check out this new one from sharp, doe sit remind you of the sidekick

I can't tell you what exactly we were talking about because it's top secret.

paulsidekick: it's like the next level of reality blogging
lwist: ha!
paulsidekick: lol
lwist: reality blogging. I love that.
paulsidekick: I want to do it before MTV does
lwist: you should trademark it

Talk about zeitgeist, I looked up "Reality Blogging" after our conversation and it's already out there , but the next level isn't.

I decided to visit Kosta's for 'unch for several reasons. First, at a party someone told me that it was better than Pano's and seeing I don't eat at Panols anymore I figured why not try it.

It was mega-delicious. I has pan seared scallops, but I'll save my review for the restaurant site. What I wanted to talk about here was the building itself. While, I by no means want to see panos tear down the atwater house, I think that they could have made a compromise by making the building more interesting.. Let's face it. Pano's is really ugly. I mean great, they have paneling, etc but the building itself is so unattractive. If and when he demolishes the Atwater house for the parking lot, he should rebuild the building too. In the curent plans I have seen it looks the same with just an extended patio. A patio ! a permanent structure. If Pano's ever leavees or goes out of business, there won't even be a real building space there just a giant removeable patio.

I think Kosta's did a really good job with their building. Hopefully Pano will consider something nicer.