Does no one else beyond the site membership notice that (e:strip) is really a quite radical idea. We have combined commercial free local interest, with free publications, a dedicated readership and easy to use software. Why don't more people use it to record their take on Buffalo. Well probably because we don't have a fancy advertising budget and the gloss it takes to get the word out.

There really arn't that many commercial free places like this and not even the local free media lefties have recognized that.

I suppose people are just going to say, well you guys don't talk only about politics or about buffalo events, etc but I think in the end reading about how people's lives revolved around Buffalo has the potential to provide an even deeper insight into life in Buffalo. The more people involved the more obvious this will get.

(e:shawnr) always says that the only way something is going to change is if I start to send out press reports , one of which he wrote for the 10,000th journal entry. Maybe he is right. Anyone want to be the (e:strip) PR person because I seriously cannot take on another roll?

[size=m]Some fun publicity ideas[/size]
Maybe we should start a campaign to do some Buffalo specific media archiving activities. What about scanning in as many historical photos of downtown as possible and tying this in with some sort of online mapping and notation software. I mean google has satellite imagery but who has mobile historical overlays. Anyone interested? I am making that my next project. I want to be on any street corner downtown and be able to peel back the layers in time from my cellphone. there are no limits to what can be done, the problem is getting people to know about these projects enough to make them worth while.

I promise this is the last time I am going to write/think about this. I am still biter that Buffalo Rising won Best Buffalo Blog. You may ask why so biter all of a sudden.

It was spured on by my investigation into their source code today. While I knew they or their designers did not make any of the software that stores and displays their data I did think that they came up with the look. I keep hearing so many people talk about their fabulous design. It is a prefab blogger style sheet made by another company. How much more generic can it get?

Blogger Template Style
Name: 565
Designer: Douglas Bowman
URL: www.stopdesign.com
Date: 28 Feb 2004

Here are some other basic permutations on it




If another non-commercial entity had won, I would not have bothered me half as much, but it wasn't. What made the words of three people for such a short period of time more worthy than the 11,000 journal entries of hundred of people over three years. I think the answer is money and advertising and I guess we will always lose at that and need to learn to just not care.

I got another email concerning the age of site members so I put together something to dynamically display the number of entries per age

I'll be home soon with pizza. I am so good at losing.

The Artvoice/Absolut Best of Buffalo party was held at the Town Ballroom formally known as Sphere. The owner was a pretty awesome guy named Mr. Jackson.







As I expected Buffalo Rising's lame ass blogger based three person blog won. It makes me sick to hear people talk about their awesome prefab design. Its like a suburban prefab house winning best architecture. I guess money does mean everything. How I wish we had an advertising budget and a glossy magazine. Luckily, lots of other good things happend.

Also props to Jamie Mosses for having an a-political moment of silence slide show for New Orleans depicting images of the mass suffering. You should have seen it (e:jason), not one mention of Bush or politics.



There were so many people and tasty free food items at this fabulous event, I just wish we won and that cassie was my wife and mayor because she has all the connections.

There was live entertainment


Update from the future -- Mr. Jackson and Cassie started dating. Jamie Moses turned out to be a real cool guy. I helped Buffalo Rising with some programming and George from Buffalo Rising wrote me a reocmmendation letter that helped me get the job at Roswell.

(e:jason) [inlink]jason,244[/inlink] Don't you find irony in the fact that you can't stand people protesting the status quo when in fact you believe that your rants are doing exactly that here. They are saying the same thing you are. That they are sick of the way things are and they want them to change and I think we should all support their right to peacefully say whatever the hell they want. I defend your right to that here, even when i whole heartedly disagree. It is what America is based on. Protest is a way for people to inform other people about their views, and it is particularly useful in a place where so many people have no political view.

Why don't you go down there and talk to those people about the issues? There are always plenty of conservatives at any of these events. Maybe you will change people's minds. I am not saying this sarcastically. I mean it, a young, handsome moderate guy with a fresh view is going to have a much better chance of getting a message across than some bible thumper.

Do you really think that mixing issues is liberal thing? Mixing issues worked famously for the republicans in the last election. One of the main reasons that George Bush got elected was people who couldn't bear to think they would vote for a president who might not fight abortion and that is not a fraction or minority of the populations, I am sure it is a huge percent of the people voting. In fact, without mixing of issues, there would never be the need to have anything so broad as political parties, which are formed to help like minded people support each others issues in our representative government.

Have you ever even been to a political event? I have been to hundreds of political events and all of them involve mixing, on both sides. And before you go assuming I have only been to liberal events, I would like to point out that I have attended protests from liberal green peace ones prtotesting gentech soybeans down to neo-nazi rallies in Germany. During my "catholic" years, I even went to an anti-abortion rally once on the side of the anti-abortionists. Don't tell me you haven't seen pro-life signs at events that having nothing to do with abortion. I've even seen them at football games.

Onto the real issue of the troops. Many people at the protest do care greatly, especially the ones who just want their husband, brother, father, sister, mother back safely and as soon as possible. How can you not see that? Imagine the a-political high school sweetheart girl whose boyfriend has been whisked away to war and just wants her "billy" to come home. Do you not believe these people exist? A lot of this is not about political affiliation. I can guarantee that a liberal mother who lost her son in Yugoslavia under Bill Clinton would ask the same questions about responsibilty and reason. Why shouldn't she?

This is especially true as the war drags on and people no longer associate Iraq with Septemeber 11th, leaving many people unsure about what the troops are fighting for anymore. (that was meant to be read sarcastically)

Now for my rant...
You are right though some of those people hate troops. I freakin' hate the troops. I hope they all die, especially the ones in Iraq and I don't care about any excuses about why they are there. To me they are all pawns of satan creating nothing but chaos in an already chaotic place. But that is my personal view and I would say it does not fit into the liberal status quo by any means. In fact I have fought as much with liberals as I have with conservatives about this, just ask (e:holly) who notoriously defended them throughout out friendship.

As I said before, I see no reason to ever kill other people. I value my life and the life of many family members and friends over any political ideology. My brother (just picture (e:mike) with a gun), father, sister, mother, etc are never going to war and likely never will unless god forbid someone attacks the homeland with ground troops and even then honestly, I/they would most likely adapt to the conqueror than fight, Italians ar famous for that.

P.S. Why do you bother to assume they are chubby asses?

First I need to start out with a meeting about the VR website and then move onto the artvoice event if I end up finding a ride. Anyone want to go?

The pinata part was the next phase of the party. (e:ladycroft) made the most amazing pinata out of paper mache and a bunch of things she found on the ground off elmwood. It was need to see what kind of refuse she found. We spent about an hour trying to bust through its solid iron construction.

























(e:mike) started to feel sick.




(e:terry) gave (e:theecarey) a lapdance followed by turning into a chocobo goat

::DOWNLOAD MEDIA::

After that (e:mattew) and (e:terry) had gone to bed yet (e:theecarey), (e:mike), and I partied it up for another hour or so. We played with glo sticks and got a visit from our neighbor.

The night got crazier once people started drinking from (e:ladycroft)'s over the top bar. People drank a lot of beer. I think (e:cutsaniflush) or (e:terry) won the prize for that. But many people drank vodka. this was a full bottle of sky vodka when the party started. It is empty now.



I put it next to a 2 liter coke bottle so you could get an idea about how much vodka it represents. (e:ladycroft) also brought me a mini bottle of goldschlagger. She really knows how to keep a programmer happy.



(e:ladycroft) also brought melon shots. We consumed every single one.


So then the craziness began.

(e:drchlorine) got a makeover from some of the ladies. Later he got locked out and (e:lilho) refused to pick him up. SHe can be so mean sometimes.


While we were ont he scavenger hunt, (e:jim) (write a freakin journal already) and James, and (e:uncut) and (e:matthew) got in a fight about the home schooling system.



At some point my brother (e:mike) decided to get in his underwear and put on a show with (e:lilho) and (e:jill). The show was an extravaganza involving flashing lights, daning, a spray bottle and the casio keyboard in demo mode.



Some of you may have experience the magic of demo mode before.











He spent the rest of the night in his undies, even outside, even humping jesse's car.



(e:ladycroft) got a dance tease out of the show. At this point I realized she really looks like (e:holly).

My cell phone can hold 800 pictures and 1GB of music so eat that Steve Jobs.
Needless to say I have plenty of media from the party. So much in fact that you dialuppers should view these entries in low bandwidth mode.

(e:ladycroft)'s birthday was supposed to start out with a scavanger. unfortunately, people came late and not enough people had car's with CD player or sober drivers by the time it was really began at around midnight.



As soon as (e:terry) pulled in the door from his work at FEMA, (e:alison) and I jumped in and the scavenger hunt began. (e:jill), (e:mike), and (e:lilho) were the other team.

We didn't realize that the other teams all needed to see the balloon and considering they left ten minutes before us, we though we were set.

::DOWNLOAD SOUND::

The first clue took us to Sister's Hospital where our team promptly stole the balloon.


The ballonn lead us to McDonald's where (e:alison) ate fries and I had my first taste of a McDonald's product since 1995. It tastes ill.like crap still.

In the end none of us got to the finish



At some point we were supposed to be presented with the choice between several version of the true (e:ladycroft) and then pick which one was her. We didn't get that far. Poor (e:ladycroft) and Theecarey spent like 2 hours waiting for everyone at the finish. I will let her explain the rest. Either way, we kicked (e:mike)'s team's ass because they never even found the balloon (even though we stole it.)



[size=m]Oh ya and (e:jason) sucks[/size]