09/23/05 10:13 - 59ºF - ID#32250
Crazy Day
I hung out with Katie today and ran around town hunting down Kenny Rogers. She told me about this site called menwholooklikekennyrogers.com We hunted down a Kenny look a like. On the hunt we followed him into the ice skating rink on the street after Hertel Avenue going uptown. We ended up walking around the empty ice skating rink when we saw a janitor and asked him how much skating was. He said that they have open ice skating on Friday and Saturday night for $3.
I got a rice cooker. Now (e:matthew) and I can get buff eating rice like sumo wrestlers. They are only $19 at target. I am sure we have spent that much on burnt rice in the past.
Leapfrog. Ya so I can't work with that commerical bullshit or anything like it. It is more like training children to recognize brand name characters.
(23:14:52) paulsidekick: learning toy
(23:14:59) paulsidekick: and it was all corporate product placement
(23:15:05) paulsidekick: like teach little jimmy to want Disney
(23:15:21) paulsidekick: I hate stuff discuised as learning
(23:15:26) paulsidekick: especially when it is for kids
(23:15:35) paulsidekick: its so wrong to get them on that I need barbie, I need disney kick
(23:15:37) Danq750: let kids be kids, jesus
(23:15:40) paulsidekick: ya
(23:16:01) Danq750: get em hooked early
(23:16:14) paulsidekick: I would rather have my kid get anything other than a closed electronic toy
(23:16:26) paulsidekick: liek an electronics set
(23:16:33) paulsidekick: is better than a prmade electronic toy
(23:16:42) paulsidekick: that only feeds them the product placement
(23:17:16) paulsidekick: did you see those pics
(23:17:22) paulsidekick: each one is name brand crap
(23:17:34) paulsidekick: look at the learning titles
(23:18:25) paulsidekick: I love the video
(23:18:37) paulsidekick: its says "kids can plug in to the tv to take learnign to the max!"
(23:19:01) Danq750: fucking a, what is wrong with a book, or with pencil and paper
(23:19:08) paulsidekick: ya
(23:19:10) paulsidekick: exactly
(23:19:18) paulsidekick: I even like computers for kids
(23:19:19) Danq750: instead, learning has to become a game
(23:19:20) paulsidekick: but when I had one
(23:19:24) paulsidekick: I had to learn to use it
(23:19:29) Danq750: yea
(23:19:30) paulsidekick: and how to control it
(23:19:34) paulsidekick: liek my vic 20
(23:19:41) paulsidekick: this is liek a nintendo
(23:19:47) paulsidekick: for character recogition
(23:19:58) paulsidekick: I really wonder
(23:20:03) paulsidekick: how it happened in the board room
(23:20:14) paulsidekick: I wonder if the people who deisgned it had the intention of making a real leaning tool
(23:20:22) paulsidekick: and the some corporate nbig wigs took over
(23:20:24) paulsidekick: and were liek
(23:20:34) paulsidekick: this would be a great way to get kids to recognize our brands
(23:20:38) paulsidekick: identities
(23:20:52) Danq750: you're 100% correct I think
(23:21:14) Danq750: they say, oh well kids recognize sponge bob
(23:21:32) Danq750: let's make a "learning game" featuring sponge bob, the kids will eat it up
(23:21:44) Danq750: no, they are less interested in kids learning than selling products
(23:22:13) Danq750: if they were interested in kids learning they would donate money so buffalo school kids can have books
Permalink: Crazy_Day.html
Words: 534
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: drugs
09/22/05 06:21 - 76ºF - ID#32249
Cigarettes
Luckily, (e:matthew) was having a similar craving but for ice-cream - so the trip to the store got me a pack of samson.
Permalink: Cigarettes.html
Words: 135
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: food
09/21/05 01:50 - 75ºF - ID#32248
Earth Living
I mean I could see if it maybe said "healthy living." Perhaps it is a translation error.
Permalink: Earth_Living.html
Words: 125
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: health
09/21/05 12:19 - 62ºF - ID#32247
busy night at the hospital
I got out of work to discover that (e:mathew) had cut his finger open. We needed to go to the hospital so that he could get stitches. Seeing as we were at Canisius we decided that Sister's would be an ok choice plus (e:ladycroft) and I were born there.
I was wrong it was crazy crowded and just looked run down so we left for the burbs. Now we are at Kenmore Mercy. It seems a lot nicer here, I feel bad for the people stuck in the city.
Poor (e:matthew), he ended up being the test subject for someone learning how to stitch. Three separate ego driven doctors came to show the girl "how it's done." Ironically, they all different techniques. They seriously were all such cocky pricks.
I wonder how many hundreds of dollars this will cost. I think they should pay (e:matthew). Here is a link [inlink]matthew,633[/inlink] to his journal about the visit.
Permalink: busy_night_at_the_hospital.html
Words: 162
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: school
09/20/05 01:55 - 72ºF - ID#32246
The rest of the day
Here are some pics of (e:matthew) from yesterday at the park.
Permalink: The_rest_of_the_day.html
Words: 92
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: buffalo rising
09/20/05 01:53 - 72ºF - ID#32245
Buffalo Rising Rises
I also created a custom WBFO NPR RSS feed parser for the site which is based on moveable type. I am not a big fan of moveable type which is perl based. Too bad Jesse wasn't there. I just fixed everything with PHP mods. I just don't understand why everyone uses prebuilt CMS systems. Especially other programmers. There is just way too much overhead and I would rather spend my time programming than reading through the million page manual of some else's API. I seriously would go nuts working on a project like that full-time. It was so frustrating to want to make a change to the underlying system but only having access to the very surface through some sort of gui web interface. I like more direct access to my stuff.
At one point zack had to read a 104 page manual to set up an ad server. I could make one in less time than it would take to read through that manual. Maybe I should focus my time on making a CMS system.
I also fixed the search tab javascript. It was a sucessful evening that will hopefully pay for my cell phone bill which is way over my budget thanks to the million and a half fees from cingular. they promised a bill of $44.99 but the first month it came to $111.00 with setup fees and service charges. What a ripoff.
Little did I know that I would be near a dog. For some reaosn even in its mega fluffiness this dog did not make me very allergic.
Here is George and Zack working hard on a plugin.
Here is one of my student's Mike looking very tired after a 16 hour day. I tried to tell him that was the life of a programmer.
Permalink: Buffalo_Rising_Rises.html
Words: 348
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: me
09/20/05 12:02 - 71ºF - ID#32244
Shaving
Permalink: Shaving.html
Words: 12
Location: Buffalo, NY
Last Modified: 10/25/20 12:10
Category: food
09/19/05 01:34 - ID#32243
fowler's
While we were sitting there eating we saw (e:drchlorine) on his way to buy cigarettes.
Permalink: fowler_s.html
Words: 46
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: music
09/18/05 02:01 - 71ºF - ID#32242
If you haven't seen Helmut Lotti
Luckily, he doesn't just do Russian music.
He has a latin hits album, a pop song album and many others.
His web site sings to you I wish I had the Helmut Lotti version of Kalinka. I think I might do a Helmut Lotti (e:radio) show.
If you don't know the Kalinka song, here is the midi version. It makes me want to play tetris. We played it at the party last night.
Permalink: If_you_haven_t_seen_Helmut_Lotti.html
Words: 111
Location: Buffalo, NY
Category: buffalo rising
09/19/05 02:10 - 71ºF - ID#32241
Buffalo Rising Continued
Today after taking a shower I looked at myself in the mirror and I really need to develop an eating addiction, lol. No more work before food.
I wanted to put this here so I would remember it. (e:buffalopundit) and I emailed back and forth a bit Buffalo rising last week. He seems like a pretty cool guy.
Paul,
I saw your posts about BRJ [inlink]paul,3832[/inlink] [inlink]paul,3835[/inlink]
I don't know who's been touting their _current_ design as being innovative and revolutionary, 'cause I haven't heard it. You're right that it's just an adaptation of a blogger template.
The design that's going to be pretty badass is the one they're working on rolling out in the next few weeks. When I saw it, I was gobsmacked at how innovative and revolutionary it is. Sure it, too, is based on existing code, but they've adapted and customized it to within an inch of its life.
I saw that you're bitter that they won BoB blog. The thing is, your site isn't a blog, per se. It's a blogging community, sort of like a localized LiveJournal. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but ArtVoice should have had one of the actual journals on your site nominated, and not the whole site itself.
My site is written only by me. It's a blog in the classic sense of the word.
BRJ is written by a team, but everything that gets written goes right up on the front page and is viewable in a linear manner. It's a group blog in the classic sense of the phrase.
Elmwood strip is more like a hosting service. You provide the software and tools (innovative as they are) to enable individuals to write their own blog/journals. I have to say that it's a bit of pain for me to navigate. Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job, but you should better highlight and categorize the actual journals on your site. Generally, I'll click on the "recently updated" ones, but the major part of your homepage is devoted to an "about us" recitation. I'd rather see what sort of discussions / posts are happening on the site right now, with links.
There's room enough for everybody around here, and Artvoice's best of Buffalo blogs award is just about the most meaningless thing that ever existed. I'm glad BRJ won, and I'd have been glad if you won. Because it doesn't mean anything.
Artvoice has totally squandered what could have been a pretty vital local internet presence. You say they're doing up a Mambo site. I don't like Mambo. They'll look like Altpress, which uses (I think) phpNuke. All those phpNuke content management systems look alike, and I'm not crazy about any of them. Scoop, Mambo, phpNuke - it's all the same to me.
I don't know what the mission of elmwoodstrip.com is, but mine is to try and shake Buffalo out of its complacency and try to communicate to people what's great about our region, and wake people up to what sucks and needs changing. And I throw in some car lust and TV shit on the side.
Just stick to your mission and don't worry so much about BRJ.
Keep up the good work.
Alan
//
MY RESPONSE
//
Hey Alan,
Thanks for reading that, I am sorry it was so rant-style. The designers from the new Buffalo Rising site (zack and Matt @ Schneider Digital) are former and current students of mine. I am sure they did an excellent job as they were really top notch.
I realize the artvoice awards are meaningless in name. But awards like that offer media attention that we cannot afford with our mini budget. I was just annoyed that a commercial entity won. If it had been you I would not have been bothered.
When I created (e:strip) almost three years ago I was trying to combat the dimishing sense of local community and at the same time provide an commercial free public sphere. I wanted it to be publishing tool for non-web programmers where local people could social network, exchange ideas, forge friendships and promote their local endeavors, clubs, etc. I also wanted (e:strip) to server as a sort of documentation for life in Buffalo.
While blogger and livejournal offered publishing solutions, they did not have the interjournal communication associated with (e:strip) and they did not offer new writers a dedicated local readership.
I intended to create a tool that over time depicts life in Buffalo. Unlike other blogging sites, users can add media files directly to their journals without having to pay for it or house them at some other space. We accept a multitude of publishing formats including wav, mp3, amr, swf, mid, jpg, png, gif, 3gp video. We even accept media and journal publication directly from cell phones via WAP, XHTML, or email. Users do not need any web space of their own, but if they want to publish their content somewhere else dynamically, they can use the (e:strip) api.
Because it was all word of mouth, the inital community that formed was quite close knit. My intention was to have it expand within the city but I did not want to sacrifice maintaining a commercial free. We tried a banner on elmwood, sidewalk chalk advertisement, we even had several giant parties, flyers, etc. It was pretty sucessful as last month we had our 10,000th journal entry and 6000th image uploaded but still the site is no where near as full as I would like it to be.
We used to have the homepage as you described. It may go back eventually.
//
HIS RESPONSE
//
Paul
I've been visiting your site more frequently recently. Keep up the good
work. It's really innovative.
I see you're meeting with Artvoice. I've found nothing but utter resistance
from traditional media to blogs. The News' Link section on mondays mentions
all kinds of blogs from around the country, but never a local one. Losers.
Alan
Permalink: Buffalo_Rising_Continued.html
Words: 1061
Location: Buffalo, NY
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