As much as I love the name estripwest, I'm finally bowing to the common wisdom that a site about the oh-so-parochial island community of Alameda should probably have Alameda in the name. Call me crazy. Many have.

Given all the other "good" names are taken, I'm left with two contenders. Probably the smartest choice is alamedalink.com. I can shorten that to a:link the way elmwoodstrip is nicknamed (e:strip).

The sentimental choice, however, would be to name the site alamedastrip.com or a:strip for short. Is there any value there? Or is that a purely gratuitous homage?

I know I'm asking the wrong audience here, but I'm totally torn. I may hold a vote at the Alameda open house Saturday to decide. Thoughts? Feel free to cast your vote for a:link or a:strip in chat, if you feel so inclined. Please don't be mad at me if I have to go the other way.

Hey (e:Soyeon), how did you set up that videochat [inlink]soyeon,176[/inlink] you did with your friend Nick? That looks really cool. I want to try something like for an estripwest demo next Saturday. Did you just use iChat?

That montage of screen grabs you put together from it was great.

I admit I could have pounced on this but didn't. I'll be ready next time (I think). It's good to have friends at the Chronicle . It's bad to have friends who hijack your entire day and night for a trip to wine country the day you could have been interviewed for the "Baring their souls for the world to read" article. (Not something I ever would have thought I'd do. But any press is good press for

e:west

, as they say.) That's not really why I missed out on this article, but it makes a good excuse.

I don't think I would have qualified for the other two articles in the series: "Beware if your blog is related to work" and "Web logs come of age as source of news."

---

Original Message

---

From: Lisa
Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2005 1:22 PM
To: Brenda
Subject: Re: Blogging article

yeah! if it's not too late.

I really don't know any blogging celebs personally. sorry!

---

Original Message

---

From: Brenda
To: lisa
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 5:01 PM
Subject: Blogging article

Hey, can I pass your name onto these guys? What's your blog address again? Know of any celebs, too?

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Original Message

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From: Jennifer
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 4:11 PM
To: NewsroomDL
Subject: request from Business reporter Verne Kopytoff

Biz reporters Verne Kopytoff and Benny Evangelista are looking examples of famous Bay Area residents who have blogs. Possibilities could include politicians, pro athletes, actors, chefs, artists, business leaders, etc.

Additionally, they're looking for average Bay Area bloggers (ie. non celebrities). Any recommendations would be much appreciated.

Please send your recommendations to Verne at sfchronicle.com

Thanks!

I had to get a copy of this for my brother now that he's past the graduate school application phase.

See what no one was supposed to see again: pictures of hopeful students, accompanied by unflattering behind-doors quotes from their professors and employers. Jesse Reklaw distills the essence of a bygone era from a dumpstered stash of confidential biology applicant files circa 1965-1975

(e:Maureen) - you may want to skip this part until your graduate school interviews [inlink]maureen,37[/inlink] are over.







What does that mean ?

So, have you ever been in the middle of an important phone call and you hear that little "blaDoop!" letting you know you forgot to sign out of AIM? Oh, and then you hear that ear-splitting persistent chirp of the smoke alarm letting you know your freakin' tea kettle forgot to whistle and as fate would have it you uncharacteristically closed the kitchen door for some flukey reason so you didn't hear it boiling dry? No? Well, it's pretty embarrassing.

Anyway, I feel more and more like my life is back in fate's hands (whatever that means) so who knows what will happen. As I told the person on the phone, there seems to be some mysterious synergy between (e:Paul) and the world, and I've decided to trust whatever comes my way because of it. Ok, maybe trust is too strong a word for it, since I still think sometimes he's wildly optimistic regarding some things. I could use me some of that optimism.

Hey! What kind of bread did (e:Lilho) use for those mini-BLTs? I think I need to make those for the estripwest open house. I'm dubbing them the official food of (e:strip) for now.

Hey (e:Dan)! Thanks for visiting[inlink]dan,63[/inlink]

e:west

. Yeah - you're not automatically logged into

e:west

with your (e:strip) login. I know -- (e:Metalpeter) asked the same question. But for now the two sites are separate and that means the user databases are too. Sorry if that seemed inhospitable. Not our intention!

I had the same deja vu/parallel universe reaction when I first saw (e:Metalpeter) show up in the

e:west

top 12. It is disorienting! Then I quickly remembered where I was, which is to say, not Buffalo. Also, I'm pretty sure you only have cause for concern if a member of one parallel universe has a goatee and their counterpart in the alternate universe does not. Frankly I try not to think too much about parallel universes and infinity and sh!t like that because it keeps me up at night.

Hope this helps! Come back and visit any time!

We would love to have you[inlink]paul,2629[/inlink].


View from the

e:west e:bungalow

.


Current weather conditions at 10:26am PST --

lisa: Partly Cloudy 48 F (9 C) 96%

I've been thinking a lot about this lately as I gear up to get users to join

e:west

. I was one of the high maintenance user-wannabes who needed a freakin' engraved invitation to join. Oh, I was totally intrigued by the site and wanted to join. But I had my excuses. Now I can't imagine my life without it.

So now I can tell you a dozen reasons why I love posting here. But I'm more interested in what almost kept me from making that first post. And what it was that got me past that. And what got anybody else past their first post bugaboos.

I'm going to have to think about it some more. In the words of the Magic 8 ball, "Reply hazy, try again."

Just got back from a whirlwind tour of Oakland, land of diversity. Started out at the Oakland Public Library, Asian Branch, to sign up for their Lawyers in the Library service. The guy on the phone put the fear of Buddha in me that the 10 slots would sell out if I didn't sign up early. So I did that then killed some time poking around Chinatown. Last time I spent any amount of time in Oakland's Chinatown was for the Street Festival last August. That was a mob scene! Got some cool free stuff though, most notably a sampler pack of condoms (two "designer" colors and two rough rider "studded," which I'm sorry to say are still burning a hole in my pocketbook). I love getting free stuff, but that mob was crazy.

Also had time to swing by the new Cool Neon offices down on Mandela Parkway to pick up my naked skaters card[inlink]twisted,138[/inlink]. One of the skaters gave me a tour and even cranked up one of their Cool Neon wire sculptures from Burning Man last year. They have Cool Neon sculpture workshops before Burning Man each year. I'll have to check that out. I love glowing sh!t.



You can program these things for different sequences and stuff if you know what you're doing. I told the Cool Neon guy about (e:Paul)'s foray into basic stamp programming. The Cool Neon guy (Benny, from the naked photo) said these things run on something that runs on the basic stamp. He lost me there. I was feeling pretty knowledgeable just being able to bandy about the basic stamp reference.

Benny also told me about the "Midnight Rollers" Friday night skate every week in San Francisco. I'd love to dust off my skates, although I really haven't done any serious skating since I was a kid. Sounds like fun though.


Oakland Public Library, Asian Branch


Estrip on the library PC. I couldn't open any links targeting new windows (among many other limitations).


Year of the Rooster art work


Waiting for their turn with the lawyers. I think they set it up in the children's section just to watch everybody trying to look comfortable in the kids' chairs

Yeah - I had a lot of time to kill waiting.

At 02:34 PM 1/20/2005, you wrote:
>Hi there. Are there any local retailers where I can buy the Naked Skaters
>Crossing Golden Gate Bridge Greeting Card?
>
>I live in Alameda and bought one of the cards at the bookstore at Stinson
>beach, but now I really need another one!


From: "Funhouse Productions / Cool Neon Wire"

Lisa,

You can place an order on line and choose "Will-Call" ($0) as your shipping option. Then, call or email us to set up an appointment to come to Oakland and pick one up from one of the skaters in the picture! He will be clothed, but you can amuse yourself by trying to figure out which skater he is! ; )

We look forward to getting you glowing!
Heather Hornsby
Funhouse Productions
(510) 547-5878