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

I read this article about LiveJournal last week, and it prompted me to create an account there to check out "the competition." They're also revamping their Terms of Service now that they've been acquired by Bay Area blogging tech company Six Apart (home of Movable Type), and I was curious about that too.

Here's my one and only LiveJournal post so far. I can't take credit for the userPic. That was (e:estrip)'s old Second Life avatar before I gave her a digital makeover[inlink]estrip,6[/inlink].




(Just in case you thought I was exaggerating.)

Have one on me tonight, Paul. I'll make a deposit to your paypal account to cover it. LOL.



Wish I could be there too!
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