My Archives: April 2005

Saturday, April 30, 2005

Chris Holmes tells some tales from his days as a book publicist, inspired by an ill-informed column in the Bainbridge Islander. Much Erica Jong and Edna O'Brien action! "When I let it be known that I was bringing over Woodward and Bernstein for the launch of Secker & Warbug's UK edition of All the President's Men, I was inundated with offers and invitations and had to decide the precise sequence of coverage, not just between TV chat shows but radio and press interviews. A highly sensitive pecking order exists between the various media and publishers ride roughshod over it at their peril."

Posted by Anita @ 04:09 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Friday, April 29, 2005

Jack always teases me because I often order a Reuben sandwich at a deli or restaurant. But I like them, and I rarely make them at home these days. I think it's the sauerkraut that puts him off. Technovangelist Matt Williams says there are no good Reubens around here. "They don't exist in San Francisco, or the Bay Area, or Seattle." I guess my tastes aren't as refined in this area. Have you had a good reuben in Seattle? The reuben sandwich's origins are shrouded in mystery.

Posted by Anita @ 04:59 AM PST [Link] [1 Comment]

Thursday, April 28, 2005

Awesome! The Ivory Billed Woodpecker isn't extinct! There are video clips! (but I haven't found them online) And an NPR story. I'm sure cryptozoologists will wonder which other animals are out there, somewhere.

Posted by Anita @ 04:17 AM PST [Link] [2 comments]

Next Tuesday, May 3 7 pm, it's the East Side Weblog Meetup. We'll be at Crossroads Mall Food Court at 15600 NE 8TH Street, Bellevue, WA (map), between the stage and the big chessboard. We'll discuss the new Meetup.com organizer fees, and my plans for this group.

Posted by Anita @ 03:59 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

New in the Seattle blog world: Michael Montoure has made repairs to the Seablogs portal, and trackbacks are working there again, plus he's installed a new forum. Also new, a forum by Mikey called Seattle Threads.

TDavid has set up a workspace for those who want to help with a future home for the Seattle Weblog Meetup. For now, leave a comment on this post if you'd like to be involved -- I'll update here when I have a simpler way to sign up.

Posted by Anita @ 06:04 AM PST [Link] [Add a Comment]

Monday, April 25, 2005

Jack has started a livejournal, mostly for friends-list and non-anonymous comments purposes, or so I thought. But he's already posted three entries, including news about hiking Mount Si and an unfortunate cell phone/laundry incident. I'll have to join also, or I might not see friends-only posts! The journal title is Antigravitas.

Our two-year-old grandson R----- and I went along with Jack, Jim Kling, and Ivy on the hiking trip this past Saturday. My plan was walk with R---- on the short, flat loop at the trail head (it's called an interpretive path, but I saw no signs informing us about the local geology, flora or fauna). But R---- wanted to do more, so we made two short trips up the first part of the mountain trail, up past the first few switchbacks. I was impressed by his climbing ability! "Up" and "down" have been important vocabulary words recently. Because we came in two cars, we were able to go home and nap when we'd hiked enough.

We need a copy of Best Hikes With Children, I think.

Posted by Anita @ 04:47 AM PST [Link] [1 Comment]

Saturday, April 23, 2005

In the weblog meetup report I posted here, I ended with a note about a post on the Meetup Watch PR blog. Jack first noticed the post because there was a click-through to my site from there, but I'd have found it soon after because there was a trackback to it on TDavid's meetup report.

The post (written by Myles Weissleder, VP of Communications at Meetup.com):

Belly-Achin' Bloggers in Seattle
According to a fun image on Make You Go Hmmm, seems that some of the good folks at the Seattle Blogger Meetup chipped in a few bucks and helped Anita Rowland with the nominal fee for the Seattle Blogger Meetup Group. Guess this Meetup was worth their time-- at least $2 bucks worth! Y'all had a good Meetup and you supported your local group! Sounds like everyone should be happy. We work hard to make it easy for you pull this together. So really, folks, what's the belly-achin' all about?

My first reaction was to be a little annoyed because the blog had a place for comments on the main page of the blog, but comments had been turned off. This inconsistency bothered my copy-editing soul. So I posted about that on the Suggestions area of the Meetup.com message boards.

I didn't much care for the Belly-achin' terminology --seemed dismissive and condescending. But Dylan Wilbanks posted a great rant entry about this on Friday afternoon. "To a Meetup employee to say that we, the customers of Meetup, the members of Weblogger Meetup No. 1, are a bunch of belly-achers is not only ludicrious, it's insulting. For their PR person to snark about us like that on a public blog is unreal, and it minimizes the real questions and concerns all Meetup groups are dealing with right now over the decision to charge monthly fees. Whomever this Myles is, his PR skills are on the same level as, well, my mad skillz at skateboarding. (Non-existent.)"

Note: even though we are Weblog Meetup Number 1, that's really just an accident of fate. Meetup groups weren't numbered when they got started. We might have been a large, active group when they did the numbering and I liked that we got assigned number 1, but all the weblog meetups started at the same time, and I don't think we are the largest.

Saturday morning I decided to post about this incident on the section of the Meetup message boards dedicated to talk about the organizer/group fees. I also sent an email to Robert Scoble with links to my report, Dylan's post, and the original Meetup Watch post.

Saturday is a slow news day and the story took off in a way that surprised me but didn't displease me. Maybe the colorful term Belly-achin' had something to do with it.

By the end of the day, Hilary Moon (message board administrator for Meetup.com) had replied to my post, apologizing nicely: "Let me be the first from Meetup to apologize for the Belly Achin' comment. I think that it was an attempt at humor that seriously misfired, but it should never have been written." Matt Meeker (Meetup.com co-founder) sent me email, also apologizing nicely: "I believe Myles was kidding around, but either way, it's way out of line and I apologize to you and your group for that message. We appreciate you and your group chipping in, and if we can do a better job serving you, you have every right to demand it."

It took a while for Myles to respond -- he was spending time with family for Passover, perfectly understandable. He replied to:

I don't think any of these were perfect in humility, but the attempt was there.

So, where do we stand? I don't think the Seattle Weblog Meetup group will be doing anything different than we were already going to do -- pay for now and explore our options. I hope that Meetup.com will re-embrace the values of courtesy and community that were part of it from the beginning.

Posted by Anita @ 09:51 PM PST [Link] [24 comments]

Friday, April 22, 2005

We had a good time at the Seattle Weblog Meetup Wednesday night, despite having to actually discuss what we should do in reaction to Meetup.com charging fees. The attendees:

The funniest thing happened when I arrived early to rearrange the furniture for better conversation flow and fung shui. A woman in a suit asked me if I worked at Ralph's (a reasonable question when I started moving stuff) but was quite put out, even offended, when I said that I did not. "I think that's pretty bold, even rude, to just waltz in and start moving furniture!" I told her that the staff knew I was doing this and that I had done the same on previous occasions (continuing with the furniture moving the while). This was confirmed when the guy in the food prep area saw me and shouted out "Hey, it's the blog people!" and waved to me cheerily. I asked her if there was some place specific she wanted to sit so I would leave that area along, but that didn't seem to be the point -- she also didn't like the word "meetup" on our sign. "That's not a real word!" Finally she wandered away, so there's no punchline here.

The group discussion went well, I think. We'll probably end up doing stuff on our own, but in the meantime I will pay and get reimbursed by a tip jar (literal, not an online one). I couldn't dissuade folks from putting money on the table already even though we don't have to start paying until June! I hope everyone got a chance to be heard. Dylan summed it up well. We have three options. One: Stay with Meetup and pay. Two: Switch to someone else like Yahoo. Three: Build it ourselves and they will come.

Meetup Watch (a PR blog on the Meetup.com site) picked up on TDavid's annotated photos and headed a blog post "Belly-Achin' Bloggers in Seattle." Huh?? The text is puzzling:

"Y'all had a good Meetup and you supported your local group! Sounds like everyone should be happy. We work hard to make it easy for you pull this together. So really, folks, what's the belly-achin' all about?"

Posted by Anita @ 04:59 AM PST [Link] [8 comments]

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Ann Arbor fan Tammy LC wrote about Zingerman's on eGullet (good pics included). I did get a chance to visit this uber-deli when Jack was living in Michigan, and like Mary Kay in the comments here, I wish something similar existed in Seattle. "The most important thing to know about Zingerman's if you visit (and you really should visit), is that you can sample absolutely everything that they sell. Every wanted to know what real Gold Label Balsalmic Vinegar tastes like? Just ask - they'll be happy to offer you a sample. Looking for the perfect EVOO? Their knowledgeable staff will take you on a guided tasting tour of the shelves until you find just the right one. And of course you can taste as many cheeses as you like before making your final selection."

You can order from Zingerman's online, but you don't get to sample stuff that way.

Posted by Anita @ 04:30 AM PST [Link]

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Mike Pope describes his experiences at the members preview for last weekend's Friends of the (Seattle) Library Book Sale. "At events like the book sale, where books are ridiculously cheap, I always have the funny experience of seeing a book I already have (lots of them, in fact) and wishing that I hadn't already read it so that I could buy it cheap and have the experience of reading it again for the first time. Is there a name for this phenomenon?"

This isn't the first time he's been there. "Always I find a book or three that I've seen before and thought about buying 'one of these days'; the library book sale is that day. Or you'll find works by an author you've heard about but haven't read. Or you'll find a book that you already own and love, and a copy of which you want to give to someone else. (And at a buck per each, your largesse comes cheap.)"

I haven't been to this book sale, but I did find the crowds at the Arboretum book sale hard to take. The thrill of the hunt is still an incentive! But I've recently been divesting myself of a lot of books, so buying a bunch doesn't seem the smartest move.

Posted by Anita @ 04:50 AM PST [Link]

Friday, April 15, 2005

We watched some of the extras from The Incredibles last night. I think the item we enjoyed the most was Vowellette: An Essay by Sarah Vowell. Jack didn't know about Vowell before, but of course I'm a longtime fan of her radio work. I need to keep an eye out for her books!

I was looking for info on Vowell and found out about an easter egg on the region 1 DVD, a hand puppet version of the movie!

Posted by Anita @ 04:53 AM PST [Link]

Thursday, April 14, 2005

I think I found Smart Bitches from RRA-L, the Romance Reader Anonymous list. I'm a bit confused about what the actual name of the weblog is; the domain name is smartbitchestrashybooks, the graphic at the top of the page reads "Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels," and the TITLE element reads "Romance Novel Reviews - Smart Bitches, Trashy Books." Consistency, ladies! And I'll take the use of the word "trash" as ironic.

In any case the weblog is fun reading! On Realism in Romance: "First of all, I think it’s fascinating that realism has somehow become the yardstick by which quality fiction should be judged. But then, this is only when it’s convenient, of course, and some types of non-realism are more acceptable than others. A book set in a world populated with three-foot-tall humanoids sporting large, hairy feet and immortal creatures with pointy ears who then band together to defeat an all-powerful evil overlord by hijacking a magic ring—yeah, THAT’s realistic, and worthy of worship that borders on the creepy. But a book about a mathematician having a stroke and falling in love with a Quaker woman? Good God, let’s torch this sumbitch, it’s far too unrealistic to be considered good fiction."

Posted by Anita @ 04:36 AM PST [Link]

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Next Wednesday, April 20, it's the Seattle Weblog Meetup! As per usual, start time is 7 pm, location is Ralph's Grocery, 2035 4th Ave in Seattle's Belltown (diagonally across from the Cinerama).

SPECIAL BULLETIN: Starting in May, Meetup.com will be charging a fee to the organizer (me!). We have some time to think about this since my Meetup.com+ membership will be applied to the fee until June. Also, any M+ group members who aren't organizers will get a coupon which could be applied to our group fees. More discussion here, on the meetup.com site, or at the meetup.

Posted by Anita @ 12:28 PM PST [Link]

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

I knew that "broken" tulips (the ones that are multi-colored) are caused by a virus, but I didn't know that Dutch bulb growers are forbidden to grow them because of that. These are the tulips that caused tulipmania in the 1600s -- the broken tulips were highly prized because of their rarity and the fancy patterns on the flowers.

Says Paghat, "The infected bulbs weaken year by year, producing smaller & smaller flowers, & eventually petering out. But, well, many of the highly hybridized standard tulips do that anyway, so it's not a big deal. Old House Gardens claims that the virus is in the main benign, & should be thought of in terms of the microorganisms used to make cheese or sourdough bread. But not many are convinced that tulip-breaking virus (TBV) is benign, & it is a standard recommendation not to grow broken tulips in close proximity to uninfected tulips, as aphids spread TBV from bulb to bulb."

Posted by Anita @ 04:04 AM PST [Link]

Monday, April 11, 2005

I'm really pleased that our friend Suzanne Tompkins (fannishly known as Suzle) is this year's TAFF winner! What is TAFF? "The Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund was created in 1953 for the purpose of providing funds to bring well-known and popular fans familiar to those on both sides of the ocean across the Atlantic. Since that time TAFF has regularly brought North American fans to European conventions and European fans to North American conventions. TAFF exists solely through the support of fandom. The candidates are voted on by interested fans all over the world, and each vote is accompanied by a donation of not less than $3 or £2. These votes, and the continued generosity of fandom, are what make TAFF possible."

There's some interesting discussion on the voting this year, at Trufen.net. "OK, it's no surprise that the 'host zone' has fewer voters than the 'sending zone', but this year's tally brings on the raised eyebrow. In the previous (2003) eastbound race, there were 160 ballots that expressed a preference; 50 in the Europe and 110 in North America. This time the ratio is more than 6:1. Is it just a matter of fannish apathy in the UK, or is there an anti-TAFF undercurrent which isn't visible in the Britzines I receive?"

Posted by Anita @ 04:44 AM PST [Link]

Friday, April 8, 2005

We had fun at last Tuesday's East Side Weblog Meetup! New member Tommy Williams posted a good writeup: "The turnout this week was small (no celebrities this time) but I still enjoyed it. Our discussions ranged from blog software, to unusual programming languages, to fonts and product packaging, to science fiction (on TV and in books)." I did enjoy the SF geeking out. Battlestar Galactica and the SFM, yay!

Hamburger Lad wrote a haiku.

Meetup at Crossroads
Lunchtime with Eastside bloggers
I should eat something

Posted by Anita @ 04:44 AM PST [Link]

Thursday, April 7, 2005

(This is a guest entry by Jack William Bell.)

Tuesday, April 12th, is Yuri's Night. This is the night that space enthusiasts all over the world get together and celebrate the first man in space -- Yuri Gagarin. This has been going since 2001, with parties held in major cities on every continent.

I organized the first ever Seattle Yuri's Night celebration at Norwescon, being as we had a suite there anyway. The following year Anita and I hosted a Yuri's Night at our place in West Seattle. (Man I miss that place.) After that I missed the next two celebrations because I was in Michigan for one and just too busy for the other.

This year is different however, and I had every intention of attending and even helping out. Then I found out that the person who was supposed to organize the event had run into some family problems and somehow bobbled the handoff; no-one was doing it! Horrors!

So, like some sort of last minute pinch-hitter in a bad baseball movie, I stepped up to the plate and tried to put something together at the last minute. My job was complicated by the fact that David Brin and Cory Doctorow are doing a reading/book signing at the Science Fiction Museum the very same night! Something I wanted to attend myself in fact. So what to do?

Well the answer may be as obvious to you as it was to Anita; hold Yuri's Night in the Liquid Lounge at the EMP -- in the very same building as the reading. Doh! So tonight we went down there and I talked to the night manager. Now everything is coming together nicely, and all I need is some nice swag to give out as door prizes. (Any readers who work in marketing are encouraged to send me stuff appropriate for geeks space enthusiasts.)

And, if Yuri's Night seems like fun to you, details follow in the extended entry... [more]

Posted by Jack @ 08:05 PM PST [Link]

Maciej goes to town on Paul Graham's essay Hackers and Painters, in Dabblers and Blowhards. "It is true that both painters and programmers make things, just like a pastry chef makes a wedding cake, or a chicken makes an egg. But nothing about what they make, the purposes it serves, or how they go about doing it is in any way similar." Via Gammatron.

Posted by Anita @ 04:55 AM PST [Link]

Wednesday, April 6, 2005

Andr00 is on a spring-cleaning binge, to find something he lost. "1) Scoff at spring cleaning. 'Bah! What's so special about spring? I could clean any time I want. Heck, I'm not going to clean until spring is over.' "

Posted by Anita @ 04:10 AM PST [Link]

Tuesday, April 5, 2005

A virtual tour of Tyntesfield, a National Trust property in England. This came from discussion on the Angela Thirkell list -- Pomfret Towers, one of the large homes she talked about in her Barchester novels, was supposedly built to resemble St. Pancras railway station, a huge Gothic pile. I think this Gothic revival mansion is lovely!

Posted by Anita @ 04:43 AM PST [Link]

Monday, April 4, 2005

Scarlettina (my friend Janna) writes about how the contracting way of life has changed things around here. "[S]omething else interesting happens: people locally expect that you want to stay in the contracting treadmill. Don't you enjoy the 100-day break, they ask? Don't you want to go back to Microsoft? Don't you enjoy being a free agent and taking assignments anywhere you want (which assumes one can pick and choose assignments—a spurious assumption)? Some (especially the folks at the aforementioned agencies) can't fathom the idea that if one is doing contract work one might ever want to go back to being someone's full-time employee. When money gets tight and one asks one's agency if other companies have gigs that might suit, they'll advise just holding on until the end of the 100-day break because Microsoft's got a gig that they're sure will be a perfect fit. As if money will appear from thin air in the meanwhile."

Posted by Anita @ 04:13 AM PST [Link]

Saturday, April 2, 2005

Because the company Jack is contracting with right now was moving offices yesterday, he wanted to "work from home" by working at Cafe Coccinella, a cafe we've visited near Bellevue Square. Fewer distractions at a location like that, I guess. Elizabeth Grigg reviews some Capitol Hill coffee locations with a view towards getting things done. "Internet Cafe on Broadway [is this capitolhill.net? AMR]. Everything else is a distant second. Get there early and get a booth. Lots of Radiohead. Owner has an italian accent that's a pleasant addition to the din. Good comfort food, don't be scared to order it, there are lots of good restaurants on broadway and this is one of them, you're not missing out. Coffee is good too, with that awesome darkness. Mostly the place just feels like you can get something done. That quality is elusive, but you'll know it when you see it. Lousy parking, but it's on the 7 or the 43. Free movies at night."

Elizabeth thinks Vivace has the best coffee, and of course Jack agrees.

Posted by Anita @ 04:51 AM PST [Link]

Friday, April 1, 2005

Ha! Local April Fool's action here! Hamburger Lad is looking for someone to have an affair with, since that seems to be the way to get media attention around here.

I have come to the point where I realize that I can't do it alone. The public doesn't want Hamburger Lad. To them, I'm just a slimy mollusc to be trod upon. If I'm going to win their ear, I must hide myself. I must wrap myself in sensation, something to draw in a people daily bombarded by words and images. So, if I can't beat them, I will join them. I can use the Bellevue Reporter as a guide. They want adultery? Very well, adultery is what I shall give them.

Um, that is, if I can find a mistress. That's my problem. Characterization is one of my weak points as a writer. I don't think I could really make up a good fictional paramour. So I'm putting out the call for any woman out there who would like to have an affair with me, so I could write it up in the blog here. We don't actually have to, uh, you know. We could just exchange steamy letters and pictures and stuff. But actual you know might make for greater traffic. And, of course, if you have your own blog, then we could do a He Said, She Said type thing. That might even be preferable.

Posted by Anita @ 04:50 AM PST [Link]

Adam "Proudly Serving My Corporate Masters" Barr took a road trip from Las Vegas to Death Valley to see the flowers. "At first I was just seeing lots of individual flowers, but then as I got a bit further north, there were some incredible vistas where entire fields or hillsides were yellow from the flowers (the photo below is from the west side of Jubilee Pass, just like the article said). I gather that these are normally plain brown and green. The flowers are so cool that you forget how stunning the scenery behind them is. There were lots of cars stopped at the side of the road with people staring ga-ga-like, and also several photographers with fancy cameras on tripods. So I predict in a little while you will be able to buy some nice photos of Death Valley in bloom."

Talk of the Nation on the impact the influx of visitors is having on Death Valley National Park. Also, Death Valley on Flickr.

Posted by Anita @ 04:27 AM PST [Link]

[Archive Index] [Main Index]

Powered By Greymatter