Month: March 2001

  • It is my impression that the gold content of eProps has been, to some degree, debased since the new year began. Not so brilliant as before are those freshly minted goodwill coins. And they seem to tarnish, too, even before the end of a day's span.

    This, of course, is not without precedent. When the Romans were unable to plunder the wealth of others or to raise sufficient revenues from taxation to support the enormous costs of the bureaucracy needed for world domination, they resorted to debasing their money supply. From Severus (222) through Claudius Victorinus (268), the percentage of silver in Roman coins dropped from 35 % to 0.02 %, a yearly inflation of 15%!

    So what gives here with our treasured eProps-now seemingly only golden in color (O, curse of the Sacagawea dollar!) and so now apparently desecrated? Are the Xangods hording golden content to prop up their own sputtering financial malaise? Has the price of gold dramatically risen? No. no-checked that, that's not the case…. Have eProps grown so rare that even with debasement we Xangites still yearn for more, and more, and more-and still so much and needingly care?

    Oh damn!

    *looks closely at monitor*

    It seems…well, let me put it this way: Does anyone have a screen wipe they can lend?

  • Enough! Enough! I've had enough of this Private Eye crap!


    *rants at self*


    Time to resume life!


    *drinks beer, raves at self*


    I'm going to turn my class tonight into a pure Visual Statistics experience by dispensing with most of the lecture and having everyone spend 3 hours in the computer lab!


    *teacher gets to intermittently blog internet while students play with sampling distributions, hehe*

  • From the Toronto Star posted September 8, 2000


    We should be proud of Dan, he's a super cyber-sleuth!


    "These days, Ikea is Swedish for giving the world the names of its customers. The names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses of 144,229 North Americans sat exposed on the company's Web site earlier this week.


          But whether it was a malicious attack or a security shortfall depends on whom you talk to.Dan Huddle, chief technology officer at Internet publisher Xanga.com, said he discovered the information when he visited the Ikea site to order the company's catalogue Monday morning. After submitting his contact information, an error message appeared.

          According to the message, a database file at a specific location, or path, had received too much information and overflowed.

          That was the Huddle's first clue that something wasn't right. On a secure site, an error message with specific information about the location of the database wouldn't appear on an outside user's screen. It would be sent to the person who maintains the site.

          Huddle quickly realized the location listed in the error message could probably be accessed by anyone.

          "I was just in disbelief," said Huddle. "Normally you would put a file like that in a directory that the public couldn't access, but Ikea didn't do that. So I went right to the file and downloaded it."

          Huddle found the names, addresses, phone numbers and e-mail addresses for the 144,266 Canadians and Americans who had requested the Ikea catalogue over the long weekend."


    Is this the same Dan Huddle as mentioned (Nov '97) here? :


    "The old office had more character; this is more businesslike," said Dan Huddle, a 20-year-old Motley Fool Web programmer whose desk is lined with boxes of Fruity Pebbles cereal. His bosses mention the company budget more, he said. Huddle recently was asked to sign a code of conduct. And with the added space, he said, employees e-mail one another more, speak to one another less.

  •   

    Hrmm...Prometheus points out, as does Biz himself on his bizstone.com journal, that Biz is taking a one-way trip to Califronia...  Meeting up with someone named Greg Yaitanes, perhaps? Hey, doesn't Bianca, the great Xangan marketeer, live in California, too? 

  • A few more cyber-tracks leading to no end, of no great apparent importance, yet filling out some picture.  Registration information for Biz Stone's domain, www.bizstone.com :


    Registrant:
    YAITANES, GREG (BIZSTONE2-DOM)
    12400 Wilshire Blvd # 850
    LOS ANGELES, CA 90025
    US

    Domain Name: BIZSTONE.COM

    Administrative Contact:
    STONE, BIZ (BXS329) bizstone@aol.com
    BIZSTONE
    295 Weston Road
    WELLESLEY, MA 02482
    781 235 4920
    Technical Contact:
    Hostmaster, Domain (HD8000-ORG) hostmaster@DOTEASY.COM
    Doteasy Technology Inc.
    Suite 607 - 4538 Kingsway
    Burnaby, BC V5H 4T9
    CANADA
    604-608-6868
    Fax- 604-608-6832
    Billing Contact:
    YAITANES, GREG (GY799) applepantz@AOL.COM
    YAITANES, GREG
    12400 Wilshire Blvd # 850
    LOS ANGELES, CA 90025
    310 826 7751

    Record last updated on 14-Aug-2000.
    Record expires on 27-Feb-2002.
    Record created on 27-Feb-2000.
    Database last updated on 28-Mar-2001 20:20:00 EST.


    ... Is this Greg Yaitanes the writer/director who served as a visual consultant on Hanging Up and Unstrung Heroes with TV directing credits to include: Nash Bridges, VIP, Martial Law, and America's Most Wanted  ?

  • Creating a viable revenue model for Xanga is the topic Prometheus is seriously yet humorously tackling over there on his blogspace  His challenge: "Who can come up with the best ways for xanga to make money."  ...So check that out!

    Meantime...


    It seems Biz Stone himself, creative director of Xanga, Inc., is not impervious to pondering such considerations.  Below are some excerpts from an interview Biz conducted with Evan Williams, the founder of Blogger:


    Labs, Robots, and Giant Floating Brains: The Amazingly True Story of Blogger!, March 9, 2001 in webreview.com


    (beginning of excerpts)


    “Like many others, Blogger found itself in a dangerous situation—up the creek without a revenue model. And so the fabulous "Blogger Seven" was reduced to one. But is this remaining member just a robot? A brain floating in bio fluid? Will Blogger survive?


    To answer these questions and more, Web Review.com recruited me, Biz Stone, self-proclaimed genius.



    (This is Biz with a warning: weak of heart need not read on!)


    Ev:...the Internet bubble burst, the second round of financing was never acquired, we failed to execute on alternative plans to generate revenue, we ran out of money, we flailed around with a couple acquisition and merger deals that never came together, the rest of the team either decided or was forced to leave, I decided to stay and am currently still plugging away.


    Biz: I see. Eh-hem.



    Biz: Hey, whose idea was the "Blogger Server Fund?"


    Ev: Probably the first person, internally, to suggest we ask for voluntary payments from our users was pb. I was never comfortable with the idea, though most of the rest of the team was encouraging it over the last couple of months. As things became more desperate, I became more open to it and finally had the idea to ask specifically for help buying new servers.


    Biz: How much did you end up making total?


    Ev: We ended up with about $12,000 from users, plus another $4,500 from Web Techniques. We bought four new servers. Far beyond my expectations.


    Biz: Wow. I should start the "Biz Server Fund" except instead of buying servers, I'll just pay my overdue taxes—did I just say that out loud?



    Biz: Is it just fundamentally wrong to charge for basic Blogger? Am I gonna get stoned to death for mentioning it?


    Ev: I'm sure some people would be upset if we started charging for basic Blogger, but in general I think there's a growing awareness that the free-lunch Internet is a thing of the past. People realize that the money has to come from somewhere, and based on many emails I've received, I know a lot of Blogger users would be greatly relieved to pay for the service, because they would be more confident it's not going away.


    ...


    Biz: So are you going to focus on Blogger Pro now?


    Ev: I'm not focusing on it yet. I'm trying to figure out a more long-term plan, both in terms of business strategy and technology direction, before I launch Pro—which was based on assumptions that I'm not sure are still valid, regarding where we're going and why. Is that vague enough?


    Biz: Mind games—I'm onto you, Ev—I'm onto you!


    All right, back to business, how do you plan to make money with Blogger?


    Ev: Okay, well, things could change because nothing is official yet, but (knock on wood), by the end of this week, I should be able to announce a deal or two I've been working on that will provide enough income to keep the service up for quite some time—even without charging for it—and that will also be complimentary to a longer-term strategy.


    I do still plan on launching various levels of paid-for versions of the tool, but only when I'm confident I can offer a professional-quality level of service.”



     (end of excerpts)


     …"various levels of paid-for versions of the tool"!  I see the visions of sugarplums dancing in Biz’s head    ~!~!~!~!~


     

  • I've been doing it again…merging my mind into the Matrix…trying to figure it all out. Here's something that I've found:

    Xanga has a new neighbor, just in infancy, but apparently not stillborn: Blogfinder.com. Curiously, it's IP address of http://208.185.86.202/ is directly adjacent to two IP addresses of Xanaga.com (http://208.185.86.200/ and http://208.185.86.201/).

    But this is no coincidence, at all.

    In fact, Blog Finder is a web project of Biz Stone-Xanga's self-defining Genius (described by webreview.com thusly:" It is rumored that Biz is a little different and perhaps a bit off, but we don't dwell on it. Artist, writer, and otherwise expressive individual, Biz Stone is currently the creative director of Xanga.com, Inc. in New York City. There is no action figure of Biz yet, but if there is, it will be announced at www.bizstone.com.")

    In the About Blogfinder description, Biz mentions the assistance of Dan and John, by my reckoning, two other apparent Xangan patriarchs.

    And in the Questions That Are Frequently Asked section, Biz reveals:

    Question: "How can you afford to provide this cool free service?
    We can't! What I did was call up the company I work for, put on my best Jack Nicholson voice and said, 'Ya know... I am a reaaaal Genius. Give me and my friend some servers, no questions asked.' They fell for it!"

    …sequential IP address, Biz-creative director of Xanga, Inc., "the company I work"…hrmm…is this the alpha stage of a Xangan search engine? !!

    And does the pronouncement of "They fell for it!" also underpin this great Xangan enterprise?

    I've submitted my blog and am awaiting the visit of the Blogfinder robots. Hopefully, they won't get over anxious and *munch* my posts!

    ...all very nice, I suppose...but I wanna spillchucker, spoilchocker, spellchecker !

    But I ask you: How much, for how long, for so free?

    Soon coming to a blog near you: Xanga Pro and Xanga (Lite) Levity!


  • I am you (are you not me?) :
    We are singularity.

    208.185.86.200

    0320.056253310

    208.12146376

    0320.0271.053310

    208.185.22216

    0320.0271.0126.0310

    (xanga.com by any other name would DNS meet)

    I blog you, you eProp me and we're a happy family!

    I flame him, she spams me and again a holy war we see!

    Concurrently and contingently at one address, arrayed,

    All so fluenty to this ever-flowing fluid conveyed.

    O Xanga, my Xanga, this ocean in which so many interesting and pretty things float around! Yet, in which we fishy creatures must eat (and get eaten?), too.

  • Comment (from post of PhotoPete--read first for context) --> Post (where you be)

    PhotoPete: DO NOT READ THIS COMMENT if you don't want to curse more. Don't be Ulysses on his odyssey tying himself to a ship's mast to listen to the wail of sirens. Plug your ears. Block your eyes. Move on fast. Be warned to remain unwarned, less warned, more innocent (near born)...

    (Is he gone? I think he's got a lot of character, so probably not.)

    I don't seek thanks or compliments, but if you've resumed your wits about being here, I'm satisfied. Now enjoy and prosper, as you may.

    Damn PhotoPete, I like you. You're the closest I've seen anyone come to despising me.

    (Now I hear *snickers* and whispers of "But of course, since he keeps his eyes closed.") Well...*Pushes the insinuations of shadow creatures aside*…

    You've given me what I've only imagined before, the sense of that special "curse" that can reify my existence. Until this day, I was only becoming. Now, here finally cursed, I am! I've arrived!

    Holly is so amazing in fantasizing one intrigue after the next, isn't she! If there were no such things as a conspiracies, she'd create one to explain why they don't exist! But that proclivity is truly such a fantastically brainstorming asset in a world such as this: The multisensory multiplicity (us) vs. Duplicity (Bianca and Genius--oh yes, check out Genius...the artistic director of Xanga...and there are others I and others have uncovered as Xangan founders. PhotoPete, quit here, don't click here to discover the cohort who conceived of Bianca.

    And Prometheus is on a roll about GOD, because, after all, GOD does exist! Now incarnate, she is dwelling amongst us.

    And, PhotoPete, toreibjo calls you a "kewl man" and yet howls as I howl. This sounds like a bridging, one step to the next. The strongest of alliances have always been constructed of such fabric.

    We'll see what we'll see. If we keep our eyes open.

    Who knows?
    Don't *blink* lest
    In the flash of a moment,
    In the wake of a *lash batting*,
    We catch a glimpse of,
    We get to see
    A new paradigm
    Of reality.

    *lash batting* above courtesy of agrochick78 (copyright at birth)!

  •  Here--take my sword. 

    *puts it in perfectdrug's hands*


    The last time I was in dream hell, the demons of gigantic proportions surrounded me, beaming down on me, ready to devour me.


    I looked around shuddering, thinking "This is the end." 


    But before my final torment, I had courage enough to ask "Where am I?" 


    One of the ugliest ferocities, perhaps Satan himself, boasted: "You're in Hell!"  


    "Yes," I pronounced, “Hell."  Of course.


    But what amazement in the final moment I found as the crystal shining light of realization broke through and I spun around with a tiger's countenance to declare: "But this is not my hell, it's yours!" 


    And at the very moment, a gleaming silvered saber ( Excalibur? !! ) appeared in my hands—and, with much gnashing, I slew the demons one and all.  Indeed, their hell is what I left them.


    After your done, pass the sword on.  There are lots of demons cruisin’ for that bruisin’.

  •  Bianca: Throne or thorn?

    I've created a stock response that I am posting (and will continue to post) on nearly everyone's blog that either leaves a comment or signs the address book of Bianca (Madame Broussard):


    Those of us who've been around awhile figured out Bianca long ago for the Xanga marketing bot she is.


    Here's a remarkably insightful post as the first exposé of this Xanga gods' PR tool: Holly_Green' s Bianca Broussard.


    And here's my recent analysis of  *her* tawdry resurrection.


    What's the point? 


    First, some of these new bloggers leave questions for Bianca that she never answers!  How rude!  *Bad PR machine*!  I think Xanga is losing some of its new Bianca-worshipping bloggers because they are looking to her as *The Teacher*, yet she is not here to teach!  Shame, I say--and say that as a conscientious professor!


    Secondly, those who take the time to prop, or comment, or sign Bianca’s guest book are those I consider most needy of knowing she’s a farce.  I have a strange feeling, that Bianca the Teach may soon start appealing for those remaining trusting and caring to act otherwise in Xanga’s economic best interest.  Which as an appeal, may be just fine!  Just cut the Bianca crap!


    Thirdly, a la fascist handbook (Mein Kampf--Hitler, Imperialisn--V.I. Lenin, the Little Red Book of Mao -- choose one) , any critically accurate comments (not flames!) that you leave on "her" posts or guestbook get eliminated most promptly: *swoosh*  ...like a jealously insane, shotgun-wielding hillbilly dad driving away all the passionately hovering male wooers from his virgin nubile never-going-to-be-sullied soon-to-be West Virginia beauty queen daughter!


    Now, to answer my question: Throne or thorn?  Which?


    Bianca has ascended the Throne as the all-time eProp Queen of Xanga (remember, they eliminated *all time eProps* comparisons to defuse notice of her conquest àsee my analysis);


    I’ve now become a thorn in her side J   Yeah,  Bianca, I'm a *prick* -- but you've been dirty-teasing.  So now tease this *prick*, ba-itch.   Or ban me if you got the balls.

  • Gone


    I have a secret
    Place where I can hide and write.
    There I find myself.

  • Choices


    “Coffee, tea, or me?”
    What the fucking rant is that?
    You—and nothing else!

  • Soul Quakes


    I have watched Death pass
    Over me much too confused
    I was not the one.

  • Pulse


    Time is slowing down
    Even as I here now write.
    Zen is compression.

  • The Whisper


    Science screams the truth.
    I accept that, then wonder:
    What still lies beyond.

  • How is a blog comment different from a blog post?  Location? Intent?  Do you prefer plain bread or toast?


    Your apple tree hangs over my yard and my apple tree over yours.  At harvest, the apples fall, but there's no sorting out.  Enough apples for all, even too many to eat.  So apple jam is made for either plain bread or toast.


    Here a post, there a comment, this:


    The Man's Throwing Rocks


    the baby doesn’t cry but remains intent
    watching the dog jumping in the puddle
    *splash* *splash*
    baby thinks: *puddle poodle* and laughs.
    the dog splashing in the puddle is not amused
    as he has been avoiding rocks showering down
    from over the fence all day long.
    dog thinks: *rocks suck,
    but its not the rocks’ fault*
    dog grinds teeth
    savoring the moment
    knowing
    that bone
    is a rock
    that bites.

  • New Deck

    What are the chances
    Of four queens in one hand?
    Are wildcards involved?

    Two jokers snuck in
    Now the odds of all have changed.
    Lady luck does suck.

    The players don't play
    Since none of them show their hands.
    All is done--just fold.

  • Equipment Overload

    My *government* day job just hung another piece of equipment on my belt. This one's a Motorola Timeport "personal interactive communicator" that integrates paging and email with an auto-generating ticketing system called "Heat". This addition, while providing interaction with the autogenerated tickets, also gives me the ability to easily send (and receive) email to any web address at an instant. And since I keep it 24x7 and have no current restrictions while beta-testing it, that's awesome.

    But my pants are getting heavy! The Timeport is on the left side, my own Sprint phone on the right, the company Nextel phone goes in my right pocket, and my old pager (to be replaced soon, hopefully, by the Timeport) is in my left pocket. Also in constant accompaniment in case and shoulder strap is my laptop with its wireless web access….And there you have it: a technologically wannabe Batman impersonator, or the loopy Mr. Gadget. Someday I'm going to get caught in a thundering downpour and get shorted out, *poof* , I know it, I know it.

  • Sympathy Overload

    I've gotten 5 "collect call" attempts-which I've refused-at the office in the last two days from a girl who is obviously in trouble again. You see, every time she lands in jail she calls me to bail her out. I did that once a couple of years ago, in a moment of sympathy, and didn't get burnt. I also, from time to time, have sent her a few goodwill bundles of assistance such as allowable food and toiletries, especially around the holidays. I even visited her in jail twice because she cried of loneliness. But we weren't then and aren't now even friends. Yet every time she's picked up (drugs), she pretends like I'm her *only friend*-or worse yet-that she's my *jailed lover-to-be* . Can you imagine that? Well, I see it now for what it is: a blatant hustle, a calculated jostle directed against me and arising from her nasty desperation, and nothing more. Oh yes, *friend-lover* …until they open up the jail door. Then she could care less until things catch up with her again and she becomes, once more, my *penitentiary friend*. Not this time, babe. My affinity for such squalor has been dealt a mortal blow.

  • What the hell is a weed anyways?


    In the most general sense, a weed is any plant growing where it is unwanted. By this anthropocentric designation, even common lawn grass could be viewed as a weed, if it invades a garden or a flower spot. Similarly, corn might be considered a weed if it were found in a wheat crop, or a willow tree might be considered a weed if it were growing in a grove of apple trees.


    Most often, in a precise ecological sense, weeds are thought of as floral exotics (foreign plants) that have become acclimatized  among our native plants (many of which we now culturally misnomer as weeds). Many exotics are introduced intentionally by farmers and landscapers for their edible, medicinal, or ornamental qualities. Other exotics are sometimes introduced accidentally, often by means of incoming international ship ballast.


    So sweet corn is a weed to Indian corn, and ornamental bamboo is a weed in America wherever it grows, and since nothing is native to the turf of the internet, I guess we could all just be considered weeds stalking out of control!


     


    Hey! (Spring) Fever!

    It is the stirring up of pollen
    That the lawnmower men contrive.
    They won't let us have it any other way--
    How else could they survive?
    They're proposed as the solution
    (In quest of a problem?) And so
    Uniform, grass we grow.
    Yet lawnmower men
    Can get mowed down, too:
    I love my weedy knoll!

    --this, slightly revised, as a comment left on a post of Wildheart.



    btw, Agrochick78 reminded me in her comment about her feelings for weeds. What she was referring to was her gorgeously weedy back yard, here depicted in a borrowed (copped, lifted, cropped?) pic. What a weed-lover she is!

  •  I did manage to set some time aside to run at daybreak.  So splendidly crystal was the frozen air that tore at my lungs.  So yearning to break free my legs from gravity.  Running east and squinting into the rising sun, I felt like a cheetah chasing an antelope down.

     I did manage to set some time aside today to somewhat update my students’ website.  I’ve got to make this a higher priority! 


    I did manage to set some time aside today to delve back into literature.  I read an essay by D.H. Lawrence called The Death of Pan.  In it, Lawrence bemoans the intellectual simplifications imposed upon the world for reasons of economy and argues that the true hero is the common dweller who rebuffs the effort of the economized world to reduce him/her and the larger world away.  An excerpt:


          “This was the death of the great Pan.  The idea and the engine came between man and all things, like a death.  The old connexion, the old Allness, was severed, and can never be ideally restored.  Great Pan is dead.


          Yet what do we live for, except to live?  Man has lived to conquer the phenomenal universe.  To a great extent he has succeeded.  With all the mechanism of the human world, man is to a great extent master of all life, and of most phenomena.


          And what then?  Once you have conquered a thing, you have lost it.  its real relation to you collapses.


          A conquered world is no good to man.  He sits stupefied with boredom upon his conquest.


          We need the universe to live again, so that we can live with it.  A conquered universe, a dead Pan, leaves us nothing to live with.


          You have to abandon the conquest, before Pan will live again.  You have to live to live, not to conquer.  What’s the good of conquering even the North Pole, if after the conquest you’ve nothing left but an inert fact.  Better leave it a mystery.


          It was better to be a hunter in the woods of Pan, than it is to be a clerk in a city store.  The hunter hungered, laboured, suffered tortures of fatigue.  But at least he lived in a ceaseless living relation to his surrounding universe.”


    Can the “engine” bring man back into “a ceaseless living relation to his surrounding universe?”  Is this the horizon-promise of the internet, the soon-to-be world wireless web?  And what of Xanga and the relation it has helped forge between you and me?  Does the art of Alice, Deevaa, Spiritfoxy…and many others, the trench-digging matched by stratospheric soarings of James, the wonderments about existence as shared by Jewels, Byron, Prometheus, Agrochick78…and many, many others…confer a greater understanding and appreciation of the world around?  I do believe so, to some degree, at times.


     Meanwhile…


    With time stolen back,
    I’m a knave of the moment.
    No handcuffs grip now.


  •  


     You have noticed that everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round.  In the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation and so long as the hoop was unbroken the people flourished.  The flowering tree was the living center of the hoop, and the circle of the four quarters nourished it.  The east gave peace and light, the south gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the north with its cold and mighty wind gave strength and endurance.  This knowledge came to us from the outer world with our religion.  Everything the Power of the World does is done in  a circle.  The Sky is round and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball and so are all the stars.  The Wind, in its greatest power, whirls.  Birds make their nests in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours.  The sun comes forth and goes down again in a circle.  The moon does the same, and both are round.


     Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were.  The life of man is a circle from childhood to childhood and so it is in everything where power moves.  Our tipis were round like the nests of birds and these were always set in a circle, the nation’s hoop, a nest of many nests where the Great Spirit meant for us to hatch our children.


          —Black Elk,  Oglala Sioux spiritual leader.  Present both at the Battle of Little Big Horn and later at the court of Queen Victoria where he danced for her.

  • I need to set some time aside for reading more,  not things technical nor pedantic, but literary and enlivening.

    I need to set some time aside for getting up early enough in the morning to run and watch the sunrise.


    I need to set some time aside for updating the web sites I maintain for my students.


    I need to set some time aside for personal body work, working out, and toning things up.


    I need to set some time aside for collecting money due for work long done.


    I need to set some time aside for fixing things up around the house—something I’m professional at yet often abhor the most.


    I need to set some time aside for getting my truck cleaned and repaired—the insurance has cut a check for some body work repair and I’ve had it for over a month.


    I need to set some time aside for setting things aside.


    I need to revamp my whole notion of “doing” and what’s left on a list “undone”.


    Warning


    I’m about to steal
    Time back from everything.
    Soon to be all mine.


     

  •  

    Psyche


    This craving to think
    Obscures the vision I see:
    The pearl glistening.

  •  

    Start


    At no loss for words,
    Now just waiting for feelings.
    A stirring within.

  •  

    Form 


    A parade of new words
    Chasing this glimpse of the heart:
    Life thus reinvents.

  •  

    Still


    Moments unmoving
    As total silence ensues.
    My heart doesn't beat.

  •  

    Games


    There are no monkeys
    In the monkeyball tree now.
    So what sport remains?

  •  

    Ready and Not


    The door before me
    Appears as my way back in.
    Or you're coming out.

  •  

    Standing Inside 


    I knock on the door,
    Awaiting entrance divine.
    I'm already inside.

  •  

    Gulp


    She bares the first breast.
    A smile appears on her face.
    I swallow too hard.

  •  

    Closure 


    The glow from the sky
    At the finish of this day
    Draws me out of time.

  •  

    Days Gone


    The barn has no horse.
    Only mice scamper about
    Looking for sugar.

  •  

    Lost Again


    This table with chairs
    At which I’m sitting alone
    Cries out for a friend.

  •  

    The Gauntlet 


    The phantoms disperse
    On this cemetery run.
    My feet pound the earth.

  •  

    Tender Trouble 


    I’m too much in love.
    And of no help to the one
    The love stirs inside.

  •  

    Writer’s Party


    If words were my friends,
    We’d be all sipping our tea.
    And talking of words.

  •  

    At a Table


    She ate all alone.
    I offered words for dessert.
    We nibbled as two.

  •  

    Decisions


    Good, cheap, and speedy:
    I wanted everything thus.
    But had to chose two.

  •  

    Pharaoh’s Perch 


    Pyramid above,
    Black bird sits on the apex.
    I’m subsumed below.

  •  

    Departure 


    Moved by what dreams seem,
    I walk through all the portals
    Never to return.

  • A casual tour of Xanga led me to realize the sudden disappearance of a stalwart regular over the past month and a half: please tell me that CasualObserver has not just gone *poof* ! Since Jan. 28th, every day she has had a Question of the Day that proved quite popular as featured content. But since last Saturday-no Questions, no posts! I've written her today, but as yet, no reply. Hopefully, all's OK. Maybe, just maybe, she and people like her are realizing that Xanga is really an alien abduction mechanism and they are rediscovering their freedom and the way back home. But surely not! After all, what other home do internet babes and dudes got? Well, StandsWithaFist has a really fine answer to that!

  • This test is so realistic it is scary! It amazes me how these things really work! How do they do it?? The following test was developed by a combination of top U.S. and European psychologists. The results are extremely accurate in describing your personality with one simple question.

    Which is your favorite Teletubbie:

    A. Yellow B. Purple C. Green D. Red
    (scroll down for psychological profile)
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    A. If you chose the Yellow Teletubbie, you are gay.
    B. If you chose the Purple Teletubbie, you are gay.
    C. If you chose the Green Teletubbie, you are gay.
    D. If you chose the Red Teletubbie, you are gay.

    If you chose!

  • Last night while chatting with Agrochick78, she called me a "geek" who "hovers" about Xanga "too much!"  How would she know unless she were here to share the geekiness? Anyways, her astute observation led me to spontaneously generate a XANGA acronym: eX Addicts Needing to Geek Again. Damn, she could be right?   Naw!   But now I'm obsessed with finding just the precisely right long-form for the XANGA ellipsis! Hrmm… -- Xenodiagnosis Against Nuptially Gargantuan Activities -- That's....not it…not quite ;(   Now I'm MADD (Musing About Dumb Ditties) as HELL (Hearing Endless Loving Laughter). Stop me. Someone, please!

    btw, xenodiagnosis, n [NL] : the detection of a parasite (as of man) by feeding a suitable intermediate host (as an insect) on supposedly infected material (as blood) and later examining it for the parasite.  *yuck* or *yum* ?

  • There is a cemetery in Panama that I much miss.  Corozal Cemetery.  As some self-imagined warrior in Panama, I’d almost daily—in late afternoon or early evening—run the gauntlet amongst the dead in Corozal Cemetery. 

    It is an interesting cemetery carved out of jungle, encompassing numerous rolling hills, and interconnected by a series of looping, curving walkways and roads.  Everywhere there is beauty in this cemetery.  For instance, there are many expressions of tropical flowers like the architecturally curious Bird of Paradise; the Flame of Wood (ixora) with its clusters of pointed-petaled flowers in red, yellow, pink and white; the hibiscus which stay open all day and close in the evening; the lantana which come in two colors and change colors as they mature.  There are also numerous ornamental shrubs and plants and trees such as banana, mangoes, coconuts, banyans, and palms spread all about.  There are countless species of birds such as giant parrots,  tanagers, warblers, and quetzals easily spotted in the trees.  And occasionally even more exotic jungle life such as monkeys, snakes, bats, and iguanas can be witnessed maneuvering about.


     So though I would run amidst the dead, I took in all of this life!  In fact, though the density and diversity of living biomass is less in the cemetery than in the proximate jungle, the ability to quickly tour and appreciate the exotic native magnificence of the biota—as a sampling—is much enhanced simply because so much of the obscuring jungle is beaten back.  So less is more: as the cemetery always abounds with discoverable life!  


    So, too, does Xanga seem to me a cemetery spawning with life.  So much life, in fact, always thrust so forward with vitality, it would seem, that the moribund is practically unnoticeable.  The Featured Content, The Recently Updated, and The Newly Created all attest to teeming activity.  And, of course, to these realms we most often turn our attention.  But just as with Corozal Cemetery when  running I would ,from time to time, postpone notice of the luxuriantly living to ponder the out-of-sight dead, so, too, in Xangaland, I am inclined occasionally to pay my respects to the apparently moribund.  This would be easy to do if there were virtual grave markers strewn about or if there was a feature called *The Least Recently Updated*, but the Xangods apparently loathe all that wanes and declines and so have made all such very obliquely noticeable at best.


     Nonetheless, I have dug some old once familiar faces up!  Grave robber, do you say?  Nay—I merely pay my respects (besides, they may be back!) :


     ***


    Josiepoo last updated on  Sunday, January 14, 2001 


     I want to play with everything that glows.


    —I only hope she didn’t get a bar of plutonium for Xmas—


    ***


    EarthAngel last updated on  Monday, January 01, 2001


                                Smoking


    Before I go to bed I have to keep track of how many cigs this fool smoked  today....10......ten to much....I will keep posting every day..to keep you informed on my quitting business...This fool is not going to be a fool anymore!


     —Let’s hope not being a fool only consisted in leaving Xanga—



    ***


    multithought last updated on Friday, January 19, 2001


     ATTENTION.........TO ALL.........


    My problems with my "dirty" computer insides have been taken care of....No more dust inside my CPU.....No more dust inside my power supply.........
    Ready to rock and roll again.......So.......I am going to go to sleep tonight and think of something good to write and then with the dawn of a new day, I will be back to get setting some very unique thoughts to screen......



     —Thoughts perhaps so unique that they can’t even be seen.  …Or you wonder what other of the computer’s insides were sucked out!—


    ***


    In any case,  here are statistics about what’s current and what’s not:


    Out of an estimated 2,872 members, 1,225 were “active” posters in the past two weeks, 1,647 have not been “active” posters over the past two weeks, and 1,292 of these haven’t posted since February 1st.   By the way, the number of “active” posters in the past week is double ( 1100 compared to avg. 550) what it had been the previous two weeks: welcome Anglefire inductees!

  • Will Xanga survive the web technology retrenching that’s presaged by the recent steep decline in the valuations of computer technology and internet company stocks?

    Maybe I should work on a portable Xanga obituary postable in short notice.  Create a central directory of member’s email addresses for purposes of post-hosting access. Scour old postings for the “best of Xanga” to be copied, later compiled, and reposted on an another domain.


    Maybe not.


    How about: Hell no!


    How about: Stop your damn pessimistic whimpering and make the most of the current opportunities available to you.  Seize the damn day.  If there’s something that you know, write and, if possible, publish.  If you can’t publish, write anyway. 


    Damn, when Naptster dissolves, does the music die?  If all the napsters are muzzled, does life become unmelodic?  No!  No!   (Though those who worship and/or wield mythic economic forces as the soul of culture have orgasms fantasizing so.)  So if Xanga unxangs, just find another home. 


    Blog, Blog on the Range
    Where the writers and artists will play…
    Where forever is heard
    Things both bright and absurd,
    And it’s just another internet day.


    *Okay*


    … so now taking bids on my Xanga ID and password.  Bidding starts at two eProps.  Anonymity of exchange insured.

  •  My friend –Laura- (lcsaph) hasn’t published much in a while.  Weeding through my Sites I Read list, I almost removed her for her lack of activity—yikes!  But I was aware that there are technical and other circumstances hampering her time online, so I decided to get in touch personally. And yesterday we got together for some tea at a Border’s bookstore and engaged in lively, talkative conviviality.  My God she had so much to say!  I think I just sat there most of the time simply nodding and listening.  No-that’s not fair-it was a conversation, a topic-hopping romp-about with slices of Xanga tossed in but in no way dominating our parlor chat.   And in parting cheerily, we mutually suggested an indefinitely-timed future get-together again *soon*.  We truly had a great time of it!  Yet now that I reflect, I must admit a regret:  the immediacy of having a friend with whom I could share a cup of tea was irreplaceably sublime, yet what was missing—and, strangely, perfectly unavailable—was the more profound intimacy I had developed with her—mainly through email—over the internet.  Or perhaps it wasn’t the internet at all—but just letters.  Letters, yes!  That was it!  I am one who can bear his soul fully in a letter, or a blog, or a poem.  And often engender a likewise treasured, sometimes more profound, response.  But in person, am I forced to admit: life clings for me almost in forfeit to the surface and outcomes are always…by necessity otherwise?  My God, is that what I must admit about myself?  That I am a virtual Cyrano de Bergerac?

    I can only wish!


    For you see…


    Cyrano was a French soldier, satirist, and dramatist, whose life has been the basis of many romantic but unhistorical legends. The best-known of them is Edmond Rostand's verse drama Cyrano de Bergerac (1897). It describes adventures of the 17th century nobleman, famous for his large nose and swordsmanship.  Cyrano loves desperately the beautiful Roxane, but agrees to help his rival, Christian, win her heart. The historians have pointed out that Rostand's portrayal of the hero was not truthful - Cyrano was a serious writer of philosophical romances and a virile lover. Bergerac also wrote about space travel.  According to Arthur C. Clarke, he was the first writer to use the rocket for interplanetary expeditions.  He also invented in his fiction the 'dew power' - arguing that when the sun sucked up the dew in the  morning, it would be enough to carry him up with it.


    Real Cyrano de Bergerac had very little in common with the hero of the Rostand play. He was born in Paris, and educated by a priest in the village of Bergerac. Later he was sent to the Collège de Beauvais. After acquiring fame as a dueller and Bohemian, he enlisted in the army at the age of 20. He was severely wounded twice, once at a fight with Gascon Guard, and the second time at the siege of Arras in 1640. There he was hit in the neck with a sword and he never fully recovered from the wound.  In the following year he gave up his military career and started to study under the philosopher and mathematician Pierre Gassendi. Influenced by Gassendi's theories and libertine philosophy, he wrote stories of imaginary journeys to the Moon and Sun, and satirized views, which saw humanity and the Earth as the center of creation.


    Yes!  Cyrano I want to be!  A writer, a lover, a master of satire!

  • I've just remotely witnessed the creation of notfordisciple1...2...and 3....wtf?

    God knows if any more are propagating....

    This makes me feel like Socrates: what do you offer--hemlock or exile?

    Either this is a form of consuming worship...imitation as the height of respect...

    ...or someone, a la Bianca_bianca, is about to overindulge me with an eProp attack.

    smothered by attention i've never been
    i could just die
    is that a sin?

    Take care, however. If I lead and you decide to follow, through hell you must go. Ulysses and his Odyssey was but my only childhood mentor/companion and like Dante, the next stop is the river Styx.

  • like a benign yet mounting alien invasion
    last night I sat with a cup of coffee
    and watched the astonishing influx
    of the second wave—the Angelfire arrivees!

    The thrill I got in greeting them
    was akin to watching the birthing of a baby
    or partaking man first landing on the moon
    I sat there nothing to them…
    yet they were a spectacle to me!

    so now a melting pot have we:
    Xanga like the promise of early America
    avails itself of all who journey forth
    as Bianca, our statue of liberty
    waves her torch!

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