There is so much of a highly personal nature going on in my life right now that I'm at a loss to speak of it.

Meanwhile...Xanga, in the news:

NEW YORK & HONG KONG & SAN DIEGO - (Business Wire) Xanga, the most visited social network in Hong Kong^a, and CSL, the largest Hong Kong mobile operator, announced today (Feb 21) that they have launched Xanga Mobile to CSL customers through Intercasting’s award-winning ANTHEM™ platform. For the first time in Hong Kong, CSL customers will have direct access to Xanga through a dedicated mobile application.

The Xanga Mobile on-phone application allows CSL customers to keep in touch with friends, upload pictures directly with their handset’s camera, post to their Xanga Weblog and more under one easy-to-use interface, with all screen pages optimized for mobile use. CSL is offering one-month free Xanga Mobile service to its customers upon subscription. The monthly service fee is HK$20, which is inclusive of all data charges. The service is supported by selected handsets and CSL will also pre-install the application software on its popular handsets to make Xanga Mobile available right out of the box.

In addition, the messaging features of Xanga’s website will be fully connected to CSL’s network through text and multimedia messaging soon.

“CSL is dedicated to providing exciting mobile entertainment to our trend-setting customers,” said Christina Teo, Chief Marketing Officer at CSL. “We are delighted to become Hong Kong’s first mobile operator to launch Xanga Mobile. The advanced Xanga Mobile application is ideal for bringing the online social network to handsets.”

"Our Hong Kong users blog and network like crazy on Xanga's website. Now they can use their cellphones and Xanga Mobile to blog and keep in touch, from anywhere on the CSL mobile network,” said John Hiler, Chief Executive Officer of Xanga.

Suffering overloads and there seems to be no escape.  How soon before madness entirely overwhelms?    I talk to myself almost constantly anymore.  And even I often don't pay myself the courtesy of listening to me.

'Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh.' (t.s.)

To get lost in a book, a book, a book.  To get lost in a book that never closes and never ends. 

Keep on writing.  Don't stop writing.  May punctuation be your compost and your words push forth like 'flowers floating out of the ground.' (e.e.)

It turned out one day many years into the Xanga adventure that eProps were no longer enough.  So on that day Xanga created Stars. (Think: the Book of Genesis.)  Soon, however, Stars will not be enough.  So what's next?  Half-moons?  Green clovers?  

Xanga should create a XangaCereal with toasted eProps, sweet caramel Stars, Mini marshmallows and TRUE honey badges.   mmm.   delicious.  You could eat XangaCereal all day long as you serially comment on one post to the next.

***

The Universal Inbox is interesting in that you can sometimes anticipate a subscription post in-the-making by observing that a particular person has posted pictures first. Often, shortly, thereafter, the post follows.  Could you imagine any way to use that intelligence to your own benefit?  Or the the poster's detriment?  Or the poster's benefit?!

***

Xanga is also using the Universal Inbox (UI, or XangUI) to advertise sponsors.  That Xanga survey thingy is periodically popping up amidst all the other subscription-driven and comment-driven alerts with a time-stamp of "sponsored" next to it.  One selling point of Xanga LIFE subscriptions was to dispense with the advertising.  Well, they found a way to re-introduce it to us LIFE-ers.  One sponsored ad once in a while is tolerable, I suppose.  But if they become too frequent,  I will ask Xanga to rename the UI the Sponsored Inbox.

***

No, there are no illegal aliens in America's Xanga.  Yeah, some Americans probably think of it as 'theirs' because its offices are here in New York.  But, if anything, we and other English-speakers are being quietly assimilated and may soon be tolerated as the 'oddities-out.'.   Someday Xanga will be so inundated with Chinese blogs in Chinese script that Xanga will need to provide an "English-only" filter just to create an illusion for us English-speakers of continuing familiarity. Don't believe me?  Look at the recently posted sometime: Chinese character blogs often exceed English blogs in number. (I just looked and 8 of 10 were in Chinese script.)   It's just a matter of Xangatime before they assume their rightfully dominant totally Featured position.  (statistics are from Alexa.com)

***

From Xanga's Search...Thank you very much, my numerous adulants:

So much for things Xanga.  Though I do suspect this: if you use the word 'Xanga' enough in a post, inevitably members of the XangaTeam come a'visiting.  Time after time after time.  It makes me wonder if there isn't a threhold trigger use of the word Xanga that puts one on their "Check-It-Out" list.

This could be my last post.

Then again, it could just be the next post.

What it is not, is beatifically (beat, as in beatnik) inspired poetry.

My Muses have entirely abandoned me.  I haven't  written of an inspired grasp of the eternally promoting feminine live-in-the-moment since the last time I lived in the moment.  And it's been so long that I could easily imagine that I've forgotten when that was.  I am so Muse-bereft that I'm starting to think that the Sirens ( I now hear them ever-vescently) of many past odysseys are hot and sure and rapturous Muse-type hookers that could poetry-start me for the puny phallic cost of my eternally-dedicated rapture unto them.  Rapture.  Lose control.  Yeah, go ahead baby, blare your Sirens and flash your best e.e.cummings' emergency lights all the way to the horizon limits of your inescapable all-consuming undiscriminating pitch (, pitch black)holes. 

I am like unto a heat-seeking missile cast into the absolute-zero vacuum of a pointilistically-brilliant yet beyond-humanly-imaginable someday Golden Eternity.  At least, I have left here-and-there-abouts here - and somewhat there about.

Saint Valentine is the name of several martyred saints of ancient Rome.

(Perhaps, wrong name at the wrong time?!)

I am not a Roman.

Although not a teenager, I don't consider myself ancient.

I am certainly not (and never will be) a saint.

And I am trying to avoid being martyred at great cost.

Damn it, isn't there a better role model to emulate today?

According to Xanga :

badges are given to the best of Xanga...Only our best users are being chosen and you can only get it if you're a hardcore Xanga user."

My Conspiracy Charge (where I play both prosecutor and judge):

Right.  Do you buy that?  Many getting the TRUE badge are surprised and skeptical (though most pleasantly) of this claim.

I'd rather have you think about the business end of this.  Xanga Gear is new!  True Badges are new!  Coincidence?   No.  They go hand-in-hand.  Truth be told: True Badges are little scratch-n-sniff enticements to get xangans to layout bucks for the real Xanga Badge available exclusively on Xanga Gear.  I can almost hear it now: "You got the Badge, now get the Gear!"

 ...and "Hardcore Xanga users wear Xanga Gear!"

Having ultra-subliminal hearing is a mixed blessing.   I don't like to diss Xanga at all.  But I feel that those who didn't get the TRUE Badge and feel slighted about it should understand the TRUE marketing that's involved with this seemingly elitist gesture.

Personally, I earned a chestful of medals while a sergeant in the military.  I got badged-out, so to speak. Finally got tired of medals/badges and left the military.  And no graphic badge awarded now as a marketing ploy is going to make a difference to me one way or the other.   

john, Xanga CEO, in Xanga's defense (in comments):

steve, i'm going to be open with you. i think we've sold two shirts total. gear isn't a high priority for us. it's something we added because people asked for it, and it was pretty easy to do. if you'd like to prove me wrong and buy a shirt, you can increase our gear sales by 50%.

regarding the rank thing: it's true, we have created a badge. but unlike the LIFE badges (which have been very popular), you can't buy these... you can only earn them by using the site. i'll be posting about true soon - i want to change some wording on that help page about them first tho.

I, as judge, deliberate and come back with a verdict:

*takes pity on the poor xanga gear sales report*  ok john, i didn't know how bad things were.   i'll let you work out the LIFE Badge PR thing without any more criticism from these corners.  i'm satisfied with your answer and moving on.  hopefully this post will popularize your gear and lead to more sales.  *slams gavel*   case dismissed.

I, as prosecutor, mumble my disappointment as the court clears:

i can't believe what a wuss that judge is.  he must be tight with the defendant.

I leave you with the most famous badge quote of all:

"Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don't need badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabron and ching' tu madre! Come out there from that shit-hole of yours. I have to speak to you."

-B. Traven's "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre"

Once upon a time in xangaland when the firmament was first coalescing (late 2000 and on into part of 2001), you could read and comment on every xangan's post(s) every day.  It took about a half hour to do so.  Such was the territory of xangaville.  Because it was all so new to everyone, it was captivating.  Because of its worldwide embracing scope, it was demographically exciting.  Because of its still manageable small scale, it was entirely conquerable and knowable.  Everyone could  know everyone.  And many did.  And there were a lot of 'firsts', too.  You could be the first to say, or do, or use your blog in a never-before-used way simply because practically nothing had been tried before.  So I became the first to embed a live webcam in my blog - which then soon became a live mobile webcam where I traveled about and solicited comments while yet in my car or, on a few occasions, in Dreamland cemetery.  It was xangadelic.  And I was the first, also, to embed a xanga group chat on my site -  it served to bring quite a few early xangans together into the first "realtime" group contact with one another.  Bigtime xangapartytime.

Reminiscing.   What memories have you of the way "things used to be" in xangaville that are now everlost in this xangacosmos system?