Palm bruised, knuckles bruised.  The downtown buildings I've been pounding on my walk to work lately have been taking a beating.  Screw the infrastructure. My hands need love.  Need to touch, hold, caress more than marble, granite, thongless statuettes. 

Female magma.  I yearn for her eruption.  That earth-shakin' where I trembling fall, for dear life grip core, and succumb to warm tongues of moltenness lapping, lapping, lapping...

Do you disapprove of the Buddha now hewn out of stone with a persisting smirk of cryptic bliss?   Her moltenness frozen forever upon his lips?  I feel like I've already committed myself to the fallout of that same everlasting impress.  Let's just call it a kiss.  Ravaged by a phreatic tongue breaching a metaphor of lips and rendering crystalline teeth willingly defenseless.

This has to be the easiet photoshare album to setup and use.  Entirely ajax, for those of you hookd-up with the latest trendy techphrases.

TechCrunch describes it so: "Toronto-based online photo sharing BubbleShare is just wonderful, and ridiculously easy to use. Their interface team deserves a gold star or something, because I don’t think I’ve ever used a site’s full functionality without consulting a single FAQ or other instruction."

Sexiest features:

• 
  
  click on any photo and get a 3X Digital BubbleZoom tool to inspect the photo; most of my pics are not high res so this tool's advantages are not that well-demo'd with my pics
  
  
• 
  
  add audio captions (up to 30 secs.) to each pic; I haven't tried this yet for lack of a mic hookup at hand.
  
  
• 
  
  add a slideshow to your blog; exactly what you see above - it's much too easy: even a caveman could do it.

"Who thought that a bunch of Asian kids in the southwest US could bootstrap a phenomenon and cause Xanga to get big?"
  - What Went Wrong

John, Bob, and crew - are just "a bunch of Asian kids".  ha.

"People thought Blogger was hot, until Xanga came from nowhere, and then Spaces blew past it in a few months. Today it's all about MySpace and YouTube."
  - What Went Wrong

But could it be 'all about' Xanga again?  Not likely unless Xanga radically innovates.

"People hang out at a physical place, because it's the place they expect to find the people they want to hang with. Same with social spaces. And when a particular hangout gets old, that's all there is to it. You can try your best to make your space "sticky", to reward loyalty, but the other space is working just as hard to make it easy for people to transfer. If you track hot restaurants or party spots in any city, you already know this. It's a terrible idea to think that a hot place will always be hot, that it's hot because of some specific strategy that you can own, or that you can sink even more money into it to make it hotter."
  - What Went Wrong

'notforprophet' used to be stickier.  Way stickier.   But so was 'fairestc' and 'Lyssa' (the first to popularly do 'TheTheologiansCafe' kind-of question thingie) and "VeryModern' and 'James', etc.  Never heard of them?  Or never hear much anymore?  That's because . . .

being popular on Xanga, as typified by making it to the top of Featured Content, is a predictably fickle and passing thing.  I'm about 99.99% confident that everybody  hitting consistently at one of the 'top 10' spots on Featured Content now  won't be there two years from now.  Even if they are still around.  Even if their content has gotten better.  It's the law of Blog Humble:  An online social network like Xanga absolutely requires ever-shifting faces in popularity.   Or it itself will die (sooner than later).  Queen for a Day.  Yep, all you FC brighties today ain't nothing more than Queens for a Day.  Step up, get popular, and shine, shine, shine.  Then prepare yourself, if you stick around, to return to the pack. 

True story.   Almost seems like yesterday . . .

On the way home, I decided to stop at a bar and just socialize a bit.   I was sitting awhile by myself when some woman comes running up, grabs a bar stool and scoots intimately up next to me, and then starts pouring out her tale of distress about some guy on the other side of the bar (not visible from where I was sitting) claiming to be a cop and harassing her, sexual intimidation, improper touching, etc.  I think Jesus, is this woman for real?   I ask her what’s this *cop* look like? and she says he’s young, has black hair with a black mustache.  And she’s says that he’s also bothering three other young girls sitting over there near him.  So I say OK, I am going to have a look, and she says NO, NO, don’t confront him,  but I say I am only going to check it out cause there is nothing worse than a renegade cop.  So I get up and casually wander to the front of the bar and gaze over in the direction where she says he is sitting and, sure enough, there is some stocky guy matching her description at the corner of the bar watching me.  So I figure OK, that’s him, wander back to my beer, and she says did you see him? And I confirm, but just then one of the three other young girls walks by on her way to the restroom and this distressed woman who sat down next to me starts asking her Did he grope you? and the young cute one says Yeah but assures her that I've already told the bartender.  So now I’m kinda really upset so I say I’m going to wander around and the woman says NO, NO,  but I do not share her timidity so I get up and sure enough there is the stocky *cop* guy just standing there talking to some other girl and I walk up and say HEY DUDE HOW’s LIFE?! and he is kinda taken aback and I say YOU KNOW WHAT’s COOL—JUST GETTING TO KNOW AND RESPECT PEOPLE.  And he asks BUT WHY ME?  OUT OF EVERYBODY IN THE BAR, WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME?  and I say that Well, I got to start somewhere and then I start talking to the girl he was talking to and he again asks HEY DUDE, WHY ME? And I say because I want to meet everybody in the bar and so then I start talking to the next guy down the bar, an old guy who turned out to be a 2nd World War vet shot down 5 times on missions, but I am keeping my eye on this other stocky *cop* guy who has now moved away from the bar and taken a seat with some buddy in a booth.  So I spend some time talking to the old vet and then notice that the guy on down next to him also has black hair and a mustache.  And I’m thinking—hell—this is probably the real *cop* guy maybe and not that other stocky *cop* guy who really looks more like a *mafia* guy.  So at that point, not knowing what I might have gotten into, I start telling real loud courageous death-taunting and death-defying  Col. North Contra stories to the old vet and I’m acting like Rambo hoping to be able to fight like Steven Segal if the situation gets critical.  So this other more potential *cop* guy whom I haven’t spoken to yet, turns to me and asks me What are ya drinking? cause he wants to buy me a drink cause he really likes the dark, blood-curdling jungle stories I’m telling.  So I take a beer and then ask him What the hell do YOU do? and he says YOU KNOW. and I say No, I don’t—what do you do? and he repeats YOU KNOW. and points to an emblem emblazoned on his jacket declaring CLEVELAND POLICE.  But, on closer inspection, I notice this guy is fat and wasted and the old vet says hey, his name is Tony and he’s allright, he’s not a bad guy. And so somewhat emboldened I turn back to this tony-cop and check out his tee-shirt under his jacket which has the three little pigs on it and I start laughing and pull back his jacket and, pointing at his tee,  I’m laughing, saying I wonder what the hell this means?!! and I ask the vet what he thinks the pigs symbolize and he says Oh, I don't know. So I turn back to tony-cop and say Hey, tony what year  did you graduate the Police Academy because my brother was the bitch-ass instructor who probably made your life hell, so what year  tony? And he replies 34. and I say What?  And he repeats 34. like in 1934.  And then I’m sure this guy is just so pitiful, just a sham, and now so drunk as to be almost harmless and nobody else seems to be too upset about him and the old vet says Tony’s ok—he doesn’t mean any harm.  So I don’t kick his ass no way but just wander away and back to where I left the nearly hysterical distressed molested woman, but she’s gone.  Gone!  So I just sit down feeling like an under-challenged samurai and finish the beer I left there a half hour earlier.  

I just added an item to Wikipedia's 'Xanga' article:

February 23, 2006, a teen is arrested for manufacturing and distributing child pornography on his Xanga blog. The pornography consisted of two classmates having sex who were unwittingly photographed by the alleged perp. One of the classmates having sex (the girl) attempted to commit suicide as a result of this exposure. [5].

I suppose someday that Xanga will be used in conjunction with a mass murder spree.  You know, the mass murderer murders methodically and then creates a series of Xanga blogs (from ever-changing free-access internet cafes) to tease-divulge details of his madness to the authorities.

Will such use make Xanga "more evil"?  Will such use make free-access internet cafes "more evil"?

Actually, Xanga is so huge and anonymous and easily accessed that I expect that talkative pervs and perps are already freely "confessing" their transgressions here.  Maybe someday the notorious "Xanga murders" will be the mad-act retaliation of a jaded "Death Wish" vigilante hunting down these pervs and perps with the intent of cleaning up the blogs.

~ notforprophet, with favorite blog-scrubbing tool ~

It would be nice to have it all.  But who can have it all?  Who can sail through life never needing to face a hard choice between a ‘precious this’ and an ‘enticing that’?  Or a ‘nearly intolerable this’ and an ‘almost devastating that’?

 Every opportunity has its cost, the cost being the sum of everything else that one must forego in embracing that opportunity.

I’m at a point in life where a comfort-pleasure-indulgence nexus has collided with a fitness-strength-awareness nexus.  I’ve been trying to span both, embrace all, and have ended up self-wounded, empty-handed, and with no one to blame but myself.

Time to make a choice.   I ponder advice I first encountered while a teenager studying the Chinese classics (which was part of a journey that included studying Mandarin Chinese and calligraphy also):

So now that Iraq is on the verge of a civil war, what's the alternative?

Well, to re-unite, of course!  But re-uniting is easier when you share a common foe, in addition to having some latent affinity for each other.

So, there's hope for a united Iraq.  The Sunnis and Shias are re-uniting in Kut, after all.    According to CNN:

A similar scene played out in Kut, also in the south, where tens of thousands of Sunnis and Shias joined together Thursday, carrying the Iraqi flag and finding a common foe -- they chanted "No to America!"

On the other hand, if they want to unite against us, I say fuck them.  Just let them go at each other.

"Hi notforprophet! It's been 253,059 (wow, that's a big number) seconds (and growing) since your last Xanga post... won't you post something now and keep Xanga alive?"

No.  I don't think so.  But thanks for asking.

Must I be prolific, or does it suffice to say
that affection has once again turned into another shade of gray.

Although not a stats professor in grad school anymore, I recently helped a fellow-xangan via remote assistance with her grad stats homework and 'take-home' project-tests.  Yeah, she got an 'A'.  And that was a relief for me.  Although you may think otherwise, every stats prof has his/her own statistical idiosyncrasies, especially when it comes down to applying statistical creativity to a project.  And what may serve as an acceptable interpretation for one prof, may be another's statistical fallacy.  So 'we' got an 'A'. haha. (well, she earned  it; I just got exonerated.)

You know that song "Dust in the wind...all we are is dust in the wind..."?  (Kansas).  It's pure nonsense.  Chimes.  All we are are chimes in the wind.

These signs are popping up around my neighborhood.  What are they trying to say?  Is blogging a baby in the delivery room?

6 years ago, startups like Xanga and Blogger and LiveJournal delivered blogging to the masses, not at&t.  fuck at&t.

Remember 'the Ugliest Tree' in Dreamland (cemetery)?

It is no more...

The good 'ole Xanga blogchat returned tonight - twasn't announced, just tossed up.  It kicked ass.

wutuwaitn4 hosted this on his site along with me on mine.

chat stats:

started: 6:16 EST
ended: 8:38 EST

about 1,100 lines of chat.
about 5,200 words.

Participants (identifying themselves as xangans)

wuwu (wutuwaitn4) - host
notforprophet - host
angrylilgurl
BearHammer
just1morereason
emmalee1508
Richyard
Kachie
doreen
adifferentkindofbeautiful
elizabeth
Dramafree_Girl
fluffybubulz
i_Wan
mojaam
a_different_perspective
heavenlyeuphoria
silhouette
sayyadina
nanny
DeadSkinCells

(xangans, but with ad-hoc aliases not referencing their sites):

stalker:D

sexy

melmel

k0wala

Lavina

joey:D

kelcii

Samantha

james

michelle

lemonchicken

Megan

kRAzy

Alwaysnumber_2

Bethberry

naiva

coochie

rachael

 
Thanks to all who were a part of the fun.

If you couldn't make it, sorry you missed it.  Again.  Soon.

I still have the flu.  Thanks to all of you who re-imposed it upon me in the last post.

There is a creature who loves me.  Somewhere.  I catch glimpses of her occasionally.  When life unstealths.

Do you believe in an impersonal female energy complex?  I must since it eludes, deludes, precludes.  Me.

I'm low.  So very low that I know what it feels to slither like a snake.  meow.

snake scratch fever.

I was just wondering.

What if we lived in a world where you could only get rid of a cold or the flu by giving it to someone else?  Otherwise, it ain't going away.

What would you do?

And if you answer, like a wise guy, "Give it to someone else!", well, who would you give it to?

You know that Jumanji-thingie (what's that? Johari?), I mean the Johari-thingie that's going around?

Well, one thing that Xanga Search is useful for is tracking the escalation of such a fad.  So, say I search for the term "Johari".  Now, I'm not going to find all occasions of reference to this because some peeps don't mention the word "Johari" explicitly but have an implicit link to it, as in "Click here to begin your own".  But I should be able to get a rough idea of its temporal escalation by examing the results returned.  And here's what I found:

5 days ago: 1 reference
4 days ago: 16 references
3 days ago: 93 references
2 days ago: 142 references
1 day ago: 92 references
within the last 24 hours: 688 references

Definitely a growing trend, especially so in just the last day.

I actually think it's pretty cool and would sponsor my own except I find that it doesn't have suitable adjectives to describe my sense of self.  Now, if among the choices were:

intrepid , kick-ass,  fearless,  dogma-stomping, beer-drinking,  psychic

then I'd be happy to participate.

On the other hand, the Nohari-thingie (its darkside inversion) doesn't appear as popular but is starting to take hold, too:

5 days ago: 1 references
2 days ago: 14 references
1 day ago: 18 references
within the last 24 hours: 118 references

A standard description of both can be found on this post.

My question is:  If you describe yourself in 6 terms and somebody else describes you with exactly the same 6 terms, are you pwned ?!

...from 2002,  If this marked my inauguration as President, my term would now be up.

darkside valentine

more than a word, but less than a poem:
i don’t know what to say
I feel intimacy fleeting, losing its sway
suffocated with silence and non-response
or responses misunderstood
whatever was our friendship supposed to be?
to me that pattern's plain:
the talk, the openness,
the intimacy indulged (or overindulged?),
and then the fading away.
and never anyone’s to blame.
the pattern’s not with you
-(or the one before)-
it was a template born with me,
the cost of my psychic disposition.
my eyes get plucked out daily
as the charge for my read on humanity,
as the price of my seething in-touchfulness.
yet forever it seems am i born again anew,
in a morning of sunrises to see again
that the world has once more repeated itself
and i've lost another friend.

438 pages containing 668662 words for a total of 22290239 bytes.  Since Dec. 2000.  That's how my Atomz site search spider sees things here.  hrmm...each page is 5 posts...that makes about 2,190 posts.

Sean (aka the amazing xanga-coder seanmeister) is contemplating rolling out a new Xangaspace-Xangamap thingy.  You know, that colorful social networking conundrum stringything of inter-relational linkings.  Hurry and encourage him. 

I've had the flu for a week.  It is, without doubt, a high-trippin' mind-altering experience.  If the negative symptoms (congestion, aches, weakness) could be entirely suppressed, I think I'd prefer to live the rest of my life with a flu-like mindset.

New mummies.  Lost worlds.   Who says there are no mysteries left to explore.
    *Note: the above links are from HappyNews.com: "Look for some happy news for a change."

Self-Happenings

• I've just commisioned myself to write a collection of my own poetry.  I wrote a check to myself for $100,000 as an advance.  Damn, I'm feeling good about this.  Really feeling good about this.
  
• Got some kind of flu bug running through my system.  I hope it isn't the Bird Flu since I'm pretty sure I'm allergic to that.  The world is very colorful as a result of this onset.  Perspicaciousness rules.
  
• Prediction: I will lose 10 lbs. by June and cut 1 minute off of every mile that I run.
  
• I've been carefully editing and augmenting the Xanga entry on Wikipedia for the last couple of weeks.  Making it better and more accurate.  Seems like someone else added to it lately, too, and used several of my blog entries as source material for a discussion of Biancagate.  I'm kind of humbled that that someone considered me worthy of being an authority of things Xanga.

Recent Hook-ups

• Hooked-up with my buddy Paul, a home contractor, on SuperBowl Sunday and fixed his computer.
  
• Hooked-up with my friend and colleague, Mike, my co-author of 5 scientific papers, and had a lot of fun with words.
  
• Hooked-up for the first time with John by phone a week or so ago and talked of many things.  He referred to me as "the legendary nfp" - ha, that was a xangatrip.  He's one damn nice guy who really cares about Xanga as a community .

Trends

According to comScore Media Metrix, an Internet marketing company, Xanga's most advantageous market niche is with the 12-17 old demographic group.  It's growth in this niche (29% from Nov to Dec '05) is even greater than MySpace's (9% from Nov to Dec '05) although MySpace still had about 3X the number of visitors in this age range.

Among persons 18 to 24, MySpace grew at a strong 34 percent pace over the same period while Xanga's growth was 0% - static.  MySpace had about 5X more visitors in this age range for this period than did Xanga.

By the way, comScore Media Metrix considers Xanga both an SNS (Social Networking Site) and a Blog Host for purposes of its studies.  That is, it includes Xanga in SNS reports (along with MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, MyYearbook, and Facebook) and blog reports (along with blogspot, LiveJournal, typepad, AOL Journals, blogs, MSN Spaces, blogdrive, greatestjournals, and diaryland).  In other words, it is already considered a hybrid. 

Look for Xanga to do more in the SNS mode soon in order to yet better appeal to the now-burgeoning MySpace-Facebook crowd.

If a girl is writhing in a guy's arms and things are so seeming to be happening and she suddenly whipsers in his ear "You're in trouble.  You're SO in trouble," but she fails to elaborate further and returns to writhing...

What does she mean?  What does she really mean?

I'm undergoing a nervous break-up (opposite of a nervous breakdown) while dedicating myself to nurturing my Artificial Ignorance.

Artificial Ignorance is the process whereby you throw away all the clutter of information you've either acquired or encountered that you determine isn't either useful or interesting. If there's anything left after you've thrown away the stuff you've determined isn't useful or interesting, then the leftovers must be useful or interesting.

An application of this occurs when moving.  If you're moving and trying to decide what to take along and what to throw away, pick up or touch an object in question.  If within 5 seconds you remain uninspired with it (neutral - either way) and undecided about whether to keep or ditch it, ditch it and move on.  Act on your Un-Knowledge and be free!  ha.

Now here's a real problem for Muslims who take offense with images of Mohhamad

We all know that on the Internet that all things graphically rendered are rendered in pixels.  These words, those pictures: all pixels.  Pixels assembling.  Pixels associating.  Pixels being pixels.

Now imagine a web font whose letters are highly stylized, many of which characters pictographically represent various depictions of Mohhamad pretty damn well.  An 'O' face of the Prophet staring.  A 'G' profile of the Prophet smiling.  A 'Q' face of Prophet sticking his tongue out.  It's a clever font.  It's a novel font.  And someone ends up using this font on their blog to simply blog or even just to express love poetry, not with any intent to offend. 

Muslims worldwide take offense. 

Okay.  So now lets fuzzy-up that font a bit.  The stare, the smile, the tongue blur somewhat.  The font begins to appear less character-esque and more ornate.  Good enough?  Can I get back to writing poetry?

Still many Muslims protest that it defiles their restriction that no 'images' of the Prophet ever be displayed. 

Okay.  So in further deference to them,  lets fuzzy-up that font a bit more.   Is that a smile, is that a stare, is that a tongue, is that even Mohhamad anymore? 

Fuzzy on, fuzzy some more. 

At what precise point does that font cease to be a symbolic font that offends Muslims and merely becomes a medium for words once again? 

One Muslim says "That's enough."  Another says: "No, I can still see the Prophet in the letters." 

How far do we need to go?  Must we satisfy everyone?  What if we fuzz the font all the way back to the font you're looking at now and some radical-type Muslims still claim they see Mohhamad characterizations in it -  like some Christians see Mary's image on toast?  That would be ridiculous, of course.  But the question is at 'what point'  does the font cease to be Mohhamad-esque enough?  And whose  call is it? 

If 'out of respect' we self-censor in order not to offend, deferring always to what some Muslims consider offensive, someday we may find ourselves font-less. 

 "Sorry, mister, you can't eat that toast.  That's a rendering of Jesus on it."

a brilliant insight - and I challenge you to defy my logic 
(see post below for additional context)

If Islam doesn't permit any images of Mohhamad, how the hell can they judge who the radically-propelled 'controversial' cartoons represent in the first place?  It could be Alfred E. Neumann in a turban and they'd have to assume it was the Prophet only because we told them so.  

If they are taking offense to 'images of Mohammad' but have no available reference images of the Prophet, then Wesern artists are entirely free to create their own interpretation of the Prophet in the image of whatever they deign.  Thus the Prophet, like God, becomes in the image and likeness. (Or is it supposed to be the other way around?)

Or maybe, just maybe. there are taboo images  of Mohammad that all Muslims are thoroughly familiar with.   Maybe every Muslim really already knows what he looks (looked) like.  And the Western cartoons do, indeed,  look like the images they are unmistakably familiar with.  Hence they take recognitional offense.  Then my question to Muslims is: If images of Mohhamad are so strictly forbidden, does not your own implicit familiarity in recognizing such a likeness bespeak a betrayal beyond even infidel contempt?

The credible End of Islam?  Their religion and the capacity of their believers to believe is cartooned to oblivion with incessant 21st century satirically-generated images of Allah-knows-who.

An Opportunity To Judge For Yourself

If you haven't yet seen the 'Mohammad cartoons' and want to know what all the fury's about, you don't really have to see them - you just need to understand that any image of the Prophet is considered by some Muslims as incitingly sacrilegious.  And thus are they blowing themselves up with anger.

I thought about posting reproductions of the cartoons here.  Why? 

1) Because it has taken me 3 days to find depictions of these cartoons and that's just wrong  considering how prominently in the news they figure.  I should have the opportunity to judge myself  and not be censored by the reaction (suppressing the cartoons' distribution) to the reaction (violent protests, burning embassies, death threats, etc.).

2) I'm personally not offended by them and think that anyone that is should keep their religion in their heart and not act it all out violently.   I consider the violence that has followed their publication to be the true evil; not the cartoons themselves.

3) I'm already 'not for Prophet', no doubt thus doomed by my blogging namesake in many a Muslim radical mind.  Bring it on, baby.  Bring it on.

The one reason I hesitate to republish them here is that there's a remote chance that I could cause Xanga some grief.  I'd feel very bad if I put up the cartoons on Xanga and the Xanga N.Y. offices got picketed by radical Muslim theocrats as an unjustified consequent to the claim that Xanga was hosting these cartoons.  But that takes me full circle back to item #1 above.

Now I could just publish a couple of links to the images.  Those links might be:

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004440.htm

or

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/sarticle.php?id=12146

That takes Xanga 'out of the picture(s)' because they are links not hosted  on Xanga servers.

There's also another link not hosted , I repeat not hosted on Xanga servers.  And that link looks like this in html:  IMG src="http://michellemalkin.com/archives/images/facesgallery.jpg" .  

Note that michellmalkin.com is NOT Xanga. Hence, Xanga is still  'out of the picture(s)'.

Of course, this external, non-Xangan IMG src= (image source) link is often rendered graphically if correctly inputted to many browsers.  Many of you probably would see the link thusly:

Though some of you might see no difference if your browser had image rendering turned off or if you  were using a text-only browser such a Lynx. 

"Whoa," some of you are gasping.  "That's on Xanga!"  No, it's not on Xanga.  It's only on the the referenced websites and in your browser.  Anyone truly offended by this to the point of violence and  appreciative of the workings of html would most likely (and properly) conclude that the whole Internet is evil and worthy of jihadic destruction.

No, no, I will not host these cartoons on Xanga.  But a link is a link is merely a link.

Have you ever 'just hated' Xanga? 

No, I don't mean the blogging tools, the look of your skin, or because of the occasional failure to upload a pic.

I mean just the whole thing, the experience, and your attachment to it.

If you say 'no', then I'm the only strange one out.  But I doubt that.

I have, but it's hard to articulate why.  But I think it's because I've made Xanga a non-trivial part of my world.  And when, as it periodically does, real-world evil catches up with me and pounds at my personal fortifications, my Xanga experience seems, at best, feeble to come to my assistance.  Or perhaps I'm just reticent to share that real-world experience through Xanga and, thus not forthcoming, render Xanga non-assistive.  In any case, in such moments, my Xanga is marginalized and I become Xanga-estranged.   

So how does Xanga-estrangement turn into "just hate"? 

Frustration, I suppose.   Maybe, unrealistically, I expect Xanga to come to my rescue and when it fails to do so (or I fail to employ it to do so), I have no use for it and push it away by "just hating" it.

Or maybe, putting reason aside, I begin to see my Xanga as part of the real-world evil assaulting me. "Just hating" it in such moments comes easily.

Or maybe, without putting reason aside, I begin to see my Xanga as part of the real-world evil assaulting me. 

I've never gotten to the last 'Or maybe'.  But I've just provided you the perfect rationale, in fact, the necessity for personal Xangacide.

I wonder what John, xanga's CEO-type, was doing today?

Police arrest sixth-grader in Internet threat

yep, was, stress was, a xanga site called http://www.xanga.com/the_dean_sux_at_gavit .

Ya know, I hate these young punks (see 'Notable News' area of Wikipedia's entry for xanga).  Not only are they giving xanga a bad name in the press, their policing is stealing valuable time away from those planning on taking this site to the next level.

Next level.  I'm driven to, focused upon, yearning for the next level.  In all things personal.  In all things professional.  Yes, and even in all things xangan,

Spell with flickr .

Could it be I’m too hung-up on hooking-up? 

Maybe the best I can expect is to just be ‘Friends’?

I’ve never done the Xanga Meet-up thing even though I was the first one outside of the Xanga inner-circle responsible for spurring it on.

Nonetheless, by my reckoning, over the past 5 years  I’ve hooked-up person-to-person with 14 xangans, hooked-up by phone with another 7, and chatted with scores of others (mostly via my BlogChat app that I hosted on Xanga a couple of years ago).

Would Xanga chat be smack?  Of something of interest to you? 

I mentioned my Xanga BlogChat to wutuwaitn4 about a week ago and told him I’d explore the possibility of resurrecting it.  He was greatly interested because he wanted to discuss the history of Xanga in more depth with this xangarelic.  Haven't done that yet, but still might.  But it’d take a little research and some time and the effort.  Oh my.

Now I’m curious: what other social networking features that Xanga currently lacks would be of interest to you ?

Biz Stone, a former co-founder of Xanga who’s moved on, has recently proposed a novel idea for network socializing:  

Open, Social, Email

Here's a crazy idea. What if someone created a web-based email application that removed all expectations of privacy? In other words, you just email as you normally would except that it's all out there in the public; exposed. People using this service would most likely self-edit, I'll admit that.

Yeah, he’s whacky.  But blogging, too, was a whacky idea ten years ago. 

So Xanga, what’s new?

If I told you that I wanted 'to hook up with you', would you automatically assume I was making either an explicit or even an implicit sexual come on?  I'm not trying to be cute or clever, just trying to understand the nuances of our language.

So ... are we going to hook up?  Or not.

xanga vs. myspace

This is a most telling graphic analysis from Alexa.  Ever since myspace.com caught fire with popular appeal at the end of 2004, xanga has experienced a decline in popular appeal. 

One might cry coincidence.  But even xanga knows what it's up against: Social Networking. 

myspace has a blogging tool, but social networking tools that enable you to interact with "friends" is what has kicked myspace to the top of the popularity heap, especially with so many of the younger set.  And, like it or not, it is this younger set upon which services such as xanga vitally depend for financial sustenance and growth possibilities. 

So...what is xanga's response?

They've bolstered up their hardware with more and newer servers that are performing better than ever.

They have hired more people over the last year and are in the process of hiring more right now.

They are about to . . . do what with their extra capacity and augmented work force?

If I were to guess at xanga's direction into the future and characterize it in two words, those two words would not be "cry havoc".

"What is Xanga?" 

Xanga needs to redefine itself.  It currently defines itself on the portal page as "a community of online diaries and journals."  

Of course, it's a community.  There's no question about that.  But of online diaries and journals?  hrm.  My journal meets your journal.  My journal likes your journal.  Your journal finds my journal attractive, too.  Our journals bond and form a community!  A community of journals we have thus become.

No, I don't think so.  Any assemblage of diaries and journals, in and of themselves, will never be more than a collection.  But Xanga is more than a collection.  It is a community. It's a community that has  formed itself historically largely through the sharing of online diaries and journals. 

But, that still leaves the question, what is it a community of ? 

Would-Be's?  Wanna-Be's?  Writers?  Voyeurs?  Lonely Hearts?  Friends?

moniet, in response to my challenge above has responded in a comment:

"I think Xanga has bigger problems than it's definition of itself."

My response to that?

I don't see Xanga as having that many problems.  I do see it as having challenges and opportunities to embrace.  In order to embrace new challenges and opportunities, it needs to constantly redefine itself in light of the choices it has and shall make.

"What is Xanga?"  is a question whose answer has changed over the years and will continue to change, to evolve.  I'm merely pointing out that a change, a newness, in the response to that question now seems timely due.

This is really an interesting "behind the scenes" perspective on the origin of Xanga:

"This was john's idea for xanga back in 1998 but I was crazy for blogs"

That's Biz Stone, known as Genius on xanga, linking from his current blog, www.bizstone.com. to junklog.com which is self-described as " ...a site for logging and rating what you've read, watched, listened to and played."

Biz Stone, aka Genius, of course, was the original "Creative Director" of Xanga who then moved on to Google's Blogger and has now moved on to Odeo, Inc. 

So what's Biz saying?

He's suggesting that Xanga as a blogging community is the result of his passion and NOT John's (current Xanga CEO) more junklog-like predilection. 

If it wasn't for Biz, Xanga would be junk, too.  So boasts Biz.

*sees rat*
*sees rat's ass*
*desire rat's ass for purposes undisclosed even to himself*
*takes rat's ass in one violent motion*
*sees poor rat without an ass, squirming*
*gives rat's ass back to rat*
*makes Rat his pet, loves Rat*

Hell if I'll ever give a rat's ass.

I just created a PHP applet as a little xanga diversion. 
Please feel free to participate, confess, or brag. 
(Clicking 'next' to see other responses takes you away from xanga. 
But it's okay - I know you can find your way back   hint: <-
Or (better yet)...
...if you just want to stay here to see what others say, hit your browser's refresh.)

What's your most thrilling moment on xanga ever?
Can't see the app above? Click here.

don’t often come her with negative feelings.  don’t believe too much in discouraging words.  but once in a while you’ve got to fling the cowpie.  by this post, consider it flung.

Just a collective letdown.  

What?  Yeah, what am I talking about?

You name it. 

Xanga?   Sometimes useful and interesting, but unthrilling.  (Was it ever thrilling?  Yes, it was.  But there’s no going back.)

America?  Not unlivable but unenlightened; and dancing to the music of civilizational doom.

Women?  I’ve said enough.  Not going to say anything more.

Let’s stop being so damn inter-passive and enabling the passive-aggressors.

On the brighter side, a swoop of all sorts of spring birds (robins and other songbirds) have just today descended upon Dreamland.  Never, never before this early in the winter, have I witnessed the return migrations of so many spring-hungry birds.  Warning: the birds don’t lie—their survival hinges upon their migratory judgments.  Conclusion?  Global climate change is upon us, more pressing with each moment.

Oh, yes, and on the brighter side, I just ran another 5 miles in Dreamland.  And while it’s not scorching hot (just about 40 F and calm), it’s pleasant enough to sit slumped against an obelisk and ponder future battlegrounds.

May God save the environment.  And leave it at least moderately habitable for the aliens that succeed us.

Life's exciting, even as it somewhat disappoints.

Hey, a new entry to add to my Xanga chronology (3 posts below):

I spent part of the morning updating the Xanga entry on Wickipedia.  It was horribly outdated, loaded with inaccuracies, and posturing a somewhat anti-Xangan tone.  If my updates aren't "editorially reversed" in a day or so, I'll continue to augment the entry.  Yes, I shall finally tell the tale of Bianca Broussard!

On Friday morning, when I realized the dancopalypse's blog had been hacked by a phisher (see second last item in the Chronology of Xanga 3 posts below), I first notified John.  Then I determined the owner of the phishing domain (really easy-just a 'whois' lookup) and I called him.  I got his secretary instead, who insisted her boss was much too moral, upright, and busy to be doing such things.  Oh yes, she also mentioned that her boss was on the road, gave me his itinerary and another phone number where I might reach him.  I then called that number-and got another secretary.  She took my number and promised that her boss would call me back.  He did.  And when he did, he must have thought I was a cop or a xanga admin because he explained to me that it wasn't him, but his son who worked for him that did the hacking.  And that his son was probably going to lose his job.  And that he was very sorry and already sent Xanga a formal letter of apology, etc., etc.   I believe that John and Xanga had already tracked the matter down, but for one brief shining moment I felt like a secret super-hero cyber-sleuth. 

More high green =
Low no-green =
Soaring, high solitary x's =
Herds of congregated, baseline x's =

Last major crash and burn was during the major equipment addition  week circa Feb.1, 2005 .

Relax and unwind playing with the applet in post below.

And, if you haven't already, check out (and offer suggestions for) the Chronology of Xanga in the post below that.

Unwind on me.  Use mouse or other instrument of entry.  Can't see?  Go here.

After you've unwound, check out the Chronology of Xanga below.

A Growing Chronology of Xanga

1998    This is really an interesting "behind the scenes" perspective on the origin of Xanga:

10/1998        Xanga starts up in a form that would be barely identifiable today.
Jewel is the first initially identifiable user.

11/1999         Xanga Alpha (not public).

 05/2000        Beta Xanga (still not public) defines itself as a site for small online entrepreneurs to become affiliates (think: Amazon.com) and write/sharereviews.

10-2000         The Xanga testbed gets hotter, but still not public.

11/05/2000     First xanga post with a link in it. (...by John, Xanga CEO-type).

11/29/2000     The soon-to-be infamous ‘bianca’ (“Bianca Broussard”) is created and developed for PR purposes; there are several ‘bloggers’ about, but most, if not all, are apparently either 1) related to the Xanga enterprise by inside invitation or 2) fictional personalities created to shake out the testbed and to create a pre-public and fictitious sense of community.

12/18-19/2000 Xanga goes bigtime public as the first GeoCities members respond to a spam email recruitment from Bianca Broussard, a fictional PR personality of Xanga.

12/20/2000     ‘notforprophet’ is born; he gets the strange intuition that not everyone in the neighborhood is for real.

12/26/2000     I identify the first real “face” behind the Xanga enterprise.

12/30/2000     I identify more real “faces” behind Xanga.  Membership climbs approx. 1,595 to 1,734 from 12/28 to 12/29 --which amounts to a one day increase of 9%.

3/7/2001        Blogrings are introduced.

3/10/2001       Angelfire spam recruitment underway (Bianca returns after 1-2 month hiatus).

4/28/2001       Bianca is deactivated!

5/2001            Many structural changes to popularity and ranking metrics; Premium ($$) appears.

5/8/2001       savvyweaklink host's Xanga's Weakest Link as a flaming spoof of the new wave of reality TV (Survivor) as well as "The Weakest Link."  The challenge?   "Who is allergic to intelligence? Whose typing is quicker than their mind? Who is running on empty?"

10/22/2001     "nfp, i think we have close to 40k members now...  that alphabetical list started to be too much of a strain on our servers."

10/30/2001  Genius, aka Biz Stone, the former Creative Director (and father of Bianca) leaves Xanga.  He eventually goes on to become part of the Blogger team at Google and now most recently resides at Odeo, Inc.

Winter 2002    “Xangalympics” is aggressively marketed by Xanga to its members, with the winner to get Lifetime membership, and the winning ‘Team’ to get other prizes.  Winners are never announced.

1/25/2002       James, the daily fix for a strong following of Xangans,  "leaves" Xanga (returns 2 weeks later).

2/5/2002       The first mobile blog webcam in the world is featured on Xanga.  The WebCamMan streams live video into his post while driving down the highway and toreibjo, a blogger from Norway, comments live: "I can see the road from the inside of a car.   You the movie!  This is way way cool!"

2/6/2002      urnightmare (now banned) becomes the 1st Grand Flame, the first grand disrupter of  Xangatown.  After he moved into the hood, you could never totally trust your neighbor again.

3/5/2002        the great Xanga coder, the one and only seanmeister (since defunct, now just sean) discerns a code that allows the insertion of graphical comments (i.e., pictures, avatars, animated gifs, backgrounds, etc. along with words - see associated link for examples of what it looked like) on posts.  Thus begins the short-lived Komment Revolution.  Xanga would later "tighten up" the code to prevent such comments.

6/22/2002      Membership is estimated at 100,000 bloggers and traffic at a million hits a day.

7/2002            Xanga Store announced (never launches, now defunct).

                       Xanga Personals (date and mate-matching) started (defunct as of 2/26/2004).

7/29/2002       The Asian community on Xanga (now 95% of all bloggers) coalesces and ascends to the top of Featured Content.

8/6/2002       The first Xanga Blogchat is hosted on this blog.  It finally brings assorted Xangans together for the first group interactive chat.

8/20/2002      Blocked Users feature is introduded for Premium users.  CEO John toys with advertising Xanga's 10 Most Wanted (most often blocked) list, but the list never surfaces.  Free Blocking (for non-Premium users) kicks in on 10/17/2002.

9/7/2002        Featured Content is divided into Premium and Classic views with Premium as the default.  John believes this will guarantee "No more social propping - just stories, musings, pictures, fiction..."  Ha!

10/15/2002     "International Xanga Meetup Day" is sniffed out and scooped by nfp before an official Xanga announcement is made.   Monsur concedes that the scoop forces their hand and so Xanga Meetups finally birth

1/10/2003        nfp subscribes Pres. George Bush to his blog.  Xanga's CEO John passes the White House's response back to nfp.

8/25/2003        Xanga introduces Protected Postings.  Condom use will never be the same again.

12/20/2003      In relative obscurity, this unfinished chronology of Xanga first gets devised.

3/12/2004       Xanga gets a Wickipedia entry.  Current one here.

10/2004            BlackCat69 goes Protected.  Henceforth, all the sex he is having with underage xangan females (that he has used his xanga to lure) will be safe.  Somewhat later, blackcat69 morphs into Gucci_Man.  The world population of cats is relieved by the disassociation.

10/10/2004       Xanga Metros launched.  Xangans in small towns feel even more distanced (j. kiddin )

10/22/2004      Featured Content gets filtered to bar Adult Content.

12/30/2004      Attack of the Killer Xanga. 

Various, 2005     Xanga bloggers make the news (as Xanga bloggers)...

On May 17, 2005, police used a murder victim's last Xanga entry to identify his and his sister's killer. 

In September 2005, Our Lady Of Peace Middle School in Columbus, OH expelled a student for insulting both teachers and students on her Xanga.

Recently on December 8, 2005, Students of Taft High School of Chicago, IL have been suspended for posting threats about teachers and students.

In early December 2005, police in Dublin, OH arrested a 14 year old boy for posting death threats on his Xanga site, threatening to kill classmates and teachers.

1/14/2005          fuck gets totally Featured !  then fuck gets immediately banned (fucked?).  (followup: fuck knew the xangods and has since phoenixed once again.)

7/29/2005         "the dancopalypse" is upon us.  (See post below)

8/23/2005         Xanga finally has a Search that works.  But it only has a 2 month memory.

12/12/2005       Xanga hosts an estimated 21 million blogs.

12/20/2005        'notforprophet', upon his 5th xangaversery, reckons that he's 120 cyber-years old.  (based upon observation that 3 years is the normal span for a PC under warranty, of support for "supported" software versions, and for the average serious blogger to hang on to dear bloglife.  And yes, lcsaph, was there with him at the start - and it was not a coincidence.

12/31/2005       Say goodbye to Lifetime Premium.  It's shelved as Xanga introduces Premium Plus.

1/18/2006       "the dancopalypse" starts a rumor?   No, it must be true!

There is a xanga virus going around and I wanted information on what to do about it.

Got input?  I'll update.   Really, has anything happened in the last 2 years?  Or did I miss something important earlier along the way?

I've no doubt whatsoever that if I worked the 'Jesus' blog for a week that I could knock TheTheologiansCafe out of the Featured Content top spot.  No effin doubt.

But I've neither the time or desire right now .  Especially not the time.

Unless someone wants to pay me to stop what wutuwaitn4 calls "the dancopalypse" ...

as you can clearly see, the real secret to getting on featured content is to for him to stop writing a million entries a day.  why doesn't he just update 50 times a day.  then xanga can change "featured weblog entries" to "featured thetheologiancafe entries."  kidding.  but seriously, i could care less if he took up all of featured content.  it's the fact that tries to put up this xanga hero facade, when all he's doing is looking for glory, that irks me.  if he truly wanted to help people get on featured content, he would not hog up half of it.  other than this, i have no problem with the guy.  in fact, i was even subscribed to him.

  -from a post by wutuwaitn4

(my observations: 1- how dare that girl up there ruin the hegemony?   and 2- TheTheologiansCafe serves the role essentially of a high-school freshman social science/psychology teacher catering with "Questions for Discussion" to dubiously receptive young xangan sponge-minds.  )

The only way I'd intentionally delve back into the FC squealing contest, other than as a hand hired to depose TheTheologiansCafe, would be if someone convinced me (or I convinced myself) it was a desperately needed public service to the Xanga community.  Yes, I have that soft spot still.

If I ever grow tired or embarrassed of 'notforprophet', whom might I become?

Let's see...  

On the lighter side I got the inside on:

God, Goddess, Sun, Jewel, Chocolate, Summer, Jesus, Jesus_Christ,  Christ, and Pan.

On the darker side I got the inside on:

fuck, tit, cum, clit.  I had cock and cunt, too, but xanga shut them down even though they had never been used (xangan virgins forever).  I would have had benevolentMitch, too, but Mitch beat me to the name by about 30 seconds.

I have about 80 other very classy and entirely classless idle aliases, too. 

Why did I, in the very early days of xanga, corral these and unnamed others? 

Some because I liked them.

Some because I detested them and didn't want anybody else harrassing me with comments therefrom.

Some because I simply respected them and didn't want them ever sleezily profaned by vulgar bloggers I foresaw arriving in my wake. (Yes, my preternatural vision was fulfilled.   *looks around at all the xanga mindwaste*  Or, should I say, over-fulfilled?)

Who's the (un-notted) Prophet?

Who's the (the most enigmatic) Master?

Who are You?  Who, Who, Who, Who (else) are you?

Things are seeming rather dysfunctioned, not just here on Xanga but also about in my real world.  The energy of it all seems a bit askew.  It seems that, although I can't make much sense of things, I should be able to.  As if there's a critical piece of explanatory information I'm lacking that would put everything back into a comprehensible array.  But it's being hidden or hiding from my view.  And, hence, my intelligence is faulty, incomplete.

My challenge, in response, is now synesthetic: to allow  real information provided by one sense to float unbounded and become accompanied by input from another sense, other senses, other collaborations of heart and psyche.  

Violate conventional perception.  Blank the fill-ins.  Ask a beautiful question.  Behold as the world responds.

I may be dead. 

But I'm not gone.

There are places untouched, that shall never be touched. 

Even in this world. 

Collectively, the leaders of the nations of the world howl like agitated monkeys believing they can avalanche all mountains into piles of trudgeable dust.

One Dangerous and Thus Stupid Religious Ritual

1) The Hajj is the stone-throwing ritual in Mecca in which Muslim pilgrims stone a symbolic devil.

2) Every able-bodied Muslim who can afford the trip is obliged to perform the Hajj to Mecca once in a lifetime.

3) The Hajj has been connected with deadly incidents in the past, most of them stampedes that take place during the ceremonies.

4) The worst stampede happened in 1990, when 1,426 pilgrims were trampled to death.

5) 251 pilgrims died in 2004 in a stampede during the stone-throwing ritual.

6) A stampede in 2003 killed 36 pilgrims, most of them en route to the devil-stoning ritual, conducted outside Mecca.

7) In 2001, a stampede at the same ritual killed 35.

8) Today, at least 345 are reported dead in a devil-stoning stampede.

9) Seems to me that the ritual itself is the devil, not the symbol they stampede to assualt.

10) Of course, the religiously zealot will blame 'the real devil' for this evil, not their insistence on reckless ceremonies.

11)  If in the future they decide to keep this up, the tourist industry in Mecca should play it up to foreign audiences like Spain does the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona.  Then, at least, they would profit somewhat more from this fairly predictable tragedy.

12)  Or perhaps they could just put some devil heads on bulls and let them run through the devil-stoning crowds.  The bulls, before being stoned to death, would probably wreak less havoc than the stampeding humans do now upon themselves.

13) On second thought, dash that last suggestion: the bulls aren't really devils and they aren't Muslims either.  Hence, no reason for them to spin death's wheel at Stampede Central.

14) I believe this ritual and its almost predictable tragic outcome is symbolic of what's at core wrong with Islam: it fails to constrain it own tendencies to slip into extremes, whether those extremes consist of stupid human stampedes or anti-crusading Islamic terror.

15) I wonder if Osama bin Laden has done his Hajj yet?  If not, maybe it's our best chance to take him out... I can see the Muslim Headlines now: "Osama dies in a devil-stoning stampede believed to have been instigated by the CIA."

16) Well, they'll stone ya when you're trying to be so good,
They'll stone ya just a-like they said they would.
They'll stone ya when you're tryin' to go home.
Then they'll stone ya when you're there all alone.
But I would not feel so all alone,
Everybody must get stoned.

   Can anyone tell me why this man's head is always bobbling?

Unlike Roberts, Alito is no star on TV. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank dubbed him "bobblehead," and the Post reporter had a point - even if, of course, it's extremely unlikely that a Postie would have made a disparaging characterization of any physical characteristic of a nonwhite male nominee.  - Newsday.com

   And can anyone tell me how it could never occur to a governor of the great state of California to get a motorcycle license?

It has been revealed that California governor and former ‘Terminator’ Arnold Schwarzenegger was illegally riding his Harley Davidson when he was involved in an accident with another vehicle. Arnie said yesterday that he never bothered to obtain the proper motorcycle licence as he "never thought about it".  And this guy is in charge of a whole state?  -entertainmentwise.com

  The notorious Dreamland squirrel that has been channeling spirits has apparently determined that Mother Heintz was, indeed, nuttier than Father.

Jen, my daughter, was thrilled on her birthday to get a reproduction  from her uncle (my brother) of an old "lost" photo of her grandma and grandpa (my mom and dad) on their wedding day.

it’s wintertime and the diamond dust dogs

progressively invade the sky

while i run around a dam

proclaiming my o my .

filtered sunlight as soft as chamois

tags along with a gentle breeze

that tingles my ears with a tease

suggestive of devon’s naughty whispers .

I could close my eyes (and fall and be with her)

but I can’t close my eyes (and run without falling) -

so perplexing this world that makes you choose ‘this’ or ‘that’

when clearly the body-heart seeks a more perfect communion .

but the breeze licks not as warm as devon’s tongue

and the sunlight seems not as bright as devon’s gaze,

so I close my eyes and still let my feet fly

tumbling head-over-heels (water over the dam) . 

The weather girl's tits on CNN this morning are so big that I can't see all that's going on behind on the map.  Tits in the forecast?

   Chinese word of the day:   , blog or blogger (pronounced bó kè ) .

   To find out who the Master is, yes, really, who the Master is, dial Hurricane Labs (provides Information Security training) at 216-923-1330  < ph:        >  listen to the options, and choose accordingly. 

   I'll be attending local training at the above location soon instead of a week-long work-sponsored trip to San Francisco.  Boy, aren't I lucky?

   One topic to be covered: "Use manual techniques to gain access to sensitive information".   hrmmm.  

   Another topic: "Web Site Defacement: A Blending of Styles".  Geez, I thought I was doing a pretty good job of defacing my blog using just my own  style.

    Wonder why I'm injecting more and more Chinese characters into my posts?  I'm expecting that in a couple of years 60-70% of Xangans will read Chinese and only Chinese .  I'm ramping up now.  As soon as I get good enough, I can post like fauquet - multilingually!

   Okay.  There is another reason.  A selfish one.  Injecting Chinese is keeping me interested in updating.  Will probably last another day or so.

   It's probably safer than injecting heroin, don't ya think?

   *wonders what this post would look like injected with heroin?*

Ever feel you could say much the same about some of those you've fallen in love with?  hrmmm.

   I think Xanga should give a car away to whomever's awarded the billionth eprop.  Yep, that's the incentive I need.  A Propmobile.

   Is there any way to automatically block anyone who has a Xanga name beginning with 'n' and ending with a 't' from one's site?  Of course, you're wondering "Why would anyone want to do that?"

  Also useful would be a comment option that automatically blocks any comment longer than, say, 30 lines since such comments are almost certainly spam.  Go ahead and call me a killjoy.

    Today, so far, has been remarkably uninspiring.  I think I need to shake up this world. 

    Confucius said that if you want to shake up the world, you should first shake up yourself.  *shakes uncontrollably*

     Since the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper, shouldn't I just start and keep banging and thus save mankind - at least during my watch?

    Could the person who removed the million or so dollars that was in my bank account kindly put it back?  Thanks, in advance.  I'll just go ahead and write my checks in anticipation of your compliance.

   We're all cheaters.  I really do believe that Death is the default from Day 1 and that every day we live is a cheat.  Cheating death is always just the matter of sleeping adulterously with Life.

    I once started a campfire at night on the bank of a mountain lake high in the Sierra Nevadas that shot glowing embers 70 feet into the sky.  I'm now craving the spectacle of that again.  Of course, having matured somewhat, I'd today take greater care to insure that the surrounding forest was not at as dire a risk of burning down.

  A great regret I have is not remembering or recording where I buried all those time capsules I buried when I was a kid.  I used to write and bury many of my writings.  Hold on...blogging's sort of the same, isn't it?  I mean, you write a post and then it gets buried and forgotten in time.  Hey, I was primitively blogging decades ago!