Late-ish adapter

You know, if I had much more time and money, I would be an eager early adapter; I get excited by many new gadgets and technology. But time and money constrictions do indeed make me conservative. I wait and see after others have used and abused the item in question and the company has issued an upgrade to fix all known bugs.

This holds true with web apps and communities as well. It takes awhile for me to decide the usefulness of joining and using, this was true for LiveJournal, Flickr… and now Twitter.* (Interesting examples as I consider all three journaling sites: traditional, pictorial and expositional.)

When I redesigned my website and set up my new Wordpress blog, I realized I missed traditional journaling; documenting an event or thoroughly exploring an idea. Besides the discipline and mind stretching, I enjoy and find it useful to go back and see where I was at at a certain point in time. The only reason I didn’t start there and then is this was about the time I discovered I was pregnant. Naturally this would’ve been the topic most on my mind and I was far from ready to reveal or discuss anything about that.

But that (and this) type of journaling can consume more time than I have to spare. This is partly why Flickr became my default journal of sorts a couple years back. It’s an excellent way for me to document things I’d done and when. But, naturally, it doesn’t capture thoughts.

In walks Twitter. Actually, I was first introduced to Twitter about two years ago and was unimpressed and bewildered by the application. But then, the examples I saw all followed this model:

“What a nice day!”

“I had breakfast.”

“My neighbor mowed the lawn.”

And so on. It just took enough people I knew to join in and the standard use to tweak slightly before I became intrigued. Brenna’s regular Twitter collections helped soften me quite a bit, actually. It’s nice to have a place to share a thought or simple happening without feeling obliged to build a post around it nor look for commentary.** (People can comment on a particular entry, but it feels more conversational than an acknowledgment.) Or create an email and figure out who all to send it to. This way it’s out there free to amuse or annoy as folks may choose.

Also, as I do these things for my own benefit as well to share, I’m pleased to have a place to jot things down, have time stamped and then collect every week as an ersatz diary. And, yes, a lot of the thoughts and events are about my pregnancy—it is changing and ruling my life after all. It’s for that reason that I wish I had started Twittering before, then I would know exactly when Kip first felt Taran kick, laughing and crying as he did so. (Thankfully I happen to know when I first felt her as I was dashing off an email to Dylan at the time and chose to mention it to her.)

And, really, the biggest reason I decided I must start Twittering is that I can think of no better way to document my labor and delivery while sharing with those who can’t or choose not to be there first hand.***

* Yes, somewhere after Kris and before Dylan, I joined Twitter. And by god, I enjoy it.

***I imagine there will be a point in the process I’ll be handing it over to Dylan.

That’s his dance and he’s sticking to it.

Where the hell is Matt?

The most delightful thing I’ve seen courtesy of the internet in ages.

(via Making Light)

Oh, you know, life and all that

Wednesday! And there’s a Dicebox page, or the large part of one. (permalink)

There are a few reasons for me not to have gotten a full page done. And here’s one; I said I had lots to report last week, which is true, but can really be summed up in one statement: I’m pregnant.

Say hello to our now and future daughter:

This picture is from her landmark 20 week ultrasound yesterday (she has all her organs, we’re so proud!) Her ETA is October 31st.

This is my explanation for my somewhat erratic Dicebox updates, unanswered email and lack of internet presence. Well, along with the day job and other factors, the Kid just added another obstacle. And will probably continue to mess around with my schedule and plans for the near future.

Continue reading »

I have been doing things…

Some of the things I’ve been doing and not mentioning here are Dicebox updates. Though I’ve actually had help in that department: here is Billy Mudron’s The Illustrated Dicebox. And my updates, including today’s, can be found here. (Note: all of the above is NSFW)

But what’s been keeping me really busy these past few weeks (besides the day job) is my work as part of the Stumptown Comics Fest organizing committee.

As you all probably know, Stumptown was this past weekend and it went really swell. I’ve added my photos to the Stumptown Comics Festival 2008 Pool but have no real report to make. Instead, I direct you to the observations of others: Dylan’s, Ivy’s, Bill’s, Sara’s, Barry’s and Brenna’s - part 1, part 2 and part 3. More reports are appearing about the web, you can find some press reviews right here.

I was actually out of it most of the weekend and missed a lot of great things, including most of what was offer in the exhibit hall. One of the events I deeply regret having missed was the Comics Art Battle at Cosmic Monkey Comics Saturday night.

Photo by stutefish

Above is a great picture of Team Web: Christopher Baldwin, Dylan Meconis, Barry Deutsch and Bill Mudron. Or, as I like to call them, my people. Actually these folks really are my people, I have shared residence (and a bathroom) with all of them at one point or another. Nevermind than Dylan, Barry and I all updates our comics on Wednesday and take part in the same “collective storytelling experience” (aka, a role playing game) Oh, hey, and all four have done Dicebox fill-ins for me. Crazy.

Free associating before turkey

So, I was going to wait until tomorrow to make note of this week’s Dicebox update (oh, by the way, there’s a Dicebox update that went up late last night. (permalink) )

But then my lovely mother called me to wish me Happy Thanksgiving, and she was, as she described it, “rosie.” This is is referring to that state she gets in when she’s had a glass or two of wine and has a a happy mellow buzz going.

This instantly reminded me of the Really Rosie TV special of the 70s featuring characters of Maurice Sendak and the singing of Carole King. Naturally this led me to think of the recent noise on the internet of early Sesame Street being rated adult only. For anyone who might not know, they’ve been deemed too depressing and scary for young children–for a variety of reasons that I find overly cynical and paranoid, and well, depressing.

This led to my recalling that they made the Snuffleupagus real on Sesame Street, a move I, and many of my peers, disapproved of. Then I tried to decide if there was ever one of those oversized character balloons of the Snuffleupagus in the Macy’s parade.

Naturally the Macy’s parade brought me back to Thankgiving, reminding me that I had better get cracking on my pie for today’s dinner or I would lose my window of kitchen time.

And this is the cranberry-apple pie I made before it went into the oven:

It’s a happy pie. It wants to be eaten ( A concept that really freaked me out as a kid.)