I’m sorry I wasn’t more talkative yesterday, but I ended up getting rather involved in cleaning up my old archives. I finally got around to importing the 2000-2001 entries into Movable Type, which I’m pretty happy about. At last I’ve got my over two years of archived content (although some of it’s pretty awful content) all relatively organized and within the same publishing system. Delicious. It looks like more and more people are switching to MT now, which isn’t a bad thing. I’ve been really happy with it so far and I haven’t even started testing out what it’s really capable of; my primary concern has been to make the transition as seamless as possible, which I think I did. If you’ve linked to old pages in my archives, you may find that they’re moved, but the posts are all still there and now you can link to individual entries instead of entire pages, which is a definite plus.

In other news, I’m not feeling so great today. I haven’t actually been feeling great for several days, but today it’s rather worse. I had been planning on hitting the Belgian fries place for beer and (obviously) fries with MrTails and croo, but it looks like my agenda now is more along the lines of staggering down to Duane Reade to stock up on NyQuil and Halls (cherry) and perhaps some soup from the Chinese place. I slept very badly last night and all I really want to do is take something to knock me out and wake up tomorrow morning. Maybe I’ll watch Mets vs Yankees later but I think that will probably be the extent of tonight’s excitement.

I owe lots of you email, I know. I haven’t cleaned out my inbox in about a week. I’ll try to get to it today or tomorrow, but if you haven’t heard from me yet it doesn’t (necessarily) mean that you won’t.

<rp> i’m going to start a new project
<rp> ‘project strongarm’ which will consist of me taking a pic of my arm once a week to chronicle the massive but natural increase in arm muscle mass that i will attempt to initiate
<rp> for real
<rp> from zero to hero
<rp> i will also document the exercise each week
<rp> ‘lifting heavy taco bell stuft burrito: 7 reps’
<rp> ’shaking fist at idiot driver: 10 reps’ etc

Yahoo is finally redesigning its front page. As rands noted in his post, it’s been a long time coming. Unfortunately, you wouldn’t know it to see the design itself - I’m honestly surprised at how bad it is. It just looks like every other ugly-ass portal on the web now, which is really sad. The old design (not the current one, exactly, but maybe six months ago) wasn’t great either but it was definitely distinctive. After years and years of other sites following Yahoo’s lead, it’s depressing to see Yahoo turning around and following everyone else. Lean, usable design doesn’t have to be ugly or unappealing, as proven perhaps most notably by Google; the new Yahoo design may still be on the lean side, but that shouldn’t be the only thing going for it.

Ernie’s response to various recent writings (including that ny times article about “warblogging”) touches on what I think is an important and often overlooked point - weblogs shouldn’t be equated with journalism, necessarily. That’s why they’re so entertaining; it’s the mixture of personal writing, commentary, and links to other work that somehow ties everything together. Weblogging can be journalism, sure, but not all weblogs are intended to be, and only a very few of them are “warblogs.” Kottke (who seems to be on a roll this week with a number of excellent posts) sums it up: “Most webloggers (75%+ at least, in my estimation) are not tech bloggers or warbloggers. They’re just the ones that get all the press. LiveJournal has hundreds of thousands of members, a tiny fraction of whom talk about technology or current events. Out of the “10 most recently published blogs” on blogger.com right now, none are tech blogs or warblogs.” Incidentally, the term warblog might be my new least favorite word ever. (It used to be “blog.”)

Several people have asked if I’m attending the New York Mozilla release party tonight. While I don’t doubt it will be endlessly entertaining, I don’t think I’ll be there. Spencer and I had been considering it, but it’s so obscenely hot out today and we’re both sort of tired et cetera. Sorry!

I’ve been feeling all sleepish and groggy for the past few days and I’m not quite sure why. I’m sleeping okay despite June weather having finally arrived, but I feel like I haven’t slept at all, and napping doesn’t seem to help either. I suppose I could be getting sick - my throat’s been bothering me again - but it doesn’t feel quite like a cold, exactly.

Clearly the solution is a great deal of iced coffee and old Smashing Pumpkins albums. I’m hoping to get this freelance project I’ve been doing finished up this week so I can start on the one I have scheduled for after that; I’m still looking for one or two more for after that, by the way, so if you’ve got something you should let me know.

I think tomorrow night or the night after some drinking is in order; there’s still some NYU people around who don’t leave during the summer, and we make an effort to get sloshed once in a while. It’s essential to the whole summer thing, I feel. Tonight? Another ineffective nap and very effective cold shower, probably. Still working on archives stuff.

Re shirts: Those of you who ordered from the girlhead run should have received a confirmation email from Neil at this point. The shirts are being printed and they’ll be shipped soon. Hurray!

I finally got around to importing my old NewsPro entries into Movable Type, which turned out to be easier than I expected. Now to tackle the very old ThornsJournal posts, which will be a little bit trickier (but not all that much). I suppose it doesn’t make all that much of a difference as the old stuff is essentially static archives anyway, but there’s something terribly sexy about having over two years of content in the same management system.

In honor of the Mirror Project turning one year old, I finally submitted a mirror shot of my own. The entire site’s great, but of particular interest is this gallery, and also Meg Hourihan’s fantastic submission.

Re my earrings: I’m surprised that several people have expressed an interest in where I got these and if they’re available on the web. Unfortunately, they’re not - I made them myself, actually. When I was visiting my family a couple weeks ago, my mother and I dug out the jeweler’s pliers and wires and whatnot and spent a drizzly afternoon making new things to stick in our ears. I’ve got a couple other similar pairs from the same weekend. I used to be really into making my own jewelry, and while my interest has definitely waned over the years, it’s still fun once in a while (and cheaper than buying).

Re the Bet:  Yes, I won. Yes, I’m still reveling in the glory of my incredible (but inevitable) victory. I’m looking forward to collecting my winnings. Thanks for asking.

Re Chasing Amy: No, I didn’t like it. I’m not much of a Kevin Smith fan, I have to say. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Clerks, but the others range from painful to passable at best. Chasing Amy would fit snugly near the top were I to list the most irritating movies I’ve ever seen, in fact. The first time I tried to watch it - with Spencer, if i remember correctly - we couldn’t even sit through the whole thing. I’ve since seen the rest of it, but that didn’t make me like it more. Smith’s other films, with the exclusion of Clerks, are just sort of unfortunately forgettable which I suppose is an improvement over irritating, at least.

Spencer (whose dreams are much stranger than mine) and I finally caught Kissing Jessica Stein, which bears thankfully little resemblance to its trailer and which I really enjoyed. We saw it at that tiny three-screen theater on 12th street with only another four or five people, lending a certain intimacy to the whole experience; it was more like watching it at a very well-equipped friend’s house than anything else. When we weren’t trying to figure out if they were eating at the same Indian restaurant we go to (they were) or trying to figure out who Scott Cohen resembles (still no idea), we were laughing more or less the entire time. The dialogue is witty in an almost startling way reminiscient of older Woody Allen flicks and the film in its entriety entertaining enough that I’m thinking of seeing it again before it disappears from theaters.

In a similar arty-lesbians-in-New-York vein, I watched High Art again last night. Darker than Jessica Stein and perhaps less entertaining in a sense, I enjoyed it a second time at least in part because it’s so beautifully shot. Plus, I mean, it’s Ally Sheedy as a mournful heroin addict - how can you go wrong? (And the soundtrack is perfect, too.)

I’ve recently come into the happy ownership of a second case of Jolt Espresso. It’s a fine product, don’t get me wrong. Leaving aside the dubious veracity of its claim to the title of "WORLD’S STRONGEST BEVERAGE" (can it beat up my other colas by the bike rack?), I’m quite fond of it. 120 milligrams of caffeine per can is just enough to get past the years of tolerance I’ve been acquiring since I took early-morning AP Spanish in high school, and coffee-flavored soda is much tastier than it sounds (which I realize isn’t saying much, as it sounds pretty vile - but seriously, it’s good).

I can’t help but notice, though, that the can proudly announces the glorious union of its contents WITH NATURAL CAFFEINE; there’s even a cute little stylized plant icon, so we’re really clear on the NATURAL part. Maybe I’m missing something, here, but would the same people - myself included, mind you - who are willing to drink coffee-flavored cola really be concerned about whether their 120 milligrams are natural or unnatural in origin? I mean, it’s not like there’s anything else natural about this beverage; there’s no precedent to maintain. I would go so far as to say that coffee soda is not only unnatural but unholy, in fact. Would someone who is already willing to ignore all basic human instincts about the blending of flavors in a liquid context then change his or her mind - the can already opened, condensation glistening outside and bubbles bubbling inside - if not assured of the presence of natural caffeine within?

Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Anyway, right on: Jolt Espresso is tolerable at room temperature (when you forget to add more cans to the fridge), delicious chilled (when you don’t), and fits snugly in the side pocket of my bag for easy mid-commute access. The buzz is mild but distinct (perhaps thanks to the natural caffeine) and I’ve finally been convinced that carbonated coffee isn’t inherently evil. Bravo.

Love,
emma

While I understand why other people enjoy it, gambling is not something of which I have ever been particularly fond. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m cripplingly paranoid about money (my god it’s the sixth and I don’t already have my July rent sitting in the bank WHAT AM I GOING TO DO OH NO) or maybe I’m just a failure as a human being: either way. I understand that you’re supposed to look at it not as money lost but money spent on quality entertainment, that it’s about the social aspect of drinking with friends and going home broke. The appeal remains lost on me, despite such explanations. WHOOOOSH completely over my head.

So I don’t like gambling in that sense, okay. But that’s not to say I don’t enjoy betting. Oh, I enjoy betting. I assisted in the construction of a bet just last night, in fact. The stakes are nonmonetary, which is probably a key element (if not THE key element) in my rather viciously enthusiastic participation. My opponent and I are wagering something valuable but not in a SHIT THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO PAY MY PHONE BILL kind of way. I’m going to go ahead and leave the details of the bet itself nebulous - this sort of mystery is essential to my allure, you see - but I’ll be sure to let you all know when I’ve won. Because I am so going to win. He has no idea how spectacularly he’s going to lose this bet, which makes it all the more delicious.

In other news, I’m not going out tonight. Rainy Thursdays are very profitably spent, I feel, debating the merits of cherry versus lemon Diet Coke and contemplating exactly how inevitable it is that other people will lose certain bets. Although I appreciate the invitation and will want to hear all the details tomorrow, my plans for the evening clearly outshine other (rather obviously inferior) options involving clubs where the DJ is inexplicably renowned and all the chicks wear brown lipstick with hoop earrings big enough to strangle cats. Thanks, though.