Shanti’s Dispatches

Convy of the band Ludo on bands that wear eyeliner:

-i’ve had enough of bands wearing eyeliner. i get it and it’s fine, but it’s so goddamn trendy right now it’s ridiculous. i realize i have friends in bands that do this and there are bands i like that do this, i’m just saying i’m out on the whole thing. (many of you are probably thinking ‘hasn’t convy been wearing ties a lot lately?’ guilty. but c’mon, eyeliner is a different story) and what makes me even more sick is all these girls who are like ‘i love guys in eyeliner.’ what the hell is that? that’s not like a natural thing you’re drawn to, it’s a stupid trend. in 4th grade were you like ‘i love a man in a slap bracelet?’ in 8th grade were you like ‘i need a guy who rocks an acid-washed tight roll’? actually, maybe you were. i’ve just had enough. i mean a lot of these bands are small touring bands like us. i don’t need to tell you that money is tight. we only eat when we have to and we avoid spending money whenever possible. the idea that there’s a band somewhere on their way to a show and somebody’s like ‘oh shit, can we stop and get some eyeliner before we get to the club?’.. it blows my mind. Now i’m known to change clothes before i go on stage and try to look sharp. as of late i’ve even been known to put some stuff in my hair (you would to, if your brother cut your hair and did what he did to mine.) i assure you when i’m in the bathrooms of these clubs and i’m putting the stuff in my hair i’m usually kind of embarassed. it’s just not very rock n’ roll. So the idea of applying eye make up in the bathroom of one of these clubs is the most perplexing thing to me. ahhhhh. these are my thoughts on bands wearing eyeliner …but to each his own.

Ludo kicks ass. Definitely check them out if they come to a city near you.

Will Hillary Clinton run for president in 2008?

USA Today is reporting that fifty-three percent of poll respondents say they’d probably support Clinton in a run for president.

After re-reading that… it doesn’t sound very promising for Hillary just yet.

Was the qustion “would you probably, like ummm, maybe, you know, consider voting for Hillary, if she was in the running, or what?”

From the article:

“Over time, Clinton fatigue has dissipated … and people are looking back on the Clinton years more favorably,” says Andrew Kohut, director of the non-partisan Pew Research Center. In a Pew poll released this month, Kohut called former president Bill Clinton and the senator “comeback kids” because of their rising ratings.

After all the Bush team shenanigans (to use a friendly term for it), and the war in Iraq, I’m ready for another serious bout of Clinton-dom. A moderate Web 2.0 bubble would be nice as well.

You know how they say that the first wives are really running the show, when their husbands are in office? Well, who’d be running the show if Hillary took office?

Ahhhh, nevermind… We know who wears the pants in that family!

I’ve been reading Chris Pirillo’s blog for a while now.

More recently, I finally grokked RSS and have been using Bloglines in a major way.

FeedDemon is great, but I browse the web on several different computers.

Bloglines makes it easy to read your feeds from anywhere with ‘Net access. The only thing I dislike, though, is that it seems to have trouble remembering which items I’ve viewed on other machines. I’m not sure if this is by design. It doesn’t make sense to me… If I’ve already viewed entries on one PC, why show them as unread on another PC?

Now, where were we…

Scoble and a few others have been bitching lately about how Chris Pirillo’s RSS feeds weren’t full-text. His site is ad supported … so his RSS feeds were just brief summaries that linked to the full posts w/ embedded AdSense ads, etc.

Well, full-text RSS feeds are back over on Chris’ blog.

I think this is a smart move on his part… Sure, you want to monetize your site. But you also want to provide a great service to your users. When full-text becomes the norm, and you’re still doing summaries, it really makes them think, “is this really worth it, that I have to click-thru and all?”

There will be a day (it may not be that far off, either), when AdSense for RSS or some other means will provide a way to monetize full-text RSS feeds.

Until then, I think it’s just one of those things that you’ll have to do (provide full-text RSS, that is), just to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. That … and to keep guys like Scoble from bitching about your summary feeds.

You’ve probably seen this already by now… but Blogebrity is a new … uhhh …. new something about the blogosphere.

Link: Blogebrity: The Blog

Apparently their A, B, and C Lists have people up in arms. No shock there.

“My blog didn’t make the list! Waaaaaaahhhh!” is heard throughout the blogosphere as us egomaniacs descend upon Blogebrity’s List.

Evan Robinson writes about Why Crunch Mode Doesn’t Work: 6 Lessons over at IDGA:

When used long-term, Crunch Mode slows development and creates more bugs when compared with 40-hour weeks.

More than a century of studies show that long-term useful worker output is maximized near a five-day, 40-hour workweek. Productivity drops immediately upon starting overtime and continues to drop until, at approximately eight 60-hour weeks, the total work done is the same as what would have been done in eight 40-hour weeks.

Before I comment too strongly on this, I definitely want to read Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, which just came in the mail today.

(Ordered via Amazon Prime at the suggestion of Joel Spolsky)

D. Keith Robinson on how to Be A More Productive Blogger.

Some of his quick tips:

• Set aside time for writing (or podcasting, etc.) and stick to it.
• Keep an Idea Journal.
• Take advantage of creative highs.

Some great stuff here. Read More

I try to avoid reading news and blogs created by idiots.

With the aid of Bloglines, I do a pretty good job at this.

But now I get random Google News stories on my new homepage.

Unfortunately, some of these articles get created by news organizations who I thought were supposed to be unbiased and responsible in their reporting.

Thank god for weblogs and our newfound ability to call BS when we see it.

So, what are the idiots saying today? That the ‘US leads in human rights violations’.

Something tells me the surviving family members of the victims of Genocide in the Darfur region would disagree that the US is the world-leader in human rights violations.

I could be wrong.

More Darfur info: Save Darfur, Darfur Info Center, and the Wikipedia page on the Darfur conflict

This post over on 800-CEO-READ blog had me laughing out loud:

“This is a book about story and the ethical role storytelling pays in our lives-particularly our lives in organizations. So let me begin with a tale from an unusual workplace. I borrow it from a participant at one of my Stories for Leaders seminars, a principal in a West Coast marketing consultancy who recalled an exchange he had with an employee of his “oldest client,” a cemetery with which he was working at the time. He reports hearing the following from a “counselor” (salesperson):

A guy call me for a pre-need arrangement. That’s what they call buying your funeral before you die. He says on the phone, “How fast can I choose a plot, buy a casket, and pay for everything?” I tell him we can do it immediately. He shows up in an hour. The guy is only 45 years old and looks reasonably healthy. I take him up the hill to our latest property. That’s what they call a gravesite. I tell him what the opening and closing costs will be. Opening and closing costs means digging the grave and then shoveling the dirt back in after the burial.

I then take him to the casket room. He chooses the most expensive casket, measuring to see how well he will fit into it. He makes all his decision. He then asks me for the paperwork. I tell him that it will take a few hours to prepare and that I will send it to him the next day. “No,” he says emphatically. “I need it now.”

I look at him: “May I ask why you are in such a rush?” “Yes, you may,” he answers. “When I am done here, I’m going home to commit suicide.” I look back at him and say, “I’m a commission salesman. The deal has to be in effect for seven days in order for me to receive my commission. I’ve spent hours with you and if you commit suicide today, I won’t get my commission.”

The guy waited because of me. I got him help. He’s still alive. And I got my commission.

Nice to see a happy ending after the commission response from the salesmen!

This guy is way too happy.

You’ve been battling Microsoft demons in your code all day, non-stop it seems… with an occassional Sybase, JBoss, or SOAP interoperability issue/error to boot.

Then you get home and read on Slashdot that your bank account might have been breached.

Freaking. Awesome. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

If it weren’t for my daily iced Venti Vanilla Latte (not too much ice, please), I just might crack!