Category: uncategorized

I made a tiny and most likely imperceptible change to one of my Movable Type templates. I had noticed that a lot of Google (and other) search referrals to my site were for individual words that appeared in very different places on my monthly archive pages. With a search string spanning a whole month of entries, the page would be of little or no help to the searcher. Sure, the extra traffic is nice, but being an editor by trade, I’m all about the reader experience. Sort of. So, I tweaked the meta tags on my monthly archive templates such that they won’t get picked up by search engines. The daily archives are still able to be crawled, as usual.

Yes, I’m that bored.

From my office window on the seventh floor, I look down and see someone dressed as a giant Quiznos soda cup, standing at the corner of East-West Highway and Waverly Street, handing out what I think are coupons. In Manhattan, one doesn’t think twice about street hawkers, even ones dressed as fast-food items. On a plain, commercial block in downtown Bethesda, however, a roving soda cup is surreal.

I look down to the street again, and it’s gone. Inanimate object on the loose, armed with money-saving coupons!

Can a thriving gay and lesbian neighborhood be created through official urban planning? My immediate reaction might be an unqualified no, since I figure community-building is a organic process. I can understand encouraging gay businesses to set up shop in the city, but formally mapping out a district seems strange. However, reading the article about Oakland softened my position a little bit. I suppose if there’s enough support among the local gay community, as well as the straights to some extent–I can understand some of the comments quoted in the article; when I lived in the Bay Area, I never thought to trek to the East Bay for any kind of gay scene–then it could work on some level. (Link via Queer Day.)

Oakland [Calif.] has launched an official effort to cultivate a gay and lesbian neighborhood, an attempt to capture local dollars now flowing into San Francisco.

The idea is to create a gathering place for Oakland’s large but widely distributed gay and lesbian population. Such an enclave, city officials hope, will improve blighted storefronts and make Oakland more attractive to prospective residents and businesses.

Related: opinion piece in USA Today by Richard Florida, “Gay-tolerant societies prosper economically,” Apr. 30, 2003. (Links via Thom and Gene.)

You know you have a media empire on your hands when an independent list of your many holdings relegates Blockbuster, the widespread video rental chain, to the end of the list, under “other.” That empire would be Viacom.

The Columbia Journalism Review maintains “Who Owns What,” an online guide to the ownership of all the major media companies. Interesting stuff.

Some facts that I now find interesting to see again in this context: the company I work for is (let’s get the flow charts handy) a division of a division of Reed Elsevier. A few years ago I worked for a PR agency whose clients included Knight Ridder Digital. And lastly, three of my four magazine subscriptions are Condé Nast publications, all of which are owned by Advance. There’s a media monopoly in my mailbox! (Link via serendipity.)

Last week Rajani sent me a copy of The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell, as a belated birthday present. The dear thought my birthday was in March, instead of May (yes, plenty of shopping days left), and she duly purchased an item from my Amazon wishlist. Oh, those pesky M months. No matter, of course. Many, many thanks go out to her, and I’ll be sure to read the book soon. I’ve been so bad with my book reading lately. What little reading time I give myself is taken up mostly by my New Yorker subscription–since it’s a weekly, I keep thinking, the next issue is coming soon, must read the current one now, now!–and so my books often fall by the wayside.

By the way, David Sedaris has an essay in the April 2004 issue of GQ. Haven’t read it yet. His next collection, entitled Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, is due out this June. Can’t wait.

Side note: during March, Penguin Group USA (publisher of fine books, but not of the aforementioned, in case you were wondering) is donating to Amnesty International 10% of receipts on orders placed through their websites. (Link via Seyd.)

Tonight we watched Winged Migration on DVD. Wow. Really, for practically every scene, my voiced reaction was, “Oh, wow.” The photography is amazing. The filmmakers used a variety of small aircraft, such as modified gliders, to fly up close with birds across some amazing landscapes. Definitely a must-see if you’re at all into nature or photography, or both. It has little narration, though, so it’s not as informative as a typical nature documentary, but there’s little need. It is so visually stunning (best viewed on a large screen) and thematically focused that the images speak for themselves. By the way, the DVD includes an interesting (if a bit longish) “making of” feature that covers how the filmmakers nurtured the birds and created innovative techniques to film them in flight.

Four more years! Woo hoo!

Comedy Central made certain yesterday that it would have its signature star, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show, for at least another four-year election cycle, completing a deal that will extend his contract with the cable channel through 2008.

Mr. Stewart, 41, has become one of the stars of late-night television in the last year, winning two Emmy Awards and landing on national magazine covers for his acerbic presentation of a mock nightly newscast. He recommitted despite rumblings that he would be highly sought after by the broadcast networks for a late-night talk show.

Man, I love The Daily Show. And Jon Stewart.

So I finally got around to watching the first two episodes of Fox’s Playing It Straight. Well, I think we did more fast-forwarding than actual watching. Ugh. I don’t know why I had some glimmer of hope for this show, but really, most of it is unwatchable.

I won’t even try to completely explain the premise, except to say that it’s basically Bravo’s Boy Meets Boy turned on its head. (In fact I just read an interview in which one of the Playing It Straight cast-offs says the show was pitched to him only as a Mole-type competition, so he didn’t know it was going to be a “relationship show” at all. So much for any pretense of looking for love.) And none of the guys know whom among them is straight or gay. So not only do they have to present themselves as straight to Jackie, the leading lady here, but the guys have to keep up appearances with each other as well, lest they be perceived as gay or get ratted out. If I do keep watching the show, I’d probably get in the habit of just fast-forwarding to the end where she whittles the group down, and skip all the posturing and maneuvering that make up the bulk of each episode. To be honest, I don’t even know how indignant to be about the whole concept and the way everyone is acting. Anyway. I’m done ranting.

Speaking of gay TV, is it just me or has Will & Grace been funnier lately? I’ll admit that the show has slowly gotten kind of stale, but the last few episodes were good for quite a few laughs.