Month: April 2003

I’ve given this post a pretentious title because I can never think of what to call these semi-regular link-log updates and there’s only so many ways you can use the phrase “Microcontent Vote” before someone tells you to get off your damn hobby-horse already.

• Tom Tomorrow on US Domestic / Foreign Policy
  This one (and the one following) are way via BoingBoing which I’m reading more now since Cory took Webb and I to this neat Biker/Geek bar where they serve burgers.

• Crazy Input Devices
  … including a vertical keyboard – again via new celebrity best friend and life-partner Cory Doctorow (“Tom Who?”, Cory). I quite want the vertical keyboard just to see people’s faces at work.

• What if Jobs was one of us?
  Thanks to Mr Webb for pointing me Joy-of-Tech-wards for this Joan Osborne themed day. My friend Nick is obsessed with Joan Osborne. He says I should listen to her because it’s not all weird Christian pseudo-profound pap. I say, “Get a Job!”.

Ok. A certain substantial amount of fun was had in the Tonga Lounge last night. God knows whether I can remember enough about it to write anything of value, but in attendence were Mr Webb, Mr Hammersley, David Galbraith, Marc Canter and Bill Humphries. Thanks to everyone for a very enjoyable evening. We shall meet at the Tonga Lounge once more…

So here’s the plan (if you’re in the mood and in San Francisco): Mr Webb and myself are going out for a night of Tiki Madness, surrounded by swimming pool, fake tropical storms, house band and cocktails – from around eight this evening at The Tonga Room. It’s the only place to be this Saturday night…

I’m frankly a bit exhausted today, so I’m taking the opportunity to have a sit down in the hotel and sort through everything that I need to get done before Thursday. This includes – of course – working through everything that I need to have read on the web in the last couple of days:

• Adword Poetry
  I like Google Adwords. It really appeals to me (although it seems to be getting more complicated by the minute). There’s got to be more going on there than meets the eye – something worth playing with. Hmm. Come to think of it – I think I still owe Google $13 for running this ad two years ago…
• Sparky redesigns
  I love Dan Ultrasparky, and Rooster and their dog and Glenn and I really want to go and visit them in New York. Later in the year, maybe…
• Moby Mirror Project
  Right. That him done. Who’s next? I can’t be the only person who’s surprised that no one has talked about a Mirror Project book, can I? I mean – I’m sure some people have their Mirror Photos in decent resolution. You could make a glorious coffee table thing with some of them…
• Fat Poofs are the future
  And once again I find myself ahead of the curve…

God I’m so far behind. You turn your back for a couple of days…

So the other day, Webb and I were having a conversation on top of Nob Hill about San Francisco. He has subsequently posted it to his website and Michael Sippey in turn has posted it to his (good post). While looking out across this city of massive structures, hills and trees we suddenly realised that San Francisco looks like one massive game of Sim City. Or more plausibly that Sim City was clearly based upon San Francisco. The structures are so familiar – the way the hills and the roads intersect is so similar. I wonder if that’s why it all seems so comfortable and familiar? Are we responding so positively to San Francisco because it feels like what we think cities are supposed to be like? If so, why on earth do all the Americans we meet seem so desperate to get out of here?

Right. So there’s no hope of me getting everything down as it happens, and I’m not sure I’d want to – there’s a fine line between making an experience last by writing about it and eroding the memory by putting it into words. But I’ll summarise briefly in lieu of actual weblog-content. On Thursday when we’d arrived, Webb and I mooched around some local malls before walking apocalyptically huge distances around San Francisco just to drink it all in. Yesterday we had breakfast in diners and wandered around book shops and met up with Ben for lunch.

He then joined our merry band and we went for dim sum in Chinatown before joining up with Cory for sake cocktails and beer from a fat lady who hadn’t heard of Caipirinhas.

From sake we went for burgers and beer (no burgers for me though) around Cory’s area – then a quick pass by Dave Egger’s pirate shop (closed) via Castle Doctorow, before a cross-town exhausted cab ride to Audium where we sat in the dark in a room full of suspended speakers and listened to weird hallucinogenic music. After alienating the performer by talking about how the noises in the performance were clearly of a distinct period, we went on for further cocktails (still no Caipirinha – compromised on Mojito) with Chris Collaborative-Mapping (who we met in the dark place and was obsessed by Hello Kitty) before stumbled exhausted back to the hotel and thence to bed.

How can it be that I only watch American television and yet there is nothing on American television that I want to watch?! Last night (and this morning) I’ve been compelled to convert to Christianity, forced to ask my Mormon neighbour about something, overheard lots of celebrity gossip and been informed by middle-aged housewives who talk in soundbites about the better call rates of certain long-distance providers. In the middle – somewhere – was an episode of Digimon that seemed utterly incomprehensible to me. There was some wrestling too which was supposed to end at one time, but just kept going. I think. It’s probably just a problem of navigation or context – I have absolutely no idea where to get the television I enjoy watching – no idea how to watch the TV I see. None, whatsoever. In the end, we found ourselves watching The Antiques Roadshow with Hugh Scully on PBS. Phew! What a relief!

Ok. So Mr Webb and I have arrived in the States just as San Francisco’s weather appears to be at its very nicest. We’re (or I am) a bit bowled over by the nine-and-a-bit hour flight, so I’m going to leave you with some samples of the pictures I got of ice-flows and frozen oceans in our travels across the Arctic Circle…