Blogging without Borders



Blogging without Borders
Originally uploaded by Laughing Squid.

SXSW has been fun and schmoozy so far. This is the only panel I caught Saturday, Blogging without Borders. Jonas Luster moderated a group that included Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger living in Canada. Hossein made the point that many middle class Iranians do blog from Iran despite the Mullahs (which he equates to corporations in America in their control over society). These blogs represent a voice of the people that is all but ignored in the mainstream American media and the Bush Administration which is increasingly ratcheting up its militant stance against Iran.

And then after all the serious stuff there were parties, and more schmooziness which you can see much of by perusing these Flickr pix.

Austin it is

I’m here in Austin for the first time ever to check out SXSW. Amazing town and I’ve only been here a few hours. Can’t get a cab at bar closing time, that was easy to find out. If any entrepid jibber jabber readers out there are also in Austin this week, drop me a line and lemme know.

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Flickr fuck yeah!




Falling Water

Originally uploaded by Urban Tiki.

It’s rare that I come across a site or tool that just sucks me in. Now is one of those rare times. Flickr has the right mix of visual voyeur curiosity and show-and-tell community that it’s got me clocking up the hours. I discovered flickr a year ago when it first launched, but it was a different animal then. You know you’ve come along way when Yahoo and Google buyout rumors spread like wildfire. I’d love to see Flickr buyout Yahoo. Yeah, I think they’re ready.

Oh, why is Flickr so cool you ask? It gives you the tools to upload, archive, organize, annotate and share your pictures with your friends and soon-to-be friends in a way no other site or tool has before. Awesome, easy to use viral features with a social networking core that encourages community and sharing. Also it’s really encouraged me to take my camera with me and snap pix of pretty much every god damn thing. Check out my Flickr and leave some comments!

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In Red for Those That Wed




SF City Hall

Originally uploaded by ekai.

This is what San Francisco’s City Hall looks like today. Red for Valentine’s day and I imagine the first anniversary of our mayor’s now world famous action.

UPDATE: I was so wrong. The reason City Hall was really red was the Go Red for Women campaign by the American Heart Association. My bad. Red for Valentine’s just made too much sense.

Vision of Virtue




Beauty in clay

Originally uploaded by ekai.

This is one of several amazing beautiful ceramic sculptures created by my good friend Sharon. She’s raising money through the sale of these pieces to fund an arts center in Mozambique. If you’re in San Francisco, check out her show at Ruby’s Clay Studio, 552A Noe Street @ 18th. It runs until March 1st.

Dessert

You should know that Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey ice cream and Croatian Sljivovica (old plum brandy) go really well together.

I added my Tribe tribes to the side panel of this blog. Now you can know all about my perverted communities. Ladytron is making me happy right now.

Gone Bad = Good Times

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OMFG, this film rules! I don’t know how I came across it, but I found the Washington Interns Gone Bad website and ordered the DVD before Christmas. It came today and I just finished watching it. Without giving away too much I’ll just say it’s genius on several levels and subtly touches on issues that people should be paying attention to such as Repubs and Dems stumbling to be the biggest corporate whore, the corporate media, and even globalization. Also includes a crossdressing congressman who surfs foot fetish porn, deadly interns, pieing, Indymedia and even the Reverend Billy has a cameo. Well worth the $16 (includes shipping).

New Year’s Hello

Happy New Year fans of the Eddie! I had an awesome New Year’s week, I was in beautiful Kauai. It was a bit rainy but hella beautiful. I went with my dear friend Audra who knows Hawaii like mice know cheese. We camped out for 4 days on various beaches, tried to hike the Kalalau trail (hella muddy and wet), explored waterfalls, Waimea Canyon and did some diving. We got to play with turtles. Very friendly creatures those leatherbacks! Pix later when I get less lazy.

Btw, read this book. It’s spot on. Amazing that Kansas could be a populist hotbed 100 years ago, but it was. Now it’s a conservative bellweather, home to tons o’ churches and Wal-Marts. Thomas Frank is an amazing eloquent author, also wrote One Market Under God.

Absente in Richmond

absente-btl2.JPGI’m chilling in Richmond, VA at the Mars Bar with me pal Carlton. We just had some of this stuff which is kind of psuedo-Absinthe. It really doesn’t have wormwood cause that’s been banned in the good ol’ can’t-have-too-much-fun USA since 1915. Instead it has something called Southern Wormwood, a less bitter “cousin” of the original trippy shit. They call it Absinthe Refined, which is marketing speak for “the look, the color and maybe the taste but not the real shit” absinthe. Still, the idea of the Absinthe meme being injected into a Virginia bar with wifi, billiards and 80’s music is pretty satisfying right now.