Monday, September 18, 2006

I like to ride

How many metro transit systems have you experienced?

Friday, September 15, 2006

links for 2006-09-15

• Ann Richards Will Take Your Ass Out
  Ann Richards loved movies. She recorded this audience etiquette PSA for the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas. Damn, I miss that spunky broad somethin' fierce.
  (tags: annrichards movies austin)
• Izzle Pfaff: Bar None
  Ev'rybody ought to have a dive. Skot eulogizes the owner of his, D. I'll be raising a glass tonight for a fallen barkeep.
  (tags: barscene)

Thursday, September 14, 2006

links for 2006-09-14

• MacVods HomePage
  An archive of Apple ads. Sweet.
  (tags: apple commercials)
• Fear of flying | Welcome aboard | Economist.com
  I think I already heard this spiel on a Southwest flight.
  (tags: airlines travel humor)

Farewell to a lady

Former Texas governor Ann Richards has died. She was 73.

I was so honored to have met Governor Richards once. She was brash and brassy, loud and incredibly smart. Scary smart. I often said that if she had chosen to run for president, I would have left my job and worked for her for free for as long as it took to put her in the White House.

We may not see her like again for some time, but she certainly tried to make sure we would. She encouraged young women not to settle, ever, for anything less than the best they could do.

Richards often told young girls not to try her path diverting from obedient know-no-alternative housewifery to a late discovery of personal potential.

"The only standard that truly matters is the one you set for yourself," she said at Girls State in 1993. "And you cannot count on Prince Charming to make you feel better about yourself and take care of you, like some funhouse mirror that reflects you at twice your real size.

"Because Prince Charming may be driving a Honda and telling you that you have no equal . . . but that won't do you much good when you've got kids and a mortgage . . . and he has a beer gut and a wandering eye."

On embarking on her 12-year stint as a statewide official, Richards said: "Naturally, I want it to be easier for women to get involved in politics. I want them to think of politics and public service as a good place for them, as something honorable and something worthwhile for them to pursue. And the way they are going to do that is to say, 'If she can do it, I can do it.' "

The world has lost a true lady in every sense of the word. I hope there are Harleys in heaven.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

links for 2006-09-13

• Pogue’s Posts - Lost Sonic Guideposts - Technology - New York Times Blog
  David Pogue on the ka-chings, dial tones and record scratches of yesteryear, bits of sound ephemera that persist long after they're superseded by new technology.
  (tags: sound history)

Monday, September 11, 2006

links for 2006-09-11

• Daily Kos: Gay Americans & 9/11: On a Queer Day
  Remembering the gay and lesbian families affected by the attacks of September 11, 2001.
  (tags: 911 gay)

I remember

The day. The day I stepped off a plane and into a world irrevocably changed.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

And the day after that.

And a month after that.

And a few days later.

Those are things I remember because, for some reason, I wrote them down.

There are other things I remember because they put a dent in my heart. I remember that was the day we found out Mark died a horrible death in a field in Pennsylvania. I remember that was the day we began to worry that Michael, the artist formerly known as The Actor, might be lost too. I remember that Terry called me from San Francisco and cried on the phone with relief when I told him my flight had landed safely. (And I remember that I didn't remember to call my mother and tell her I'd landed until three hours after the second tower fell.) I remember wanting so desperately to be in New York to find and hold my friends close and feel like I was doing something.

And I remember wondering if I would always remember. And I do. And I always will.

Tuesday, September 5, 2006

links for 2006-09-05

• how i backup
  How Josh Benton backs up. Good advice.
  (tags: macintosh backup goodsense)

Friday, September 1, 2006

Labor’s lost

With two very attractive invitations, I coulda gone south this weekend for Southern Decadence—and I really, really came close, despite my allergy to crowds and mugginess that has caused me to beg off in recent years—but instead, I'm headed in the opposite direction for some delightful social intercourse with friends in Chicago and other points north.

After that, it's home again and the beginning of the season. The fall is chock full and there's but a dim light at the end of the tunnel in April.

I'm woefully behind on e-mail and other correspondence and I'll return on Monday to a stack of work, so if you're looking for my attention, your best bet might be to corner me in a Boystown bar in the next 60 hours or so.