Gohlkus Maximus

I am safely back from visiting my brother in North Carolina. It was a good experience. Upon my return, I (thankfully) discovered that all of Minneapolis’ April snow had melted. Let’s just get on with this “spring” thing, shall we?

I wrote an email message to a long-lost friend today. Actually, I emailed about 4 long-lost friends. Hi, long-lost friend! [The other friends I wrote today are only mildly lost.]

I feel some guilt for sending an uncomplimentary message to a newspaper columnist (see previous entry below). Writing to Alex Beam didn’t really accomplish anything other than to make me look like a bit of a jerk. If I could take it back and simply say nothing, I would. There are more important things, I always say but never act on.

More snow. More trips out of town. More later. Happy April.

To: “Alex Beam” <beam@globe.com>
Subject: A comment on April 2nd’s Boston Globe column
Cc: “James Lileks” <lileks@lileks.com>

Dear Alex:

I expect that I’ll be one of many to respond to your column on weblogs, so I’ll present only a few points.

James Lileks’ writing is far more amusing (and interesting to read) than yours. However, your writing is elitist, and his is not. It seems you’ve both achieved your (apparent) goals.

I especially like the way you’ve taken quotes out of context in order to strike the snottiest note possible. You’ve gotten so many things wrong in your column that I’ll refrain from pointing the rest of them out. (Evasive, to be sure, but you’ve probably received plenty of dissections of your column so far.)

By the way, I don’t think that weblogs present themselves as the ultimate authority on everything, as you seem to have inferred. (Perhaps you’re projecting your own inflated sense of importance onto them.) In my experience, they simply reflect a person’s individual (or a group’s collective) thoughts, opinions, and observations. When I don’t like one, I don’t write a nasty column about it. I simply stop reading it. (Of course, it’s not my job to write nasty columns; I think I understand some of your motivation.)

Finally, I realize this message may be overly harsh and not especially funny. I realize further that I’m judging you without a full understanding of your point of view. For that, I apologize.

(For a less sarcastic version of my opinion, see my comment at http://metatalk.metafilter.com/mefi/2038#32249.)

Gotta love this vote of confidence in our governments (from the readers of this article at CNN.com):

I, for one, am not surprised.

I think that Memepool linked to this anti-war site sarcastically, but I think it’s really powerful.

100 things not to do in Milwaukee brings me back to my childhood, but not as much as 100 Milwaukee memories.

I can’t believe I read the whole thing: Someone has reviewed Radiohead’s brilliant album Amnesiac song by song. His review is a nice example of what the web can do and a damn interesting read. Start with the first song and access the rest from his archive page. It helps if you’re listening to the album while you’re reading it. (It really helps if you have it and Kid A in your MP3 library.)

I’ve been spending way too much time on Metafilter. (It feels like I’m being unfaithful to you somehow, dear reader; I’m deeply sorry.)

But look what I found there:

• A fun and useful police sketch site (Look for the saved face “gohlkus” to see my slightly idealized version of me…. Actually, it looks more like my brother, the more I look at it.)
• Find your birthdate in pi (okay, this one is somewhat venerable)
• A great list of banned Florida license plates and banned New York license plates [see also complaint letters about vanity plates from Washington state and Wisconsin], perfect fodder for your own vanity plate in a more tolerant state

Do you forgive me? (Sure you do.)

Today about 8 inches of snow landed on the Twin Cities with a thud and a few thunderclaps. I feel relieved (and somewhat smug) that I chose today to exercise my right to telecommute on occasion.

I did say no to something. That was necessary.

I haven’t quite finished anything, but no matter—I will. I did find The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Metacritic looks like a great movie review site; it compiles movie reviews from around the web and “averages” them. It’s even named accurately, since its average score for a movie is weighted based on how much they like the critic (implicitly criticizing the critics)….

By the way, there’s something new for me to deal with: “Rejecting contracts puts employees, collective bargaining at risk”.

Via Textism, I’ve discovered Ftrain. Paul Ford is a talented writer and a good read, if a bit too surreal for my tastes at times.

The previous entry is a weird place to keep you hanging. I ordered pizza for the meeting. It was fine, except 7 of the 20 pizzas I ordered didn’t get touched (I counted on the estimates of my more-experienced colleagues), so we donated them to the homeless shelter across the street.

Still haven’t been getting sleep, though. Soon (I hope) I’ll be rolling out gohlke.net, which will draw a clear distinction between my personal thoughts and my professional life, as I’ve planned.