::Chat Roulette::

Has anyone on here tried Chat Roulette? What has your experience been so far?

Is this the future of the Internet? If so, is this a good thing?

Here’s a good article about it - The Human Shuffle

::how to be a real man::

I’m sittin’ here, watching the Superbowl, and as usual I don’t really care about the game itself. But I am fascinated by the commercials. Aside from all the Tim Tebow controversy (read this great article), I am blown away by how men are being portrayed and appealed to. This is the great curse of the English major - movies are never just movies, speeches are never taken at face value, commercials and ads are never just entertaining. We have to analyze every little thing we see.

The target Superbowl commercial audience is obvious - men. So I’m used to the usual approaches… babes and humor. But there have been several that are taking this really interesting approach of “if you’re a real man, you will get this product” or “man up and buy this now”. This is an appeal to a generation of men that are insecure in their manhood and perhaps will be duped by a product that claims will increase your masculinity. So far I’ve seen Dockers telling men to “wear the pants,” Dove telling men they deserve soft skin too, Dodge telling men that they can give in to women in every area of life except the car you drive, and FloTV telling you that you deserve to be able to watch sports all the time. There will probably be more and I’m fascinated what this is saying about the men crowded around their televisions tonight.

::biking in SC::

Since moving to Charleston, I’ve been impressed by the number of cyclists here. Beth and I both bike to work whenever it’s not pouring down rain, and as I sit on my porch at rush hour there are tons of people biking home. I’m no hard-core cyclist, but it just makes sense here - you don’t have to look/pay for parking, it’s totally flat, and drivers are used to reckless tourists looking down at their maps and up at the buildings, clueless college students on cell phones that walk out in the middle of the street at any moment, not to mention the idiots riding skateboards the wrong way down one-way streets. Sure, most of the streets are barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other and South Carolinians have no concept of sharing the road, but in general I feel pretty safe if I’m riding very defensively. Thing is though, this is the only place in South Carolina where this is possible. Leave downtown, and there are no bike lanes or shoulders, and people not only aren’t going to give you space, but will actually try to run you off the road to prove a point.

Here are a few new stats I ran across about biking in South Carolina:

• In an analysis of US States in bicycling to work rates, S.C. ranked 44th.

• S.C. is the second most dangerous state in the nation for bicycling, with 20.2 deaths per 10,000 bicyclists.

• Along with West Virginia and Virginia, SC spent the smallest percentage of funds on bicycle and pedestrian projects among states.

Starbucks is taking us out to High Cotton tonight. Should be a delicious and fun time. Gotta get dressed. I think I’m gonna wear this sweet tie Beth got me for Christmas.

::how to get rid of books::

In our house, towers of books sprout up from the floor like weeds. They are impossible to kill, despite the number of bookshelves that we pilfer from the side of the road on trash day. One day, Beth and I will be faced with the horrible situation of having to weed out the one we really don’t need. For now, we’re resisting that moment.

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times asking authors how they deal with this problem - ::Books You Can Live Without::

::fire at The King::

The other morning I arrived at work (Starbucks at 239 King Street downtown Charleston, SC) at 6AM. Meghan and I walk through the door into a lobby full of a thick(ish) haze of smoke. After a quick run around the store, we confirm that nothing is on fire. We check all the appliances - still running. We check the oven - nothing burnt in there. Check the back courtyard - not even a hint of smoke back there. We have no idea where this smoke came from.

So I get to dial 911. It struck me that I’d never done that before. It was kind’ve a strange feeling. So I explain that there is no current fire, that it’s not an urgent emergency - I just need someone that knows what they are doing to figure out where this smoke came from and is it gone and our store isn’t going to burst into flames when we have 20 people inside.

Less than five minutes later, a police captain pulls up in a car, then a full fire truck, then another. Then a policeman blocks off the next street down (Market Street) and a fire truck comes down that street. A hook and ladder truck pulls up and the stabilizing arms extend. Hoses are rolled out. Within 7 minutes, there are 30 firemen (that we can count) inside, on top of, next door to, and in front of my store.

Charleston has a small history with fires.

But we can’t figure it out. I walk through the whole store with the captain. Mustachioed firemen are poking the ceiling tiles out with their axes, unscrewing panels in the walls, climbing the ladder in our back courtyard into the attic of the store. I answer his questions. We’re all perplexed. There’s no smoke in any other buildings. Only in the front of our lobby. They blow the smoke out with their fans and we wait for the smoke to come back. Nothing.

The captain finally tells me we should just go on like usual. But he gives me his number to let him know if we figure it out. Even if it’s a small thing - he’s dying to know where it came from. I am too.

Tony - my homeless friend that comes in for free coffee, old pastries, and occasionally some pants - thinks that our building is haunted (he’s not the first to speculate so) and that it was left behind by a visitor from hell. Maybe so. We’ll probably never know.

::new Vampire Weekend::

this post is dedicated to Brandon Brown, older brother of my lovely wife and number one reason why she has such great music taste.

I’m loving the new album “Contra” by Vampire Weekend. We both loved their first so much that it makes you nervous that they won’t be able to pull another one off that’s quite as good. Beth still listens to it near constantly, and runs around the house chasing Fitz and singing her versions of the songs to him, but it’s so catchy and enjoyable that I don’t really mind. Yes, most every song sounds like a Paul Simon rip-off, but since when is that a bad thing? Quit hating and just enjoy this performance of their newest single on Letterman last night.

::buy less, live more::

Read this:

::In Recession, Americans Doing More, Buying Less::

This isn’t the first article I’ve read with a similar theme. And I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one that doesn’t think that this whole recession thing is entirely horrible. Of course, I feel for those who are truly struggling, and this is coming from someone who is currently employed, unlike a lot of my friends. (albeit from a barista that makes less than $12,000 a year.)

But I love seeing people forced to quit buying things that they do not need. I love seeing needless waste curtail ever so slightly. I love seeing people buy more used things, buy less brand-name things. I love seeing people learn to cook their own (more delicious, more healthy) meals instead of eating out. I love seeing people fix what they have instead of just buying a new one.

Of course I’m hoping that the economy recovers and that the unemployment rate goes down. I understand the need for people to buy stuff for this to happen. But I hope that this realignment of values, this attitude towards stuff, continues to grow and reverse our culture of conspicuous consumption.