Voxiversary the Second

Holy crap! I missed my second Voxiversary!

By almost three months!

This can only mean I have been distracted because (choose one):

• my life has become a living hell the likes of which no one should have to suffer.
• my life has become a living hell the likes of which everyone should have to suffer!
• my life has become a living purgatory which a few people might have to suffer under certain circumstances.
• the earth stopped turning.
• the earth was turning with a hestitant grinding motion, which proved to be worn bearings.
• Vincent D'Onofrio showed up demanding money, or at least some coupons.
• I was buried under an avalanche of doorknobs.
• the Spanish fly didn't work.
• I realized after years of denial that Pikachu does not have Focus Fist.
• no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fit the bottle inside the toy ship.
• Tyra Banks is even higher maintenance than you might think.
• I learned the Pope is not only Jewish, but shows up at Rotary meetings wearing gigantic lapels and a cravat.
• the double pneumonia I contracted after being caught in the rain at that Reds game took months to clear up.
• Buddy Guy keeps calling me asking where he can get one of those cool Tripwire "got integrity?" T-shirts.
• I only went to Washington, D.C. to visit, but I ended up ensnared in partisan politics, bureaucratic stonewalling, and unrelenting harrassment from the shoe-leather lobby.
• using Twitter to post every aspect of my personal grooming requires a serious time commitment.
• buying a product called "Rolex Viagra Stocks Cialis Luxury" can be a very, very costly mistake.

So, thanks for your patience and understanding. To get things under control, I will probably need a flashlight, an analog wristwatch, an assortment of small loudspeakers, and a street map of Decatur (Illinois or Georgia, it doesn't really matter). I'll let you know.

MyFace & SpaceBook

Well, everyone, I just set up accounts on those "social networking" sites that all the kids are using, MyBook and SpaceFace. That means I am now fully clued into "InterWebs 3.5"! What is it that those cute kitties say? "Can I have a cheeseburger?" See, I'm so "in touch" I can barely stand it! I have also been reading that trendy independent newspaper, The Onions, and boy, there are much stranger things going on in the world than I'd realized! It's a good thing I finally bought a computer. By the way, folks, how many times will I have to put in my credit card and social security numbers before this thing quits bugging me? I have already signed up for "antivirus" at least 12 times…you'd think by now it would get the message! Good thing I have some friendly teenagers in the neighborhood. They have given me some pointers, like how "ROTFL" means "Really I'm Laughing Very Hard" and LOLYOG means "Lots Of Luck, You Old Geezer." Ha, those kids! What a sense of humor. I guess between the Nintendos and the "We" video games, they pick up a lot of funny lines! Well, I am off…I have more "web sights" to figure out, such as "Yahootube" and "Googles." Somebody also said I can get weather on this thing. See you around "cyber-space," everybody!

Voxiversary the First

On this day one year ago I wrote my first Vox post.

A hearty thank-you to everyone who's made Vox a positive experience…family, old friends, new friends–even some new friends I've met in person!–and of course the good folks who keep Vox running.

I also want to thank Tito, Fabio, my great-granduncle Nancy, my attorney Phil, my staff of physicians at The Clinic, my barber Ted, my barber's lawyer's uncle's doctor Steve, Jeff at Custom Body Fluid and Stain Removal, Mistress Tarantula at The RubberWorks, Chris at Circuit City for helping with my "blender issue," everyone at Queen City Sausage and Chrome Plating, that one dude with the primo shit who never comes around anymore, Buffy and everyone at Fluffer Squad, Al Feldspar at Micro Center for noticing that my "computer" was really just a cardboard box with a flashlight taped inside, Jeb for supplying the "goat grease," and of course God Almighty, with whom all things are possible, at least so they say around these here parts.

Cincinnati Vox Meetup a Success!

The Queen City Voxers' Meetup on Saturday was a success! In attendance were Amy, M—–l, Mr. Guilt, Nyght, yours truly, various spouses and little ones, and, all the way from Seattle, homebody!

Vox Meetup Group Photo

The weather cooperated, with storms passing us by to the north and temperatures avoiding their Cincinnati worst. Ault Park proved a terrific place to get together.

Ault Park View 1

 

Ault Park View 2

The kids had a great time while the adults chatted…

Collecting Pillbugs 1

Collecting Pillbugs 2

And everyone enjoyed their Vox goodies!

We’re Only in It for the Shirts

Amy took a bunch of pictures, so I will point you to her Vox where you can read more. Thanks to everyone for coming; it was great seeing you all, and meeting new folks!

QotD: Happy Voxiversary!

Today is Vox's first anniversary since the official launch.  What's the best experience you've had on Vox in the past year?

Meeting folks around town with whom I have some things in common. (That's rare.)

I've never had a blog before.

That may seem odd for someone with a creative writing degree, an English lit degree, and a job developing web software.

I had mixed feelings about blogging. I used to participate in AOL forums and Usenet and was invariably astonished at the quantity of inexplicable, pointless hostility those threads could generate. But sometimes I learned things. As Gene Spafford said:

Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea–massive, difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it.

Blogging moved control toward the original poster, away from the follow-ups (including thread hijackers and spammers). And hell, you could do away with comments altogether if you wanted. That'd be anathema to some, but not to Dave Winer (although he does have a place for comments):

Me, I like diversity of opinion. I learn from the extremes. You think evolution is a liberal plot? Okay, I disagree, but I think you should have the right to say it, and further you should have a place to say it. You think global warming is a lie? Speak your mind brother. You thought the war in Iraq was a bad idea? Thank god you had a place you could say that. That's what's important about blogs, not that people can comment on your ideas. As long as they can start their own blog, there will be no shortage of places to comment.

A low-traffic personal blog like this doesn't get comment crap anyhow, especially in the so-far-friendly Vox world. How much of that is thanks to the gated-community character is up for debate. Jen Rizzo writes:

I also really hate that you have to create an account to leave a comment. I know they're trying to promote a sense of community, and that's great, but if a random googler finds my blog, I'd love to hear what they have to say. A lot of people, myself included, won't register for an account just so they can add their two cents.

I wonder how much more input I'd get, good or bad, if we had the anonymous comment option and I switched it on.

Anyway. It's fun to be here so far. A totally different experience from the anarchic forums of old.

In Search of the Ultimate Member Name

Wait. Why do you care what I name my member? That’s sort of personal, isn’t it?

Ahem.

Now that I’ve set up camp at Vox and have some idea of what the hell I’m doing here, I want to change my URL and maybe my member name.

On Vox we have a few forms of ID…

1. Member name. (Is that term making anyone else giggle?) This doesn’t have to be unique; I found 10 other people named just “Scott” in the people search results. For some reason I didn’t make the cut. I guess you have to be searchable on your…
2. Real name. Can be searched on but doesn’t appear anywhere else, as far as I can tell.
3. URL name. Your unique “xxx.vox.com” name. (AKA hostname, sitename, host header name, etc.)
4. E-mail address. Usually not a highly visible part of Vox life, although some users show it on their pages. This is your login ID.

So, three things you need to choose (four if you’re using a bogus real name—tsk, tsk).

I want some obfuscation of the link between my real name and my blog. I don’t have illusions of anonymity; I don’t want to be impossible to look up anyway. I’d just prefer it be harder than typing my (unusual) real name into Google and instantly seeing whatever crap I’ve been posting here.

Star Trek Legacy (Prima Official Game Guide)

The hard part is picking names. I obsess over these things. I spent days coming up with an Xbox Live ID and now I don’t even play online. (I’m not thrilled with the name I took so long choosing, either, except when I’m playing Star Trek: Legacy, where it’s totally appropriate.)

Some people hit on great names, names that somehow fit. Like old pals Nyght, Chespo, and Rubrick. Concise, unique, easy to read. I need something like that, something that just clicks.

And then I can’t decide whether I’d like my member name (huh huh, he said “member” again) to match my URL name.

So. This is my big quandary while people overseas are giving their lives for their country. Is ShallowSpoiledAmerican taken?

How Many Social Networks?

Well, harumph: old pal Rick has been on LiveJournal all this time and didn’t bother to tell me.* (Or maybe he did, but via one of those “Public Notice” classifieds no one reads.)

Rick has reservations about joining Vox and getting enmeshed in another blogging-and-social-networking site. This rang a bell: recently Dave Winer wrote, “We’re all tired of building networks of friends, over and over. Next time we do it, it’ll be for keeps.”

Wait, isn’t that what Windows Live ID does? Hey! Stop laughing!

–

*Where’s the emoticon for tongue-in-cheek? Smiley, winky, and tongue-sticking-out don’t seem right for this.

Do You Twitter?

Wil Wheaton does.

What’s it all about? Dave Winer gives his take.