this is pretty much a copy of my fotolog entry, with a little added idea at the end:
I met Beth and Stacy and Martin and Stacy`s sister at a park on the lower east side, to sit on the asphalt, reading the Sunday paper, and watch them play street hockey... good day for it.
My "good" digital camera is on my desk at work, so i took along the teeny spycam i bought awhile back on a whim... it is truly a crappy little ghetto camera (the viewfinder is a plastic square), but it makes for interesting collages and stuff.
idea: i'm kinda blocked on coming up with something worth writing about, even though i keep thinking "write about this thing", by the time i get around to it, it's not fresh, so i blow it off. I kinda need "assignments", and i'm pretty sure that if i had one, i could crank it out in a couple minutes (i'm a fast typist), and i'd probably tack on a couple of other "oh, and this happened today, and this is on my mind, too..." kind of posts.
does anyone who reads this (does anyone read this?) think they'd appreciate a little mailing list that says "here's a general thing to write something about... do it if you feel like it" every day or so? I think i would... there's probably things like this already, but i'd prefer to only hear from people i know... additionally, i could then pick (and contribute) things that i'd like to hear my friends write about...
examples:
what's the last dvd you purchased and watched? why'd that one merit owning?
what's the best cheeseburger available within walking distance of your house? (rudy, walking 20 miles doesn't count)
list (truthfully) any magazines you subscribe to. explain yourself.
...this kinda sounds like a dorky knitting circle, but i think it'd make me write. I can go on for pages if i'm given motivation, and I think i'll appreciate (well, maybe not appreciate, but at least find quaintly interesting) all this stuff 50 years from now when i find it, burned on an old-fashioned dvd in the holo-attic.
which reminds me, everyone, archive everything you have now. I'll burn it to dvd if you want me to.... you'll thank yourself when you're a grandparent. I have my email back to 1995. All of it, except spam. I'm bummed my exit from the university was, um, unplanned, and therefore my accounts got wiped, and i don't have mail from like, 1989. Now that i mention it, i need to call the guy i gave all my atari disks to, and see what i can find on there.
Instead of a mailing list, you should have a place on your blog where people can put these ideas. Like a blog entry, but people could put more comments on it. This way, all the ideas would be archived and people new to the list could see the old ideas without repeating themselves. Also, this way it's less spam and it makes sure that people interested in seeing things on yoru blog are people who actually read it and such.
You should write about how the Frankfurter Converter has changed your life. :)
Posted by: Maggie on June 29, 2003 10:12 PMthat is what i was going to say. Like an open comment thread or something. I would like to know the superhuman server shit you do day to day, but i am also a nerd like that. Or a description of how you went from doing radiostation to crazy ass web shit. I mean i know it, but i don't KNOW it. Or if you ever really managed to make it so that you could turn your AC on via SMS.
and yes i read this thing.
Posted by: mike on June 30, 2003 10:45 AMHe can't turn on the ac via sms, but he has a remote control to ring the buzzer on the front door of his apartment building, so he can buzz his door from half the block away (useful when it's raining).
Posted by: Maggie on June 30, 2003 04:45 PMhey ryan, did you ever figure out who this was:
http://www.inch.com/~ryan/bastids.au
that would be a good post!
Posted by: mike on July 1, 2003 12:33 AMSo are we doing this? Are we playing the writing prompt game? I'll join. You just gonna make an entry and use the commenting to do it?
Oh, and you used to be able to remotely control the AC, did it wig out the cats too much?
Posted by: beth on July 1, 2003 08:58 PMI'm gonna do something, but i'm still thinking over the exact details. It'll be web-based, comments/forum style, since that's what i think most people prefer, but i think i'll try to do something where a digest of the discussion and the day's/week's blog-about-this suggestion is mailed to those who want it, since email finds the user, and usually gets checked more frequently...
my concern is that if the intended purpose is to keep stirring people who've gotten off the writing-on-the-internet track, then those who're actively checking the site would tend to be those who need less spurring along... i kind of want something in my email that says "hey... you haven't written today... if you're blocked, just think of an assignment for the group instead, and then do this week's topic as an entry."
fridayfive.org is something like this, but it's kinda polluted by people i don't share as much interest with, so it's kind of the "easy-listening" version of what i'm thinking about.
Posted by: ryan on July 3, 2003 01:23 PM