Journal Entries
Field Researcher
Posted Apr 5, 2008
I recently received an iPod Touch as a gift (far more than I deserved) and I highly recommend it to anyone who has the means to get one. It's really 
. For instance, the past three nights, I've gone on long late night walks throughout my town with music playing. When I've come upon something interesting, I've whipped out the old iPod, touched the 'Notes' section and written it down. I've also discovered a Rare and Used books store right not far from my neighborhood which I'd never heard of before 
Almost all of my entries in the past have been based on books, interviews, documentaries and internet sources. Writing down notes on landmarks, streets, architecture and things about my town (ultimately for an entry, I hope) has made me feel like a real researcher in the mold of the original field researcher, Ford Prefect. 
It's a cool feeling.
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Latest reply: Apr 5, 2008
5,000 Dollars/Hour is Far too Much to Pay for a Prostitute.
Posted Mar 12, 2008
In case you haven't heard about it, the story is still on the BBC News international front page - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7290071.stm
I don't really care about whether the governor of NY State hired a prostitute, but honestly, 5,000 dollars per hour? 
I suppose it is intended to guarantee a high quality and a certain level of privacy (though that doesn't seem to have worked out for Mr. Spitzer). I saw it remarked somewhere that the only time I'd pay anyone 5,000 dollars an hour would be for life-saving surgery.
Of course, this same sort of thing happened to a Louisiana Republican Senator a few months ago, so it's been interesting to watch conservatives (who insisted that it was a family matter for the Senator back then) condemn the Governor. Once again, a Lewinsky-type "scandal" like this doesn't bother me at all. If he had used public money, that would be wrong (especially when he could have easily saved taxpayers money if he got a prostitute in Times Square - or wherever the NYC prostitutes hang out these days).
On another note, happy birthday to Douglas Adams. I recently reread the first of the Hitchhiker's Books, and I was again impressed by how intelligent and funny the man was. I had almost forgotten Wish you were here, Mr Adams 
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Latest reply: Mar 12, 2008
Velocity
Posted Feb 26, 2008
I went to an Obama rally here in Ohio today, along with 11,000 of my closest friends . I managed to grab some pretty good seats - fourth row, pretty close to the platform. It was a great experience. The woman who introduced Senator Obama was a local who quoted too deeply from the Declaration of Independence... she quoted from the second paragraph, which is what everyone does (We hold these truths to be self-evident) but then kept going, into the section about overthrow and abolition of the government, which I thought was an odd choice.
Senator Obama is an extremely persuasive and inspiring speaker. I've watched his great speeches live as they happened... 'This was the moment...' from Iowa, 'Yes we can' from South Carolina, 'What began as a whisper in Iowa...' after Super Tuesday and of course his incredible 2004 Boston speech. But it's tough to compare that with the energy and inspiration that comes from listening to him in person. It's impossible not to feel something, I think.
Maybe it's my infatuation with history and its great men, maybe it's my inherent optimism and idealism, but I tend to believe that rhetoric and a force for inspiration can change the world. There's something valuable in the power of persuasion and inspiration. That's not nothing. If I can paraphrase a line from The West Wing, (spoken by the character Sam Seaborn) the measure of a great speech is the velocity with which people rise to their feet to applaud at the end. Once people are on their feet, who knows what can happen? 
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Latest reply: Feb 26, 2008
Today I Turn Five
Posted Jan 26, 2008
Has it only been five years? The personal space U201497 was created January 26, 2003, though I had been wandering around h2g2 since September, 2002 in various accounts. Nevertheless, this is my Hootoo-versary today and now I am five. According to this website - http://www.nncc.org/Child.Dev/ages.stages.5y.html if U201497 was a human child, I would now be able to skip, know basic colors and use swear words to get attention.
It's been a long five years. Lots of accomplishments, changes, friends and conversations have come and gone during that time. I was largely absent from hootoo for about a 1-1.5 year period of course, but I hardly think that should keep me from enjoying some birthday
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Latest reply: Jan 26, 2008
Favorite Entries
Posted Jan 18, 2008
I was looking at my personal space tonight, and I realized that for all the stuff I've written for h2g2, there are only a few pieces that I feel an actual connection with. They're entries whose subjects moved or entertained me, even if the entry itself does not have the same effect. Some entries challenged me, some educated me.
My most recent EG entry is The Ashtabula Horror A29443223 which was nothing less than haunting to research. Digging into lives and stories of these people who died so suddenly and so brutally was brutal, and made me rethink how I view stories of disaster and death. It was also my first time trying to write something historical in a narrative format, so it was challenging to me.
A5104333 Alexander Hamilton is my hero, A1118648 Ty Cobb is the most compelling character I've ever written about, A8379507 Turd Blossoms and the American Dream is one of the weirdest angles I've ever taken on an entry, A30334808 the Potomac is one of my more elegantly thought out entries and A1043173 Andy Kaufman is an entry that wrote itself, but I should have stayed out of the way and let Kaufman tell his own story more. A4814110 Filibusters is the first entry I really set forward my opinion in. A3773225 The Assassination of JFK had me paranoid for weeks. A2622142 Preparing to be Inaugurated is the first entry I really took an unusual angle on. A3556820 European Cities in Ohio is the most pedantic topic of an entry I've ever written. In some way, all of these topics and entries left an impact on me.
I am writing this not because I think you'll be interested in my few entries, but because I wonder if anyone else has entries that they feel connected with? What entries are you most proud of (EG or not, obviously, I'm just talking about EG entries because that's all I write)? Has a project or piece you've written ever changed you in some way? For me, writing (for h2g2) is all about learning and discovering. Is it that way for anyone else?
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Latest reply: Jan 18, 2008
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