June 2010

There were 3 posts published in June 2010.

google is sending me a t-shirt

Because there’s nothing like an apology that comes straight from the marketing team. But really, I’m happy it’s straightened out and a little freaked out that I was 100% sure that this was how it was going to play out. It’s the most useless sort of psychic ability. The song and a little story about the Google Maps Debacle was on the front page [below the fold] of the local paper and I was at an event wearing a nametag today and someone recognized my name and said “You’re that lady who wrote the poem” and I could have kissed her.

Home stretch week here. I am retiring to bed with a printed manuscript–don’t hate me trees–and a red pen to look for typos and outline what is left to be done. The other Jessamyn West also wrote in bed, though she did it longhand. I am lucky that I can stand my own creative output [I must have listened to that “Hey Google” song a hundred times] because I’m surrounded by it lately. Manuscript ships out June 30… oh wait this is a long month… ONE MORE DAY.

It’s drama in real life here, folks. I’ll report back when I’m finished.

my long underwater nightmare is over

In some way I think I knew it was coming and so hurried up my efforts to appear to be hurrying it along.

Once I’d written the song, someone passed it on to a friend and the next thing you know the Time Magazine blog, Techland called me about it asking “Is there a video we can link?” And of course I’d been meaning to do one… so I spent an hour or two putting this together, they wrote a nice piece and linked to it and tweeted about it which caught the attention of someone at Google Maps who got to play the hero and fix it practically while we watched [while at the same time entreating us to use the “report a problem” link as if that’s all we had to do in the first place]. So the system works, sort of.

By that I mean that people who can be adorable and agitate politely to get their problem fixed by making use of their high placed connections can really get things done. Was the world ever any different? I’d feel slightly better if I felt that I’d improved the overall system and not just my place in it, but I think being any sort of activist means always remaining a little dissatisfied. It’s pretty cool to see my town in the right place again. I dropped the local paper’s editor a note about it.

underwater lullaby

decker demonstrates good yoga form

Hey when it rains, it rains!

This was what passes for an exciting week around here. I did some socializing in the Boston area at a game night, saw Jim and stopped by to see my Dad (and pets), came back home to find that I was cartoonified on the cover of Library Journal. I finally made that song that I’ve been talking about, since we’re now two months with a broken Google Map. Please listen and enjoy. I may make a movie of it.

I also came back thinking I had to turn right around and write a talk and drive to Utica New York today but it turns out that’s next week. The time sensors in my brain, they are a little busted. I blame May with its five weekends. Utica is next week, so I have some time. It’s 60-ish in my house today since it’s cold and rainy and the furnace has been turned off for the season. If it gets too terrible I’ll just get back into bed with the electric sheets.

I am third in my “rundle” in the trivia league so far this season. If you really like geeky stats stuff you can see the rest of my stats here. If I stay in the top six I’ll move up to the next level, otherwise I’ll footle around in this level some more. It’s been fun playing “no looking stuff up” trivia, but man have I become dependent on ready internet access for a lot of my knowledge lately. Almost every time I miss a question I’m certain I could type two or three words into Wikipedia and find it. I’d love to try a trivia league where you could look stuff up with the presumption that the questions would be so tough that it wouldn’t help. Maybe that wouldn’t be trivia then. In any case, it’s a quick and fun distraction from the book-finishing that is occupying the rest of my waking brain function. Do wish me luck.