xian’s Neighbors

2nd Annual DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:19:20 -0700

2008 Donors Choose Blogger Challenge

How would you like to make a difference in the life of a public school students?

For the second year in a row, Six Apart is participating in the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge. The challenge runs all throughout the month of October, and we'd love for you to participate along with us. Just as we did last year, Six Apart is sponsoring the award for the bloggers who reach the most kids.

How It Works

The Blogger Challenge is a friendly contest amongst bloggers to raise money for low-income public schools. Here's how it works: teachers from all over the country post items for which they would like funding, such as writing supplies for a journalism class, equipment for a science lab, or music instruments for a band class. Bloggers choose their favorite projects and link to their challenge page in a post or via a giving widget on their blog. The bloggers who raise the most money or reach the most kids will win an award.

Here's how you can participate:

Go to the Donors Choose Blogger Challenge page and find a blogger's giving list you'd like to support.

Set up your own challenge and let your readers know in a blog post or by installing the widget (it just takes a few clicks).

No matter which way you choose to participate, you should feel incredibly proud of yourself for helping to bring resources to students in struggling classrooms.

Donors Choose will announce the results in early November, and we'll reveal the winners of the Six Apart award for bloggers who reached the most students shortly thereafter.

Are you going to accept the Blogger Challenge? Tell us about it (and link to it) in the comments!

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Help Support DonorChoose Projects

nobody@vox.com(Mena) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:48:30 -0700

donate

Over at my other blog, dollarshort.org, I'm blogging frequently during the DonorsChoose.org Blogger Challenge. Please check out this post about the challenge and how you can support the kids.

Here's my challenge page which lists the projects I'm supporting.

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Is Sarah Palin qualified to be Vice-President?

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 01:35:22 -0700

Larry Lessig in slightly over 12 minutes compares Pailn against every Vice-President in U.S. history and still has time to ponder the chances that she could become President Palin.

Palin pales dreadfully in the comparison: She is the second least experienced VP candidate in history. What's more the historical odds are 1 in 5 that she would have to assume the Presidency. However, given that John McCain is the oldest Presidential candidate in history and has a history of cancer, the chances are even higher.

Palin's experience in just 12 minutes

Spread this far and wide. This is not a time for a Disneyesque heroine cum hockey mom to take over the Presidency of the U.S..

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I don't have enough thumbs

nobody@vox.com(Jay Allen) — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:43:33 -0700

The following is a smattering of shows currently saved on my Tivo as "suggestions" -- shows that I didn't ask for but that Tivo thinks I would like. Usually, there are some pretty good ones and the ones that aren't can usually be traced to other trends (like watching a couple of cartoons opens up the Cartoon Network gates).

But suddenly, the Suggestions have utterly gone to crap. Here's just a very small smattering of them:

"It's All Gospel"

"The best videos of chart-topping artists"

America's Heartland

"A family farm creates multiple organic products; bluegrass music; products made from bales of straw, annual wild-rice harvest"

P. Allen Smith Gardens

"Planting hydrangeas; hydrangeas in arrangements and wreaths; snowball viburnum"

Rhinestone (Sylvester Stallone, Dolly Parton, Richard Farnsworth)

A country singer bets her considerable virtue she can make a New York cabby a star in only two weeks

The Jamie Kennedy Experiment

Melissa Joan Hart and Jamie bungle a mother/daughter reunion on the set of a talk show

What. In. The. HELL? Who's been watching crappy ass television with my Tivo? Did Tivo get a big new investor recently from somewhere deep in the middle of the country? Get out of my television!!

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"Shape of Water" by Saint and Kings

nobody@vox.com(allaboutgeorge) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 03:53:49 -0700

The Shape of Water

Saint and Kings

Shape of Water

Saint and Kings

Lately it's been heavy
all my friends have been in trouble by the pound
And they're spread out
and there is only so much of me to go around

Asking how things are going to go is like asking, "What's the shape of water?"
The condition is not the process is not the outcome is not the aftermath

Lately it's been harder
to stay present and not drift too far out of reach
What keeps me focused
is knowing the moment has so much to teach

Asking how things are going to go is like asking, "What's the shape of water?"
The condition is not the process is not the outcome is not the aftermath

The shape of water depends on the shape of the container you carry it in
The shape of water depends on the shape of the container you carry it in
The shape of water depends on the shape of the container you carry it in
The shape of water depends on the shape of the container you carry it in

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Join Us at BlogWorld

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:07:28 -0700

BlogWorld

The BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Las Vegas on September 20th and 21st is the largest blogging conference in the world and Six Apart, Vox's parent company, will be there in full force. The only question we have is: Will you be joining us?

If so, we hope you'll be sure to attend the opening keynote where Six Apart's CEO, Chris Alden, and VP, Anil Dash, will speak on "The State of the Blogosphere." Considering over 12 million American adults currently maintain a blog, and over 57 million Americans read blogs, we're very curious to find out what they have to say!

There are so many amazing speakers and panels at BlogWorld, we know you'll be incredibly busy, but we'd really love to meet you, so please take time to stop by the Six Apart booth and introduce yourself. While you're there, you can meet other Six Apart Voxers, learn more about our new website, Blogs.com, and get any questions you may have answered.

Are you attending the BlogWorld Expo? Let us know in the comments.

See you in Vegas!

-daisy

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Thoughts on the 2008 vice presidential race

nobody@vox.com(allaboutgeorge) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:34:02 -0700

I don't think I've said anything about it up to now, and there's only (as of today) 9 1/2 weeks left.

I just read Mudflats' "What is McCain Thinking? One Alaskan's Perspective." In it, she says:

[...] Listen to John McCain and you'll hear about a maverick reformer who took on big oil, took on corrupt Alaska politicians, and whose ethics are unquestioned.

Alaskans really want to like Sarah Palin. In a state where corruption is the rule, and the same faces keep recycling over and over and over again like a bad dream, a new face, with a promise of reform seemed like a breath of fresh air. Palin defeated incumbent governor Frank Murkowski (father of Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski who he appointed to his own Senate seat when he was elected governor) because he was such an obnoxious, bloviating, downright BAD politician. This staunchly republican state voted with relief, not having to cross over and vote Democratic, but still able to get Murkowski the hell out of office. In the general election Palin swept into office running against a former Democratic governor, Tony Knowles, who was capable but came with baggage. And he represented to Alaskans more of the same, tired old-style politics, and special interests that we have come to loathe.
So, if McCain had made his selection six months ago, the squeaky-clean governor meme would have made a little more sense. But, Sarah Palin is currently under an ethics investigation by the Alaska state legislature. [...]

See, six months ago, it was pretty hard to tell the lineup of Republican presidential candidates apart -- even with a scorecard. So when I tweeted a friend a Publius Pundit vice-presidential poll, he said he was rooting for someone he thought could govern: Christopher Cox, for his conservative bonafides, relative youth and ability to shore up McCain's economic flank.

He asked me who I thought had a shot, and I told him I thought the nod would be more about campaigning than governing: "Whitman, Hutchison, Rice, Watts, Jindal, Powell, Palin, Blackburn, [Elizabeth] Dole, Steele." Of those, my friend said he thought only Watts had enough experience but lacked the desire.

I didn't give the issue any more serious thought until this morning. I'd assumed McCain wouldn't give in to his long-shot leanings. I was wrong.

Today, my friend asked me what I thought of Joe Biden. I said "Meh. I'd hoped he'd double-down on change (Bayh/Kaine) or pick Hagel or Powell or Richardson, but I'm pleased he didn't pick Clinton." I think we can all see pretty clearly what not-picking Clinton yielded.

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Discover the Best of the Blogosphere

nobody@vox.com(Team Vox) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:29:12 -0700

Blogsdotcom

One of my favorite things about working at Six Apart is that it's a company founded by bloggers, for bloggers. As a result, not only do we want to provide bloggers with the best tools (like Vox, TypePad and Movable Type), we're also committed to helping bloggers find a broader audience, and helping readers find the blogs that matter to them. And with over 175,000 new blogs created every single day, this is no easy feat.

Luckily, with the launch of Blogs.com, Six Apart is making it easy for you to find the best blogs on the web. Hand-picked by a team of passionate editors, and organized by the topics that interest you, Blogs.com will help you find blogs on a variety of topics from Life, to Entertainment, to seasonal topics like Student Life. You can also catch up on the latest buzz on the web by reading featured editorials or checking out the top ten lists.

Wondering how you can submit your blog to the Blogs.com editors for consideration? It's easy -- Just fill out this quick form. In the meantime, check out Blogs.com and let us know what you think in the comments.

Thanks for reading!

-daisy

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Review: Rachel Kramer Bussel, "Spanked: Red Cheeked Erotica"

nobody@vox.com(allaboutgeorge) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 09:24:22 -0700

"[...] I love what we're doing, but I'm getting confused. I'm having a
hard time telling the truth where the truth ends and the play-acting
begins. Sometimes we act like a regular couple and do normal couple-y
things; sometimes we have really fun, playful sex. And then sometimes
we get into this other thing. [...]"

Andy Ohio's "Tied Down"

So, like, what's up with that other thing? More to the point: Were you in a playful mood the last time you had sex with someone?

I'm not talking about "playful" as in "kittenish," much less "monkeying" or "horsing" around. (Save your human/animal roleplay jokes for now, m'kay?)

I'm talking about the state of mind that has to do with gleeful improvisation, glistening wetness and gleaming smiles, glowing pleasure in the moment and getting a grip on (or getting gripped by) a willing partner.

The latest book to remind me of that delightful state, that pleasant periphery in which ludic languor lives, is Rachel Kramer Bussel's anthology of short stories. (Full disclosure: I received a review copy in exchange for a promise to write a review and post it to the book's Amazon.com listing.)

Each story is not just a rude and randy recitation of body-part motion-capture that one might plot on a graph with as little difficulty as one might play buzzword bingo with nearly any politician's boilerplate address.

It's also not just a collection of completely unlikely or implausible scenarios (airplane bathrooms, department-store dressing rooms, college classrooms, graveyards, etc.). It's called wishful thinking, not fantastic (in that other sense of the word) thinking. Maybe it's just my own imagination, but situations where a few words gone awry result in a gauntlet thrown down and then taken up sound not just likely, but like good ideas (as in Thomas S. Roche's "Pre-Party" and Kramer Bussel's own "The Depths of Despair").

It's why I'm willing to go along with Shanna Germain's "Perfect Bound" with its library-look protagonist, bookstore-cum-flytrap setting and delightfully unexpected uses for certain old-school office supplies, or Alison Tyler's "Betty Crocker Gone Bad," which turns a domestic quirk into the kind of escapade that might get left on a cable-cooking-show cutting-room floor, or Madeline Glass' "Laser Tag," which makes the best out of bad behavior at a concert and the resulting cute-meat meet-cute.

By the time you've dropped in on the grownups-go-back-to-high-school scenario of Madlyn March's "Reunion," the barn settings (yes, if you must, perhaps now's the time for your roleplay jokes) of Thomas Christopher's "Riding the Storm" and L. Elise Bland's "The Breeding Barn," you're probably several turns of the screw into certain physical symptoms that result from the consumption of well-written erotica. You probably won't even mind the workplace-turnabout triptych of Fiona Locke's "Pink Cheeks," Laura Bacchi's "Page By Page" and Simon Sheppard's "Fiscal Discipline."

Make a point of checking this book out wherever you get your hands on it, and you'll soon concur that the only thing better than bending over a well-told tale is, well, bending over a well-toiled-over tail.

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Ante Up!

nobody@vox.com(Anil) — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 10:36:43 -0700

Bert & Ernie tries Gangsta-Rap

M.O.P.'s "Ante Up" has long been one of my favorite songs, thus I couldn't resist this video. Oddly, it's also one of the few tracks in the world where the edited version might be even more entertaining than the uncensored one.

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