Google Reader has a new interface. And I was just starting to like the old one. But the new release has a lot of great features. I'm not sure what reader software you use, but if you haven't already, you should give this a try.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Google 

Some good things to remember when building standards- and css-friendly sites, whether you're a pro at css or just breaking away from tables.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Code  CSS  Web  Work 

Recently, I mentioned launching my friend Tom's Web site for his debut novel, Last Town on Earth. On Sunday, he was interviewed by Liane Hansen on NPR. Nice job, Tom!

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Books  Friends 

Thursday afternoon I got the call. I didn't recognize the voice. It was female. Southern accent.

"Uh, hi. May I speak to . . . "

"This is him."

"Um . . ." The woman seemed hesitant. Nervous. "Did you lose something?"

Something? I've lost many things, in fact. Where should I begin?

Existentially: "Why yes, I've been unable to find myself for some time now. "

Psychologically: "Indeed, I seem to have lost my mind."

Physically: "I've lost so many things. Maybe a game of twenty questions would help? Is the object small or large? Is the object blue? Does the object play Italian polkas when you wind it up? If you found my little accordion-playing monkey I will be so excited!"

There were so many possibilities. And, posed as it was by this stranger with the tentative, southern voice, her query was ultimately greeted with confused silence on my end.

So the caller tried a different approach: "Do you own a little red Volkswagen?"

And that's how we found her. Carmen. The woman who called worked in a hair salon in the District Heights strip center where Carmen had been left overnight. She had found my phone number on a receipt for some tires that had been left behind. I had anticipated a call for several weeks, but after settling with our insurance company about a week earlier, both C and I had sort of given up hope. The woman on the other end of the phone and her boss, J, were very nice. J gave me instructions on how to get to his place, despite warning me that I wouldn't like what I found. "I don't think you want to see it," said J to me over the phone. He seemed to me to have a Greek accent, though I found out later he was from Israel. "You'll be sad."

C and I were sad when we saw her. But it was necessary. We wanted to see if there were any personal items left behind. But more than that, we wanted to bring closure to the whole bloody thing. We felt like we were going to identify a body.

And that's pretty much all that was left. When we arrived at the location, we saw Carmen immediately. She was sitting alone at one end of the strip center, a ghost of her prior self, small and abandoned in this lonely parking lot. The first thing I noticed was that there was some kind of greasy film covering her, inside and out, and everything reeked of oil. While we weren't able to open the hood, we were pretty sure we wouldn't find an engine there. Or at least we wouldn't find Carmen's engine there. She had tires and wheels, but they were a size too small, and looked strange under her body. The tires that I bought for $175 a piece not very long ago were gone and some mud-splattered, thin-tread rubber circles were left in their place. The only thing left of the dash was the steering column, and it lay sadly on the floor among a jungle of colorful wires and fuses. Oddly, the seats had been left, as well as the passenger side door innards and all the speakers of the 'Monsoon' sound system. In fact, the more we examined her, the more we were surprised by all that had been left behind. It was like the guys that took her had an order to fill and they grabbed what they needed and left the rest.

Photos are here
Warning: not for the faint of heart

After looking Carmen over, taking pictures, and telling her how sorry we were, we walked over to the hair salon and spoke with J and the employee who had called me. They commiserated with us, and told us how their car had been broken into and nearly stolen only a couple of months ago, in broad daylight, right in front of their shop. They gave us the paperwork for the Goodyear tires (which had enabled them to find our number). Also, they passed on a pair of shoes and some other odds and ends which they had removed from Carmen upon my request, in case we weren't able to make it out before the tow-truck arrived.

We drove home quietly, a little stunned by what we had seen, a little pissed that there were people in the world who did this kind of shit. But we were also relieved that Carmen had been found and that we were able to see her one final time before she was sold piece by piece at some auto auction. She was by far our favorite car. Classy. Speedy. She had character. Part of that character was that she was often high-maintenance. But we loved her anyway.

We still haven't purchased a replacement, but we've finally made a decision as to what that replacement will be. Now, we just have to wait for the model we want to get in stock. I won't go into detail right now as to what we're getting, but I will say that we're taking a VW hiatus. Since 1999, C and I have had three different VWs, and while we loved all three, we agree that it's time for a change. We've found something new which we're really excited about. I'll drop another clue and say that it is an import, so right now it's on a boat somewhere making its long journey to the dealer's lot.

So with that, I put Carmen to rest. But not to despair. I'm sure a new chapter of car tales is soon to follow.


link to this | comments (8) | File:  Carmen 

$36 Million spent on a casino and there's only one minor problem. It's built on the wrong land.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  News 

I've stumbled across this blog a couple of times in my daily reading. It's a blog by a cartoonist and marketer, Hugh MacLeod. I find it contrary to my view of order in the world that some of the most interesting blogs I read, like this one, like Seth Godin's, are written by people in the marketing profession. Marketers? I've always self-righteously believed that they are nothing more than megaphones for the 'hype machine.' Or maybe my distaste is more personal than that - maybe I'm simply jealous of their relentless optimism. (I tend to cling to my pessimism like the last splintered plank of wood left floating in the ocean, long after the ship has sunk.) So I am chagrined to find myself returning again and again to these marketer's blogs. Despite their profession, these guys have real wisdom which can be applied to much more than business. Go figure. World order re-aligned!

Kidding aside, today I found this post on gapingvoid and it struck a chord, particularly this comment about reinvention:

I believe the capacity to re-invent one's life, one's career, one's business, one's industry etc is not just a nice quality to have. I believe it's an essential survival tool.

I think he's right-on: The ability to reinvent our lives is one of the most important aspects of our survival, not just in a psychological sense, but also in a physical, entirely mortal sense. Simply put, without the instinct to reinvent ourselves, to learn new things, to find new passions, we propel ourselves with greater speed and velocity towards death. Sorry. I know that sounds morbid, but I believe it.

Thirty seems to be a pivotal age for the 'Reinvention Bug.' It's like a pre-mid-life crisis, only without the financial stockpile requisite to buy $60,000 sports cars or whet the appetite of young women looking for sugar daddies. Suddenly, you realize you're no longer a twenty-something, and instead of your entire life being in front of you, like the adult world has always told you it was - filled with so many choices, so much opportunity - a good chunk of it is now behind you, and to the right of you, and to the left of you. But mostly, it's right now, this moment, staring you smack in the face like a 220-pound prize fighter, smoke coming from his nostrils, and if you don't make a move one way or the other, if you don't start fighting back, you're going to get blindsided by the brick fist of indecision. This is the seventh round, brother, and you either start throwing a few punches of your own, or you begin a long and bloody defeat.

For me, the 'crisis' involved several hard realizations: I had not published a novel. I had not gone back to graduate school. I had spent the last five years working a dead-end job in which all that I could ever learn from that job had been learned in the first two years. Somewhere in that time, we had moved to Washington DC, which gave the temporary sensation of 'reinvention,' without any of the long-term positive effects. I answered the call a little over a year ago, started concentrating on new personal goals, and even though I find myself on a similar bumpy road, pot-marked with many more difficult choices, I at least feel like I'm on the right bumpy road, and that the choices are the right ones. It's okay if the road doesn't lead where I hope it will, but it won't be from lack of a compass, damnit.

Which brings me to my main point in writing this: reinvention has to be an internal choice, not an external action. I think there are a lot of actions which seem like reinvention, and which produce the temporary euphoric feeling of reinvention, but in the end, only treat symptoms, like a glorious pain pill prescribed by your doctor. (Oh, glorious pain pills, how I love thee.)

I can think of several things that seem like reinvention in and of themselves, but unless they are the result of some broader change, they're really just symptomatic fixes - changing jobs, moving, getting married, getting divorced, having kids. An example: Leaving Company A for Company B is not necessarily reinvention. But if, in your quest for Goals 1, 2, and 3, you wind up leaving Company A for Company B, then voilá. You're there. The main thing is this: the move shouldn't be the change. It needs to be the result of the change. Therefore, the hard part isn't making the move. It's identifying the goals that lead to the move.

It's not anything new, this point. In fact, it's something my professors used to tell me years ago. I guess it didn't really sink in until now.

Anyway, it's happening now for many of my friends. Everywhere I turn, people I know are reinventing themselves. Not symptomatically, but truly reinventing, at the core. I won't go into detail, because it's their personal lives and they know who they are, but I will say it's nice to see. And it's inspiring to me personally. It casts doubt upon my own treasured pessimism. It's good to be surrounded by passionate people. And it's good to see people you love survive.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Chewing 

I've always been intrigued by bathroom graffiti. Something about the written word in this context speaks to my bent for the absurd, the cold communal playfulness of pop art, the entirely not serious, anti-art. In the men's bathroom at Tryst in Adams Morgan, a game of graffiti has been unfolding in the tiny space between the wall tiles for some time. I call it a 'game' because there are elements of a game in it: play, one-upmanship, an adherence to a loose framework of rules and conventions.

The game works like this: the player writes a title, phrase, or saying on the grout, and substitutes a key part of that title, phrase, or saying with the word 'grout.' Here are some examples:

• The Grout Wall of China
• Self-groutification
• The Grout Gatsby
• No grout about it
• Grout Expectations
• Instant groutification

The rules of the game are fairly easy to discern from the pattern: the substitution must occur on a word that either begins with 'gr' - such as 'great' or 'gratification' - or it can occur on a word that rhymes with 'out' - such as 'doubt.' So 'Grout Ol' Opery' might work, for example. Or, 'sauergrout.' Points are scored based on inventiveness. Got it? Fairly straight-forward, right?

As with any game, there are winners and losers. Some people catch on quickly, and others may miss the point entirely.

It is scrawled in black ink, directly to the left, a little below eye level of any 6-foot-1-inch-tall individual who might be standing at the toilet - this heroic attempt: When Harry Met Grout.

What? No, no, no! 'Sally' and 'Grout?' That's not it, man. What were you thinking? Clearly, you did not pick up on the rules from the many textual clues set before you.

Sorry, buddy. You lose. Not only that, you are banned from all future play.

link to this | comments (4) | File:  Ho_Hum  Game_Theory  Random 

Forget about relativity or Fibonacci numbers. That's all useless babble. I submit to you the Inverse Ninja Law. Now here's something you can use!

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Random 

I've had that restless, I'm-in-desperate-need-of new-music-but-I-don't-know what-or-who-or-how-or-why, type of feeling. You know the one. It's times like these that Last.fm radio just does me good. You can hear great new things, like Rilo Kiley live at The Grand Ballroom, San Francisco, on 6-18-05. Sure there's other things that will play that I don't like as well. No, I don't really like Interpol, okay? That's what the 'skip' button is for.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Music 

If you happen to be standing outside of our apartment door on a Sunday afternoon between now and February 4th, you may be shocked to hear the sound of a female voice shouting furious words at some unlucky SOB. Don't be concerned. The threats are meaningless. And that unlucky SOB is not me. It's the TV set. C and I are just watching a little of the football.

Over the years, C has taken a liking to pro football. I take full responsibility for this. Believe me - I knew not what I was doing. C has actually turned into a far more dedicated fan than myself. She enjoys watching just about any game, regardless of whether she likes the teams. This is all very interesting since my desire to stay home on one particular Monday night nine years ago and watch the Broncos play the Patriots - rather than meet her at a bar to celebrate the completion of her last exam - very nearly put an end to our nascent relationship. Later that season, the Broncos went on to their first Super Bowl win. It was an emotional game. We watched it together at a friend's house, and I'll admit that some tears were shed that night (possibly by me) at the sight of John Elway holding that trophy over his head. Some women might be ashamed to see their new boyfriend moved to watery eyes over a football game. But not C. Lucky for me, she was hooked - not just to me, but to football.

Over the next couple of years, as we watched games together, C would ask me questions about the game. The player positions, the rules, the strategies. I was the guide, and she the young apprentice. She was a fast learner, and absorbed every aspect of the game. Soon, I could no longer answer her questions. They became increasingly complicated and usually involved knowledge of stats, percentages, and prior scores which, as I've mentioned before, I typically have no mind for. This has always made me feel a bit inadequate, not only as a 'football fan,' but as a red-blooded, American male. But C, once the apprentice, is now helping guide me back to my God-given role as alpha football fan in the family. Together, we're journeying into a realm of football watching neither of us ever imagined possible. We now watch games with laptops open to both ESPN.com and NFL.com. Reading the detailed play-by-plays, watching the stats and percentages of the game as it unfolds. Looking up historical averages for teams and players. This is serious stuff.

Now if I could just find that spark of passion that would make me get up and cheer and shout, maybe and even tear-up when my favorite team wins the Super Bowl. I guess in my thirties I've become a little less impassioned when it comes to these things. But I miss it. Not only in football. I miss it generally - in life. So it was with pride that I looked over at C protesting some terrible call this weekend as we watched Indianapolis play the Giants. Pride and envy.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Cath  GSD  Sports 

Godin gives some interesting stats to put things in perspective.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Tech 

Publishing as we know it will die. Sad, but true. The happy part is that it will be resurrected. Saved. JA Konrath's genie told him how. I think they're good ideas.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Books  Publishing 

A little over a year ago, my friend Tom signed a book deal with Random House. Well, one year and three months later, the book is finally in stores and I wanted to put in a little plug for it.

The book is called The Last Town on Earth. Go buy yourself a copy! I'll admit, I have not read it yet, so I can't speak to its excellence first hand, but it's getting some incredible reviews, including this one at the NY Times (link might require a login).

Also, this isn't just a plug for Tom. I designed and built Tom's Web site.

link to this | comments (1) | File:  Reviews  Friends  Books 

I'm a little torn on this one. There are no ads on nicolasix, but it's not really for ideological reasons. The simple truth is that this is my personal blog and I think it would begin to take on a different context for me if I tried to make money from it. I may change my mind about that someday, but that's how I feel right now. I'm not blankly opposed to ads on blogs, however. In fact, I'm working on launching another blog and, while it will also be somewhat personal in nature, it will contain ads.

'Adfreeblog.org' say ads 'devalue the medium.' But they don't really explain how or why this is the case. They just declare it as fact. What they're really saying is that they are of the unshakable conviction that advertising, in general, is devaluing our culture. And I have to admit I sympathize with this sentiment. I'm pretty sick of advertising, too. There's even that hippie, anti-establishment part of me that would love to get all righteous and stand up and say 'down with the man' and 'corporate ads suck' and crap like that. But taking that approach won't really help my own situation. People can admire my principles, but that won't put clothes on my back. Another way to look at this is that the ad revenue potential in blogs is leading to a new class of independent, creative people who can support themselves without having to go to an office and sit in a cubicle. I suppose the cynical would say the relationship is still inherently a parasitic one, but I say so what? You can't really get much more anti-establishment than this. I think the trick for this new class of independents becomes trying to strike a balance where you can make money and not whore yourself doing it, where you're actually helping to sell stuff you believe in at the same time that you're serving ads that have 'context' for various pages on your site which somebody might stumble upon when doing a Google search.

Some bloggers are coming up with their own solutions, like The Deck. Even though this particular effort slaps of a sort of 'elitism' that makes me cringe (read: we are A-list bloggers and we have Very High Standards), I do like the stated intent: "Sell us something relevant to our audience and we'll sell you an ad."

Other people are experimenting with different networks aside from the omnipresent AdSense and finding success, along with a better aesthetic experience.

It's easy to take the stance that advertising on blogs is somehow wrong. Period. End of discussion. I'm not saying I don't understand the mindset, here. I do. But aside from giving yourself a warm fuzzy feeling over the strength of your convictions, I'm not sure the attitude really helps anybody, least of which yourself. People have to make a living. And how cool is it that bloggers are finding ways to do that? I think there are reasonable ways to make advertising on blogs work for everybody: bloggers, audience, and yes, even 'the man.' It's just a matter of getting creative and finding a way that makes sense to you.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Advertising  Blog