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| Friday, January 13th, 2012 | | 2:30 pm |
In case anyone is still reading this LJ
I'm not sure there is anyone who reads this basically abandoned Live Journal that doesn't also follow me places I actually post--but if I'm wrong about that, and if any of you LJ only people are looking for a place to work on your creative projects with other creative people I wanted to make sure you heard about the LHF Greenhouse. Here's the link: http://lowhangingfruit.us/lhfgreenhouse/ | | Sunday, April 18th, 2010 | | 4:34 pm |
PSA: I do blog, just not here
I have a blog ( http://lowhangingfruit.us/) focused on helping nonprofits build strong relationships with their "right people" and teaching those people to spread the word about the organization's work. Since lots of nonprofit peeps are also pretty new to internet culture I also cover things like "don't create a website that plays music automatically when people visit" and "respond to comments." I didn't mention it here earlier because I assumed people wouldn't be interested (which should probably be explored in another post). | | Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 | | 4:11 pm |
A week without reading
While you'd never know it from this dusty journal, I am in fact not dead. I haven't even totally stopped writing--I've got a journal for nonprofit peeps over at www.lowhangingfruit.us. But this entry is not about that. I have been wanting to write but not really writing for years and years now. I was complaining about this sad state of affairs to another writer friend in November and she suggested I read The Artists Way by Julia Cameron, It turns out that was a really, really good idea. I'm only in week 4, but I'm writing with much less angst and have more to say and everything is happiness, wine, and roses. Until this week. The main focus of Week 4 is "Reading Deprivation." By which (as far as I can tell) she means don't read any words not written by you at all for a week. She also suggests you not listen to music with words, watch tv, listen to talk radio, talk on the phone for long periods of time, etc. The point is if you empty yourself of other people's thoughts and stories you make room in your head, body and schedule for your own art. And that is a lovely, lovely idea. And also, damn near impossible. In the book she makes reference to people who yell at her in workshops about how they are big and important and their job requires reading. Her suggestion? Since you have certainly procrastinated an assignment before, just use your creativity to wiggle your way out of having to read. For a week. I'm not big or especially important, but I'm also not ready to risk being fired to find my inner office so I decided a modified program of reading only what is absolutely required would have to suffice. It's only Tuesday, but it's not going that well. Even when I'm trying to be disciplined I find myself floating onto twitter or clicking a link to see what so and so had to say about such and such. Based on this experience I think it would be easier to go a day without consuming food than it is to go a day not consuming words. Additionally, I'm mostly filling up the empty space from the reading I am avoiding with angst about not being able to read--I'm certain that is counterproductive. So what to do? I don't want to call the whole thing stupid and skip the exercise altogether. I must get rid of the guilt/angst crap and I'm more committed to being gentle with myself than I am to following the directions. I'm leaning toward word-free evenings and allowing myself to read what ever I want during work hours. I'm open to suggestions (that I will read no matter what Julia says). Current Mood: conflicted | | Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 | | 9:02 am |
| | Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 | | 9:40 am |
| | Thursday, December 20th, 2007 | | 11:11 am |
| | Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 | | 2:30 pm |
Waste time, feed children
In case you've missed it, you must check this out. It's a multiple choice vocab quiz that donates rice to children for every word you define correctly. | | Thursday, November 1st, 2007 | | 10:41 pm |
Plug for my sister's students
Hey Guys, my sister teaches 9th grade Theatre in Houston and her students are close to winning an award but need some help. Here's what she says about the project: Hello everyone! I hope you all are doing well. This year I have been working a lot with the technology teacher (Bobby Goetsch) on some video projects and all of my advanced theatre students got put into an advanced video class as well. We entered a nation-wide contest to win $15,000 for our school and WE MADE THE FINAL FIVE!!!!!!!!! It is really exciting and as you will see, my students are very talented. Please register and vote for them so that all their hard work can be rewarded. My students and I would GREATLY appreciate it!! THANKS!!Here's the link:You have to register to vote--to keep people from voting more than once but it's a pretty painless process. Thanks everyone! P.S. You can also see them on the news | | Monday, September 10th, 2007 | | 10:19 pm |
| | 11:47 am |
| | Sunday, September 9th, 2007 | | 12:08 pm |
| | Saturday, September 8th, 2007 | | 12:17 pm |
Spielerz update
After two months with our starter-software, we've just upgraded Spielerz.This means we now offer zip code/postal code search as well as service to gamers outside the United States. It's not perfect, but it's way better-- I hope the gamers among you will check it out. | | Thursday, September 6th, 2007 | | 10:09 am |
Katharine Wright
Last Easter ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1) jedibfa and I went to to the Air and Space Museum to see Space Ship One and the Wright Flyer. In many ways this trip was awful because well, it was a holiday weekend, and it was cold outside, and oh my god how did they get that many people in the building and where did they put the air??? But some good did come out of it. We saw what we went to see, and I discovered Katharine Wright.Maybe it's just because I didn't pay much attention to all things air and space before I met jedibfa, or maybe as a culture we are just really, really bad at recognizing contributions from women, but prior to this visit, I had know idea that the Wright Brothers even had a sister, much less that she was the only one of her siblings to graduate from college and that she may (or may not) have played a major role in her brother's achievement. Since that time, I've been researching her role and basically I've discovered that while lots of people say they know 'the truth" no one seems to agree on what the truth is. Some say she was just a cheerleader, some say she financed the operation, some say she did the math, others say she sewed the wings, most agree that she was responsible for all of the public relations work--especially overseas. In any case, it's an interesting mystery. If you are interested in the portrayal of women at the turn of the (last) century or how powered flight came to be, check out the link above. (Shockingly enough it's a Squidoo Lens). P.S. to the Dayton/Ohio people-- Do they teach kids about Katherine Wright around here? If so, is there any consistency to what's taught? | | Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 | | 1:27 pm |
| | Wednesday, August 29th, 2007 | | 5:40 pm |
| | Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 | | 10:08 am |
Unintended Concequences
laughin posted this article this morning about a PSA campaign in Virginia aimed at preventing the sexual abuse of children. My first reactions were similar to hers (I've not seen the ads, it's important to protect children, does this go to far) as I continued to reflect on the article, another thought occurred to me as well. If the result of this campaign is that seeing a man alone with a child becomes cause for suspicion, we all lose. Children lose close relationships with adult males. This means no first hand experiences of how honorable men treat people, no examples of men participating in family life. In addition children grow up understanding that men are dangerous. So girls should avoid them, and boys should grow up to be, well dangerous. Men lose a connectedness with their children and child rearing that has been growing in recent years--and has provided much joy and fulfillment to many. Women once again become the only adults "capable" of child-rearing--therefore all the responsibility for this awesome (in terms of size and scope) task once again falls solely to them. It seems unlikely to me that the goal of this campaign is to return us to the gender norms of yesteryear, but if we distance men from children without consideration of the individual child or man in question, I see no other likely outcome. Note: The organization sponsoring the ads seems to be absolutely above board, and I in no way mean to accuse them trying to create the situations above. I just think there must be a way to protect our children without resorting to fear. | | Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 | | 1:13 pm |
Trip to Yellow Springs
We've been hearing a lot about Yellow Springs from the people we've met so far in the Greater Dayton Metro Area and so decided to go check it out. Based on their descriptions (Hippie-ville being the most colorful) we expected a town much like Floyd. Turns out it's more like what would happen if Blacksburg and Floyd had a love child. Bigger than Floyd, but not as big as Blacksburg. Lots of cool shops that seem able to sustain themselves. No "Big Box" stores that I could see. Of course they are a college town with a College about to close, not Virginia Tech, so I guess that's probably a big part of it. In any case, we had a good time and are likely to visit again when stores are actually open ;) Also, these two guys played a song off their recent album on the street for us. They were pretty good and we bought their CD. You should check them out. They are called Triptyle and they were supposed to have a website but it's not up yet. Here's their myspace page. | | Thursday, August 2nd, 2007 | | 9:47 am |
| | Monday, July 30th, 2007 | | 12:29 pm |
The feminist blogosphere
In September of 2004 nixve posted this entry about smiling. Based on that discussion I started to read Mouse Words, and then Pandagon when Amanda moved over there. Over the next while my experience with the feminist blogosphere grew, as did my understanding of the importance of feminism. In fact, feminist blogs achieved what no study of gender and feminism ever did for me-- helped me see that real oppression was happening all around me, right under my nose. Since then I've been mostly reading and (very) occasionally posting about the importance of feminism and wondering how to deal with the dilemma that feminists have every right to be angry and yet that anger can turn off people who are new to the cause. I've been meaning to start a proper blog about it for ages, but it seems it's just not going to happen. Plus, there are lots of great voices out there who have most of these points covered already. So rather than add my voice to the mix in the traditional way, I've created a Squidoo lens for people just starting out as feminists, or for people who have genuine questions, but don't know where to go to get them answered. I just finished it today, but I hope you'll go check it out and let me know what you think--either here on on the lens. http://www.squidoo.com/discoveringfeminism/And thanks nixve for starting me down this path! | | Monday, July 9th, 2007 | | 10:45 pm |
Origins Report
(I wrote this originally for Spielerz which is why it's tone is a bit more formal than I usually use here--but I met cool people and learned about cool things at Origins this year and thought you all might find it interesting as well) We're back from Origins, had a bit of time to catch our breath, find shelf space for our new games, (ok we're actually not quite there yet on that one) but we have organized the business cards, flyers and notes on random scraps of paper about the people and things we saw and wanted to share with you. So here they are in no particular order: Strategic Retreat This company is what happens when a gamer marries a travel agent. Rather than argue about where to spend the family vacation, the founders of Strategic Retreat and their friends started packing their board games and heading off on a cruise. These “invitational” cruises were so popular that Carnival offered to sponsor an official gamer cruise-- so now we are all invited! Two cruises are scheduled for 2008-- one to the Caribbean (departing from Orlando) and one to Mexico (departing from Los Angeles). Visit www.strategic-retreat.com for more information and to register for the cruise!
Cheese Weasel Logistics The folks at Cheese Weasel are my small business heroes. If you've been to Origins or GenCon in the last couple of years, they are the people who wear big yellow exclamation marks on their head and sponsor the con quest game. The beauty of the quest game is 1) it's free 2) you could win lots of cool prizes, often signed by the designers and 3) convention attendees have the opportunity to be exposed to games and game companies that might otherwise get lost in the corner of the dealers room. Plus they have some great games that straddle the fence between board games and rpgs. Slugfest Games Speaking of Cheese Weasel and the quest game-- it was though them that we discovered this company last year. We fell in love with two of their card games then-- En Garde! and Kung-Fu Fighting; so we were very excited to see they had two new games this year—The Red Dragon Inn and Tiki Mountain. The first is a game about what happens at the inn after a successful quest (as you might imagine it involves drinking, fighting and gambling) and in the second, the players race to the top of the volcano to sacrifice themselves to their tiki god. Plus it has a spinner, so it must be good. Spewgilist.com
So you want actual game reviews?? For that, you'll need to check out Spewgilist.com. Their motto is “Annoying the world one person at at time. (Group Discounts Available)” but they also do great game reviews, interviews, and articles about topics of interest to gamers everywhere. Plus they are hilarious, so do yourself a favor and check them out. We met them though the Cheese Weasel quest game as well. Have I mentioned yet that you must do the quest game?? Anyway, we had a great time-- I came up to the Lab several times to try and say hi to everyone, but basically failed except for the 2 minutes when I caught jazzfish during the Fluxx tournament. Hope you all had a good time...... |
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