Make it this great article on Salon: America in not a Christian nation. I have so much to say about this, but don’t have the time to write it all down right now. Just read that article.
Author: Kevin Lawver
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Drunk Registering
My pal David Thomas made a great video of drunk domain registering stories. You may see a familiar face near the end.
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Building a Tribe in Savannah
Since we moved to Savannah, I’ve been trying to find the time to start up a Refresh group here (you know, like RefreshDC). Well, I took a little time out at work today, and here we are: Refresh Savannah!\
It’s very minimalist right now, and I still need to pick a date that will work and a venue, but it’s a start. And a start is good enough for now.\
If you’re a web person (developer, designer, project manager, whatever), you live in or near Savannah and you’re looking for peers to hang out with and learn from… please get involved. It’ll be very informal and should be a lot of fun (and only happens once a month). -
Radio Silence
We moved last weekend, which meant getting utilities hooked up and things transferred over. Thanks to some confusion/idiocy on the part of AT&T, we still don’t have internet access at home – hence our complete radio silence this week. I’ve been too busy at work (I’m in a meeting now and only half-listening – don’t tell) to even think about blogging.\
We’ll hopefully have internet access this weekend, and things can go back to “normal”. -
How to Stay Inspired After SxSW Podcast Is Up!
Now, you can all hear the madness of our panel, even if you can’t see it. It’s too bad you can’t, because you’re missing me beaning unsuspecting audience members with saltwater taffy, the confetti cannon and the awful sight of me getting my swerve on (I hope I used that correctly).\
I know I haven’t written much about SxSW since I got back, but as I predicted in the panel, the daily routine has eaten my soul – plus the stresses of moving. Thankfully, I followed my own advice and took a lot of notes during panels, and then made a list of what I want to do with what I learned. More will be divulged later, but now I need to get the kids ready for school. -
My SxSW Schedule
In case you want to follow along at home, here’s what I’m planning on doing. It’s all subject to change, but at least I have a plan.
Oh, and this made me laugh so hard, I almost evacuated my bowels.
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The Unofficial Theme Song of The International Day of Awesomeness
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Suggested via twitter by Kelly O (who’s in the band).\
Favorite line? “Yeah, I beat you, cuz I’m awesome!”\
How can it not be the unofficial theme song of our unofficial holiday (that was yesterday, but you’re welcome to celebrate it any ol’ day you want)? -
Find Me At SxSW!
Christopher came up with a great idea. Since four of us who wrote Adapting to Web Standards will be at SxSW, he’s doing a little giveaway. Get all four of our autographs and you could win a copy of our excellent book (really, it’s good).\
In other news, we launched our first public web app at work recently, and I’d like to ask a favor. If you know any independent bands, could you please please please ask them to check out uPlaya Artists? I’d love to hear what they (or you) think of the site! A lot of hard work went in to it (even though, as you can see, there are still several “coming soon” banners on features).\
And if you need to know what I look like… here I am.\
And lastly… happy International Day of Awesomeness!!! -
SxSW 2009 Music: Best of the A’s
Every year, SxSW posts a ton of free mp3’s from the artists that showcase at the music festival. And every year since 2004, I’ve downloaded all of them. This year, though, instead of just letting them take up space in iTunes, I’m going to try something. Between now and whenever I get through them, I’m going to try to listen to a letter a day (the playlist is alphabetical by artist) and do my best to rate every song. Then, I’m going to post my top ten songs from each letter here. Here are the A’s:
- Gardenias and Cigarettes by Ana Silvera – 5 stars – I love this song. It’s a classic gin-drenched torch song.
- The River by Anathallo – 5 stars – Another great ballad. If Bloc Party were acoustic piano rock, they’d sound like this.
- The Thief & The Heartbreaker by Alberta Cross – 4 stars
- Si Pero No by Alex Cuba – 4 stars
- Amanha eu nao vou trabalhar by Alexandre Grooves – 4 stars
- Government Meat by Ali Eskandarian – 4 stars
- To All Tiny Creatures by All Tiny Creatures – 4 stars
- Leeds United by Amanda Palmer – 4 stars
- One More Day by Amy Wadge – 4 stars
- Set The Bears Free by Anchorsong – 4 stars
- Oh, The Boss Is Coming by Arkells – 4 stars – I have to say, these guys sound a lot like The Constantines, which may be why I dug this song so much.
- These Flowers of Ours by The Asteroid #4 – 4 stars – Reminds me a lot of The Dandy Warhols.\
This is totally unscientific, and I probably missed rating some songs (I do need to work during the day), but here are the A’s. I’m listening to the B’s today. And yes, I know there are more than ten, but they’re alphabetical within the number of stars, so I decided to list all the 4 and 5 star songs.
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The First Round of Dailies from Max’s Movie
Unnamed Max Lawver School Project – Dailies Day One from Kevin Lawver on Vimeo.\
Max is making a movie for school, so we’ve turned the front room into a jury rigged animation studio. Max is making all the models, backdrops and I’m making him move the models when we film. I take the frames and will help with iMovie when we get there. We’re using iStopMotion, which is going pretty well so far. It even supports my Nikon D80 in PTP mode. We tried that for a couple test shots, but I don’t have a real macro lens and the table is too short to do it right, so we’re sticking with the iSight for now.\
We’re going to try to film the other two scenes tomorrow and Monday. We’ll post dailies each day and then, of course, the final product.\
Here’s a shot of the “studio”. You know, where the magic happens: