I’ve been using dvdcvll@yahoo.com because all acceptable variations of my name were claimed long before I realized that a funny email address wouldn’t be funny after college.
Now, friends, I’m happy to report I’ve got my dream address. It’s new. It’s easy. It’s me. It’s dcovell@ymail.com. Today we’re launching ymail.com and rocketmail.com to the world. Get your new e-ddress and ditch that crappy Hotmail or Gmail one.
You can get a lot of stuff in a box (NSFW), but a king-sized mattress? You can if you get a mattress from Keetsa, as I just did. I bought a super-high quality foam mattress (think Tempur-Pedic) for a fraction of what they’d typically cost.
It’s either an innovative business model or a really clever marketing effort…or both. I like a good value, I like eco-conscious products, and I love a good night’s sleep. Tonight is the first night to test the latter. I’ll let you know how it goes.
In the meantime, if you’re curious, you can check out the bed unboxing on my Flickr site.
My friend Clint performed this song with legendary, old-school New Orleans jazz men Preservation Hall Jazz Band and shot this video for it in 2005–before Hurricane Katrina.
He said “I want the world to see something coming out of New Orleans that is positive, fun and happy. THIS is why me and my friends came back home after the storm. For the good times.”
One Laptop Per Child founder Nicholas Negroponte said, “It’s an education project, not a laptop project.” I encourage you to read about the project. Its goals are ambitious and its path has been long and sometimes bumpy, but they’ve reached a big milestone: they’re now manufacturing inexpensive, durable, connectable, efficient laptops to help educate children in the developing world. Color me inspired.
To support and raise awareness about their work, they’ve got a special giving program just in time for the holidays called “give one, get one.” It’s simple: spend $399 (~$425 after tax and shipping) and they send one laptop to a child in the developing world on your behalf and send you another one for you to give to a child in need in your life. I can’t wait to give one of my very own! Bonus: $200 is tax deductible.
Help kids learn, feel good about yourself AND get a tax break. Merry Christmas, indeed.
Susie and I waded thru the copious photos we took and posted our favorites to my Flickr site. Damn, we had some times. I’ll post some stories here soon enough.
While in India, I read Freedom at Midnight. It’s the complete story of the Indian independence movement in the late 1940s. The casual writing style of the authors combined with the dramatic events they retell makes it almost feel like a fictional work.The book masterfully captures the history, diversity and tragedy of the Indian condition–from it’s zany maharaja to it’s inspirational soul, Mahatma Gandhi. Administering a country so diverse, vast and populous must be one of the proudest achievements of British empire. Giving India her independence has to be THE proudest achievement.
Susie and I arrived safely in Bangkok last week and were treated (by Susie’s parents) to two nights at the lovely Plaza Athenee. Massages there were the perfect way to recover from our jet lag.
The next day we set out to explore the city a bit. We were just a few steps from the BTS SkyTrain, so we gladly hopped on and rode it down to the river to catch a ferry to see some sights. The river is muddy and wide like the mighty Mississippi, so it might be confused if it weren’t for the pagoda style buildings and high-rising temples along its shores.
We made landfall with three missions: check out the Royal Palace, get some food, and find a hand-made bowl traditional bowl that monks use for making daily offerings.
Mission 1: Accomplished.
The Royal Palace is quite a complex to behold. It used to be the residence of the king, but now it is only used for tourists and the occasional ceremonial event. It houses several temples–including Wat Phra Keo, the home of the Emerald Buddha. The architecture, reliefs, statues and accouterments all make the place worth checking out (tho’ admittedly it is a little pricey to enter). You’ll see what I mean when I post some photos. That’ll have to wait until I have access to some bandwidth.
Mission 2: Accomplished.
We ate at a Lonely Planet-recommended restaurant called Hemlock. Good Thai in an intimate, family-feeling place. Good prices. Lots of white people. I guess you can always count on that when LP makes the reservations.
Mission 3: Accomplished.
We had set out to find a tourist-supported place where locals practice a traditional art of hand crafting steel bowls that monks use for daily offerings. It’s no longer operating. But, we did manage to find the monk supply super center in a little back street. It was a total score.
We finished the night with a local whiskey that was not so good and set off frighteningly early the next morning for Siem Reap in Cambodia.
This is awesome.
My friends at Waterfall Mobile launched a service called Futuretxt and I’ve found it incredibly useful…and have used it A LOT as a result. So much so, in fact, that I feel like I’ve shirked my responsibility to tell people about it.
It’s a really easy way to schedule a message to be sent to any cell phone at any time in the future. Here are 3 of my recent Futuretxts to give you an idea of the variety of things I used to forget on a daily basis:
Post-its are SO a long time ago.
It’s official. Susie, Tim (her current roommate and our mutual friend) are now the owners of record of 3431 & 3435 22nd Street (at Fair Oaks and two blocks from Mission Dolores Park). We’re stoked.
It’s a two-unit building, built in 1959. The building has a giant two car garage and a giant flat roof that we’ll outfit with a giant roof deck. (Britton’s dad has already volunteered to head up the construction crew.) Each unit is about 1200 square feet, has two bedrooms, one bath and a formal dining room.
We’ve got a bit of work to do that we’re hoping to get done quickly (e.g., new roof, exterior paint, windows). I’ll post some before and after pictures on Flickr when I’ve got ‘em.
I was kind of surprised that there is one thing we could agree on, but in fact I found one: faith should not be purposely excluded from political discourse. (Note: Jerry initially said Christians getting involved in politics would be punished by God or something, but changed his tune and founded the Moral Majority in the 80s.)
How can you separate your spiritual beliefs from your political ones? Your morals and your values and your faith shape the way you think, right?
I appreciate the late Mr. Falwell’s efforts to empower his community to help shape the political landscape in the way they thought was best for them by advocating policies consistent with their faith. Born of that was today’s powerful and influential Religious Right.
That’s about where my agreement with and appreciation of Mr. Falwell ends. At the intersection of bigotry and intolerance, where he has set up his “Cup of Hatred $.50″ stand, is where our paths diverge. That’s where I get on the bus of humanity (I realize I’m wearing this metaphor really thin).
One of the defintions that Wiktionary has for humanity is “the quality of being benevolent.” So that says to me that humanity is the diposition to do good and to possess love for mankind. That’s my religion.
Practices of Christianity, Judaism, Islam and the like don’t mean much to me. Humanity does. I have faith in humanity. I believe that people possess love for mankind and want to do good for their community.
Judging by what he’s said throughout his successful career as a televangilist and political activist, I’d say Mr. Falwell is not a huge fan of humanity. Here are some of, what I’ll call, Jerry’s greatest blows to humanity (you can find a well-composed list in Mark Morford’s recent post on SFGate.com):
If you’re not a born-again Christian, you’re a failure as a human being.
I listen to feminists and all these radical gals — most of them are failures. They’ve blown it. Some of them have been married, but they married some Casper Milquetoast who asked permission to go to the bathroom. These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at all men. Feminists hate men. They’re sexist. They hate men — that’s their problem.
Someone must not be afraid to say, ‘moral perversion is wrong.’ If we do not act now, homosexuals will ‘own’ America! If you and I do not speak up now, this homosexual steamroller will literally crush all decent men, women, and children who get in its way … and our nation will pay a terrible price!
Christians, like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions.
Where would humanity be if we–Christians and non-Christians alike–didn’t ask questions? Oh, there I go with my questions. Son-of-a…that means I’m not a like a slave or soldier thus not Christian thus a failure as a human being. Crap.
