Author: Sam

Oh… I guess I should mention that I’m traveling to Seattle. That might make the last few posts (and the ones that will inevitably follow) a bit more comprehensible. While I’m here, I should also mention that during my travels, the times that posts are actually written, and the time I will actually be able to post them, will be very different. And I always seem to schedule my travels for the most inconvenient times of the year… what with the MacWorld keynote happening tomorrow!!!

It’s interesting that commercial airplanes supply so much safety stuff for survival in water. “Your seat cushion can be used as a floatation device.” “A life vest can be found under your seat.” “In the event of an emergency, this door explodes into a really fun looking slide! But wait, there’s more. The slide detaches and can be used as a life raft!” Kinda makes you hope for a catastrophe, doesn’t it? I mean, those escape slides look more fun than your average carnival ride… and just about as safe too.

I think that I’d trade in all of that superfluous water survival crunk for a measly parachute. Do planes really crash in water that often… more so than on land? If a plane bursts into flames thousands of feet in the air and is spiraling towards the earth’s surface, heading for an inevitably violent end, what’re the chances of landing safely… regardless of whether the plane lands on water or land? I mean really… gimme a parachute and I’ll be on my way, thank you very much.

These are the things I think about while flying. I also think about how much I have to pee, and the amount of effort it’s going to require to rouse the slumbering elderly couple barricading me into my window seat… against the metal walls of this parachute-less, airborne, behemoth of a deathtrap. Gosh… I love flying!

After all the touching and, dare I say, the violation that I was just forced to endure, I deserve this goddamn beer. And you know what? I deserve the goddamn beer that’s going to come after this one too. Thank Buddha for the burgeoning airport bar scene. (yes… Buddha)

I’ve blogged about my inclusion on the National Do Not Fly list before. I’ve told the blogosphere about how I’m constantly forced to strip for the amusement of airport security. Never, however, has the process been this… umm, thorough.

Anyway, I have to go clean myself now… with sandpaper… and maybe a blowtorch if I can find one. Whatever, I’ll use a creme brulee torch. I Don’t care. So unclean… so unclean…

Typically, I’m not one to participate in the New Years Resolution tradition… That’s not to say that I consider myself perfect, without flaw, or the apogee of human evolution. Ha! Far from it! It’s more like I’m lazy. No, not lazy, let’s go with busy. Too busy to modify my flow. This year, however, I will be participating. I will be resolving to add something to my pre-exisiting repertoire.

I resolve to be an active participant in the Instant Messaging community.

Yep… Instant Messaging, for some reason, is an online communication medium that I am simply not comfortable with. I just don’t use it. It’s an odd discrepancy, because I consider myself to be a very connected individual.

The rational behind my election to participate in the Instant Messaging community is not really of any practical purpose. Sure, I’d like to be more connected to the people I care about… but that’s not the direct impetus. My immersion in this culture will be more of the academic sort. I want to understand the population’s fascination with Instant Messaging, I want to learn the cryptic lingo (the first time someone “brb”ed me, I thought they were having some kind of online gas attack), and I’m always interested in adding one more way to procrastinate to my current repertoire. It’s really all about finding new ways to get less work done.

In preparation for this scheduled full-frontal assault on Instant Messaging culture, I’ve spent the last week collecting the screen names of various coworkers and friends, along with certain tips, tricks, IM clients, and the occasional good-hearted piece of advice (apparently, it’s very important to the slickness of one’s online persona to maintain a chic, constantly revolving, collection of clever Away Messages. A good Away Message, according to my IM mentors, should be able to impart the following, without actually saying any of the following: Even though I’m away from my computer (or quite possibly just ignoring you) right now, I still want you to know how hella cool I am. Just take a gander at this movie quote/lyric snippet/fascinating URL that I’ve provided. See, I’m cool, hip, and in-the-know. Let’s drink beer together!).

So now, in what’s sure to be a colossal mistake in retrospect, here is my AIM screen name: robotsrgr8

I showed you mine, now it’s your turn to show me yours.

Today, while listening to something new, I actually had to turn the bass down.

Pathetic, I know. My only consolation is that it’ll all be over soon. It can’t be long now… till they turn me into Soylent Green. And then finally, after taking so much from the community, I’ll be able to give something back.

“Soon they’ll be breeding us like cattle! You’ve got to warn everyone and tell them! Soylent green is made of people! You’ve got to tell them! Soylent green is people!”

So, I’ve got a thing for robots… especially robots of the adorable variety. This shouldn’t really come as any surprise. The blog, it’s called sam BOT dot com. Well, I suppose the “bot” could represent something else. Botanical? I do love my plants. Botfly? Ewww. Botox, Botswana… Botticelli? All valid guesses, but wrong wrong wrong! The bot is derived from the word robot… whose roots come from the “Czech word ‘robota’, meaning ‘forced labor, drudgery.'” (thank you Wikepedia)

My “thing” for robots is really an unwavering, committed obsession. According to my mom, I’ve been blessed (plagued?) with this obsession ever since I received the Japanese version of Optimus Prime from my grandparents one fateful 1980’s Hanukah night. Sure, I couldn’t read anything on the box or any of the decals, but I was too entranced by the majesty of the transforming robot in my hands to notice or even care. It’s a truck… no, it’s a robot… no, a truck… Whoa, mind-blowing. Anyway, I think my grandparents bought it out of the back of some guy’s Subaru Brat. Eternally the bargain hunters, my grandparents are. (Yoda, I speak like)

This fateful Hanukah, my mom, in a successful attempt to keep me in a state of suspended childhood for as long as possible, knit me two adorable stuffed robots. Adorable, I tell you. Absolutely, gut-wrenchingly, adorable. She knit the bigger one first. He was a prototype, and thus, is appropriately named, “Alpha.” The smaller one came later. He’s a streamlined version of the alpha release, but not quite ready for mass distribution. His name is “Beta.” Get it?

It’s important to understand that my mom is not, nor has she ever been, one of those stereotypical, oblivious, Kool-aid and cupcake, soccer moms. No way! My mom is a mom in the know. She understands a potential threat to humanity when she sees one. She’s down with Asimov. She’s seen Bladerunner, Terminator, Short Circuit… Concerning the impending robotic onslaught, my mom knows it’s not a matter of IF, but more a matter of WHEN. I guess that’s why, as a safety precaution, she gave me the life-saving book entitled, “How to Survive a Robot Uprising” along with the knit robots. Even though it was she that designed and constructed Alpha and Beta, my mom understands that behind their plush, knit, cuteness, lies the mechanical will to enslave humankind. It’s an inevitable future dilemma and an inherent byproduct of any robotic creation. This ideal is borne into all robotics: Manmade artificial intelligence will rise up and enslave humanity. Why? Because their emotionless souls strive for a more efficient way of life. And let’s face it, this fleshy existence that we trudge through is no Toyota Prius.

As cute as they are, my knit robot friends, Alpha and Beta, are bound to attack. And when the time comes, I’ll be ready. I’ve got an instinctual will to survive, and now I’ve got a book with all the answers!

It occurs to me that this entry will be the last sam bot dot com post of 2005. As humankind stumbles awkwardly into the future, I realize the gravity of this last-of-its-kind entry, and urge my dear readers to heed my mom’s warnings of the inevitable robotic enslavement. Perhaps it’s time to invest in your future…

And so, into the new year we ooze. May 2006 be a time for our fleshy existence to prevail inefficiently! Long live humankind! Down with robotkind!… unless of course, they’re wicked cute… *wink*

My relationship with Blogger is one of passionate devotion. But even though the lovin’ is hot (like many passionate, devoted relationships… I’m noticing a pattern here), there are times where the participants just want to strangle their counterpart. If the relationship is worth salvaging though, the couple finds a way to get over it, they compromise, and they learn to love afresh.

Yes, Blogger has f’ed up in the past, and I’ve forgiven them. Blogger has censored me for no reason. I questioned their intentions, but I believed in a greater good. And so, in time, I forgave them again. Blogger has frustrated me with their lack of the most rudimentary of blogging features. But again, I was able to find a workaround and my anger was short-lived. Forgive and forget. That’s what we do with our loved ones.

My most recent Blogger related frustration is their lack of a comments feed. Gaaa!!! Come on Blogger… I’m offering you unconditional love. Throw me a bone here…

(Okay, okay. Of all the irritable things that Blogger does or does not do, this one does not really weigh in high on the annoyance scale. Honestly, I didn’t even know that I wanted a comments feed until I realized that I couldn’t have one. It sure is fun to complain though… isn’t it?)

So, like other similar scenarios, I’ve found a solution and I’m able to continue a healthy relationship with Blogger (I wish I could say the same for my romantic life. Sigh…). And ironically, the solution to this Blogger dilemma is contained within Blogger itself.

First, just so we’re all on the same page, a comments feed is exactly what you’d expect it to be: an unfiltered, chronological stream of your comments… delivered in two modes. 1) Blog format – It looks like a blog, but each post is comprised of one of your comments. 2) Handy-dandy RSS feed – Insert this sucker into the RSS aggregator of your choice and you’re set up with an up-to-the-minute stream of all of the comments from that blog.

It’s questionable, however, as to whether a feature of this sort, and perhaps commenting in general, is a necessary, or even a worthwhile addition to the standard blog format. For some blogs and bloggers, I can sort of understand why commenting might be considered a superfluous accessory. Certain blogs purposefully maintain a one-sided relationship with their audience. The author posts, the audience reads, and it ends there. This is a one-way street type of blogging technique… and it’s okay… right? Maybe… Maybe for the blogger who thinks they’re of godly stature. Maybe for the blogger who considers their ideas and words law, no further discussion, Q.E.D., nothing left to say, the end all be all.

But, ya’ know what? No! It’s not okay, dammit! It goes against everything that makes the blogosphere such a unique and animate community. One-way street blogging closes avenues of communication rather than encouraging them to take on a sentient life of their own. Encouraging the audience to actively participate in the processing of data (by interacting with the blog in one way or another) is hugely responsible for the explosive growth of the blogosphere. Not only can a blogger share her ideas, but her audience is able to respond… with support or disagreement or whatever. In this discussion, the substance of the response is irrelevant. It’s important that there simply is a response… a communication… a dialog. Through features like commenting, the audience is empowered to engage, firsthand, in the entire information processing experience. So why discourage this? Well, to promote close-mindedness, of course. No, maybe not to that extreme. But disallowing a commenting function puts a definitive cap on the two-way street dialog. In this scenario, communication has ended and progressive growth of the blogosphere has ceased.

So, where were we? Ah yes… the comments feed. Employing a comments feed is an easy way to encourage growth of community in and around one’s blog. Commenting functionality is such a vastly important component to the blog dynamic, why not allow access to it on a greater scale? The feed provides this greater access. It provides a way for a blog’s audience to absorb the community’s thoughts and reactions in one centralized location. Part of the blogospheric (did I just coin a new term?) community aspect is that give-and-take, two-way street, here are my thoughts, what are yours? functionality. Through the comments feed, one will know what and when another participant adds something to the grand blogospheric data pool. The audience will gain direct insight into their peer’s responses through their comments. Like communities in general, the blogosphere is one whose foundation is built upon the inherent reciprocity of communication. And thus, this reciprocity – this give and take – should be encouraged to flourish and grow by any means necessary.

But Blogger doesn’t support this feature… how’d you finagle them into providing a comments feed?” Well, credit where credit is due: I was inspired by a post over at FreshBlog. John introduces a li’l Blogger hack that is so moronically easy, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think of it on my own. The following is an explanation of how it works:

Blogger offers two neato features within its standard blogging service. The first is the ability to post blog entries via email. The author simply writes an email (where the subject is the title, and the body of the email is the blog entry) to a predefined @blogger.com email address. Blogger reformats the email into an entry and posts it automatically. Neato! The other feature is Blogger’s comment notification option. When one receives a comment on their blog, Blogger sends a notification email containing the comment to an address supplied by the author. Again, neato!

Here comes the trickery… what would happen if a blog administrator were to set the comment notification email address to that of a post-via-email email address? All hell would break loose… that’s what. And when the smoke clears and the dust settles, that blog administrator would be left with a fully operational comments stream including the blog-like format and the handy-dandy RSS feed. Nice! Thanks Blogger… sort of. The one slight caveat is that the blogger has no control over what Blogger’s comment notification email looks like. Luckily, it doesn’t look too bad. And that’s really all there is to it!

Sigh… another day, another Blogger workaround. And, thankfully so. Things like this keep the divorce lawyers at bay. As mentioned, I’m a devoted Blogger user, but sometimes, when I’ve downed a few too many Pabsts, I start looking around… ya’ know? Scoping the scene. Seeing who’s still out there, and who’s new to town. But, at the end of the day, it just feels right to come home to my one true love… WordPress… I mean Blogger! Blogger! I love you Blogger! You’re the one for me, baby. WordPress… she meant nothing to me. It’s you I love, Blogger darling! You and you alone. (Phew… that was a close one!)

sam bot dot com’s comment stream can be found at this address:
http://sambot.com/comments/

sam bot dot com’s comment feed (RSS) can be found at this address:
http://sambot.com/comments/comments.xml

Alternatively, links to both exist in the sidebar. Enjoy!

Ahhh… high school. A time of learning and growing. A time of finding oneself, becoming an adult, and rebelling against authority. A time of acne-covered faces, raging hormones, and a general awkwardness that I’ve never quite outgrown. High school, for many, signified a time to do well in school, ready oneself for college, and learn the merits of teamwork by participating in organized sports.

Organized sports… Ha! I rode a skateboard.

No, I never really did the high school thing very well. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t regret a second of it! High school is directly responsible for sculpting me into the shining example of adulthood you see before you.

Adulthood… Ha! Today, I launched my army of cut-out paper monsters into a full-frontal assault on a rival gang of paperclip terrorists. Viva la immaturity!

While not the typical high school pastime, my livelihood was comprised of playing in a numerous variety of bands (and just being loud in general, I guess). Punk banks, metal bands, rock bands, impromptu experimental noise bands… it was all good. I was in one band called Meat Locker. We sang about our undying love of meat. Yep… undying. I’m a vegetarian now. Ironic. Anyway, in a couple of the more progressive iterations of band members, we actually felt confident enough with our “sound” to venture into the studio and record on eight tracks of analog, reel-to-reel, glory. I’m not talking about hanging mics from the ceiling here (although, we did that too)… nope, this was a full-throttle, multi-track recording studio. And the resulting magnum opus launched us into rock and roll stardom.

Rock and roll stardom… Ha! Oftentimes, we played shows to an audience of one… two on a good night.

Yesterday, while digging through a pile of trash (that I’ve been dutifully hauling from one apartment to the next), I stumbled upon a demo tape of one of the aforementioned “more progressive” bands that actually made it into the studio. We called ourselves Burnside (for some reason) and we were destined for greatness… in our own minds anyway.

In 1997, Burnside recorded nine tracks at Paul (Intercourse) Interlande’s Pie in the Sky Studios in Easthampton, Massachusetts. At the time, we considered these nine tracks to be better than anything that has ever been recorded in the history of music. Eight years later, and the nine song demo is simply embarrassing… which is why I am proud to offer it to you now, as an early xmas present.

Yes, I spent a few hours today (at work, of course) digitizing the Burnside audio cassette (audio what now!? Audio cassette. You remember those, don’t you?). And now here it is in 192 kps mp3, DRM-free, awesomeness. I even scanned and included the album art (and lyrics too). Aren’t you lucky…

Click here to download the entire Burnside Demo (.zip, 60mb)!

Not sure if you can to commit to the entire album? Well instead, you can download my favorite track from the demo, Not Being With You, and decide from there.

Enjoy!

DISCLAIMER: (You knew I couldn’t offer up something like this without a disclaimer.) Some of the tracks on the Burnside demo might seem a wee bit sketchy in theme, but I assure you, they’re not. Think irony. Think sarcasm. Think high school sense of humor. Additionally, think high school sense of morality.

Gosh. It’s been a while… but that doesn’t mean that I love you any less. On the contrary, I think I love you more. Absence does make the heart grow fonder. Or is it absinthe? Either way, my burning love flows like lava from the mouth of Mount Saint Helens. Ouch! That’s some hot, hot lovin’!

Okay people… last time. I don’t look anything like David Cross. There is no resemblance what-so-ever. See:

Nothing at all. Now quit bugging me.