08.31.08
Tranzor Z Opening Sequence
When I was ten or eleven years old, one of my favorite afternoon cartoons on the local UHF channel was Tranzor Z.
I would find out years later that Tranzor Z was actually an English language version of a popular Japanese cartoon Mazinger Z.
08.29.08
Happy Birthday, Spiddlement!
Spiddlement is now one year old!
Thanks to everyone who has read this blog, contributed comments, or linked to us over the past year.
Just a few years ago, I had come to the conclusion that blogging was boring, mostly because my impression of blogs was still the image of late ’90’s cat blogs.
Little did I realize that the potential for blogs had not even been realized yet! I’m now convinced it’s one of the most exciting and relevant mediums today.
Great blogs like Seth Godin’s, Neatorama, Waltzing Australia, and Vagablogging continue to inspire and entertain me.
The goal for the future is to just continue doing more of the same, writing about things that I think are interesting and deserve to be noticed. I also hope to include more original articles and essays — as time permits.
Finally, I’d like to dedicate the first year of Spiddlement to the memory of Jack Woodford, a fine man of American letters.
08.27.08
You Already Know What You’re Good At
Penelope Trunk wrote a nice article recently on The Brazen Careerist blog that echoes what I seem to keep re-learning over and over again. We basically know what our personalities are like, and our core personalities rarely change much:
“It’s nearly impossible to eradicate our life of SHOULDS, because we all want to make the right decisions. But I think I could have figured out right decisions for me a lot faster if I had realized how much we reveal about our true selves when we’re young.”
She includes a good exercise to help you remember what you’re good at, what comes naturally.
Penelope’s blog is a pretty good read in general. I also enjoyed her recent interview on Marty Nemko’s career advice radio show/podcast, where she HIGHLY RECOMMENDED blogging. So much so that it made me want to go start a blog — even though I already have one!
Alternate title for this post: “You Already Know What You’re Good At Writing / Blogging About “
Link (to “Why you already know what you should be doing next” via The Brazen Careerist)
08.25.08
Cell Phone Novel Craze Continues
This cell phone could be your next typewriter.
Our post about Japanese Cell Phone Novels was one of our highest read posts of all time, and continues to get plenty of reads every day.
So, to answer the question this recent ABC News article asks (”Will Cell Phone Novels Come Stateside?”), Spiddlement predicts they will. And also, a lot of writing is going to get much shorter in general. Like the blog post you’re reading now.
All the interest from our readers made me decide to revisit the topic, and see what was new in the world of cell phone novels since I’d last checked.
And I finally found a cool site called Textnovel.com that allows you to create and share your own English language cell phone novel. I’ll definitely be thinking of ideas for mine!
Link (to Textnovel.com)
08.24.08
Archive, Don’t File
I liked this recent post on Zen Habits (“12 New Working Rules You Should Embrace Today”)…
One of the items on the list coincided nicely with the (too) recent realization I’ve had that filing is dead, it’s all about archiving now:
“5. Archive, don’t file. Traditionally, people filed paper documents in folders, labeled the folders, and organized them in cabinets. With more and more documents being stored in computers, this way of organizing carried over to the computer desktop, with folders and files all being organized (or disorganized, if you aren’t careful). This meant that either you spent a lot of time filing and organizing, or you lost things.
Today, many people still work that way, even if it doesn’t make the most sense. What makes more sense, with the power of computers and speed of today’s apps, is the method popularized by Gmail: archive and search. Instead of creating folders for everything, and then diligently filing, you could now just hit “archive” and then use Gmail’s very fast search engine to find what you need. Of course, you could still “tag” things which is almost like folders but more versatile, but even that is optional.”
I remember when I first switched from Hotmail to Gmail. In Hotmail, I had created a folder of old emails that I never wanted to throw away. So I was VERY scared to “lose” them in Gmail’s archive feature.
Soon I realized that they were easier to find that before… rather than sort through ALL of them, I could just use a keyword to find the one I wanted.
And — like junk around the house that should probably be thrown out rather than stored — I ultimately never looked at most of those emails again. But knowing that I could pull them up at any time gave me peace of mind.
Link (via Zen Habits)
08.22.08
Redd Kross “Dancing Queen” fanmade video
Fun stop-motion-animated video of this fantastic “Dancing Queen” cover by Redd Kross.
Spiddlement has liked Redd Kross forever. Hard to believe that Third Eye was now released nearly 20 years ago. Time flies when you are having fun!
08.21.08
Catching Up With Mary Worth
I’m ashamed to admit that I hadn’t been keeping up with Mary Worth lately.
I previously mentioned how I’d been a fan of this excellent comic strip for years. When I was in junior high school, my grandmother even used to clip and save Mary Worth for me because the daily strip ran only in the Atlanta Constitution (the morning paper then), and my family received the Atlanta Journal (the night paper).
I had been meaning to catch up for a while, but when I recently saw some new strips with a plot line revolving around Ian and Toby Cameron (Mary’s neighbors at the condominium complex, long time favorites of mine), I didn’t need a second invitation.
So I started reading from the mid July 2008 strips, one month back, to catch up. In the first ones, Mary and Jeff Cory were having dinner at The Bum Boat, their favorite restaurant, and obviously winding down some other storyline that I missed. Within a few days, the story nicely transitioned into the current Cameron-related plot.
Ian Cameron’s birthday is coming up soon, and Toby is hoping to buy him a documentary film DVD about Scotland, narrated by Sean Finnery, for a birthday gift. As she can’t find a copy at the local bookstore, she decides to go home and look for it online at a website called Enormoushop.com.
After locating and paying for the DVD, Toby then receives an email saying she needs to re-register her credit card info or her membership to Enormoushop will be canceled. Hmm… Read the rest of this entry »
46 Million U.S. Workers Have No Paid Sick Days
But, according to Yahoo News, lawmakers in 12 states have proposed legislation in the past year that would require businesses to provide them.
This problem is yet another example of how many Americans (FORTY THREE PERCENT of the private industry workforce) lack basic economic human rights:
“Proposed federal legislation would provide workers with seven days of paid sick leave a year for employees who work 30 or more hours a week. The benefit would be prorated for part-time workers.
Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, supports the legislation.
Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, opposes employer mandates, particularly when the economy is slowing, his campaign said.”
It’s hard to imagine that there are people in the FOOD industry who do not have paid sick days, huh?
And because some people were asking: Yeah, Spiddlement will DEFINITELY be voting OBAMA.
Link (to “States push laws to require sick paid days” via Yahoo News)
08.20.08
Muxtape vs. RIAA
Muxtape was such a cool idea. Make your own digital mixtape and share it with your friends.
So of course, the RIAA had to step in and ruin it.
Rolling Stone reports that Muxtape is probably on solid legal ground, protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, but that legal expenses may be a problem:
“‘I think they have a strong legal defense,’ Von Lohmann told RollingStone.com. ‘The problem is if they might not have that money to go to court and take on the RIAA.’ Von Lohmann said legal fees could cost around $2-3 million, an investment the Websites would likely rather spend on tech engineers.”
Link (to “How Screwed Is Muxtape?” via Rolling Stone)
Link (to “Muxtape Down Because of RIAA” via Ghacks)
Japanese Dental Floss
Front and back images of Johnson & Johnson REACH brand dental floss purchased in West Tokyo.
Product not rated (but worked well).
