Talk Funnel

Confused as to which 2008 Presidential candidate runs closest to where you stand? Yeah, so am I.

The good folks of Minnesota Public Radio offer a handy quiz. The outcome may surprise you, especially if your support for a certain candidate is less based on issues and more on emotional attachment.

For me the results were somewhat murky since the top four candidates it picked for me all came within one point of each other. What was surprising was how certain candidates I had totally discounted were on that list. I haven’t been paying that much attention to the race so far, but I’ll be taking a fresh look at where people stand.

I subscribe to a number of print magazines (favorites are New Yorker and The Believer) and online RSS feeds, most of which I find I don’t have time to read on a regular basis. As things begin to pile-up I find myself questioning why I’m even subscribed anymore. But every once in a while I come across an article or story that is like a portal to another world — at once gripping and enlightening but also something completely out of one’s own plane of existence.

This article on The Owners of Machu Picchu from the Virginia Quarterly Review is just this sort of story.

The story itself is interesting and well-written, but it also makes me once again realize the value of serendipity and what a joy it is to come across found ideas.

Here’s a quickie.

The premise: every Friday afternoon two designers go up against each other. They volley Photoshop files back and forth in fifteen minute intervals, each trying to outdo one another and create new visual layers. You can attend live or wait and zip through the finished ten volleys.

The result: Layer Tennis. So worth it.

I’ve been writing a blog on and off since 2003. The last one was hosted on my personal work site and was mostly about technology (with a few sprinklings about home life). I stopped actively writing it a few months ago and eventually decided to retire the work site so I could focus on a new project I’ve been building for the past year.

Everything personal is now on this domain. My intention is to expand the scope of the blog, to talk about anything and everything. On the technology front, I’m starting off with some pretty decent off-the-shelf blogging software, but will eventually transition to the code I’ve been developing (so don’t get too attached to the look-and-feel ).

Regular postings should begin next week (how do you like that for a passive voice, eh? Mistakes were made.)

Until then…