Sunday, May 02, 2004

Latest book read: Life of Pi, working on Reefer Madness. Highly recommend Pi, it's a sweet story, written with the innocence of an Indian teenager growing up in a zoo. Part Hemingway, part Anne Tyler, it's a moody adventure story that takes place at sea. I've never read anything like it. Reefer Madness starts predictably then goes deeper into the crazy things we do to destroy the lives of people who farm, sell and use marijuana.  

BBC: Wall Street cool on Google plans. 

Andrew Grumet: "Why isn't there better support for syndicating mp3 playlists? Why don't we have better support for sharing category trees across blog systems?" 

When I woke up this morning I didn't feel a day older than 49.  

Where would be a good place to vacation for 60-90 days this summer, in Europe, a place suitable for thinking, writing, swimming, planning, programming. 

I've been thinking about where to spend this summer. A lot. A few days ago I realized I wanted to spend it at my grandmother's house at Rockaway Beach in NY. But she's been dead for 26 years. A weird thing happened. I'm in the part of Germany she came from. Checked into my hotel room in Bonn today. It smells like her house. Unmistakeable. Smells stay with you forever. I miss her. She was a devilish person. I'd like to spend a summer at her house. Can't do it. Moral of the story -- enjoy the people you love when you have the time.  

Scoble: "Most white Americans wouldn't go in, though. The signs didn't have any English on them." Heh. All the restaurants I've been going to don't have any English. Tonight I went to eat Turkish food in Bonn. The menu was in Turkish with German sub-titles. Luckily, I had Andrea and Andre to make sense of it for me. Andre is the Spicy Noodles guy, and Andrea is the grandmother of German blogging. 

Jay Rosen: "Of course Ted Koppel was making a political statement." 

Mitch Kapor: "Google wants to have its cake and eat it too." 

Tim Bray: "I love the smell of flaming in the morning." 

Britt Blaser: "Hooray! Hooray!" 

Germany on May Day 

On the train yesterday I had a lot of time to think about all kinds of things. It was May Day, so everywhere the train went, there were families having picnics and riding bikes and walking. From my vantage point it seemed these people sure know how to live. No air pollution, lots of green, all the trees in bloom. Inexplicably they have graffitti, just like we do in the states. Is Switzerland and southern Germany really heaven? From the train it, in May, on a national holiday, it sure looks like heaven.