The Christmas Spirit

This week I met two women, Emily Rank and Jillian VanTassell. Both were Salvation Army bell ringers outside Raleys in Loomis, CA. VanTassell was playing the drums, Rank was ringing the bell, and both were singing Christmas carols from time to time. The two are doing a 9-month discipleship for their church, The Rock of Roseville.

"We have a love for music but we get it from the Lord," they told me.

I happened to have my new audio recorder with me and was excited to use it. Listen in as they spread the Christmas spirit to Raleys shoppers!

Google me!

I am proud to say that as of Wed., Sept. 19, 2007, when you google my name, the entire first page of results points to the real me - my blogs, my news stories, my Poynter comments, and my resume!

That first page is actually a very small piece of my online presence. None of my networking profiles appear. Not all of my blogs do either. And after almost three years writing news at the Colfax Record, there are no actual Colfax Record links listed at all.

I should chronicle the changes in my Google search results throughout my life. That would make for an interesting form of scrap book. I remember when my silly high school research projects were still links on the internet...

Compilations

My classwork blogs, if you are interested in keeping up with them, are as follows.

Wordslinger - This is my column and review writing blog, for J 131. It is updated every Sunday night and Thursday afternoon.

Bear Wrestling - This is my blog for magazine writing, J 132. It will be less polished than the above column, as we're asked to update our classmates on the status of various projects and post drafts here.

The Shadow Council Strider - This is for a special project class. WoW is a hobby of mine, so working on these stories is a lot of fun.

I look forward to getting feedback on my writing. Be as truthful as Doc Cox from Scrubs. And hey, if you can write out a rant Cox style, more power to you...

A writer, writing...

Sometimes you forget that to be good at something you have to practice.

That is exactly what this project, The Strider, is all about.

It's been going for a month now, and I have learned a lot of valuable things from it. Mostly I have learned that it takes incredible courage to do your own project--and the courage necessary must multiply tenfold when investing in your own business. I am fortunate that I don't have to gamble money on my little writing venture this summer. As it is, I have nearly backed out of this project more times than I can count. My husband and my friends have patiently encouraged me; they have not allowed me to quit on myself.

There are weeks when I spend so much time on this project that the 9 hours a week required to do it for college credit feels like it would be a vacation. There are weeks in which all my efforts seem to have accomplished nothing. But things are getting easier as I go. Creating a readership from a single community is harder than it sounds!

I can't say I'm not proud of my work, but I know it could be better than it is, so I'll keep plugging away at it. I hope I find the time during this semester to keep writing and raising the quality of the site to something akin to how I imagine it could be.

If I ever started my own business I would not be a workaholic--I would be a perfectionist. They have different motivations but the same end result...

Roleplayers in Iraq

If you're a Penny Arcade fan, you've seen this already: a story about roleplaying soldiers in Iraq. I'm delighted they are organized enough to be able to dungeon-crawl together, and especially delighted that Penny Arcade has taken up their cause.

We roleplayers need a PR firm to help explain to the public the benefits of roleplaying. Too many people see D and D as either too nerdy or too evil. We do good stuff! We're cool too! And in my supreme eloquence, you too have come to understand why roleplaying is awesome. Right?

Ok, ok. Show of hands. How many people actually know what roleplaying is? Roleplaying is unlike anything most people have experienced, and so to qualify it in understandable terms is hard.

It's like an oral choose-your-own-adventure book, with a storyteller who orates the world around you. But roleplaying stories are so much more flexible and fluid than those books. Characters are unique, and can grow and change within the course of a story. My storyteller has to spend a lot of time creating the people, places, and plots to make these stories fun and interactive... all these attributes are unique, and can be difficult to express succinctly. There is nothing quite like roleplaying.

I've learned valuable skills from roleplaying. I am better able to problem-solve, both on my own and in groups. I have learned how to better communicate. (I'm still learning that one!) I can work with rules and numbers much more than I could before. I can understand a variety of viewpoints; I can become a variety of characters. I am often challenged to play a character that is a better leader, a better thinker, or a better communicator than I am - a process which keeps me reaching for new heights in my personal life. I've also learned a lot about my own weaknesses. I've had to organize events, or play key roles in events, that give me good practice for things I might have to do someday. Or maybe they give me experience in roles that I never will fulfill in real life, but was able to experience thanks to the game. I'll likely never be a politician in real life, but I can certainly play one and experience similar challenges through roleplaying.

One thing roleplaying does for me is it gives me the experience of responding to a situation. In the wake of Virginia Tech's school shootings, everyone on campus was asking, "How safe are we? What would we do if this happened to us?" It is a healthy excersize in both personal and schoolwide emergency response... and we all get better with practice.

Roleplaying is also a bonding experience. When my group overcomes a challenge because our characters have worked together cohesively with a common goal, we feel satisfaction. When it comes time to solve the next problem--in game or real life--we have shared context to draw upon, experience working together, and knowledge of who can do what best.

What have you noticed about the public's perception of roleplaying?

A few hours' grace

I enjoy school. I enjoy learning. Sometimes, though, you just need a break.

Fitting, then, that I ditch class today and be given this fortune:

A few hours' grace before the madness begins again.

It is a mad world, isn't it? Mad, mad world.

Revel CA

If you live in Sacramento, Roseville, Rocklin, or Rancho Cordova, you've seen the signs: Smallish, neon, always in the same handwriting and proclaiming the same unexplained message: Repent CA. One of the signs is constantly torn up in the grass near Hwy 50 and Bradshaw. One blogger termed this "evandalism." Sometimes you can even see a man holding the sign on various traffic- heavy corners of the Sacramento area.

I've always been curious. What does it mean, exactly? I finally googled the phenomenon today to discover RepentAmerica.com--an evagelical, anti-abortionist, anti-gay marriage movement based out of Philadelphia. Near as I can tell, people who donate to this kind of thing end up paying for the jail fines of the founder, more often than not. He's a protester at heart and revels in the conflict between "lawless sinners" (people who disagree with him--sometimes known as cops) and the "righteous."

I'm not a fan of any anti-homosexual propaganda, and this movement's founder in particular seems fairly evangelical, which also rubs me the wrong way. Most evangelics ARE "Evandalists"--so willing to spread their message and so disrespectful of other people's opinions that they will deface public buildings to support their message. These types consider Hell the ultimate threat, but true Christians are not in the religion to avoid eternal punishment. They love God for better reasons.

Human rights are a big thing for me. I choose to support homosexuality rather than discriminate against it. If that makes me a sinner, so be it. God himself couldn't make me change my mind. So instead of repenting... Let's Revel CA!

I don't know if I want to make up my own neon signs... As a joke, it's fine (actually, important) to use the same tactics Mr. Hellfire uses; personally, I dislike them. But neon signs are fairly harmless. And it's just... funny to put up a counter-sign. Much better, in fact, than tearing down the original offending sign.

Come on, California. Revel with me!

Blogs as investigative news tools, PR mouthpieces, and freedom fighters

I know Rep. Mark Foley is old news by now. I thought I knew everything about it until I saw Poynter's article reflecting on the investigative story. Did you know ABC broke the news on Brian Ross's Blog? According to an interview with Brian Ross, ABC got the story by calling for sources on their Web site. More than one former page came forward with IM chatlogs hours after the appeal was posted. When ABC confronted the Rep? He didn't even squirm. He resigned a few hours later.

Though I think he made the right choice, I am a little disapointed he chose not to fight the legality of these charges. I have no idea how something like this could be proved in court. They'd have to ascertain that 1) Foley's screen-name of "maf54" was indeed representative of Foley's virtual self and 2) that no one else had access to the Rep.'s screen name... Right? I mean... these chat logs are three years old, some of them. Chat logs are easy enough to fake and the Net is anonymous. I guess I just worry that flimsy virtual evidence can be used in court. In this case, I'm not doubting his guilt, and I'm glad I don't have to. But computer crimes are still pretty new in court. What presedence has been set?

Another interesting Blog tidbit: Sac State has a blog "for students" that has turned out to be just a PR mouthpiece about "why I chose Sac State." Can I trust a student blogger who has agreed to ty to make Sac State look good? No! It's another example of an industry trying to be hip and they really do it all wrong. Grr! Arg! It makes me want to rebel and proclaim to the world how much Sac State does wrong.

In further blog news, Gutterblog from China has begun to blog again. She's a "reporter without borders" and she's the voice of freedom in that often-censored part of the world; check her out sometime!

Casual vs. priorities, and yay for the online world

I spent this last weekend in Sequoya with my husband, neighbors, friend, and three people I met online. We rented a cabin in the middle of nowhere, cooked about five times as much food as we needed to, played on the big trees, roleplayed with our dice, and stayed up at least until 2 in the morning each night just talking to each other.

It was fantastic. And none of us got axed to death!

I have been interacting with these folks online for almost two years. To see them face-to-face was fairly incredible. We've probably eaten more virtual food together than we could ever in real life. We managed to try to meet once a week online (sometimes more than that!) for almost two years. I don't even see my little sister that much! But the form of our hanging out--that is, hopping online for a few hours--is so much easier than driving anywhere. It was a casual game, so scheduling conflicts weren't so much of an issue. And unlike email or letters, our chatting was immediate... no waiting around for someone to remember to write back.

Mr. Althouse recently blogged about making social interactions a priority. And contact with other humans does have to be a priority. That priority is so much easier to follow thorugh if it's casual. What does that mean? Am I more likely to speak to the random person in my class than I am to speak to my own mother? And why should that be true of me? ...I don't think it should be.

This fabulous trip down to a cabin in the middle of nowhere really made me think... why can't I do this with my family? The answer really is, I can. Giving the gift of time and social interaction is probably the best I can give. Times like these are precious, and create more fond memories than anything I can buy. For some reason, though, doing something as simple as calling Granny for a quick "hi" is intimidating. I find I'm "too busy"or "not in the mood."

I spent this last few days thinking about my relationship with my parents. How, in a few short years, they've had to go from providing me with food to being a distant figure in my life. What I expect and hope of our relationship is for us to be friends--to give advice, to check up on each other, and most of all, to just spend some casual time together.

It's so hard to be casual with those who are closest to us. My best friends are my neighbors; we've discovered we can spend casual time together, by just watching half an hour of TV together. My other best friends come to visit me each weekend, and we lounge in the hot-tub. The fabulous friends online we have made, are available casually through a game. But my parents don't have time to drive down each week. I can't drive up each week. If they would just use Trillian each evening...

We really reveled in our geekiness this weekend. We shared in-game stories and hilarious mistells. We had so much common ground based upon the cumulative hours--days--likely, months--we've spent interacting together. All that time seemed like nothing at the time... it was so easily spent, a few hours at a time.

I've got a new goal for communicating with those around me, and that is to make regular phone calls and visits, to make them so regular they become casual, and easy to do. Shy little me will be stepping out a bit. Wish me luck!

Fair Trade Trick-or-Treat: End Child Slavery

Halloween is likely my favorite holiday of the year. I get to dress up (you're never too old to dress up!), kids get yummy candy, and the spooky/gothy/arcane is IN in a fun way!

Global Exchange has just made it even more special with its "Fair Trade Trick or Treat" package. It's a campaign designed to promote Fair Trade awareness. It comes with Fair Trade chocolate and postcards to hand out. How awesome is that?

The chocolate industry is a pretty scary one. We're used to thinking of slavery as a thing of the past--let alone child slavery! Yet on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast, children between the ages of 5 and 14 are stolen from their homes and forced to work on plantations that harvest cocoa . That cocoa is then bought by companies such as Nestle, Hersey's, and M and M's. (You can read a PDF of Global Exchange's 2005 report here.)

Fair Trade chocolate isn't easy to find. Global Exchange has a list of online vendors. Trader Joes may also sell fair-trade chocolate. (I'll have to double-check that. It's a good excuse to go chocolate-shopping.) ;) But if you plan to be passing out the goods this Halloween, please consider offering Fair Trade treats!

Third Time's the Charm?

Vrooooom!

I like my car. It gets me to work and school; mostly it's great because I can listen to music instead of trying to avoid catching the gaze of other people on public transit.

Sometime last night it was stolen.

Now, this makes the third time someone has stolen a car that I drive.

My best friends were cool enough to give me a ride to school. Then to get home, we walked ten miles uphill (well, ok, maybe half a mile across flatland) to the lightrail station. On the way home we were forced to delay (for drinks and a sandwhich). When we were finally on our way again, we had to listen to the obligatory madman rant. (Sometheing about the apocalypse and how to bug old people with bad French and racism all rolled into one.)

My friend and I found it this afternoon in the very same parking lot from which it had been taken. It was missing change, but the radio, CD player, CDs, etc., were all still intact... as was the engine. Whew!

All in all it was an adventure... An adventure I've repeated three times before. My Saturn got stolen and found twice. What I --almost--enjoyed about this time was how in control I felt.

I knew I could take public transit and still be able to get to work and school. I could still control my life and my livelihood without too much extra pain. That's a nice feeling!


But not having to listen to madman rants is definately a huge plus. Vrooooom!

The King's Arena

The Bee has a very interesting opinion piece on the attention their columns have gotten, particularly on one issue: should the city of Sacramento help fund the construction of a larger arena? This was a look at whether or not the paper was being fair on the issue.

Columnists "are paid to have an opinion," the editor said. The news stories were all fair and balanced, but columnists were largely critical of building an arena.

The question that comes to my mind is this: is the paper required to publish the opinions of both sides? Prosper Magazine has blogs on both sides of the issue. That seems balanced. Should the Bee have done that?

I don't have an answer, but I do know this: if I were the editor, I'd like to say we had printed a point-counterpoint piece like that. I can defend that much more easily than "columnists are paid to have opinions." Isn't the paper supposed to be the voice of all?

Despite that, I'd have to agree with the Bee columnists... a city-subsidized sports arena where we already have the adequate Arco Arena is asking too much of us. I do NOT want to pay for a new stadium.

What do you think? I know more than just Michael read my blogs, so POST!

Issues Facing America

Prosper magazine is sponsoring a blog team to go to the event "All About Us." Cheech Marin, Tom Daschle, Dave Barry, Bob Dole (!) , Soledad O'Brien (CNN) and Thomas Ridge (Homeland Security) will be speaking on the issues that face America's future. I get to go... and blog!

For my first blog, I'll be discussing what I feel the important issues facing America are. So I thought I'd ask my readers: What are they?

I know what you're thinking. Lacey, come on, our steps to making this country better are obvious!
1. Get Dubya out of the White House.
2. Keep the Bushes out of the White House.
3.
4. Profit!

What would make this country successful is if we actually practiced the democracy we're so gallantly forcing on everyone else. No Diebold voting machines. No Supreme Court picking the president. Our forefathers may have been afraid of the popular vote, but folks today are educated. Let's treat them that way!

...Wait... is one man The Issue facing America's future? I'd like to think the world will move on after 2008. In 2008 we'll have far more noble concerns than whether or not our president was "really" elected. Like, promoting fair trade in a largely capitalist world economy. Or maybe having a foreign policy that doesn't make us pretend to be Canadian when we travel. What do you think? What is The Issue we face?

My blog will be judged based on the quality of traffic I attract to the Web site, so please practice giving me feedback now. ;) Thanks!

YouTube War

What could be more fun than a web service that allows everyone to post their home-made movies? What could be funnier, sexier, or more entertaining?

Images of the war in Iraq, of course!

I'm being sarcastic (hard to tell in print, I know). According to this ASAP story, videos of the war in Iraq (or at least, what *appear* to be videos of the war in Iraq) are viewable on YouTube, the share-all, do-it-yourself video storage site of America. They're graphic and sickening--everything from targets getting blown up, to American or Brittish soldiers teasing or harrassing Iraqis.

Of course, there's no context for these videos, and there's no way to verify that these images are authentic. That's one of the problems of the Internet/blogger age--everyone suddenly becomes published without a gatekeeper to edit or fact-check. I care about the truth. I want to know if these images are real.

But what I found perhaps the most disturbing is that these images, if they are real, may be illegal. According to the article:
"The Pentagon wants the worst videos off the Internet. It has banned "photographing or filming detainees or human casualties, as well as the possession, distribution, transfer, or posting, whether electronically or physically, of visual images depicting detainees or human casualties, except as required for official duties," the military said in e-mailed response to questions."

I don't approve of censorship. It rankles me. The fine line between censorship and gatekeeping is that one is aimed at controlling information--the other is aimed at verifying it!

If these images are real, then YouTube has suddenly become the tool of the people; a grassroots way to spread the truth. The article ends noting, "The Pentagon, burned by public outcry over TV images of Vietnam, now tries to limit media coverage to reporters "embedded" with troops. But there is no censoring the trophy videos. We're all embedded now."

What do you think? Please share your comments!

Stay out of my hoola hoop!

That's right. I want my personal space, buddy, and I'm not afraid to use Jr-high-school terms to get it!

Only now, you can *force* people to stay out of your hoola hoop. (This cracks me up!) An ASAP story led me to this beautiful dress designer's page. YES it's inflatable. Meant to be used in crowded places like the NY subway. I've never taken the subway--maybe that's why I don't see its appeal--but the infusion of technology with clothing is something I highly approve of. Maybe the next iteration will have electro-shock personal defense options for the *really* edgy feminist. Sweet!

Snakes on a Plane!

Yes, it's out in theaters today.

No, I'm not going to see it. (Snakes are scary!)

But I support this movie 100%.

I am tickled pink by the internet philosophy that's grown from one Hollywood screenwriter's blog on this very film. Fanatical internet fandom has 1) kept the silly title alive and 2) got New Line a bigger budget and an R rating.

Further, I am deeply satisfied to know that Samuel Jackson does his own thing, to the horror of his agents (and, perhaps, to the horror of the country).

There's an interesting article on the snake handler hired for this movie here. And Jon Stewart's interview just says it all.

I hope this movie does well, because I'd like to see the blogosphere affect the entertainment industry. I want the power given to the people, brothers! But if Joss Whedon's Serenity showed us anything, it's that fanatical internet fandom doesn't guarantee you a box-office smash.

Then again, SoaP *does* have Sam Jackson. That alone may fix the winnings.

What can I say, man? Snakes on a plane.

Oh, the fun of violence...

StreetWars is a game in the UK wherein people use brightly-colored supersoakers to assassinate each other. Once you take down a target, you try to assassinate their intended target. Whoever's left by the end of next week participates in an instant-death match. Sounds like a good time!

And it reminds me more than a little of that X-box commercial online. (Anyone know if it ever aired?)

Also, science makes life worth living. I feel imensely cool surrounded by good technology. Liquid armor is possible. What more can I ask for in life?

Spam: the worldwide problem

Net-security.org has an interesting article on spam by country. Summarily, the US is the leading source of spam materials, followed by China. What I found most particularly interesting is the "pump-and-dump" scam, which is designed to quickly and temporarily boost a company's stock value.

Spam *designed* to affect the economy, and not just for penis-enlarger purchases.

A spammer will purchase penny stock in a company, promote the company and encourage others to buy quickly, then sell off when the price peaks. This causes stock value to roller-coaster.

According to the Wikipedia, pump and dump scams became a major source of income for Organized Crime in the 90s.

While I was researching spam, I also came across this bit in the Wikipedia:

Hobbit Spam

In early July 2006 there has been a massive increase in an unsolicited message from a spoofed address with a half dozen or so random letter subject which contains nothing but three lines of text from JRR Tolkein's The Hobbit. This follows fairly closely another similar form dubbed "discordian poetry" that appeared to used a random word generator dubbed "discordian poetry." In both of these there was no apparent attempt to sell anything and was theorized it was a skriptkiddie ineptly running a spamsuite, confirmed when shortly afterward the same format messages began appearing with image files overlaying the text (a common spam technique). It is suspected to be a variation from the same source and image overlays will begin appearing. [[5]]

Paying it forward

... To a classmate of mine whose blogs I enjoy, Michael Althouse. There are times when he expresses perfectly in words something I've only felt, or thought about, but never tried to express. Here is one of those blogs.

Magic is a fascinating fantasy. But the "Harry Potter"-type magic that Mike discusses is the kind that is really... easy. It's the people or inventions who can make mundane things sparkle that can truly weild magic.

There are many words for a good writer... Philosopher, author, storyteller, wordslinger. I think we can safely add one more: Wizard.

Gaming + Activism: Darfur is Dying

AP's youth news organization ASAP has a very fascinating story on "Darfur is Dying." It's a video game based on the real-life Sudan region in which 250,000 refugees have been slaughtered by Janjaweed militiamen. Players manage their refugee camp in which death is a stark reality and survival is the goal.

From the article:
The game can be passed from friend to friend via e-mail, helping spread the message about what's going on in Darfur. And while playing the game, agitated gamers can send a letter to the president or a local legislator urging them to take action -- a move that automatically improves the "health" of the player's virtual camp, increasing his or her chance of survival.

"Any tool, any game, any video, anything that gets one more person involved in opposing the Darfur genocide makes a contribution," said New York Rep. Steve Israel, who recently hosted an online town forum on Darfur. "And if this game helps a single person raise his or her voice, then 3 million people in refugee camps have at least some hope."

I tried to play the game for a bit. It was depressing, because there is no way to forget that such a lifestyle is reality in some distant country. But it IS a new way to spread awareness, and I firmly believe that awareness is the first step if any cause is to have hope.