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November 15th, 2008
12:35 pm - New blog and new blog post: Low-Stakes First Dates
I've created a new blog called Unsolicited Advice on Demand at
http://benjyfeen.com
The first entry is all about the design and execution of Low-stakes First Dates.
An excerpt:
Picture this: you take a thousand dollars out of the bank and go to Las Vegas. You put on your finest clothes and hit the nearest casino. You buy a $1000 chip and stride over to the roulette wheel, looking fabulous and confident. You put the thousand dollar chip on your lucky number, and the wheel spins…and you spend the rest of the weekend alone in your hotel room, wondering why bad things have to happen to you. That’s how lots of first dates feel: with everything riding on the outcome of this one big chance, romance and excitement quickly give way to confusion and dejection. Sound familiar? Don’t bet everything on the first date: lower the stakes.
(Click here for the rest of the article: Low-stakes First Dates)
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December 9th, 2007
11:43 pm - Inbox Zero
Oh my god.
I just watched a video of a Merlin Mann talk in which he explains how to get control of your email.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=973149761529535925
I just moved everything out of my personal and work inboxes. I feel so ill-equipped to procrastinate now. LJ to the rescue, eh?
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January 5th, 2007
11:51 am - My favorite cookbook ever
After eight months of not posting to my livejournal, I'm breaking the silence to mention that I just rediscovered my favorite cookbook ever:
The Impoverished Student's Book of Cookery, Drinkery and Housekeepery by Jay F. Rosenberg
http://bookstore.reed.edu/tradebook_list.asp?pf%5Fid=IMPOVERISH0876780710&catalog%5Fid=375&type=3&pf%5Fname=IMPOVERISHED+STUDENTS%27+BOOK+OF+COOKERY+DRINKERY+AN&origination%5Fid=W
My quasihippie Unitarian parents had this on our well-stocked bookshelves at home (probably between Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals and Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.) I think I read this book when I was eight years old or so.
This cookbook includes mission-critical collegiate interior design advice (cinderblocks and 1x12s == bookcase) and a recipe for imperceptibly spiked punch that I still put to good use. Now that it's been reprinted I just bought five copies to keep handy as impromptu gifts.
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April 1st, 2006
11:36 am - Focus
I'm cleaning my bedroom. It's almost painful trying to stay on task. Yes, I recognize the irony of posting a journal entry saying so. Irony is a big thing with me. To quote my pal Cat's .sig:
"A cat spends her life conflicted between a deep, passionate and profound
desire for fish and an equally deep, passionate and profound desire to
avoid getting wet. This is the defining metaphor of my life right now."
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March 31st, 2006
03:25 am - to please the teafairy, I have produced loadiOlympic Medals.
This decathalon badge is the award for survivors of the event.
Current Location: hooooom
Current Mood: ambien
Current Music: ambien
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November 20th, 2005
11:12 pm - Snapshots from a brief stint at a now-defunct dotcom.
You have to understand that it was a different era. Nobody worried about whether something was a good idea or not; it was all about having the best elevator pitch. And I gotta say, this was one hell of an elevator pitch. "We have a fortress, an uplink, three shotguns, and a copy of SuSE Linux." I left after five days. I am no Ryan Lackey; he's got titanium cojones. I couldn't stand feeling so vulnerable, stranded 7 miles into the North Sea, thumbing noses at the world, just waiting for someone to call our bluff. So yes, I chickened out, but I'll take that blow to my ego in exchange for this one thing I'll always have. June 2000: I was Director of Operations for Havenco. For a very short while.
http://pics.feen.com/havenco
--
Sysadmins: Free tattoo with membership!
http://www.lopsa.org
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September 24th, 2005
September 7th, 2005
September 5th, 2005
12:58 pm - Burning Man 2005 photos
This year Jp and I camped with Friends and Family, and it was spectacular.
Here's my photo gallery.
Time to go clean the RV...
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August 25th, 2005
05:32 pm - Benjy and Jp's address on the Playa!
2 o'clock and Amnesia, Friends and Family. We'll be arriving on Saturday night... in an RV! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
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August 17th, 2005
12:22 pm - The Economist style guide on Americanisms
The Economist's style guide includes a fascinating (to dorks like me) page on the distinctions between British and American usage. I had no idea about a lot of these things. "To host a party" is an Americanism? "To slate" can mean "to abuse" in Britain?
http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=673931
In Britain, though cattle and pigs may be raised, children are (or should be) brought up.
Only the speechless are dumb, the well-dressed smart and the insane mad. Scenarios are best kept for the theatre, postures for the gym, parameters for the parabola.
Try not to verb nouns or to adjective them. So do not access files, haemorrhage red ink (haemorrhage is a noun), let one event impact another, author books (still less co-author them), critique style sheets, host parties, pressure colleagues (press will do), progress reports, trial programmes or loan money.
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May 5th, 2005
March 10th, 2005
07:21 pm - Birthday photos!
Photos from last night's birthday party are up:
http://pics.feen.com/benjamin-bday05
As my friend Jessica loves to say, I love my beautiful life and I love my beautiful friends.
Thanks to all who attended and contributed to the debauchery!
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March 8th, 2005
05:07 pm - Benjy's 30th Birthday Party, Wednesday 3/9
Holy crap, I'm old.
I hereby announce the fuck out of my
THIRTIETH BIRTHDAY PARTY
Wednesday, March 9th at 7:30 PM
1751 Social Club
1751 Fulton Street @ Masonic
San Francisco
21+, as alcohol will be served. Vigorously. We will be inventing
and giving away drinks with horrible names, like Donkey Punch and
the Roofie Colada.
Driving directions and MUNI advice:
http://www.1751socialclub.com/web_driving.html
There will also be free food for the first arrivers, so get it
together and show up on time.
Street and garage parking are plentiful and there's a MUNI stop
across the street.
Open decks; contact me if you want to spin downtempo/chill. Bring
ya own needles.
Need info? Call me at 650-270-6520.
Wooooooooooo!
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11:28 am - My birthday's tomorrow...
Soooooooo tomorrow I turn 30, and in a break from tradition I'm letting everyone know the day BEFORE, instead of the morning of. Imma throw some kinda party, somewhere in SF, tomorrow (Wednesday 3/9).
I'm still waiting to get confirmation that my venue of choice will work out (if anyone has a suggestion for an SF venue I can get solid confirmation on, lemme know!) But if you can save the date and make it out, I'd love to see you. Yay? Yay. Watch this space for more details later today.
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March 7th, 2005
07:10 pm - Glue Sniffing and Pills
Thanks to Rocky Mullin for the pointer to this educational filmstrip. I like the image of the sharp-coiffed zombies stiff-legging their way toward the great glowing breast on the horizon.
http://www.nixiebunny.com/sniff/sniff.html
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February 13th, 2005
10:16 pm - Home
Before returning to the US I went to Goa for a couple of days with my friend Emily.
Cow and yogi tourist on Vagator Beach. Click the image to go to the album.
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February 6th, 2005
06:15 pm - His Dark Materials
I just finished reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. I loved it. It's Narnia for Unitarians. I read the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time when I was in college, when I was dating a Presbyterian youth minister who gave me the books as an answer to my question, "What do you think Heaven looks like?" I liked the Narnia books, and I even got an appreciation for Christianity out of it, but in the long term the message just didn't resonate with me -- the idea of our eternal reward being a neverending day trip to a really nice botanical garden wasn't so compelling. His Dark Materials works much better for me. I think it was ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) ruespieler who introduced me to both His Dark Materials and Erik Davis' book TechGnosis, which I'm really glad I read first, since it gives a good background into the Gnostic heresies that His Dark Materials draws from. Anyway, good books. Now I'm going to go eat pizza and watch a bootleg Jackass DVD.
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February 3rd, 2005
01:03 am - Why I love my girl, part 92
Me: Being jaded is soooo 1992.
My girl: Yeah, being jaded is over.
Current Music: Postal Service - Such Great Heights
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February 2nd, 2005
01:37 am - Words coming poorly and without verve
I went to Bangalore yesterday morning. This evening I came home. Bangalore has some nice restaurants. The license plates of many of the rickshaws started with "KA05" which is, you know, hella apropos.
More from the Indian poster on post-high-voltage-shock emergency-type treatment:
An assistant may strike the patient's shoe heels with a stick some twenty times at intervals of five minutes.
Who figured out that you should do that? How long did it take to hit upon twenty as a good number? If the patient is barefoot, should shoes be obtained and fitted in place? How much is too much to pay for shoes you'll probably only wear once, what with schmucks hitting your heels instead of calling an ambulance?
When I leave the gym here I have to walk out a gate to the street. I am directed by guards to walk through an archway made of PVC pipe, rather than just walking straight out the wide-open gate. After a week of this I ask what the purpose of the archway is. I am told it's a metal detector. I say, "But I have metal in my pockets and you didn't stop me." The guard points inside the guard hut where I can see wires leading to a briefcase under a desk. The briefcase is open and I can see a bank of LEDs, which are not lit. The guard tells me it's broken. Keep in mind that this is as I leave the gym.
Safety and security measures in India remind me of cargo cults of the South Pacific.
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