Asymptomatic

Over the weekend, I visited Columbus, not just to hang out with skippy at ComFest and buy too much crap at Origins, but to attend and lead a session at PodCamp Ohio.

The side dishes to this entrée are actually better than the meat, but the meat was the point of the dinner, so that's what I'll talk about here. I'm all about focus here. Focus.

I showed up right on time for the welcome session on Saturday and checked in. I hadn't been able to show up for the Friday night meetup because of the previously mentioned "side dishes". I checked in and was shown to the "Speaker Lounge", marked off by signs with martini glasses (with olive!). After a brief welcome from another couple of session leaders in the lounge, we all shuffled down to Room A for the introduction.

I'm not going to do a play-by-play of the rest of the day, because that's already feeling tedious. Let me cover briefly a couple of sessions I did attend, and my overall impression of the camp. more

On IRC a few weeks ago this question was posed by an unassuming visitor:

What makes Habari different from any other blog application like WordPress?

I blew a mental gasket sitting at my desk, but managed to scrawl out a few words that managed to be quoted here and there by folks in the community. It may have sounded profound to others, but it was really offered up in haste and without much consideration.

Since then I've been thinking: If I had to give a serious elevator pitch about Habari, what would I say? more

I don't normally include profanity in my own postings, although there is sometimes some basic profanity in the comments. And I'm ok with that as long as it's a relevant expression of feeling and not flagrant meaningless obscenity or name-calling. With that said, I hope you will excuse what I am about to post, which is actually a comment that I recently received, and not my words at all.

I suppose I need to provide a little background. Back in 2003, I enrolled in a basic writing class at West Chester University as part of my program of "taking random classes and learning things without an intention of earning a degree". West Chester is a state school; your basic step above a community college. The writing program was very basic, and although the teacher was proficient, he expected a proportional amount of effort from a 100-level class at what amounts to a continuation of high school.

One of our assignments included choosing a character from the movie American History X, and profiling him in writing. It was to be a longer piece; a follow-up to a shorter assignment from earlier in the semester. Please note - If you read these posts, note that they were added to the site before I started using WordPress, and the automated reformatting from the old system may have produced errors. Also, as with anything I write on Asymptomatic in general, I didn't really proof the "post" part of these, whereas the written piece itself should be in a relatively error-free form.

The salient point here, the one that is lost in the case of the comment to which I spoke earlier, is the one where this is "part 2″ of my exploration of American History X. This post does not represent an indication of a sequel to the original movie. That said, I present the comment that I recently recieved on the "part 2″ post, which I am posting again here rather than allowing it through moderation: more

Once again it's time for... Is it just me? The gameshow where I complain about some issue that everyone deals with, and you all weigh in with your opinion on the matter.

This episode's topic: Haircuts.

I know that there are many differences between the male and female hair treatments. Most men I've met would rather find the cheapest barber they can ("Uncle Lou only charged me $3 -- Sure, he's nearly blind and only has the use of one arm, but... cheap!") and women seem to head for the more frilly places ("I was going to drive home right after my hair appointment, but I had too many of their free mimosas, so I went shopping instead"). This is a hasty generalization that I'm sure will earn me no respect for having written it.

Nonetheless, I must admit to a certain affinity to a $30 salon hair-do. As I was explaining to Berta, if you find the right stylist, there's definitely something to the scalp kneading that occurs during the shampooing phase. It nearly triggers that blissful reaction in me that you see with some dogs when you scratch them in just the right spot. Moving on...

The reason I bring up this whole hair issue is because I had mine mostly chopped off yesterday. And during the process, as usual, the stylist wanted to know how I wanted my hair done. Allow me to pose this question to the guys in the audience: Do you really know what to say to answer this question? more

Back to school last night with another class at West Chester. This time it's Acting 103 with Dr. Hashimoto-Sinclair, aka Dr. Hash.

To begin with, I'm not sure what I expected from this class. Practically, this class fills a general education requirement for art. It also seemed more fun that Computer Art 113, which is taught by a guy who may know art well, but is too fascinated by Macs for my test. I also know that I wanted to get a little more experience with voice acting; not so much with moving around a stage, but with using a voice (mine?) to act audibly. This would austensibly be for future features of this site. more