The more I write, the more it feels like voodoo. I just hit a writing anniversary. I have been writing every week on Merriton for a year. I’m feeling pretty stoked about it, but at the same time, I don’t really feel responsible for it. The more I work on it, the more it feels like it isn’t me that’s writing it. Sure, there are little stories that I want to tell, but mostly they come out of my fingers in a rush of clicking and I don’t feel connected with the writing process. I almost feel like a conduit.

I spend a lot of time thinking about all the people in Merriton. Sometimes I want to torture them. Sometimes I want to make them happy. Sometimes I want to put them in situations just to see how they will get out of them. Most of the time, they are just talking in my mind and make it hard for me to live in the real world.

I’m happy with the story and I only have a year left to tie up all the stories I wanted to tell about these people. Will Randy and Sierra break the curse of the Bowen house and stay in Merriton longer than two years? I don’t know. Is that wrong?

I’m listening to the iPod on shuffle, snapping pics with the camera
and so glad that Stacey volunteered to drive. Say what you will about
road trips with a large group of people, but the more of us there are,
the more likely it is that I don’t have to drive.

We are more than halfway there. Buffalo Wild Wings tonight and a Mind
Meld at Quarks later. God, I love Vegas!

Have I told you how cool Stacey and Dan are? They rented a convertible
Volvo so we could cruise the strip in style! Lovin’ it!

• Why I don’t use Twitter anymore: http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1124.html #

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This entry from Communicatrix got me thinking:

• Communicatrix: Fame, the bitch-goddess

She laments her unending addiction to fame and her desire to achieve it.

There are many embarrassing admissions one might make on the road to the Truth, but one of the most excruciating has got to be this taste for fame. It is profoundly uncool: a state seething with need, and we all know how wildly attractive a feature is need*.

I thought I was done with this need for fame once I set acting aside. As if. Those of you familiar with the treating of symptoms vs. the addressing of root causes are having a hearty chuckle now, no doubt.

It followed me, this back-clinging monkey, into the blogosphere, helpfully hitting the “refresh” button when we’d visit Sitemeter. How many people clicked on my site today? How about now? How about now?

As much as I try to push it away, I also have a desire for fame. For me, I think it is that brief glimpse of immortality that attracts me. Without fame, our lives are lived quietly and after our deaths, we fade in memories until there is nothing left of us. My great, great grandma? Gone. I am here because of her, but I have no memories of her. My mother has never told me the story of her. She is wiped from the face of this planet with only a grave marker somewhere.

With fame, however, we still remember. Caligula? Emily Dickinson? Ludwig van Beethoven? All childless with no progeny to remember them, but we all remember them, for better or for worse. Fame is the atheist’s clinging grasp at immortality.

Is it all that bad?

• eBooks for iPhones: http://tinyurl.com/6d2b3v #

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• Damn Interesting lives up to its name again. Read this article on Extremophiles: http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=961 #
• Missing Lost over the summer? Read the books referenced in the TV show. The list is here: http://tinyurl.com/5u83um #

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• I made it back to the inn safe and sound. I feel safer hiking alone when I can do check-ins with the Internet. #

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I took a walk around Government Camp this morning. The sun was beautiful and I was able to test a new iPhone app that works with Flickr. It’s called AirMe and it made posting photos to Flickr insanely easy.

Here’s the collection of photos I took.

• Government Camp – a set on Flickr

I have been traveling too much lately and all I can think about right now is going home.

• Retweet from @karmadude iPhone screen grab: hold down home button and then tap on sleep/wake button http://twitpic.com/40sb #

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Hey Mike, Dan and Stacey. It looks like some of our fans were riding through Oregon back in March. Nice to know that we have such a loyal fan base!

No, that’s an “N” not an “M.”

There was a nine on that door, it just didn’t show up on the photo.

We have fans, really we do!

How can the Sesame Street version be SO much better than the original?

She had me at penguins…

Via: Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest – Feist on Sesame Street. Joz is right; I think I…

UNIQLOCK: What the heck IS it?!

Irritating embedded UNIQLOCK removed and replaced with a link here.

My only clue: Music Dance Clock…

Via: Littlest, Yellowest, Differentest – UNIQLOCK

After a tour of the school, we’re sitting in the cafeteria. Mr. Treseder is still teaching in the television lab. I found my old locker. They took out the senior bench. The ramp has a huge sign that says, “No Loitering.” The current SBOs say that there are no longer cowboys to sit on the ramp.

I couldn’t help but think of Calvin when they showed us the gorgeous baseball stadium.

I’m glad that we came. I remember dancing with Brian Ard in this cafeteria at a stomp. It’s like I can see ghosts everywhere.

I read this blog entry:

• WWdN: In Exile: announcing wheaton’s books in the wild

Then I immediately walked over to the bookcase to snap a photo of Wil’s books. I’m sure he’ll be tickled to see himself next to Douglas Adams and Kage Baker.

Sure glad he wasn’t one shelf down, next to the Ghost Whisperer comics and the Jane Austen spin-off books.

Click on over to Flickr to read the notes on the photo regarding each book.

You can join the Wil Wheaton in the Wild Flickr Group here:

• Flickr: The Wheaton’s Books in the Wild Pool

I came late to the parade, but fortunately, this parade is something that starts the minute you arrive, so I didn’t miss a thing.

I HATE musicals. Seriously. I hate the singing and the music. Especially when villains sing. Unhappy people just DON’T break into song. It kind of busts up the suspension of disbelief.

That said, I LOVED Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog.

All my friends on Twitter were talking smack about it, saying that it was stupid and that they just didn’t “get” it. At two minutes into it, I was about to agree with them, but soon after that, it fell into its rhythm and I was able to love the singing, the music and the witty lyrics.

Here’s the trailer:

Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

Unfortunately, the trailer doesn’t give you a taste of those witty lyrics I told you about, but you’re just going to have to muscle past the gag reflex and last long enough to enjoy all three glorious acts.

I want MORE Dr. Horrible!!

• Just slaughtered over 1600 comment spam posts that Akismet didn’t catch. I guess it’s time for an update… #
• @ashbuckles Nice to see you back! #

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Always Something There To Remind Me by The Naked Eyes was of my favorite songs from the Eighties. I LOVED this video and I thought it was absolutely PERFECT. The final scene where he is stalking the places where he had seen her and then flashes of what he saw when he was there was genius to my fifteen year old mind.

Now, not so much…

I HATE it when something that I loved doesn’t hold up to my memory of it. It’s as if my memory of the video made it far better than it actually was.

The song, of course, it just as wonderful as it was when it was released. They really did an excellent job of updating the classic and I still love it to this day.

• Testing Twitterific on the iPhone. I like being able to upload pics, char count & icons. http://twitpic.com/50wa #
• @ThomAllen I just downloaded the WordPress app. Playing with it now. I like that I can include a photo in an entry. I had to use Flickr B4. #

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Lately, I have been reluctant to write a blog entry that doesn’t have a picture to illustrate it. Instead of urging me to take more photos, it has limited my entries to a slow drip of boredom. Even now, as I think about what to write, I’m planning on snapping a quick photo to show you what I’m talking about. Why is that?

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Am I just trying to save time? The thing is, without a picture, I have to describe things better. I have to actually WRITE something. With a photo, I can show you and there is no confusion, or at least, less confusion.

But what about those times when there is no photo? I have been ignoring those times in my life. The day I threw the Oreo shake out of the window of the car onto the parking lot of the Arctic Circle was retold many times among friends, but never graced the pages of Pick Me! Instead, it needed to be retooled and massaged to fit the plot line of Merriton. Instead of me being crazy, Sierra takes the blame.

Ironically, even though I didn’t get a photo of my Oreo shake incident, I have been on the lookout for one. Watching for what I wished that shake would have looked like when I threw it out my car window. I eventually found it:

Looks Like Sierra Had An Incident by Laura Moncur from Flickr

My shake was cleaned up by the Arctic Circle staff before it looked this bad, but this is EXACTLY what I wanted mine to look like when I was in the heat of anger. I’m just gonna to pretend that this was my shake and the revenge I had was sweet.

Today, Mike and I went to TNT for our fireworks. Just in case you’re not from Utah, today is Pioneer Day and we are celebrating the Days of ’47 right now. Yes, in Utah, we get TWO independence days: one on the 4th and the other on the 24th. Pretty awesome, huh?!

We didn’t buy these fountains, but I thought it was funny that LOL speak has even hit fireworks.

You can see all my photos here:

• TNT Fireworks Stand 07-24-08 – a set on Flickr

Plaid Stallions has done it again and have brought a cherished memory from my childhood to life in vivid catalog color.

Sceverenia’s parents had a bar that looked just like this in their basement.

We played for hours at that bar. It wasn’t a bar. It was a storefront. It was a government office. It was a checkout counter. Heck, I think we even did homework up at that bar a couple of times when the kitchen table was full of rowdy drinkers.

That was the funny thing about the Kubota house. There were never any drinkers at the bar in their basement. I’m sure her parents bought it with visions of fun parties in the basement, but the parties stayed around the kitchen table. Honestly, the kitchen table was much more adept at handling all the people who came to their parties.

Ironically, the only place where you couldn’t get alcohol in the Kubota house was the bar in the basement. Scev and I had a lot of fun there.

At the reunion last week, they took us on a tour of Kearns High. The first part of the tour was through the auditorium. The school got all new seats and the tour guide was pretty proud of it. She walked us through the dark auditorium. I remember thinking to myself, “She’s not going to turn on the lights? Someone’s going to trip over something in this dark.”

I realized that this was a negative thought and reassured myself that we would be just fine. There was light from the doors leading to the hallways and we had been in the sweltering heat of the auditorium for so long that surely our eyes had adjusted. Just when I neared the end of the trek through the dark auditorium, I felt like I had been worrying for nothing. I could see by the light of the door leading out and we were almost there. I felt stupid for worrying about tripping in the dark and scolded myself for not thinking positively.

Then I tripped on the seam between the floor and the orchestra pit.

As Mike gently picked me up from the floor, I thought to myself, “So much for positive thinking.”

• @libel_vox Just saw your Militant Geek t-shirt idea. Huge phallic symbol warning. Did you not notice it? http://is.gd/15cQ #
• When all my Twitter friends are from Utah, Sunday mornings are DEAD. Church or sleep has claimed them all. #
• @justsomeguy Thanks for that link. That video made me happier than it logically should have. http://tinyurl.com/5gyyjw #

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Sid and I went outside to test the camera on my new 3G iPhone. I heard that it was inexplicably better than the old one, but I can’t really tell the difference. On a beautiful sunny day like today, the cameras on both phones work fine. I guess I should be testing this indoors.

In the end, the true killer features of the new iPhone is the 16GB of storage and the GPS. It’s nice to see that I have plenty of room on my iPhone now. I was pushing the limit with my 8GB.

When I took this picture, Maggie kept moving her head away. She refused to look me in the face no matter how much I coaxed her and clicked my tongue. I can’t bribe her with food, she has no weaknesses except for the constant desire to be petted and held. She was on my lap and happy and there was nothing I could bribe her with.

• Testing Twinkle. I have to admit that the iPhone Twitter apps make me want to tweet again. http://snipurl.com/3767s #
• Rewatching Dr. Horrible on Hulu. #
• Printer mysteriously won’t print. I’ve got the green light, but no papers coming out. http://snipurl.com/377pw #
• Wondering which is better for the iPhone: Twitterific or Twinkle? http://twitpic.com/5tqw #
• @bradbaldwin If I see Jesse Stay, what am I supposed to do? #
• @kittygutz I’ll be at the Geek Dinner on Thursday. You can sit next to me and @nakedjen. #
• @humancell Looks like a baseball field to me, dude. #

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• Fun summer video from We Are Scientists: Impatience http://tinyurl.com/6lay4x #
• Note to self: Get this Roisin Murphy song when it become available: http://tinyurl.com/6xajt2 #
• Kalua pork for dinner makes me want to go to Hawaii. #
• @nakedjen Does Sundance have a naked division? #
• @libelvox Are YOU drunk twittering again? #
• Mind Hacks: You are what you buy and what you DON’T buy. http://tinyurl.com/4l2jd9 #
• Bedtime. Twitter off. #
• Good morning, my tweets! I’m ready for another fun-filled day! #
• Just back from my morning walk. Listened to the Comic-Con Totally Rad Show while I walked. http://www.totallyradshow.com/ #
• @jerekeys Drive safely. Wishing you the best! #
• @jeremyfranklin I’ve had the best luck at REI for bike shopping. Free tuneups, prices on the bikes and knowledgeable staff. #
• @jeremyfranklin REI 3285 East 3300 South Salt Lake City, UT 84109 (801) 486-2100 #
• Too much YouTube and Tivo this morning. I haven’t worked at all. Gotta get some stuff done before the blood drive: http://tinyurl.com/65u8mb #
• @ThomAllen OMG! That was totally hilarious! Super Dell is running for Governor of UT!! http://www.digitalthom.com/media/superdell.mp3 #
• @pilot_wanna_b I LOVED Dexter. I know I shouldn’t be routing for a serial killer, but I just liked him so much. #
• Heading to the blood drive at Twelve Horses. #

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The Blogger Blood Drive sponsored by Twelve Horses in honor of Serenity Burns went incredibly well. A special thank you to Steve Spencer for setting it up. You can see all my photos for it here:

• Blogger Blood Drive at Twelve Horses – a set on Flickr

I felt really tired and worn out all evening afterward. I’ve never had that happen when I’ve given blood before. On the plus side, I felt really good about myself as well. It’s like Captain Hammer says, “Everyone’s a hero in their own way, in their own not that heroic way.”

• @justsomeguy Lunch: ramen noodles forgotten on the stove until all the water boiled out. Stuck to the bottom of the pan… #
• @FiddleyGomme Better start snappin’ photos and writin’ then. #
• @kittygutz If you are at 90th and State right now, you’re going to be late for the Blogger Dinner in SLC. Hurry up, girl! #

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