Being Amber Rhea

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It's come to my attention that several people have been momentarily freaked out by seeing the title of the previous post. They thought I was giving up blogging altogether. Heavens, no!

So I'm just going to put this up here, short and simple: the new URL for this blog is http://beingamberrhea.com. Same great taste, and more features!

Today's the day, folks... this five-year anniversary of this blog's inception. According to About.com, traditional gift ideas for a fifth anniversary include airline tickets or a cruise. I'm just saying.

When I started this blog on April 17, 2002, I was 22 years old, married, living in Athens, and about to finish my undergraduate degree. I was using a 350mhz Sawtooth G4 tower, which was a really nice computer and which I still miss sometimes. There was no such thing as podcasting. There were very few blogging tools available, and the ones that were available were pretty clunky, so a homegrown system was obviously the way to go. Plus it gave me an opportunity to practice (and improve, over the years) my PHP skills.

But now, five years later, in commemoration of this milestone, guess what I'm doing? I'm moving to WordPress. I never thought the day would come! And I bet you didn't either, readers. I have to say, when I was messing with WordPress last week, getting the new site ready, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the WordPress back-end code looks a lot like my code. Only difference is WordPress has more of it consolidated into functions (which makes sense).

I'm switching to WordPress not because it's the hip thing to do, but because I was happy to continue using my homegrown system until I began to feel limited by it. And, in the past few months, that's what has happened. There are capabilities I'd like to have - for example, tagging - that I don't have with my system. Sure, I could write that stuff into my system, but why reinvent the wheel? I don't have time, and I'm past the point of trying to "prove" my PHP/MySQL programming capabilities to myself.

So, without further ado - the new site is (drumroll) beingamberrhea.com. Please update your links!

You can grab the new RSS feed at http://www.beingamberrhea.com/feed. Alternately, if you don't want to get my daily del.icio.us and Twitter updates, you can subscribe to http://www.beingamberrhea.com/category/blog/feed for actual blog posts only.

This site will remain for posterity and reference, but after a few days I will disable comments.

See y'all at the new place...!

First posted on Twitter, and now posted here for wider reach...

Phones: Nokia 6126 vs. Sony Ericsson W810i - which one wins?

Too tired to write a full post (I went upside down again in pole dancing class tonight!), so I'm just going to quote myself, from comments on the previous thread:

What I'd like to to write about in my next post is the cry of "censorship!!" and "free speech!!" that, predictably, always goes up whenever these assholes are called on their behavior. It amazes me that so many people are, apparently, ignorant of the fact (or, more probably, just don't care) that 'free speech' refers ONLY to government. As in, the government cannot persecute you for expressing your views. Free speech does NOT mean you're allowed to have verbal diarrhea anywhere, any time, with no consequences whatsoever.

WRT blogs? The 'delete' and 'ban' commands are there for a reason. I use this analogy often, but it remains accurate: if someone comes over to my house and shits on the living room floor, they will be unceremoniously kicked out, and don't let the door hit 'em on the way out. They can stand in the yard screaming their head off, but nobody's going to believe they're being persecuted. In fact, the cops will be called and they'll be escorted away and charged w/ trespassing.

Instead of writing more on that specific topic later, I might leave it at that. Brevity can be a good thing!

There have been a lot of conversations lately about online bullying... and I have plenty I want to say about the subject. But I think I'll break this into several blog posts, rather than one big one.

It goes without saying that the perpetrators of online bullying - a term I don't like, because "bullying" doesn't even come close to accurately describing death threats - are cowardly and insecure. You know, just like the "bullies" were back in school - and some people never really grow up, do they? For all the talk of "No one can make anyone feel a certain way" and "Don't let them bother you" and so on, the truth is, none of us lives in a bubble. Other people's actions and words do affect us, and even if those words or actions are motivated by fear, insecurity, etc., ultimately it has fuck-all to do with whether or not they hurt us.

I don't know what's to be done about this... and I wish I had some answers. But I don't know if there are any answers. Not any hard-and-fast ones, to be sure.

(It annoys me when people write in the second person, but I'm about to do it anyway.) The most frustrating thing, to me, is not being able to defend yourself. Not because you're not able to stand up for yourself, articulate your points, use your brain, etc... but because the other party refuses to take your defense seriously, no matter what you do or say. That's how it was for me throughout much of school. It didn't matter that I was smart and my attackers were scared, stupid fools. They had power - not because I "gave" it to them, but because it didn't matter what I did; I wasn't taken seriously. In retrospect, I don't think much of anything could've gotten through to them short of an actual ass-kicking or some other sort of physical humiliation, but I wasn't physically capable of that.

I was a kid. I was at school. I didn't have a choice. I wasn't allowed to stand up for myself, and no one stood up for me. That's the kind of thing that drives people to extreme acts.

Only I didn't have the guts for extreme acts, either. I was scared.

And sure, with "online bullying," things are different... to a point. We're adults, not kids (even if plenty of blogosphere denizens seem to be in a state of arrested development circa 7th grade). We can choose who to ignore or acknowledge, whose words matter and whose are just noise. But even so, when there's enough noise, it can drown out anything else, and cause real harm. So, what to do then?

I'll write about it some more in another post.

A very momentous occasion... this morning, I went to a make-up pole dancing class, because I had missed a class a few weeks ago. And I successfully went upside down, with no help from the instructors, for the first time!! I was exhausted after class was over (especially because I also climbed the pole a total of 5 times), but... damn, that was awesome.

(No, this isn't some weird anti-Georgia Tech post.)

Andrea, this one's for you! Tonight as we walked to Manuel's Tavern, Rusty and I passed the house where the chicken lives - and the chicken was in the yard! Rusty snapped a few photos with his cameraphone. I had my regular camera with me, but didn't even think about it, so enamored was I of the chicken.




I hope to have many more fine encounters with the North Ave. chicken.

I have a big long blog post on the way, which I thought I was going to have time to work on today, but alas, that's not how the day worked out! Busy, busy, busy. So for now I'll just quote ellenbrenna, via Belledame:

Here is a chart for you it is simple and easy to remember:

Stop being such an asshole.

Making the same jokes you made in the 7th Grade, when you are an adult interacting with other adults, generally makes you an asshole. So just stop it. If you don't we are well within our rights to call you an asshole.

Contrary to what this adolescent "politically incorrect" popular culture might have told you that is not a worthy thing to be.

Oh! And, also, Bitch Ph.D.:

The voices of vulnerable people matter too. Maybe even more than the voices of those of us who aren't easily intimidated. And let's get something straight: what needs to happen isn't that the recipients of death threats need to shrug them off. What needs to happen is that those of us who have a fairly weighty online presence need to say, in no uncertain terms, that threats and harassment and sexism and racism and homophobia and all that other offensive shit is flat-out unacceptable, both in real life and online.

Ah, crap, one more... from the always-quotable Belledame:

Hey, y'know what, sunshine, "free speech" does not mean "can say anything you damn please with no consequences or even disapproving response whatsoever." I know that's a really fucking difficult concept, but TRY to process it. ALL "free speech" means is, you cannot be prosecuted or persecuted by the State for speech, in word, print or (we interpret) any other media.

Yay for smart friends.

Alrighty. Gotta run. Might be out and about blogging/Twittering(!) tonight... then, back home, unpacking, for god's sake.

I work in Colony Square (14th & Peachtree), and a new Starbucks just opened downstairs. Now, when they (we) want a Starbucks fix, all the office workers no longer have to walk the 3 blocks to the EarthLink building or the 2 blocks to the corner of 14th & W. Peachtree.

This means there are now 4 Starbucks within a one-mile radius of each other in midtown. I've created a map, so you can see for yourself. (Will post screenshot once I get back home to my Mac.) It seems ridiculous, except it's not, because the new Starbucks, like its three neighbors, is going to do one hell of a good business in Colony Square.

The winner, though, is still the Edgewood shopping center, which has a mini-Starbucks in each of its three anchor stores.

Yes, I sent out an evite for a birthday party for my blog. Yes, I'm a nerd of ever-increasing degrees.

There will be cupcakes. A good time will be had by all.

Also, next Tuesday (the milestone day!), there will be some changes 'round these parts. Stay tuned.

Rusty already wrote about this on his blog, but there are a few things I'd like to say on the topic, as well. Not sure how long this post will be, because a lot of what I want to say, I'm not sure how to translate from the gobbledy-gook in my head to the written word.

I'm no stranger to anti-South bias, especially given the fact that when you spend a lot of your time online, you naturally encounter people from all over. Offline too, there's plenty of it... I vividly reminder one time, sophomore year of college at NYU, a friend of mine launched into this diatribe that started with, "What I don't like about the South is..." and he started rattling off a bunch of stereotypes. I stopped him and asked if he'd ever been to the South. He hadn't. I tore him a bit of a new asshole, he admitted he was behaving like a presumptuous jerk, and we went to dinner.

So anyway, I know that stuff is out there. It bugs me, but not on a daily basis. But in recent months/weeks/days, it's become a bit more pronounced in my vicinity.

Take PodCamp NYC, for example. I detected a fair amount of anti-South bias - the most egregious example, of course, being the guy who came up to Rusty and me and started a sentence with, "I don't want to pre-judge, BUT..." - at which time, he proceeded to pre-judge like a mofo. He asked if since we were in Georgia, most of our podcasts were about personal stories and stuff (from "military spouses," among others), not world events. He didn't seem to think there was anything fucked-up about that question, and even seemed to be a bit amused with himself. There we were, real live dumb Georgia hicks for him to talk at!! Maw, get the skillet!

Then there was the cab driver who took us to the airport Sunday morning, who said "I don't care about the South" and "I don't like the South because it's too slow." Okay, first of all, the South is a pretty big region - even if you've never been here, wouldn't you venture a guess that it's not all completely the same? Secondly, just who the fuck does this guy think he is?

So those are two very in-your-face examples. But there was also plenty of it running just beneath the surface. That, of course, is the type that's the most insidious, because you can't point your finger at one specific thing and say, "See?? Bias!!"

I've had the feeling, for a while now, that PodCamp Atlanta wasn't taken as seriously among the PodCamp elite (whatever that means, but bear with me) because it was, well, in Atlanta. My intuition is rarely wrong on perceptions like these, so I think it's worth mentioning, at least. Never mind what a completely kick-ass event we had, full of energy and passion, with overwhelmingly positive reviews, not to mention making national news. It's the South; so, obviously, not quite as good. (Or, I imagine, something along those lines.)

I want to be clear: this isn't an accusation. It's a statement of how I've felt, of perceptions I've had, and things I've picked up on; little things, here and there. Not that it'll stop me/us from making my/our voice(s) heard. But it is... annoying, nonetheless.

Now, as for anti-South bias on a broader (ie, not just PodCamp-related) scale?

It's possible to make observations about certain institutions of the South without reducing individuals to stereotypes. This is exactly the kind of thing we've talked about on some of the feminist blogs lately: critique and analyze the structure/issue; don't make presumptions about individuals, sight unseen.

And, it's very telling to me when self-identified progressives get squirrely about this WRT the South. I've seen some people practically fall over themselves to defend their prejudice. Because apparently this kind of prejudice is okay. (Reminds me of how quickly the mask comes off with some self-identified progressives when they're called on racist or sexist behavior.)

No - it's not okay.
And I/we/you should not have to put up with it as some kind of nebulous atonement, which is what the justification typically is.

... More to come, when Rusty and I record our next "talkie" podcast. For some reason, this is one of those issues that I can talk about more effectively when speaking rather than writing.

Amanda of Sexual Evolution has tagged me with the Thinking Blogger Award! Here's what she said about my blog:

Amber, of Being Amber Rhea, is as tech savvy as she is poltically savvy. She's the kind of person who's writing makes you want to be her friend. She must've been tagged before, but since it's not on her very first page I'm tagging her anyway (so there!).

I'm blushing at that.

And, actually, no Amanda, I haven't been tagged before - you're my first! Aw shucks.

And now I get to tag five blogs. I seem to remember, when this thing was going around a lot of the feminist blogs I read, that there was some stipulation about not tagging someone who's already been tagged (that you know of, anyway). Not sure if that's true or if I made it up, because I don't see anything about it on the original Thinking Blogger Awards post, but in any case, at this point it's damn near impossible not to tag someone who hasn't been tagged already.

The rules...

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
3. Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote.

Now, my '5 Blogs That Make Me Think' list...

• Sexerati - I love what Lux Nightmare and Melissa Gira are doing with this blog! The writing is always smart, insightful, thought-provoking, and unlike anything else I've seen on the web - at least, not concentrated in one place like this. In particular I like the "We Are The Sex Media" category. They also do a weekly vidcast called The Future of Sex which is just as awesome as the blog.
• Renegade Evolution - Simply amazing. Top-notch writing on such subjects as feminism, law, politics, the sex industry (from a perspective that's not often heard), race, football, and ancient Rome. Sometimes I have to take a break from reading her blog because there's only so much smartness I can handle at a time!
• Queer Dewd Formerly Known As ( ) - She's not writing as much these days because she's been really busy, but I'd be remiss to leave her off this (regrettably short) list. It's impossible to enumerate all the things I've learned from QD (formerly B|L). Plus she's damn funny and a kick-ass designer.
• An Entrepreneur's Journey - Sherry's posts about new media, Web 2.0 stuff, trasparency, spirituality, etc. always give me something to think about. I don't always agree, but we usually get a good dialogue going. In the time I've known her, stuff she's said or written has been responsible for several "aha!" moments of mine, and contributed highly to the evolution of some of my ideas and even the complete 180° shift in some of my opinions.
• Astarte's Circus - Brand new blog, but already chock full of good, brain-gear-turning stuff. Octogalore has a voice that should be heard far and wide. So get on over there and read!

Yesterday morning I had the great misfortune of being subjected to about 10 minutes of Fox News, as I waited in the lobby of the VW dealership for the shuttle bus to arrive. They were talking about the University of Minnesota rape case (and of course comparing it to the Duke debacle) and when they went to a correspondent in the field, the first thing the dude said was, "First of all, with cases like this, we need to remember that in this country you are innocent until proven guilty."

@#%*&&%$*^%$!!!!

SHUT THE FUCK UP, you fucking misogynistic head-up-your-ass idiot!!!

I was so fucking pissed. I can't imagine what it must be like to watch hours of that stuff.

Seriously though, that kind of thing in particular (wrt rape cases) is not unique to Fox News. Not by a longshot. When's the last time you heard someone make a comment like that about a murder case, a burglary case, a car-jacking case... anything else? (Caveat: if the accused is rich, white, and male, you may have.) Goddamn it. That Fox News correspondent should cut the bullshit and just come right out and say what they were all thinking... "Here's some conniving bitch trying to ruin the lives of three fine upstanding young men."

Okay. Rant over, and out. I had to get that out of my system, lest it stay and fester.

Now, off to download WordPress, and maybe even install it, if I have time. (Depends on how much work they give me today.) Also, post about anti-South bias and assholery coming at some point.

More to come, but first...

1. I'll probably end up getting a camera phone fairly soon. I don't need something super snazzy (read: expensive) but I don't want a piece of crap either. Any recommendations?
2. My blog's fifth birthday is fast approaching. April 17 is the big day. It's kind of painful, but I'm thinking that I may have finally outgrown - though I hesitate to use that word, but I can't think of a better one - my homegrown blogging system. In commemoration of five years of blogging, should I move to WordPress? What do you think?

I need to blog about PodCamp NYC and general New York stuff, but that'll have to come later. In the meantime read Rusty's posts: PodCamp New York liveblogging and My renewed appreciation for the South. I have more to say on the anti-South bias topic. Suffice it to say for now, that shit pisses me off. No, it is not okay to stereotype Southerners, especially if you consider yourself "enlightened" or "progressive."

Still waffling over whether to write a post about why I have heretofore not worked in the sex industry, and why I may yet need to do so, in some capacity. On a related note, I said somewhat smart stuff at Sherry's MySpace blog.

And get a load of this, I am now using Twitter. You knew the day would come. We'll see how long this fascination (of a sort) endures. Oh, and also? (Last thing, I swear). LibraryThing. Thanks, Dacia, for pointing me to a Web 2.0 thingy that appeals to both my J-preference and my literary nerdiness. YASP... that's all I need.

podcampnyc

Today, April 9, is the one-year anniversary of our very first podcast party! Rusty blogged about it at the time. It's amazing how time flies.

Here's to another great year of podcast parties! <clink>

Back home in Atlanta. Waiting for food to arrive, which we will eat in our still-disheveled new apartment. Had fun in NYC (yes, our suitcase finally showed up) but am glad to be home. Omitting subject while writing indicates a need for sleep. More later!

A few bullet points of how things have gone today...

• Rusty was violently ill at the Atlanta airport. He was literally (yes, literally!) rolling around on the floor, groaning in agony. By the time the paramedics showed up, he was back to his old self, though. He joked with them about not liking the President.
• The pilot sounded drunk and joked about gaming the system. He managed to get us to New York in one piece, though, so I guess it's okay.
• Our suitcase has been lost somewhere. The very calm (maybe too calm) woman at the luggage information desk at LaGuardia said it probably was put on the next flight. (Because that makes sense.) She filed a report and gave me a claim number and all that... I called the information number about two hours agos and the recording told me that the delivery service had my bag and it would be delivered to me "any time before 12:30 p.m." (which, of course, is tomorrow afternoon).
• The cab driver that took us from the airport to Dacia's house didn't know where anything was, and kept yelling at me, as if it were my fault he didn't know his way around Brooklyn. It didn't matter that I kept repeating, "I don't know. I don't live here." The weirdest rant of his was something that started with, "B neighborhood... Brooklyn... Bronx..." WTF?

So anyway... here we are. Hopefully the suitcase will show up sooner rather than later, and we'll be able to go out and do stuff tomorrow instead of waiting around for it. Not wearing day-old clothes would be nice, too. At least our soap and toothbrushes are with us.