My Six Apart + LiveJournal FAQ

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So pretty much everyone has heard the rumors that ***Six Apart|http://www.sixapart.com/***, makers of the ***Movable Type|http://www.movabletype.org/*** software that we use here at prwdot.org, was going to buy ***LiveJournal|http://www.livejournal.com/***, a community blogging site. Well, those rumors ***are true|http://www.sixapart.com/log/2005/01/six_apart_acqui.shtml***. There are plenty of good links to be had elsewhere, so I figured I would provide some unique content here.

Q: What does this mean to prwdot.org?
A: Not a whole lot. The blogs at prwdot.org are powered by Movable Type, which is a product of Six Apart, the company that purchased LiveJournal. We won’t be switching to LiveJournal, and from the other FAQ’s that I’ve read, LiveJournal won’t be integrated into any other Six Apart products. It remains to be seen what type of ripple effects this acquisition will have on Six Apart and their other products. I know that acquisitions are often quite expensive for the purchasing company, and can set them back significantly in terms of their overall financial strength. So hopefully they can make the most out of this opportunity.

Q: Does World Wide Wood know anyone who would be affected by this?
A: Well, our friend ***Jenny Rainville|http://www.livejournal.com/users/raingirl3179/*** is a LiveJournal user. From what I understand, the benefits will be mostly positive for her. Six Apart does not have any (announced) plans to get rid of LiveJournal. From what I’ve read, they have only the best of intentions. So Jenny’s blog should stay around for the forseeable future. Maybe there’s a chance that she and other LiveJournal users would get some cool features like the ability to accept comments from people outside of LiveJournal without jumping through hoops, or other things like TrackBacks. But I don’t know about that.

Q: Where does ***Xanga|http://www.xanga.com/*** figure in to all of this?
A: Though they aren’t involved in the current Six Apart + LiveJournal deal, one can only hope that Six Apart will, in the near future, buy them out and kill off their god-awful blogging product. Seriously, with very few exceptions (e.g. ***Laura and Johnny|http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=DimbyRVin***), Xanga is just a dumping ground for crappy teeny-bopper blogs that look absolutely hideous.

Q: Did this buyout affect your ability to get to work this morning?
A: Most likely yes. When my car stalled out on the on-ramp to Route 128, and I couldn’t get it to come back to life, Six Apart was the first company I thought to call. Unfortunately, after dialing their offices numerous times, I received only busy signals. I guess they were pretty busy. In any case, my second choice, ***AAA|http://www.aaa.com/***, was able to come and tow my car to ***Auto-Dyne|http://www.auto-dyne.com/*** within 15 minutes. If there’s anything seriously wrong, though, I’m sending the bill to Six Apart. If they can afford to buy LiveJournal, they can certainly afford to repair my car.

Q: Should I take this entire blog entry with a grain of salt?
A: Just a pinch will do!

You May Not Want To But You Must!

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Have you ever heard heard of the game ***Cosmic Wimpout|http://www.cosmicwimpout.com/***? My parents have had a copy of this popular game from the seventies ever since I can remember. I can still picture my dad and my uncles playing, or them attempting to teach me the many rules. It always seemed like the “adult’s game”.

This Christmas Mom and Dad found the game again at ***EMS|http://www.ems.com/*** and Corey and I each received the game. Peter and I have been playing it all week. We love it.

It is unlike any game you’ve ever played. Here are some of the rules:

You May Not Want To But You Must
The Futless Rule
The Re-roll clause
The Flaming Sun Rule

The charm of this game is its simplicity and toteability. It comes with five dice and a felt game ‘board’. Drop by sometime and we’ll teach you to play!

Boston Movable Type Meetup

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One week from today, January 11, is the January Boston Movable Type Meetup. If you’re interested in Movable Type, and you’re going to be in the Boston area, why not stop by? Go ***here|http://movabletype.meetup.com/15/events/3883888/*** for more information, to sign up, and to RSVP. You can also pass along this information if you think you know someone who might be interested.

Hope Natalie Mattina

On Christmas Day, 2004, my co-worker Chris “Win” Mattina* and his wife Jill* delivered a baby girl, who they named Hope Natalie. Hope was due to be born in March of 2005, so this delivery by emergency C-Section came as a bit of a surprise. Even more of a surprise to those of us here at work, since Win had not yet made an announcement that they were expecting a baby.

The Mattinas have set up a ***website|http://www.hopenatalie.com/*** with a photo gallery and a blog in order to share their experience with others. If you have a moment, stop on over and send your prayers, congratulations, and well wishes. I’ve turned off comments and pings for this post, in hopes that I can direct all of the goodwill over there.

As of the ***last update|http://www.hopenatalie.com/?postid=7***, Hope Natalie is doing well and it sounds like she is receiving the best in medical care. Please pray for the Mattinas and let them know that you’re thinking of them by way of the comments on their website.

* For those who don’t know, Chris and Jill are fellow ***Gordon College|http://www.gordon.edu/*** alumni, and Chris was in Gordon’s bell choir with Becky during her freshman year at Gordon.

Hey, You!

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Yeah, you. The person(s) reading this blog entry. Who are you? How did you find our site? Got a website we can point to, if we don’t link to you already? Leave us a comment, whoever you are. Thanks!

Site Migration Notes

Photos Found

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One of the things I love about our photo gallery is that it’s searchable by the general public. Google indexes all of the albums, including photo captions and comments. That’s why I try to make the album names as descriptive as possible, and also why I try to leave captions whenever I have time. Then people will be more easily able to find photos of their favorite people, places, or events. And I’m happy for our gallery to be one of the places at which they end up.
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Cold enough for you?

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Not for Corey. There we are, standing on the beach preparing to take the plunge, and Corey says, “I wish it was colder. Like, 5 degrees below 0 or something.” I have to admit I share that sentiment.

Some weeks ago my brother and I decided to join the L street Brownies in their ***New Years Day swim|http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/01/01/holiday_polar_swim_offers_chance_to_honor_loved_ones_from_afar/*** in Boston Harbor. At the time we assumed that January 1st would be bitterly cold and we looked forward to braving the waters with the bold and the brave.

It was not to be as the temperature rose into the fifites today. The warm weather drew out the crowds and we were joined by 700 other hearty swimmers. We even ran into neighbors from the Island! Steven and Steve McKenna came out to ring in the New Year with a brisk swim!

Today I was able to check off an item on my “life’s to do” list. That does not mean, however that I won’t want to do it again next year!

See pics from the day ***Here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/polar_bear_swim_2005***

Update:
Additional news coverage in the ***Boston Herald|http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=61405***.

Happy New Year! (Updated)

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Here’s a run-down of the events of New Year’s Eve.

Friday morning, Becky and I drove in to Boston and parked at the ***Otis House|http://www.historicnewengland.org/visit/homes/otis.htm*** (yay for free city parking!). Becky had to work that evening from 5 to 9, since the Otis House was doing free tours as a part of First Night. As a bonus, Becky got two free First Night pins!

Our first trip was over to the ***New England Aquarium|http://www.neaq.org/***, which was giving away admission to First Night button-wearers (normally $15.95). We explored the exhibit halls, and saw lots of cool sea life such as penguins, jellies (the ‘proper’ name for jellyfish), giant sea turtles, and ***leafy sea dragons|http://www.divegallery.com/Leafy_Sea_Dragon.htm***.

After the aquarium, we walked over to the ***Common|http://www.cityofboston.gov/freedomtrail/bostoncommon.asp*** to see some ice sculptures. They weren’t entirely complete yet, and some of them had started melting. In fact, the end of the ice dragon’s tail had fallen off! Nonetheless, they were pretty impressive. From the Common we walked to Copley Square and saw a few ice sculptures there, including one that said “CIRCUS”. You’ll hear more about that one later… ***Fire and Ice|http://www.fire-ice.com/*** was just a few blocks away, so we went there for their $7.95 lunch. Yum.

Our next destination was the ***Christian Science|http://www.tfccs.com/*** Mother Church. Christian Science is headquartered in Boston, and among other activities they were sponsoring for First Night was a free tour of the church. The inside of the church is quite impressive, with Byzantine-Renaissance architecture, and one of the world’s largest Aeolian-Skinner pipe organs.

At this point, Becky and I had to part ways, since she had to get over to the Otis House for work. I headed over to the ***Hynes Convention Center|http://www.mccahome.com/hynes/default.aspx***, where many of First Night’s family activities were taking place. I saw some spiffy trampoline acrobatics by ***The Skyriders|http://www.theskyriders.com/intro.htm*** and a display of juggling feats by Dan Foley and Joel Harris, the ***Airborne Comedians|http://www.airbornecomedians.com/***. At around the time these were finished, the “Grand Procession” was forming up just outside of the Hynes. I went outside to check it out. Though there were a lot of people involved, and there was a lot of noise and spirit, I didn’t get too much out of it. It was just too dark to see much of anything, and unless a float had its own illumination, you couldn’t really see what it was. So I walked up and down Boylston street for a while. At one point, I returned to Copley Square to see how the ice sculptures were doing. As I had mentioned earlier, one of the sculptures was a big top that said “CIRCUS” on top. Well, just as I was walking up to it, a big gust of wind picked up and blew over half of the sculpture! The half that was left standing said simply, “CUS”. Hah! Just a few minutes after it blew over, a news crew was on the scene, sure to have an amusing piece for the next day’s news.

Finally I decided to attend an Organ Recital at the Christian Science Mother church. Their organist wasn’t the most impressive talent I’ve ever heard, but the organ itself was quite a thing to behold. Some of the notes in the lowest registers caused my seat to rumble!

After the recital, I picked up some ***Krispy Kreme|http://www.krispykreme.com/*** donuts at the ***Prudential Center|http://www.prudentialcenter.com/*** and headed over to the Otis House to meet Becky when she got out of work. The day was a success for the Otis House, with over 300 visitors in total! We decided to go to a swing dance party at the ***Boston Park Plaza Castle|http://www.bostonparkplaza.com/default.asp?sID=banqu&pID=cast***. It was a good idea in theory, and it was fun to do a little bit of dancing, but the floor was very, very crowded, there was no live music (just canned recordings), and it was just getting late. So we called it a night at around 11. We headed home and the stroke of midnight found us in our car just as we were entering Beverly!

All in all a very full and fun day, and a good way to ring in the new year!

Photos of the day are available online ***here|http://gallery.prwdot.org/first_night_boston_2005***.

Update
Added captions to the photo gallery.

Update
News coverage in the ***Boston Globe|http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/01/01/first_night_draws_1_million*** and the ***Boston Herald|http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=61304***.

Update
Linked to the Airborne Comedians and Skyriders from within the blog entry.

St. Peter sings, ‘Be Our Guest’

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I have a friend. His name is Jerry. Jerry comes over to our house almost every day. Sometimes twice or three times a day. I’d like to thank TNT for bringing him over.

Jerry and I have fun solving crimes and chasing down murderers. Or sometimes we vacation in the Catskills. He has a wealth of funny one-liners and puns that never fail to make me laugh. Sometimes Jerry brings his other friends to play, like: Jack and Ed and Mike and Anita. Other times he brings his daughter ‘Baby’ and we go dancing. Once, he brought his girlfriend the feather duster.

Sadly, ***Jerry|http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0001583*** has ***passed away|http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20041229/ap_on_en_tv/obit_jerry_orbach***. I feel like someone in my own family has died. What a horrible day.

In tribute, TNT should broadcast all of my favorite Orbachian shows and films. They should have an all day marathon playing, ***Law and Order|http://imdb.com/title/tt0098844/***, ***Beauty and the Beast|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0101414*** and ***Dirty Dancing|http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0092890***. I don’t know if it will be enough to make me feel better. You will be missed, Jerry.

ppp| Jerry Orbach |ppp

ppp| Jerry as Lenny Briscoe |ppp

ppp| Jerry as Lumiere |ppp

(feel free to eulogize Jerry in the comments!)