Well, it appears that Salam Pax is posting again from Baghdad, which suggests that the Steven den Beste theory that he was a fellow named Raed arrested in New York the day his long hiatus began is probably not true.
As Miguel Octavio put it, "I think his absence proves he was no fake."
categories: metablog
9:43:31 PM 
say what []
![[some, but not all, of the oakrageous attendees]](http://x-pollen.com/pix/oakrageous/oakrageous-Thumbnails/6.jpg)
A week ago today, before I realized how sick I was getting, I made it down to downtown Oakland for (second?) Oakland bloggers' (and auxiliary) luncheon at the Pacific Coast Brewery, aka Ladies (& Gents) Who Lunch (or: A much-needed excuse to leave the house).
What a great gang of folks, some familiar to me from their web presences, other delightful to meet for the first time in any medium!
I will steal Gwen's HTML to deliver some hyperlinked shout-outs:
George, Bob, Adrienne, Robyn, Jhames, Gareth, Lisa, Ben, Min Jung, co-Nonchalance-ateer Melissa, Lara from Oaklog, Starmama, Jessica, Joe (archive), his site-less (!) friend Joe, and a too-brief appearance by [her] luscious boy.
It was nice connecting with Adrienne, who was once my contracts contact at one of my publishers and who came bearing a copy of ZZ Packer's short story collection, which she will be reviewing for Salon.
It was a great time. What awesome people orbiting this cool little city. Supposedly, the next event will be a happy hour, and I hope I have my drinking legs back by then (a week from now?).
I snapped some pictures and, as I occasionally do, accidentally shot a snippet of movie footage as well, which I've thrown together into a quick-and-dirty photo album with Dreamweaver.
categories: x-syndicate
1:13:23 PM say what []
Jeff Green, who's been on a roll lately, has some choice words for us about iLoo. I suggest he go back and read my "Information pooper-highway" entry from The Internet Dictionary (Sybex, 1994, now sadly out of print).
Weirdly, just a few weeks ago I was riffing with another friend about the idea of putting web browsers above urinals in men's rooms. We quickly realized that no one would want to touch the touch screen, so I figured maybe the urinal itself could be used as a mousepad/tablet type thing for that built in "pointing device." Sure enough, not a week or so later, bOingbOing and the Reverse Cowgirl were covering a supposedly real invention along just those lines. Is the circuit from crazy joke to idiot investment really closing to such a tiny recursive feedback loop? Is it mass hypnosis? The zeitgeist? I'm going to grab the New York Times and go think about it for a while on the john.
categories: x-syndicate
10:17:23 AM say what []
My friend in New Orleans sent me this link to the article about Ornette's performance at Jazz Fest from the Times-Picayune.
categories: x-syndicate
10:17:15 AM say what []
