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« February 2008 | Main | April 2008 »
Friday, March 28, 2008 - 09:00:19
North Metro Tuesday Morning
I just got an email in my inbox announcing the grand opening of the new CABOT location of Tuesday Morning, on April 1. I'm assuming it's not an April Fool's joke, and that now those of us out this way might actually be able to make it to the store in time to take advantage of some of the pre-announced sales. Cabot is growing like crazy, with new restaurant and store openings almost weekly, it seems. Are we in some crazy recession-proof bubble?What Are You Doing?
I have been completely in love with the unlikely internet juggernaut that is Twitter for almost a year now, and I am still nearly always unable to describe it accurately to people who do not use it. Yes, it's like instant messaging, kind of. And kind of like a chat-room. And sort of like blogging--instantaneous micro-blogging, anyway. It comes from a wholly simple and straightforward place, asking simply, "What are you doing?" and then providing you with 140 characters worth of blank space to answer that question, as frequently or infrequently as you choose.
When I first entered the Twitter playground last year, most people simply answered the question, using the automatic placement of their username as the beginning of a declarative statement. As in, "ninjapoodles is waiting for the dryer to finish, awestruck at the glamor that is her life." For most folks, Twitter was pretty personal, and we followed mostly people we already knew, either in "real life" or online, and read their updates and posted our own. Then, a few months ago, the Twitter timeline somehow became a conversation. A live, constant, global conversation. New connections were made. In response to the ways that its users were utilizing the service, Twitter made changes to the way the application works. More and more, people were responding to each other directly, by placing '@' in front of another's username. Most of us added more and more followers, as we saw our friends responding to people we hadn't known about, and clicked over to their profiles and found that we liked them, too, and wanted to follow them.
Now, Twitter has added a wonderful little swooshy arrow at the end of each update, so that you can simply click on it to reply to the poster, without even having to type in their username yourself. As of this writing, I have posted a total of 5,836 updates on Twitter, received several hundred "DMs" (direct messages), and I'm following what seems like an insane number of people--458--and adding more daily. I don't automatically follow everyone who follows me, but I do follow anyone who interacts with me directly. In the beginning, I tried to keep a lid on the number of people I'd follow, because I couldn't keep up with a cluttered "timeline," but with the '@' feature, I can easily click on the "replies" tab and see if anyone has addressed me directly, without scanning back through the timeline.
There's also a "favorites" feature, where you can click a star next to a post and mark it as a favorite, for Twitter to save. Tonight was the first time I opened my "favorites" file and looked back on all the posts I'd saved. Here is a samping of updates which I found, for whatever reason, worthy of saving over the last year or so.
This screen-grab is a perfect illustration of how the Twitter timeline can capture the mundane, the angsty, the humorous, and the profound at a glance:
Some of the "Tweets" I save are replies to something I've posted, that made me laugh or meant something to me so that I wanted to remember them. Some struck me as funny:
Others touched me (and probably now have meaning only to me):
And some I save when people speak to me in languages from other planets:
Some Tweets are two-parters (read from the bottom up):
Sometimes an exchange between others is so funny to me that I save the whole thing, like this one (yes, I am so good at screen captures that I left the cursor in the middle of the shot--that word is "idea"). Remember that the Twitter timeline posts the most recent updates at the top, so read exchanges from bottom to top:
But by far, the updates I "favorite" (one thing that really bugs me about the internet is the increasing creation of new verbs) most often are stand-alone posts, usually the ones that make me laugh. These, more than anything else, are probably what makes Twitter worth using for me. Forget "social media," networking, whatever...sometimes, I just want to see what other folks are doing, and hopefully have a chuckle.
So...What are you doing?
UPDATE: Edited to add a link to this video (thanks, Zach!), explaining the bare-bones basics of Twitter to the uninitiated.
Saturday, March 15, 2008 - 14:04:56
Hulu Goes Public
I've meant to write about Hulu before, because I've been loving it since Day One. But while it was in Beta, and limited to invitation-only, I was hesitant lest it not make it. But now, it's gone public and added a huge amount of content, including more full episode television and even a decent selection of full-length feature films. Just a cursory glance at that category shows options like "The Big Lebowski" and "The Usual Suspects," so I have high hopes for the future of Hulu.Get on over to Hulu.com, sign up, and start browsing. It's free, and, in my opinion, it's fabulous. You even have the option of embedding their content on your own site, and the superior quality of Hulu video (compared to YouTube or Google Video) is impressive.
<object width="510" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/JK9tdpQPim1o-aujnb9cOA"></param><embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/JK9tdpQPim1o-aujnb9cOA" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="510" height="295"></embed></object>
Uh...if someone knows the secret to embedding video on THIS blog, hit me up right quick, wouldja? That would be the code above, there.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008 - 10:46:18
A "Pet" Pet Peeve
I don't know if this is a purely Southern phenomenon, but I see it all too often around here, and when I do, it makes me feel stabby. This is just BEYOND idiotic. I truly do not understand what people are thinking when they drive around with dogs in the bed of a pickup truck. Presumably, they "love" their dogs and want to take them for a ride. Bollocks.
If you LOVE your dogs, or even care casually about them, you don't set them up to become projectiles in even a minor traffic accident or just a "near miss" in which you must slam on your brakes or swerve. Even if you're the best driver in the world (and observing the judgment you're showing here, you're NOT), you can't predict or control what other drivers on the road with you are going to do.
And if the thought of your dogs going flying into the street only to then be hit by other cars is not enough of a deterrent to keep you from doing something this stupid, then consider something else: If you're involved in an accident, and your dog becomes a 60-pound projectile which causes injury to another person or persons, who do you think is going to be liable for that injury?
To sum up, THIS IS STUPID; If you're doing it, please knock it off. For all our sakes.
Sunday, March 02, 2008 - 20:22:25
A Rocky Start But Plenty of Potential for Kopan...
...if the Cabot community will support it long enough for it to find its feet, anyway.
Our family ventured out on the opening night of the new Kopan Bulgogi & Sushi restaurant in Cabot. We know it's conventional wisdom that you don't go to a new restaurant on its first night, but I have personally been on pins and needles waiting for this place to open--I'm still grieving the loss, a couple years ago, of the only sushi joint in Jacksonville.
Good news first: Though the outside of the building is nondescript (it's the old Hunan), once you step through the door, the atmosphere is polished and pleasant, with much attention to detail (artfully folded napkins, decorative tableware, wait staff in long sleeves and bow ties, moistened finger cloths, etc.). The layout is a dining room centered around a traditional sushi bar, with the chefs working furiously behind it.
The food, almost every single thing we had, was excellent. Our table sampled beef/asparagus and crispy crab appetizers, bulgogi (marinated and sauteed thin strips of beef and vegetables), miso soup, salads with ginger dressing, kim chee cucumbers, teriyaki chicken and broccoli kabobs, and a variety of sushi. The only thing that disappointed in this dinner was the salad, but you don't go to a Japanese restaurant for salad, so I didn't hold it against them.
The sushi was exactly the way we like it--bursting with fresh flavor, tightly rolled, and of the ideal size for seasoning and popping whole into your mouth with wasabe and/or pickled ginger, via chopsticks. We didn't get all the sushi we ordered, so we were unable to sample too widely that first time out, but my husband and I liked it so much that we actually ordered takeout sushi from Kopan the following night. (I feel obliged to report that my sister's family did not share our good experience with the sushi a couple of days later, telling me of California rolls that fell apart and were difficult to eat.)
Like I said, all of our food was just delicious, which makes the service we experienced especially painful to report. Hopefully it will get better over time, but it apparently didn't improve over the first three days. The root of the problem seems to be the young, inexperienced serving staff. I hate to even criticize them, but the teenage servers, while polite and helpful, just seemed to be in over their heads and very unfamiliar with the menu. We got lots of blank, deer-in-the-headlights expressions in response to any questions, and the poor dears honestly seemed to be frightened to death. I can't say I blame them--this place is an extreme departure from anything else currently available in Lonoke County or Jacksonville, with its more meticulous (but by no means formal) atmosphere and menu.
Adding to the confusion was the fact that the place was PACKED. I'm hoping that this is a good sign, and that the community can continue to give Kopan a chance, though I was disheartened at the table I saw getting up and leaving after waiting in vain for 45 minutes after beverage service for someone to take their food order, as well as members of my own family who finally walked out after standing at the front waiting to be seated--or even noticed--for a good 15 minutes. Incorrect orders were rampant, and people were frustrated. At our table, our daughter did not receive her meal (chicken and broccoli kabobs) until at least a half hour after the rest of us had been served, and we're talking 30 preschooler minutes, here. And even when her kabobs finally arrived, we had to ask for the accompanying rice noodles and then wait for those. It was excruciating.
After reporting all that, let me reiterate this: Despite all the problems--and there were MANY--with the service, our food was so good that we went back the very next night for more. We just carried it home with us rather than suffer through the service again, and according to the later report from my sister, we chose wisely there.
The reason that I'm writing about this here is in the hopes that Kopan will make it. I was kind of surprised to see such a packed house on opening night, and hope that the turnout meant that there is a market for good sushi in this area. I mean, it's right there on the sign out front, "bulgogi & sushi," so surely everyone who went inside was expecting...well, sushi. I hope that the owner/managers of Kopan will work out the service problems quickly, before too much negative word of mouth is built up about it. If I could make a suggestion to them, it would be to maybe have a couple more "work days" with the staff, sans customers, familiarizing them with the menu and standardizing service so that the servers feel competent to answer questions and tend to their tables as best they can.
Kopan has the potential to really be something special in Cabot, if it doesn't collapse beneath the weight of its own high expectations. I'm pulling for you, Kopan.
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