Month: March 2007

RIP, Baudrillard

I had read/heard about this earlier in the week, that Jean Baudrillard died. To be honest, I hadn’t thought much about Baudrillard since I finished up my dissertation way back when. I won’t rehash all of that now (though, as part of my “blogs as writerly spaces,” I might have to), but some of Baudrillard’s thinking figured into my re-conception of rhetorical situation, particularly Baudrillard’s notion of the “hyperreal.” At the time, I spent a fair amount of time talking about his thin volume, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (this is a link to a reprinted version of the book, btw).

One of the critiques on this amazon.com page says (basically) that Baudrillard played too “loose and fast” with his thinking to be taken seriously by “real academics.” I don’t know about that. At the same time, I am not sure how much Baudrillard will be figuring into my future work. Or let me put it this way: I think Derrida will remain an important theorist for a long time, as Foucault has. I’m not so sure about Baudrillard.

BTW, I have often thought that Baudrillard would be a great name for a big wooly dog, and that Derrida would be a great name for a very aloof cat.

All the way to the final four, baby!

I’ve been friend with a guy who lives in Chicago and works for the Chicago Tribune (I’ll let him be semi-anonymous because of this) who I have known since my freshman year in college 23 years ago when he lived across the hall from me and when he had the excellent feature of air conditioning in his dorm room. And for about as long, Bruce and I have exchanged picks in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

I only see Bruce about once a year or so tops nowadays, but we still exchange these things. Anyway, I thought this year that I might invite my millions of loyal readers to also participate in this little final four set of brackets. There is of course no prize, other than bragging rights. But hey, what does it take to fill out the bracket, five minutes?

So, heck out the group I set up via Yahoo! Sports, and if it doesn’t work out right for you, let me know. The group info is ” unofficialstevekrause (Group ID# 68766), so if you sign up for Yahoo, you should be able to get yourself registered for the site. And may the best blogger win!

Slight update:

It seems that the Yahoo group I have set up requires me to invite folks– you can’t just sign up. Oh well. Anyway, I’ve invited some regular readers/friends, and I am willing to invite more. Time is of the essence though; I think you only have until March 15 in the morning to sign up!

Ending "Conversations"

I’ve been a bit of a stranger this week because I’ve been one of the coordinators (well, probably fair to say the main coordinator/organizer) for a conference we have here in the English department at EMU, “Extending Conversations.” This year, the theme was “multimedia,” though we meant that in the broadest possible sense– we had panels on sound poetry, “low tech” multimedia, children’s books, video games, etc., etc. The keynote speaker was none other than Dan Anderson. He gave a very thought-provoking speech (he’ll have to remind me of the link at some point), and was just an all-around good egg/good sport about the thing.

From my point of view, it was fun, kinda, I guess. A number of things happened in the last week or so that threatened to derail planned panels, promised helpers, finances and food supplies, etc., etc. I suspect this is par for the course for conference planning. I’m happy that it seemed to have come off relatively well, and that I was able to escape from the event with what I perceived as a majority of attendees being pleased with it all.

It’s not the kind of event that makes me think about ever hosting a much larger conference in my field, though. Though, oddly, the larger scale of that event might make it easier only because (I am only imagining here) there isn’t quite as much of a shoe-string budget and the way that the panels end up getting organized makes it easier to a) pull it all off in general terms, and b) less troublesome to get individual panels to run. Presenting at C&W is somewhat competitive, so, since you have more folks who want to present than can present, you don’t have to worry about panels not “making,” about twisting arms, etc., etc.

But hey, like I said, relatively speaking, I think it went off well. I’ll wish next year’s coordinator all the luck I can and I’ll pass along my wisdom.

And now, I think I’ll probably go to sleep for a while….

Is it the caffine or the withdrawal?

From BBC News comes “Coffee ‘no boost in the morning.'” From the article:

Those who swear by their morning caffeine fix say it wakes them up, and if they missed out they would feel sluggish and unable to get on with their day.

But the Bristol researchers, who carried out a review of previous studies into the effects of caffeine, say all the drink does is counteract the mild caffeine withdrawal symptoms people are experiencing because they have gone without the stimulant overnight.

First off, I don’t think I buy this. But second, who the hell cares? If coffee is my morning methadone, so be it.

Hmm… coffee….

The Police are trying to rob me

As a child of the 80’s and MTV and all the rest, I was and remain a fan of The Police. I even saw them in Cedar Falls, at the “UNI-Dome,” which used to have more shows than it does nowadays. When I was in high school, The Rolling Stones played there, so did The Who (I saw that show), REO Speedwagon (I know, but they were HUGE back then), and so forth.

So when I heard about the reunion tour The Police are going on this summer, I thought, “Hey, that might be kind of fun.” Annette is not as big of a fan as me, but I am sure she’d be up for it under the right circumstances, etc., etc.

So I looked with interest at the Ticketmaster page advertising tickets. So, for the show at The Palace, the “cheap seats” are $52.50; the middle seats are $92.50; the front row/on the floor seats are $227.50. Okay, fine– I know concerts cost a lot nowadays. But the only way you can buy tickets right now is if you join “The Police Fan Club,” and that costs $100 more.

$100?! To join a freakin’ fan club? Booo….

Excessive Computing

Dual Monitor Home Computer

Well, I’ve gone and done it now: for the first time in around 10 years, my main home computer is now a desktop computer– specifically, a 20 inch iMac with a second 19 inch monitor. As Borat might say, very nice, very nice….

I decided to go with a desktop unit this time around for a couple of reasons. First, I’m doing a lot more stuff with audio and video (or really, “multimedia” since most of the movies I’ve played around with so far have actually been a bunch of still pictures), and that isn’t something that’s easy to do with a laptop. With this new computer, I got Final Cut Express, for example.

Second, just as a matter of work habits, I have found myself working at home a lot more in recent years. I used to do about 75% of my work in coffee shops; now I think it’s more like 25%. I can’t explain why exactly, but there you have it.

Third, I was in a kind of awkward in-between place in terms of computer upgrades. See, I had problems with my laptop fixed last spring, and while it is too slow, has too small of a hard drive, has a fussy touch pad, and has the letters rubbing off of the keys, it still works just fine. So, the way I figure it, I can actually use my laptop for what a laptop is for: as my auxiliary computer.

And fourth, I see myself moving more and more to computing strategies that will allow me to access my stuff from a variety of different computers. In other words, I don’t have to carry it all around with me on my laptop anymore. Web 2.0, I guess. For example, it seems inevitable to me that I will be switching soon to gmail for all of my official (and probably unofficial) email correspondence. As this list of the “Top 10 Gmail tips and hacks” and these instructions for “Turn(ing) Gmail Into Your Personal Nerve Center” suggest, there’s a lot of stuff beyond just email that this app can do.

I’m also playing around with an app/service called FolderShare, which allows me to access all the files on my home desktop computer via the web without a fixed IP number or any other fancy software stuff. It took me five minutes to install. I’m a little suspicious of it since I have no idea how this works and it is a Microsquish product, but it does work.

Anyway, enough blog posting. I need to go monkey around with this new toy….