n-judah love song

favrd: my 5 minutes in daily LOL'ing

I'm a lot like Amy Winehouse. But a boy. And with less makeup. And tonedeaf. Hair's smaller. Okay, listen, I just fell off my bar stool.

phyllisstein

Daniel Shannon

via twitter.com

Favrd is my little daily dose of hilarity. When the going gets tough, the tough remember that  the best part of Twitter is who can come up with the most awesome one-liner.

(posting with our new and improved insta-bloggity "Blog It" - I love it more than any other feature, like, ever.)

Jonathan would be happy to neglect the use of pronouns for the duration of this conversation.

This is a hysterical thread from the Zappo's live chat. I agree that Zappo's customer service is superior. Being yourself - I can tell ya - is the only way to stay engaged and delighted in a job that's people-facing.

–
You are now chatting with Jonathan
Jonathan: Hello Timmy. How can I help you?
Timmy: do you know how wide the G-Shock Atomic Solar - AWG101 SKU #7403774 is?
Timmy: i mean, how big a wrist it would fit?
Timmy: Timmy has a big fat wrist
Timmy: Timmy need watch grande
Jonathan: I’ll see what I can find out for Timmy.
Timmy: awesome. and can we please continue to talk about Timmy in the 3rd person? Timmy likes to boost Timmy’s ego by talking about Timmy that way
Jonathan: Jonathan would be happy to neglect the use of pronouns for the duration of this conversation.
Timmy: Jonathan and Timmy shall get along just fine
Jonathan: Will Timmy be able to measure Timmy’s wrist?
Timmy: Timmy’s wrist is big, but not Biggie-Smalls big. Timmy doesn’t have the required measurement instruments.

Read the whole thing.

Andy is awesome

Help for Hurricane Gustav

If you've got a blog - TypePad, Movable Type, or otherwise, you can add a widget like the one you see in my sidebar to alert people about the latest hurricane information/how to get help/how to find family.

The information and widget come straight from FEMA/DHS, which is a huge improvement from the last time we went through all this.

I've done a quick scan of my friends in the Gulf, and everyone seems ok. I'm crossing my fingers still that the next three storms pass us all by with minimal damage. Hanna makes me feel a little nervous, so keep safe out there, yall.

get into the groove

One of my favorite things about my job is finding new blogs to read. Here are some of my favorites from the amazing women of the web.

A dinner menu from a TypePad blog, My Marrakesh, which is a constant source of beautiful colors and inspiring loveliness.

Another great blog that I love to love is Fly, which is a mishmash of awesome, a collage of fashion and feeling.

Kindnessgirl is another great inspiration - how I WISH I could write with her honesty and evocativeness. In that same line is Mackin Ink, the personal blog of one of the Kirtsy editors living abroad with her family in Jordan, each post illustrated with fantastic images from around the web.

Do you have a favorite little corner of the web, a place you want to sit down with a cup of tea and talk in?

security detail

Miss Ginevra's security detail
Originally uploaded by Erika Hall

99% of my favorite people are all in San Francisco, even when they don't live here. Love it.

the last one here, please turn off the lights.

I'm blogging over at Vox instead. Won't you come over and check out what all the fuss is about?

launched!

Movable Type 3.2 launched today! It's got new templates and styles, super-duper spam control, and a ton of new features. The thing I like best is that the junk comments folder highlights items in poo brown.

Keeping the focus on how "quality is a feature" has been really important to us in this process. It's one of the things I like best about working here, that product isn't just kicked out the door. What a breath of fresh air. Congrats to everyone on the team who put in so much effort making this the best release of MT ever. 

Bright Wings, Redux.

(I've been trying to write this entry for months. Thanks, Mom, for reminding me to finish.)

I’ve written about this once before, but I wanted to remind yall to revisit Bright Wings if you haven’t in some time. Not to make with the serious, (I'll get back to being pithy and sarcastic soon), but because it's a good reminder to keep the little things in perspective as just those - the little annoyances of everyday life that take the shine off the fact that we are truly blessed and lucky.

Donel is a preacher in a church in Bellingham, Washington. From what I read of the sermons given there, he seems to be a completely tolerant, loving man in the ways that all the religious texts say our enlightened leaders ought to be. He says: "I do not see Christians as special in any way in God’s eyes. Every person is precious and loved..." It rings true and familiar all at once.

Donel was diagnosed with cancer around the time I started working for Six Apart. His son, Martin, wanted to get his dad a blog to document his journey through the disease. It’s been an instructive look into how to live well in the face of danger, and prepare for the inevitable end we all face.

The blog acts a strong thread to bond the whole family and the extended community around them. Each of the family members gets a chance to write in their own unique voice. Donel has introduced a whole new set of users to the online world. In the comments, you’ll find sweet notes of thanks and prayers for him and the family from people who've probably never heard the word "blog" before this. Martin says the of the greatest advantages to the blog is that the family can give everyone updates at the same time, decreasing the tension of phone calls and drop-by visitors. Instead, Donel can do what he does best – reach out to his family and community and give them their sermons and parables, and grace them with his good humor. 

I don’t know if Donel’s church does what’s called the “passing of the peace”. Since I was a little girl, that’s always been my favorite part of the church service. The officiant says loudly “The peace of the Lord be always with you!” and we all answer back “And also with you!” and everyone shakes hands or hugs and smiles and says “Peace be with you.” That's kinda how the blog is.

I'll try to avoid falling into the cliche wrap-up I just set myself up for there, and instead repeat one of the poems Donel quotes, a writer we both admire, Anne Sexton:

"Next, my kinsman, you powdered your sorrow,
you gave it a back rub
and then you covered it with a blanket
and after it had slept a while
it woke to the wings of the roses
and was transformed."

MT 3.16

Hey yall, the big old bug fix version of Movable Type, 3.16 is out today. (here's Mena's post - as usual she puts it all so eloquently.)

As for the work behind MT, I just want to say how proud I am of everyone from engineering and support (and everyone between!) They've been working so hard to get this version to exactly where it needs to be. It's kind of like a gift of hard work from the MT team back to the community: they've fixed all the weird little bugs hat have been busting up the groove on the core product. Think of it like architechure, where the foundation has been shored up now for the new fancy bits of the house to be added on to. Now the real fun begins.