HOTEL CALIFORNIA

technorati blog claim

2006-12-20T22:45:00.000-05:00

Imaginary Poets Imaginary Poets

2005-12-07T12:17:00.000-05:00

Recently I had the pleasure of attending a poetry reading of Imaginary Poets, a new anthology of poetry published by Tupelo press. Each of 22 poets featured in this book assumed the identity of an imaginary poet. The results were quite fascinating. More details are in the press release:

TUPELO PRESS, INC.
An Independent Literary Press
www.tupelopress.org

Media Contact: Susan R. Williamson
swilliamson@tupelopress.org
434-924-8922
www.tupelopress.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
$19.95 pb
ISBN: 978-1-932195-20-0
THE IMAGINARY POETS APPEAR IN TIME FOR HOLIDAYS
22 Master Poets Create 22 Master Poets, a novel anthology
edited by Alan Michael Parker
New Anthology Collects Exceptionally Imaginative Work From Major Living Poets

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – DECEMBER 1, 2005 — Tupelo Press is pleased to announce publication of a new anthology that includes work by 22 of the major poets writing in America today. Exceptional work in which each master poet assumes a new persona, that of a poet only conceived of at the charge of editor, Alan Michael Parker.
Each contributor was given the same challenge: translate a poem into English, offer a biography of the poet, and then write a short essay in which the poem, the poet, and the corpus are considered—and make all of it up, without once indicating you have done so! In response, poems ‘translated’ from eighteen languages appeared. They include Dirja, Vietnamese, Yiddish, and even Egyptian hieroglyphs, poems that may be read in the grand literary tradition of heteronyms and alter egos,”
But the book’s ultimate goal is to explore the nature of creativity: what is it to make a poem? To make up a poet? To “translate” a work—is that rewriting or writing? What about translating a work that never existed? What does it mean if you create the creator? In the tradition of Pessoa and Borges, The Imaginary Poets delves delightedly into the very act of invention with a wink, a smile and tremendous respect for the art.
Contributors include Aliki Barnstone as Eva Victoria Perera, Josh Bell as Saurah Joan Mao, Laure-Anne Bosselaar as Anne-Maelle Mathieu, Martha Collins as Hoi An, Annie Finch as Rose Elbow Souris, Judith Hall as J II, Barbara Hamby as Gertrude of Brandenburg, Jennifer Michael Hecht as Kisaru Gashe, Garrett Hongo as Casey Shigemitsu, Andrew Hudgins as Alan Lutiy, David Kirby as Kevnor, Maxine Kumin as Greta Schoenemann-Licht, Khaled Mattawa as Tafida Zeinhum, D.A. Powell as Joao Pudim, Kevin Prufer as Wen Bo, Anna Rabinowitz as Hekenus, Victoria Redel as Tzadie Rackel, David St. John as Jean-Phillipe Dariens, Mark Strand as Marin K., Thom Ward as Jan DeKeerk, Rosanna Warren as Anne Verveine, Eleanor Wilner as Irena Zupanik.
“We’ve all been grinning and shaking our heads as we’ve brought Imaginary Poets through the production process and collected the work of these extraordinary poets,” said Tupelo publisher, Jeffrey Levine. “The humor and wry aspects that this convention has allowed the poets to bring out include some of the more amusing aspects of literary analysis and it’s an unmistakable tour de force and at the same time terrifically entertaining. You’ll learn something about each poet as they inhabit their inventions. It’s fun and accessible work in every instance. Alan Michael Parker’s concept has come full bloom with this bouquet of new and heretofore unknown master poets (the imaginary ones, that is).”
Associate Publisher Susan Williamson said, “We are looking forward to the launch series when we’ll be able to work with the poets in person as their alter-egos. These events, which we’ve planned in New York, Austin (at the annual AWP conference), Charlottesville and Philadelphia promise to be some of the best poetry events we’ll see this coming year. And we’re starting with a launch at Poets House in New York on December 6th.
Alan Michael Parker is the author of three books of poems and co-editor of two reference works on poetry. His poetry, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in journals. Parker teaches at Davidson College, where he directs the program in creative writing, and is a core faculty member in the Queens University low-residency M.F.A. program.

Tupelo Press is an independent literary press committed to giving voice to exciting new and established literary talent. It makes books unparalleled in production values, look and feel.

Recent recognitions include a Metcalf Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Whiting Award, three ForeWord Magazine prizes for the year’s best book of poetry, a Norma Farber Award from the Poetry Society of America for the years best first book of poetry, a Peace Corps Writers Award, and many others.

Tupelo Press offices are located in Dorset, Vermont, and Charlottesville, Virginia. For more information, review copies, or to arrange a reading, visit www.tupelopress.org.

What's Popular Now? What's Popular Now?

2005-11-27T15:31:00.000-05:00

Technorati is a great service for bloggers-- its great for increasing traffic to your blog. In addition, it provides several other services, such as a watch list for tags to topics you want to keep up on, and a blog search engine.

They also watch what blogs are talking about, and keep an up to date list of what are the most popular pages in several categories.

Technorati main page:

Jobs reflecting names (nominative determinism, or aptonyms)

2005-11-22T16:59:00.000-05:00

Do you know what an "Aptonym" is? I didn't until I read this article on the blog A Consuming Experience. Here's a brief excerpt:

Jobs reflecting names (nominative determinism, or aptonyms)
Wednesday, February 16, 2005

New Scientist magazine coined the terms "nominative determinism" or "aptonyms" to describe the phenomenon of people whose names reflect their jobs - or rather, who end up working in areas that reflect their names (hence the "determinism"!).

An example might be a plumber called Pipe. Real life instances abound.

A great one recently included in New Scientist's 12 February 2005 Feedback section: the noise and vibrations engineer for the Queensland Electricity Commission, Australia used to be someone called Ron Rumble.

Buddhist Tradition Thickens Parts of the Brain Buddhist Tradition Thickens Party of the Brain

2005-11-16T19:07:00.000-05:00

From the LiveScience website:

Fri Nov 11,12:00 PM ET

Meditation alters brain patterns in ways that are likely permanent, scientists have known. But a new study shows key parts of the brain actually get thicker through the practice.
Brain imaging of regular working folks who meditate regularly revealed increased thickness in cortical regions related to sensory, auditory and visual perception, as well as internal perception -- the automatic monitoring of heart rate or breathing, for example.
The study also indicates that regular meditation may slow age-related thinning of the frontal cortex.
"What is most fascinating to me is the suggestion that meditation practice can change anyone's gray matter," said study team member Jeremy Gray, an assistant professor of psychology at Yale. "The study participants were people with jobs and families. They just meditated on average 40 minutes each day, you don't have to be a monk."
The research was led by Sara Lazar, assistant in psychology at Massachusetts General Hospital. It is detailed in the November issue of the journal NeuroReport.
The study involved a small number of people, just 20. All had extensive training in Buddhist Insight meditation. But the researchers say the results are significant.
Most of the brain regions identified to be changed through meditation were found in the right hemisphere, which is essential for sustaining attention. And attention is the focus of the meditation.
Other forms of yoga and meditation likely have a similar impact on brain structure, the researchers speculate, but each tradition probably has a slightly different pattern of cortical thickening based on the specific mental exercises involved.

Random Astrology Articles Generator Random Astrology Articles Generator

2005-11-16T18:48:00.000-05:00

This is a generator of random links to articles about astrology. Wait for a title that interests you to appear, and then click on the title to read the article:
Widget's Astrology World
Syndicated astrology content - free astrology website plugins

What's New HOTEL CALIFORNIA

2005-11-09T20:16:00.000-05:00

Your monthly and daily horoscope, Tarot readings, individual biorhythms: scroll down to near bottom of page.

Some interesting new links have been added to the list.

Guest Map has been fixed...please enter your locale!

Find the lowest gas prices in your neighborhood

2005-11-09T18:53:00.000-05:00

Type in your zip code to find the lowest gas prices in your neighborhood!

Egyptian Blogger taken in Detention - اعتقال مدون مصري -Egyptian Blogger Abdolkari taken in Detention

2005-11-04T01:10:00.000-05:00

Abdolkarim Nabil Seliman is a 21 year-old Egyptian student of law at the Azhar University, Damanhour Campus, a women's-rights activist and a correspondent for Copts United. In addition to writing at Civic Dialogue, he also publishes at a blog he maintains.

On Wednesday 26 October 2005, Egyptian State Security took Abdolkarim from his home, and confiscated hard copies of his writings. He is now on his way to an unknown detention. . . It is possible that the fundamentalists have filed a security complaint that led to his detention.

Entire article: http://www.manalaa.net/

IBM Slows Speed of Light

2005-11-03T00:50:00.000-05:00

By Michael Kanellos, CNET News.com
November 2, 2005

IBM has created a chip that can slow down light, the latest advance in an industrywide effort to develop computers that will use only a fraction of the energy of today's machines.

The chip, called a photonic silicon waveguide, is a piece of silicon dotted with arrays of tiny holes. Scattered systematically by the holes, light shown on the chip slows down to 1/300th of its ordinary speed of 186,000 miles per second. In a computer system, slower light pulses could carry data rapidly, but in an orderly fashion. The light can be further slowed by applying an electric field to the waveguide.

Complete article: http://tinyurl.com/d45gb

Lowdown on how search engines rank webpages

2005-11-02T19:08:00.000-05:00

>Organic search optimization is gaining more and more credibility as paid search contines to become more competitive and costly. All that awareness generates interest in how exactly, search engines rank Web pages. . .<

You can read the entire article at:

http://tinyurl.com/cvcyh

(This article is one of many at Lockergnome's Internet Marketing: see the link in the links column on the right side of this page).

A really kewl new disclaimer!

2005-11-02T05:18:00.000-05:00

It should be obvious that one should not make major (and even minor) life decisions based on machine generated prophesies on a feed from an internet website! I mean, like . . .Really!

So I should reiterate that the astrology, tarot and bio-rhythm feeds here do not necessarily have any scientific basis. They are not designed to cure, diagnose, or treat any disease . . . real or imagined. If you've got problems, see a licensed physician. This stuff is for amusement only.

But...in case that's still not clear, I found this wonderful disclaimer on the "Yet Another Website" page: http://www.amon-hen.com/index.php?paged=2 . This guy is one heck of a lot better at writing disclaimers than I am. I highly recommend you read it thoroughly (it might even be advisable to read it three times in a row, while burning incense...and while facing east...it should provide protection against many of the evils of our modern civilization):

This product is meant for educational purposes only. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly may be required. Batteries not included. Contents may settle during shipment. Use only as directed. May be too intense for some viewers. If condition persists, consult your physician. No user-serviceable parts inside. Breaking seal constitutes acceptance of agreement. Not responsible for direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages resulting from any defect, error or failure to perform. Slippery when wet. For office use only. Substantial penalty for early withdrawal. Do not write below this line. Your cancelled check is your receipt. Avoid contact with skin. Employees and their families are not eligible. Beware of dog. Driver does not carry cash. Limited time offer, call now to insure prompt delivery. Use only in well-ventilated area. Keep away from fire or flame. Some equipment shown is optional. Price does not include taxes, dealer prep, or delivery. Penalty for private use. Call toll free before digging. Some of the trademarks mentioned in this product appear for identification purposes only. All models over 18 years of age. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Postage will be paid by addressee. Apply only to affected area. One size fits all. Many suitcases look alike. Edited for television. No solicitors. Reproduction strictly prohibited. Restaurant package, not for resale. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. Decision of judges is final. This supersedes all previous notices. No other warranty expressed or implied.

XFN Puts a Human Face on Linking

2005-11-02T02:55:00.000-05:00

Here's an interesting idea for bloggers.. A few brief excerpts:

XFN: Introduction and Examples
The web is more a social creation than a technical one. I designed it for a social effect — to help people work together — and not as a technical toy. The ultimate goal of the Web is to support and improve our weblike existence in the world. We clump into families, associations, and companies. We develop trust across the miles and distrust around the corner.
—Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving The Web

Introduction
XFN puts a human face on linking. As more people have come online and begun to form social networks, services such as Technorati and Feedster have arisen in an attempt to show how the various nodes are connected. Such services are useful for discovering the mechanical connections between nodes, but they do not uncover the human relationships between the people responsible for the nodes.

XFN outlines the relationships between individuals by defining a small set of values that describe personal relationships. In HTML and XHTML documents, these are given as values for the rel attribute on a hyperlink. XFN allows authors to indicate which of the weblogs they read belong to friends, whom they've physically met, and other personal relationships. Using XFN values, which can be listed in any order, people can humanize their blogrolls and links pages, both of which have become a common feature of weblogs.

There's a lot more at:
http://gmpg.org/xfn/intro

Welcome!

2005-10-31T18:52:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Hotel California! :-) We have visitors from all over the world, so won't you please take a minute and put a pin in our guestmap to show us where you're from?

Its quite simple: to view the locations of other visitors, and place your own pin, just click the "View My Guestmap" icon or the "Place Your Pin" icon in the "Links" column (on the right side of this page).

The Little Boy

2005-10-31T14:41:00.000-05:00

by Helen E Buckley
http://faculty.luther.edu/~martinka/art28/index28.html

Once a little boy went to school. One morning, when the little boy had been in school awhile, The teacher said:"Today we are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy. He liked to make pictures. He could make all kinds. Lions and tigers, chickens and cows, trains and boats. He took out his box of crayons and began to draw.

But the teacher said: "Wait!It is not time to begin!"And she waited until everyone looked ready.

"Now," said the teacher,"We are going to make flowers.""Good!" thought the little boy. He liked to make flowers, and he began to make beautiful ones with his pink and orange and blue crayons.

But the teacher said, "Wait!And I will show you how."And it was red, with a green stem."There," said the teacher."Now you may begin."

The little boy looked at the teacher's. Then he looked at his own flower. He like his flower better than the teacher's. But he did not say this. He just turned his paper over. And made a flower like the teacher's. It was red, with a green stem.

On another day, the teacher said: Today we are going to make something with clay."

"Good!" thought the little boy. He liked clay.

"Now," said the teacher,"We are going to make a dish"

He liked to make dishes. And he began to make some that were all shapes and sizes.

But the teacher said, "Wait! I will show you how."And she showed everyone how to make one deep dish.

"There," said the teacher."Now you may begin.

"The little boy looked at the teacher's dish. Then he looked at his own. He like his dish better than the teacher's. But he did not say this. He just rolled his clay into a big ball again, and made a dish like the teacher's. It was a deep dish.

And pretty soon the little boy learned to wait, and to watch, and to make things just like the teacher. And pretty soon he didn't make things of his own anymore.

Then it happened that the little boy and his family moved to another house in another city, and the little boy had to go to another school.

And the very first day he was there,The teacher said:"Today were are going to make a picture."

"Good!" thought the little boy, And he waited for the teacher to tell him what to do. But the teacher didn't say anything. She just walked around the room.

When she came to the little boy she said, "Don't you want to make a picture?"

"Yes," said the little boy."What are we going to make?"

"I don't know until you make it,"Said the teacher.

"How shall I make it?" asked the little boy.

"Why, anyway you like," said the teacher.

"And any color?" asked the little boy.

"Any color," said the teacher. "If everyone made the same picture, and used the same colors, how would I know who made what, and which was which?"

"I don't know," said the little boy. And he began to make a red flower with a green stem . . .

I have a feeling Pixel Selling will be huge!!!

2005-10-29T01:45:00.000-04:00

Just came across this site: The Pixel Site Revolution http://pixelsites.blogspot.com/
>This blog will attempt to document the rise and fall of the pixel advertising phenomenon which was started by Alex Tew with his MillionDollarHomePage.com <

(There was also an article on HOTEL CALIFORNIA about selling pixels. Scroll down to Oct. 24th.)

Happy Anniversary HOTEL CALIFORNIA Weblog!!!

2005-10-28T17:23:00.000-04:00

Times passes so quickly when you're having fun. Its hard to believe it, but today is the one week anniversay of the HOTEL CALIFORNIA weblog.

So many HTMLs...so little sleep!

Blogs: What are They Good For? Some Savvy Marketeers Say Business

2005-10-27T01:32:00.000-04:00

From the BeTuitive website:

"Yet, it would be a big mistake — and a missed opportunity — to dismiss blogs as little more than forums for hobbyists.

Blogs do appear to be a great medium for quickly passing the word on product updates, company news, and any type of information companies wish to quickly get into the hands of prospects and customers.

Blogs have a technological edge over online bulletin boards, Web sites and email, which may make them the ultimate in permission marketing. Blogs can be broken down into a discrete message which can be "syndicated," or distributed for publication . . .

At BeTuitive Marketing we've launched our own blogs. We are testing the effectiveness of blogs and collecting experience we can pass on to our valued customers. After eight months of testing, we've already enjoyed some benefits.
Here are key findings so far:

Because they are updated on a regular basis, search engines are in love with blogs. BeTuitive has appeared in the top ten Google search results under many terms and phrases because of our blog messages, saving thousands of dollars in AdWords buys. As we learn more, we will pass on that knowledge to our customers.

Blogs are very non-threatening due to 100 percent of the permission being in the recipient's control.

We are driving traffic to our Web site from our blog, which is turning into sales leads (pricing requests), newsletter signups (permission to market to them), and online demo requests (sales presentation permission). . . "

Complete article is at:
http://www.betuitive.com/Archive/Articles/July_Article01.php

Can You Guess: How Many New Blogs are Created EACH DAY?

2005-10-26T20:20:00.001-04:00

State of the Blogosphere - Blog Growth
Posted by Dave Sifry on August 02, 2005. Tags: Blogosphere
http://www.technorati.com/weblog/2005/08/34.html

" . . . As of the end of July 2005, Technorati was tracking over 14.2 million weblogs, and over 1.3 billion links. Interestingly, this is just about double the number of blogs that we were tracking 5 months ago. In March 2005 we were tracking 7.8 million blogs, which means the blogosphere has just about doubled again in the past 5 months, and that the blogosphere continues to double about every 5.5 months.

MSN Spaces, Blogger, LiveJournal, AOL Journals, as well as a number of international hosted services are growing quickly, and use of software like WordPress and Movable Type to provide blogs continue to grow significantly. There's a growing number of WordPress-based hosted services that are arising, including Laughing Squid, DreamHost, and BlueHost, marking an interesting trend - that of ISPs and hosting providers using the GPL'ed software as a differentiating feature of their services. Moblogging sites like Textamerica and Buzznet have also been growing as well, as more people are blogging from their camera-enabled mobile phones. Growth has not only occurred in the US, but there has been a lot of blog growth in Japan, Korea, China, France, and Brazil, to name a few countries.

Here's a view of the number of new blogs created each day that Technorati is tracking, even after removing spam blogs (more on that later in the week) from our index: . . ."

(continued at: http://www.technorati.com/weblog/2005/08/34.html)

A "must read" article . . . some of the details presented are mind-boogling . . . its really hard to conceive of how fast blogging is growing.

Making The World a Better Place

2005-10-26T03:00:00.000-04:00

It has oft been said that if we could only step into others' shoes . . . if we could really experience what our fellow human beings feel . . .there would be more compassion . . . and the world would be a better place. Sounds good to me.

Have you ever wondered, for example, how the opposite sex experiences orgasm? Imagine, if you can . . . what a great improvement that would make if we could all really . . . know . . .

But, of course, its impossible . . . Or was . . up until now!

Yup, at last, through the wonders of modern technology made available for the very first time via "THE INTERNET" . . .you can finally experience this. (Warning: not for the faint of heart):

Internet Trends: Buying Pixels

2005-10-24T04:16:00.000-04:00

An opportunity to "own a piece of internet history"

It seems the idea was started by Alex Tew, a 21 year old from England. He decided he needed money to pay for his studies in business mgmt...and came up with the idea of selling pixels . . . here's what it looks like: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/

A further explanation-- from his FAQ:

What is the idea? The idea is simple: to try and make $1m (US) by selling 1,000,000 pixels for $1 each. Hence, 'The Million Dollar Homepage". The main motivation for doing this is to pay for my degree studies, because I don't like the idea of graduating with a huge student debt. I know people who are paying off student loans 15-20 years after they graduated. Not a nice thought!

So, everyone is welcome to buy my pixels, which are available in 100-pixel 'blocks' (each measuring 10x10 pixels). You will see the homepage is divided into 10,000 of these 100-pixel blocks (hence there are 1,000,000 pixels in total). The reason for selling them in 100-pixel blocks is because anything smaller would be too small to display anything meaningful.

You can buy as many pixels as you like, as long as there are some available (see the live stats in the top right corner of the page). When you buy some pixels, you can then display an image/ad/logo of your choice in the space you have purchased. You can also have the image click through to your own website. However, no obscene or offensive images are allowed.

The pixels you buy will be displayed on the homepage permanently. The homepage will not change. Using some of the money I make from the site, I guarantee to keep it online for at least 5 years, but hopefully much longer. I want it to become a kind of internet time capsule. So, in the long run, I believe the pixels will offer good value. You will have a piece of internet history! (continued on his webpage).

Other people are now also selling pixels: You can buy pixels at Twenty Cent Pixels as well as Nickles for Katrina (to raise money for Katrina aid)... see links column on this page for their URLs.

Please Pardon Our Appearance, but

2005-10-23T20:08:00.000-04:00

Well, perhaps this can explain better:
http://www.zippyvideos.com/7752245491465136/carpenters_-_weve_only_just_begun/

25 Hottest Urban Legends

2005-10-21T23:05:00.000-04:00

Is it genuine . . . or is it a hoax? The list of the "25 Hottest Urban Legends" is now updated weekly: http://www.snopes.com/info/top25uls.asp

Welcome to the Hotel California!

2005-10-21T11:11:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the original Hotel California weblog. We sincerely hope you enjoy your stay!

(Please note: checkout time is 2 PM on Sunday)