'Friendly' Fire:

So Friendster has decided to fire the engineer who upgraded their slow-ass backend. Why? Because this engineer decided to blog about it. About her job. About work, something just about everyone blogs about.

Since neither of the posts in question reveal protected trade secrets (so far as I can tell) this strikes me as barely legal. Related coverage may reveal otherwise but if Joyce Park didn't divulge confidential information, I can't imagine why blogging is an appropriate reason for job termination.

Despite Friendster CEO Jonathan Abrams's asinine behavior at last year's South by Southwest, I can't say I saw this coming.

Friendster accounts are being cancelled all over the place. I might just do the same (via BoingBoing).

That's So 1994:

Word has it that Kevin Smith has begun work on Clerks 2, which takes place 10 years later and he's calling The Passion of the Clerks (ho ho). Honestly thought, do we really want to know what happened to Dante and Randall? Do we really want to meet their bratty kids, their lawn trackers and long commutes to dead-end jobs?

I'll probably go. I've seen everything Kevin Smith has ever made and don't give up on a streak particularly the empty, meaningless ones.

This guy asks "Why, Kevin why?" We're things that bad after Jersey Girl? I didn't think it was so terrible but like I said, I'm a blind zealot at this point so what the hell do I know (via GreenCine)?

Sunday Morning Shards:

The "Better Late Than Never" edition:

The soundtrack to Amandla is simply beautiful, like cry-in-your-car-on-the-way-home-from-the-movies beautiful.

Geoff Nunbe, who does the commentaries about language on Fresh Air has compiled these mini-essays into a book called Going Nucular which makes an excellent subway book.

I went to high school with this women. What a list of accomplishments!

A really interesting roundtable discussion on MP3 blogs.

Art Papers may be the art magazine I'm looking for. It's seems national and not just New York in focus, clear-eyed and not needlessly theoretical and run as a nonprofit.

I'm trying to figure out how Barter Bee works. It sure seems like an interesting concept.

I'm nearing the homestretch on my book and feeling great about it.

One Sentence Movie Reviews #15

The Corporation (2004): "The sins of large corporations are so vast that one movie cannot possibly present them in a neat, cogent fashion.

One Sentence Movie Reviews #14

The Wiz (1978): Remakes, no matter how far back their source material is, always reference the present.

I'm a Local Now:

There's a little interview with me offer at SFist.com

Author, Web Thyself:

Readerville founder Karen Templer has published an excellent essay on how author websites best serve their purpose and when they often don't. It's up at MJ Rose's new Publisher's Marketplace blog on book promotion, an invaluable resource for both published and aspiring authors.

Sound Fun:

Does anyone know how to upload MP3's to one's blog using Typepad? Those MP3 blogs sure do seem to be having a lot of fun.

So here's the deal:

I would love to blog about Ireland but right now, every once of free time I have has been swallowed up by the book and our impending Sept. 1 deadline. So Ireland will have to wait until after that. Whatever blogging I am able to do between now and next Wednesday will be relatively minor.

I hope you understand.

ME?

Anybody know why the Pop!Tech conference takes place in Camden, Maine? I didn't even know "ME" was the symbol for Maine, although it does make sense.

Here Lies Yates:

On the gravestone of W.B. Yates, in a little Irish town called Drumcliff, is this quote.

"Cast a cold eye, on life, on death.
Horseman, pass by."

I was oddly moved by this. On the one hand, it seems almost cynical as if the very act of mourning is suspect. Don't bother, pass day.

But I sat there in the sun and thought. Maybe it's more about the limited time we have here and about letting it go when it's gone. Maybe, if Yates speaking directly and not in verse he would have said this.

"My time here is up. Please don't waste your life mourning mine. Mine is over. Walk on. Let me go. Pass by."

I like that better. What do you think it means?

Regular Blogging:

I know I haven't posted about my trip to Ireland but I have mad catch up to do before my book's deadline on Sept. 1. So I'm going to try to blog about my trip this weekend but until then, simple regular-old blogging.

Ok?

All Home Now

Must sleep. Jet Lag. More later.

31 Candles:

Hello from Dublin, 20 feet from the River Liffey. Today is my birthday. I'm 31. Suzan surprised me with a piece of cake in bed from our new favorite vegetarian place right off of Grafton street. It was delicious. I also had two cards from my mom and dad.

We're going to be taking a local's tour today with our friend (and native Dubliner) Tom Cosgrave, hitting the Dublin Co-op Market, hopefully the Dublin Writer's Museum and having some fish and chips at Burrdock's. We leave for the North country tomorrow.

If you absolutely must, I have an Amazon Wish List for late gift giving. But only if you must. I'll be throwing a post-trip getogether back home in San Francisco.

See you soon.

--Kevin o'Smokler