From Facebook Wall to Surface Web, 1–10 May 2009.

 Compiled below are my writings on my own Facebook wall 1–10 May 2009, as well as anything else that might be construed as an example of micro-blogging.

▴ Elyaqim is willing to walk quite the distance for the right salad. —2 May, 01:53 (Fb.|FF|FF, Jk.|FF)▴ It’s a Jackson Heights situation comedy: The Trade Fair at 75^th Street usually doesn’t have the store-made prepared green salads I like (with red cabbage, bell pepper and shredded carrot), so I walk all the way over to the Trade Fair at 89^th Street. I am further encouraged by often bumping into interesting supporting cast members along the way. —2 May, 02:10

♐ “Carl Sagan on Astrology,” critical thinking about astrology combined with scenes of Manhattan in the late 1970s, from the PBS mini-series Cosmos, episode “The Harmony of the Worlds,” 12 October 1980. —2 May, 16:24 (YT¹, Fb.|FF)

▴ Elyaqim ate at a restaurant near a young woman who limits her male Facebook friends so they don’t see her pictures without hijab {حجاب}, and then a gay man who said he kissed his male friend because he was horny. “What are friends for?” (I agree.) Such is Jackson Heights life. —2 May, 22:23 (Fb.|FF|FF)

▴ Elyaqim is drooling over the new character blocks in Unicode 5.2, due in autumn, including ☥Egyptian hieroglyphs☥. —5 May, 12:28 (BS², Fb.|FF, Jk.|FF)

‎٭ Gays are organizing in Morocco! A nascent group called Kifkif (كيفكيف) planned a conference in Marrakech {مراكش} last month. I have been informed it did indeed take place: “The conference was held on the 15^th in Marrakech and a few brave souls gathered outside to lend their support. It was a much more sedate event then promised, but a huge first steep for gay rights here. That’s what I keep telling myself to remember.” —5 May, 21:17 (F24³, Fb.|FF)▴ New York City is the greatest city on earth, but Marrakech is like my second home. It’s beautiful and friendly. I have not been back in about five years, and the things that are happening there now would probably not have been possible then.—7 May, 00:18

▴ Elyaqim misses three people whom he admits he didn’t know very well, but of whom he was quite fond and who dropped him as Facebook friend. :`( —6 May, 23:53 (Fb.|FF|FF, Jk.|FF)▴ …Look at the emoticon and see how they made me so sad that I shed a grave accent from my colon. (I of course mean the typographical, not the anatomical, colon.) —7 May, 00:35
▴ …Different folks have accounts for different reasons. I’m sure some people feel overwhelmed, or even that their privacy is compromised, if they have too many Facebook friends. Having over 600 friends, I am nearly immune to occasionally being dropped by some people I barely know. When I come home from a party, my friend list will increase dramatically, but two of the three to whom I refer in this status update were “stars” of the respective parties at which I met them, people who really contributed to making a memorable time for me and with whom I certainly wanted to maintain contact. —7 May, 17:17

☤ This is outstanding news. My father and his mother were destroyed by Alzheimer’s, so maybe there’ll be a cure should I develop the illness. —7 May, 09:47 (BBCN⁴, Fb.|FF)

▴ Elyaqim notes that the Persian suffix “-stān” (ـستان), as in the names of so many countries and regions, comes from the same Proto-Indo-European root (*stā-) as the Yiddish word “ştetl” (שטעטל), a small Eastern European town with a large Jewish population. —7 May, 17:40 (Fb.|FF|FF)▴ The English “-stead” and “stand” came from the same root. —7 May, 17:57

▴ Elyaqim sat next to super-villain Firebrand (a.k.a. Gary Gilbert) at a Jackson Heights pizzeria last night. Firebrand’s fights with Iron Man in the 1970s and ’80s did not come up in conversation. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firebrand_(Marvel_Comics). —8 May, 05:13 (Fb.|FF|FF)

⚘ It would be my first time back in the Bronx in over a year! —8 May, 08:12 (PGM on MU, Fb.)

▴ Elyaqim ordered food from Maharaja (ਮਹਾਰਾਜਾ) on 37^th Avenue, and the toothpick holder was labeled “Objects of domestic utility.” —8 May, 22:52 (SC⁵, Fb.|FF, Jk.|FF)

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 1. Carl Sagan, writer, “The Harmony of the Worlds,” episode of télévision series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, 12 October 1980, excerpt duplicated as “Carl Sagan on Astrology,” undercoverkptic channel of YouTube, 16 November 2006.
 2. Andrew West, “What’s New in Unicode 5.2 ?,” BabelStone, 27 April 2008.
 3. Samir Barkachi, “Morocco’s Gays Come out of the Shadows,” The Observers (France 24), 26 March 2009.
 4. “Trial Drugs ‘Reverse’ Alzheimer’s: US Scientists Say They Have Successfully Reversed the Effects of Alzheimer’s with Experimental Drugs,” BBC News, 6 May 2009.
 5. Anna Broadway [Christi Foist], “Objects of Domestic Utility,” Sexless in the City, 25 April 2005.

A version of this article is reproduced at webcitation.org/5h1BaTm4r.

From Facebook Wall to Surface Web, April 2009.

 Compiled below are my writings (excluding comments) on my own Facebook wall in April 2009, as well as anything else that might be construed as an example of micro-blogging.

▴ Brutal as it was, Saddam Hussein’s régime was at least secular. —1 April, 15:39 (UKGN, Fb.|FF)
▴ Elyaqim has never been there but thinks the view must be stunning if it’s called “the Eyeful Tower.” —1 April, 15:41. (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ Elyaqim is greatly relieved the supermarket cashier on whom he has a crush had been on vacation rather than gone forever. Now bag my groceries! —3 April, 20:56 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ When religious people determine public mores, critical thinking goes out the window and gays die. Saddam Hussein’s régime was secular; then the US occupied ‘Iraq, and zealots gained control. —4 April, 23:23 (Reuters, Fb.|FF)
▴ After a rather intense argument among four gay men in a Jackson Heights restaurant last night, I offer this link as one of many that illustrate how the current Gay Marriage Machine steamrolls over and discriminates against all sorts of families that don’t fit the “nuclear” model. Nancy D. Polikoff has become one of my heroes. —6 April, 20:20 (LAT, Fb.|FF)
▴ “Six gay men confirmed killed in Iraq” in the past week alone. —7 April, 12:58 (GNZ, Fb.|FF)
▴ Elyaqim loved when his friend Glenn expressed pride in the borough of Queens by referring to one of our supermarkets’ selling “the bounty of the county.” —8 April, 14:10 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ Elyaqim reminds all his friends to put blood on their doors tonight to avoid plague. Happy Pesaḥ to every-bloody! חג פסח שׂמח!‏ ‎—8 April, 19:02 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ Passover song by the legendary Jo ‘Amar. —8 April, 20:19 (YT, Fb.|FF)
▴ A “Vigil of Remembrance and Solidarity” will occur tomorrow at noon at the UN Mission of ‘Iraq (iraqunmission.org), 14 East 79 Street in New York City, in protest of the anti-gay murders and arrests in Baghdad. —9 April, 18:39 (GWB, Fb.|FF)
▴ Elyaqim just returned home from a trans-folk concert (double entendre intended) in his neighborhood and particularly enjoyed the “dentures”/“oysters” rhyme, the drawing of the “impractical mermaid” and the puppet show that starred a platypus. Don’t you wish you had been there? —10 April, 21:42 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ Elyaqim wishes that, in the spirit of sadism/masochism, he had been invited to a seder/massacre this Passover, but alas was not. —11 April, 19:37 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ Elyaqim is appalled customers write on the wall of his local Japanese/ Chinese/ Thai restaurant, but one graffito does make for a good status update: “Girl you look good! Like turkey breast and Pepsi.” (If you don’t believe him, he’ll post the photograph.) —12 April, 18:02 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ Sounds like a nice Sunday afternoon, but I have a sneaky suspicion I have a schedule conflict. If only I could remember. —13 April, 22:57 (PGM, Fb.)
▴ Elyaqim went out Friday night in Astoria and met two great guys named Ken and Michael, and then went out Saturday afternoon in Elmhurst and met two great guys named Ken and Michael. —18 April, 18:37 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ I think I would prefer the horses do it than the traffic agents, but I admit it’s a tough call. —20 April, 00:50 (JHL|FF)
▴ I took gobs of pictures. See album number 1 and album number 2. (A Facebook account is not required to view the pictures.) —20 April, 04:43 (JHL|FF)
▴ How did I not know about this 2004 song sooner? Thanks to Avi for posting it. The title of the song (“Keep Your Jesus off My Penis”) reveals the lyric may be a little saucy for work. My favorite lines:
“So you’re screaming bloody murder ’bout the Taliban régime
Subjugating women and being too extreme
And basing legislation on some ancient holy book.
Does that sound a bit familiar? Here’s a mirror. Have a look!” —22 April, 19:44 (YT, Fb.|FF)
▴ What an odd autograph. “I LOVE CHILI! [Signed,] Phyllis Diller.” —23 April, 06:37 (TLL, Fb.|FF)
▴ Elyaqim shopped at the Queens Center Mall for the first time and enjoyed seeing the people far more than the merchandise in any store other than his destination. –24 April, 14:35 (Fb.|FF|FF)
▴ My closest friends know me as someone who doesn’t like children but who loves entertainment for children (so long as it was created by adults). I was still watching children’s télévision in the 1990s as this video shows. I miss Lynne Thigpen. —24 April, 14:48 (YT, Fb.|FF)
▴ Elyaqim heard his friends refer to “matzo pizza” and thought they were talking about the Peruvian city and tourist site. —24 April, 15:02 (Fb.|FF|FF, Jk.|FF)
▴ The musician Kip Attaway has a gay-themed song, “Mahu from Oahu.” (Working at Waikiki Wally’s and Lucky Cheng’s over three years, I learned what “mahu” means.) The song is not flattering, but not truly anti-gay either. (It also has some inaccuracies; it’s not likely a drag queen would use the men’s room.) What do you think? —26 April, 06:06 (K.A. on MS, Fb.|FF)
▴ “[Gays] have been forced to re-think the…notion of what a family is. ‘Through our success in creating different kinds of families, we have shown that groups of people can constitute a family without being heterosexual, biologically related, married, or functioning under a male head-of-household….’ [We] would be better off continuing to expand how family is defined ‘rather than confin[ing] ourselves to marriage.’” —27 April, 23:41 (Phœnix, Fb.|FF)

A version of this article is reproduced at webcitation.org/5gtHLFYQi.

My Google Service Wish List.

 I have four wishes regarding the interaction of five Google services.

◘ One should be able to export items from Google Reader as they are (i.e., as rectangles with rounded corners) into Google Notebook. One would then be able to organize and arrange items in notebooks rather than having no other option for sharing them than their appearing in reverse chronological order among one’s shared items (or needing to be opened one by one to be added to notebooks). Google Notebook could then theoretically become an advanced version of Google Reader shared items.

◘ One should similarly be able to export items from Google Reader to Google Calendar. I subscribe to events listings and want to quickly and easily generate an item in Calendar for each event I plan to attend. As it is now, transferring information event by event from Reader to Calendar is quite tedious, and I usually do not bother doing it.

◘ Jaiku should be able to communicate better with Blogger, including being able to automatically generate articles on Blogger should a user desire. For example, one should be able to have all of one’s Jaiku posts for a day, week or month listed in an article on one’s Blogger Web log with links back to each individual Jaiku post.

◘ One should not need a Jaiku account to comment on Jaiku posts. The interface should be the same as on Blogger which has a pop-up menu to indicate with which identity one wishes to comment on an article. (The options currently are Google Account, LiveJournal, WordPress, TypePad, AIM, OpenID, Name/URL or Anonymous.)

 I also have a peeve about Blogger that is unrelated to its interaction with other Google services: When one publishes an article, one is then provided with links to view the blog in either the same or a new window. I would appreciate an additional link to the dedicated u.r.l. of that particular article, especially if I was updating an old one that would no longer be on the main page. As neither Google Notebook nor Jaiku are any longer in active development, I imagine most of these simple and straightforward ideas are nonetheless pipe dreams.

Graphic: LST.

A version of this article is reproduced at webcitation.org/5gqJM9mGd.

My Kind of Objectification.

 I recently discovered two ’blogs dedicated to the appreciation of male beauty from some of my favorite parts of the world.

❂ Briyanshu, “A white, American gay guy looking at Indian men (aka Briyanshu’s Bollywood Butt Blog),” dedicated to South Asian men.
❂ Chirayliq (Çıraylık, چىرايلىق) which is subtitled “Men of Central Asia” but really also includes West Asian, North Asian, Caucasian, South Asian, and even some East Asian men. “Chirayliq is the Uighur word for ‘handsome, pretty, beautiful, attractive’. This blog concerns itself with the handsomeness of Central Asian men, and not only. From the Black Sea to Kamchatka, from the Kara Sea to Himalaya, this is a gallery celebrating the rugged charm of the men from the steppes, mountains, deserts and taigas.”

A version of this article is preserved at webcitation.org/5gooyIF0D.