It's a Danapalooza!

Slate (@Slate) Very cool use of Google Maps in Arcade Fire’s web music video http://slate.me/bYpBj6 Tue Aug 31 18:36:00 2010

http://www.google.com/m/url?client=safari&ei=ASZ9TMiyEZ3-rQOU-5SKAg&hl=en&oe=…://www.youtube.com/watch?v%3D6G5JaicYuVU&ved=0CBcQtwIwAQ&usg=AFQjCNFaNRrmKFRMAadqMWyTJucriTfKyA

I know a few people who might be interested in a new Pomplamoose tune. This one is a Ben Folds + Nick Hornby collaboration.

Tom Vanderbilt's blog, How we Drive, linked to an article on The Register about a study that VW performed on people's willingness to trust a car with an auto-pilot function. The study involved placing a hidden driver in the car with the subjects that, unbeknownst to the subject, would take control over the car once the subject pressed a button labeled "auto-pilot". One man – apparently ready and willing to place a significant amount of trust in this very new and explicitly experimental technology – started reading the paper right away after pressing the button. Amazing.

I have a split Internet personality. It’s for good reason. There’s nothing I hate more when I am looking for something to read on the ‘tubes than a blog that can’t decide what it is or what it wants to talk about. I’m definitely interetsed in your latest food escapade or coffee find. Not so much with your roommate troubles or how depressed you’ve been feeling lately. Or should I say, it’s not that each those things couldn’t make for interesting reading — it really just matters how well you present it and the quality of the writing — but I’m not interested in seeing them all jumbled together in the same space.

Let me ask you this: what if you’re favorite coffee bar started selling bags of potpourri and boxes of Nag Champa or what if that crazy-awesome inventive cocktail joint you found last weekend decided it would be a good idea to hold, say a prayer meeting a couple days a week as well and then — what the hell — they thought it might be lucrative, now that the’ve got you here, to sell you memberships to a health club. Over the bar. Every time they took your order. Would you go back? Does it sound like they respect you as a customer? How would your respect for them and what they did change in the face of so many disparate offerings? I think I know the answer. At least, I know how I would answer. I appreciate focus.

Three me’s

And so I’ve had, for some time now, several different basic presences on the internet. I have one for coffee – Daniel of Arabica – and when you go there you know you’re going to get links and tasting notes and photos on one subject: coffee.

I also have one for food and drink related topics – Eats. Drinks. Blogs. Same as above, it’s a known quantity. Eats. Drinks. Blogs. is about food and drink. Not tech. Not political matters. Not how I’ve been feeling lately. Just food and drink.

Last but not least, I keep a somewhat more personal blog – Danapalooza. That one is more of a mixed bag. But even then, you’re likely to find bits and pieces on a fairly narrow band of topics: technology or music or politics. I’m not going to tell you, for the most part, how I’ve been feeling lately on that one either.

It’s all about respect for the reader. Yes, that’s correct: I. Respect. You. You’re welcome.

It just seemed logical to pair a Twitter account with each of these. And so: @danielofarabica, @eatdrink and @danapalooza. As it turns out, though, how I interact with my blog and how I interact with Twitter are two very different things. With the different blogs, I’m writing. I’m sitting and focusing on one thing for a relatively long time.

With Twitter it’s short and sweet. Weather I’m writing a 140 character snippet or cruising through my list of people I follow, the engagement level is lower. There is less commitment. It’s all very temporal and fleeting. Many times I’m mobile. Most of the links I find in Tweets are shuttled off to be read later via Instapaper. It’s all OK. It’s the way it was meant to be. Twitter, even when the conversation turns to more serious subjects, is light and fun. It was never meant to be in-depth. So with three different personal accounts it’s hard to treat Twitter the way it should be treated. It’s not supposed to be a chore. One account always pulls the short straw and gets forgotten about.

One of them has to go. Which one will it be?

Shedding an identity … how refreshing

Considering the paucity of conversations I engage in with my @eatsdrinks Twitter account (especially when compared to the number on @danielofarabica), the account’s meager list of followers (which is probably connected to the number of conversations) and how much a love of great food dovetails with the love of fine coffee, I think it’s time for a little trial run of folding my food related Twitter activities on @eatsdrinks into those of @danielofarabica.

It’s a natural fit, really. The number of conversations about food, wine, beer et al. I find going on between coffee folk is unsurprisingly very high. Weather it’s @MaximumGrindage letting us salivate vacriously through him while he prepares fine meats, @TimStyles letting us all in on his passion for the best beer the world has to offer or @tonx revealing — inadvertantly or not — his affection for kick-ass wine bars as well as the occasional cocktail spot, the specialty coffee community and that of lovers of fine foodstuffs fit together like a shot of espresso poured over a creamy scoop of vanilla gelato. Yeah, “Yum”.

It’s going to make my digital life a lot easier as well. I know: poor me.

The deal

For those of you kind enough to engage or follow along with my ramblings on coffee at twitter.com/danielofarabica you can expect a little more back and forth on more general food and drink related topics from here on out. I hope that’s OK.

For those of you who do the same at twitter.com/eatsdrinks … oh wait I guess that’s the point isn’t it. Well, if you are following me at @eatsdrinks, it may be time to take a look at @danielofarabica. You’re call, of course.

The blogs remain separate. I think that’s still appropriate.

See you on the inter/Twitter-’tubes.

Linked here:

Daniel of Arabica (my baby) – http://danielofarabica.com/

Eat. Drink. Blog. – http://eatdrinkblog.posterous.com/

Danapalooza – http://danapalooza.posterous.com/

twitter.com/danielofarabica

twitter.com/eatsdrinks (defunct, of course)

twitter.com/danapalooza

@MaximumGrindage apreciates fine meat-stuffs – http://twitter.com/MaximumGrindage/status/21541007097

Tim Styles loves him some quality brew – http://twitter.com/TimStyles/status/22382592404

Some might think there’s a problem with @Tonx’s love for Bar Covell but I think he’s just fine. – http://twitter.com/jory/status/21539737314

Via Carlton Ried on Flickr

My final semester at San Francisco State University begins tomorrow. A final bout of rather lonely journeys, really. Some measured in hours – BART, ferry and bus – others in semesters. There was mediocre food, big classes and teachers good and bad. Only time will tell what I ultimately remember most about this time but here are a few photos I have taken along the way.

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Watch on posterous

Bhangra is an Indian form of dance and a slyle of music as well (someone correct me if I’m getting this wrong). It’s high energy music with a simple but propulsive beat. My fiancée, Danielle has always wanted to take Bhangra lessons but, for one reason or another, has not been able to.

This weekend is the annual Eat Real Festival in Oakland and in addition to all manner of food trucks, food booths, DIY food preparation and creation demonstrations were several stages spread throughout the event that provided entertainment.

One of those stages just happened to play host to a Bhangra dance group. And they gave an impromptu lesson. To the whole crowd. It was pretty awesome. Danielle loved it.

I think everyone knows someone who feels as strongly about this issue as the creators of this website do.

Viva la real pants!