July 26, 2011
11/24/11 Update: It’s mostly back to Twitter for me. I’ll probably redesign this site sometime in the next year, but for the most part will not be actively blogging.
I am a bit irritated by the newly aggressive ad placement by WordPress.com. I have no control over that and would prefer no ads whatsoever, but WordPress charges for that. I will probably explore other hosting options if I do revive the site.
In the interim, I am more likely to share longer-form content on Google+. Go to my Google profile and put me in one of your circles for that stuff. You can also subscribe to my occasional public updates on Facebook, though I reserve friending for actual acquaintances.
Thanks for visiting.
Posted in Blogging, Paper & Ink, Social Media | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Blogs, Google, Tumblr, Twitter
March 13, 2011
Arthur S. Brisbane, the public editor of The New York Times, turned his attention this week to the newsroom’s use of Twitter. He quoted from an e-mail interview with me, which I am posting in full here, with a few tweaks and links.
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Posted in Paper & Ink, Social Media | 3 Comments »
Tags: Arthur S. Brisbane, Blogging, Brian Stelter, Clark Hoyt, Facebook, Hudson, news, NYT, Posterous, public editor, Reddit, Sully, Twitter, Twitter lists, YouTube
January 22, 2011
Fifteen years ago today, on Jan. 22, 1996, The New York Times — which already had a news service behind a paywall on AOL — started its free Web site, jolting newspaper publishers and editors across the land to follow suit. A happy birthday tweet prompted me to go on a memory-jogging journey with the Wayback Machine looking for another newspaper site born that month. Back then, I was working for The York Daily Record in southcentral Pennsylvania. The existential headline on this blog post is from an article I wrote for that paper in December 1995, part of a five-day series explaining the Internet. (I had been a computer dabbler since I was a teenager.)
The article is reprinted below, with permission (My favorite line: “Some people believe the Web or some future souped-up version of it will transform society. Others think the accent in ‘hypertext’ should be on ‘hype.’”) The series was later archived on the paper’s rudimentary Web site (logo at above left), a precursor to the now-thriving YDR.com. That site was pushed into the world a bit early, thanks to some bad weather.
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Posted in Blogging, New York, Paper & Ink, Social Media | 6 Comments »
Tags: blizzards, floods, History, Internet, news, newspapers, NYT, NYTimes.com, Wayback Machine, weather, Web, YDR.com, York Daily Record, York Pa.
January 6, 2011
A friend from Pennsylvania forwarded this Craiglist job ad. If you’re interested, hurry before it expires.
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Posted in Mysteries | Leave a Comment »
Tags: ads, Apple, cats, craigslist, head circumference, jobs, Pa., Pennsylvania, technology, time travel, York
December 5, 2010
Are you a poetry fan? Jane Rosenberg LaForge (my wife) and three other New York area writers — Lisa Marie Basile, Britt Gambino and Jim Meirose — will present a free evening of poetry and fiction this Saturday in Chelsea.
Jane is promoting her second chapbook, “Half-Life,” from Big Table Publishing. It is drawn on experiences with cancer in her family (her mother died in November 2009 and her sister in July 2010, while many of these poems were being written and revised). (I wrote last year about Jane’s first chapbook, “After Voices,” now in its second printing, about growing up with a deaf father.)
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Posted in New York, Paper & Ink | Leave a Comment »
Tags: After Voices, Books, Britt Gambino, Half-Life, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Jim Meirose, Lisa Marie Basile, NYC, Spark Art Center
November 14, 2010
It was a busy summer and autumn, both personally and professionally, so I suspended my coffee blogging — but not my coffee drinking. The best bean by far was the (expensive) Honduras Cup of Excellence Lot #4 from Fernández Farm in El Cielito, Santa Bárbara, Honduras, as roasted by Cafe Grumpy. (It’s still available: I picked up some today.)
The tasting notes: “Red currant aroma. Floral brightness. Sweet notes of aged bourbon & molasses.” The Cup of Excellence rewards barista skill, of course, but you have to start with a good bean, and this far exceeded my expectations. I was parceling out beans like bits of gold on mornings with important business.
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Posted in Coffee!, New York | Leave a Comment »
Tags: Aeropress, B. Koffie, Café Grumpy, Chelsea, Coffee!, drinks, espresso, Finca La Tina, Hell's Kitchen, Honduras, La Columbe Torrefaction
July 18, 2010
One July weekend, I had the opportunity to combine two of my favorite activities — riding my bike through Manhattan and visiting new coffee shops.
My family was traveling elsewhere, and New York had not yet fallen into the drippy hot torpor that has marked recent days. I rode down the west side a bit, diverted to to the Hudson River trail, then passed through TriBeCa, Chinatown, SoHo and my old East Village stomping grounds before chugging up the East Side — a loop of sorts.
I made a pass by La Colombe Torrefaction, but I had already tried beans from there via B. Koffie, so I decided to check out Kaffe 1668, one of the shops highlighted in The Times a couple of months ago.
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Posted in Coffee!, New York, Social Media | 2 Comments »
Tags: Antigua Los Volcanes, bikes, Clover, Coffee!, cycling, East Village, Facebook, Foursquare, Guatemala, Kaffe 1668, La Columbe Torrefaction, Manhattan, Novo, Plowshares Coffee Roasters, Posterous, SoHo, TriBeCa, Twitter
July 3, 2010
When you step into McNulty’s Tea & Coffee in the West Village, you feel as though you are stepping into another era of coffee, when specialty shops like this were the main purveyors of gourmet beans from around the world. In that respect, it reminds me of Empire Coffee or Porto Rico Importing Co.
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Posted in Coffee!, New York | 1 Comment »
Tags: Birch Coffee, Café Grumpy, Coffee!, Empire Coffee & Tea, espresso, Intelligentsia, McNulty Tea & Coffee, organic, Peru, Porto Rico Importing Co.
