I love cats, especially lol cats.

Three things about London

1. London has a lot of pedestrians. A lot. There are so many that at each crosswalk no one really bothers with waiting for pesky things like crosswalk lights. There are almost always little handy islands between opposing forces of traffic, which makes it quite convenient to run across one section, wait for traffic to die down the other direction, and then continue one's journey. If cars are backed up through a traffic light, the pedestrians will cross in front of them until there's space for them to go forward. The drivers don't seem too bothered by this (unless some really egregious blockage occurs), but then again, how could they? There are almost always enough pedestrians to swarm any resisting car, maim, and kill.
2. So far, it's been interesting to see what restaurant owners at various touristy areas do when faced with conditions such as Americans, large crowds, disturbances, etc... I certainly hope I've seen the worst of it, and thus will try to avoid blatantly stereotyping in my mind, but the various owners so far definitely seem to be in the "get 'em in, get 'em out" mentality, which makes sense, if more than half of your clientele will never make a repeat visit. We were at a restaurant (that shall remain nameless) by several known landmarks and were seated outside. The food was quite good, so I'll definitely recommend that part if pressed. But it was interesting to watch the main greeter and his attitude towards tourists vs. non-tourists. Locals he would joke with, shake their hands, share a decidedly "British" eye-roll when something wasn't too their liking (a brilliant beat boxer did a short set, and this pair of blonde ladies left irritated... seriously? An amazing artist shows up for free, and you're going to roll your eyes and leave? All right then), but Americans (not just us) were somehow just a little bit underneath his gaze, if you know what I mean. I'm not really irritated or anything, as I think it would be hard to maintain a completely genuine demeanor in (a) such a crowded, hectic environment with (b) such inconsistent and often loud crowds. But it was interesting to see such a marked difference.
3. British crisps are definitely better than our chips. The packaging looks almost exactly like Lays back home, but the crisps are lighter, thinner, well, crispier.

He posits the rise of something he calls "peep culture," in which "life is lived on constant record because you never know when you're going to want to be able to rewind something, see it again, confront a family member, show it to the police, sell it to the highest bidder, or post it on your blog." Or, more succinctly: "We all have lives worthy of watching. We all have lives worthy of selling." These are the right questions to be asking: What does it mean for society, for human nature, when the camera is always on? Is this going to change the way we relate to each other? Our expectations for daily interaction? When almost everyone tweets every thought, who will need to enter a wooden booth and tell a priest what's going on?

~ Stephen Reiss' Review of THE PEEP DIARIES: How We're Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors by Hal Niedzviecki

time

We need 28 hour days. There is simply not enough time in the day to sleep, eat, think (productively), comment on student papers, read, study, plan, commute, do laundry, check facebook, watch the news, write papers, talk with friends, take care of family, laugh, drink tea, and write blog posts. Something has to give, and it unfortunately for the past few months has been blogging. I find it funny that it was my interest in online discourse that propelled me into grad school, that I lost said interest temporarily in favor of kinesthetics/embodied learning/rhetorical theory/humor as rhetoric/etc, and that I am now teaching a computer integrated classroom and am now busy thinking of the possibilities for pedagogy and the internet once again. If I manage to maintain this interest in spite of everything else, I must then of course find a way to find time to blog - how can I profess to be interested in online discourse if I do not practice it myself?