I am currently on a plane to sf writing on my iPhone with it in airplane mode. I hadnt intended to knock out the day’s blog entry on the plane , but I do need the keyboard practice. Plus, I can’t find the videos I put on here. Dunno why. I had Atlantis to watch, dangit.

I gotta admit, I love the phone. I hadn’t expected to, but it truly is a little mini laptop, and is nicely serving as a netbook type thing for me. I’m also obsessed with apps (I knew that was gonna happen), and having fun seeing just how far I can push this thing. I even finally put leopard on my mbp,I had to for the google contacts support.

I also went back to food - orange juice to start. And dear lord am I happy to have it. I have never, ever been that weak or hungry in my life. Of course, I still would like to do this again for longer, but wow, nuts. I kinda get the feeling it’ll be a few days before I’m back to normal, right now, despite being full, I’m staaarving.

Would I recommend someone do this? Wellll, I would never, ever suggest it. It is crazy and drastic and very much starvation. But, if someone was already thinking about it, could physically do it (as in, doctor said ok) and wanted my opinion? Go for it. It is an experience like nothing else.

I am currently sitting in a hair salon in west Hollywood, writing this on my new iPhone. I figured, what better way to get used to this keyboard than to write a blog entry. And ya know, it isn’t half bad. My salon has open wifi, so I have a nice, solid Internet connection.

I am using the wordpress iPhone app, which has been very simple to use so far. I am definately making tons of typos as I type, but autocorrect seems to be catching most of what I’m trying to say. I also find that I don’t need a tactile response from the keyboards as much as I thought did. My piano teacher would be horrified.

Gotta admit, I love this phone. Cuz it’s not just a phone it is truly a little mini computer, and the power of that is incredible.

It also helps to alleviate the extreme boredom that is waiting for hair color to set. I’m surevim downloading lots of useless apps, but it is wasting time.

So first iPhone impression - amazing, and I am much more in love with this thing than I expected to be. Go fig - and thanks, Steve!

I’m a little brainless today. It’s been quite a week, huh. New president, California taking rights away from its citizens, my birthday (what, wasn’t that a major event to the world?)…lots of stuff going on.

At least it’s the weekend. And strangely enough - I have a new Michael Crichton book to read!! After I published the entry about Michael Crichton on Wednesday, I received an email telling me about a ‘favorite book of his called Binary.’ I’d never heard of a Michael Crichton book called Ninary…

Now, I have read a book published by Michael Crichton under another name called “A Case of Need.” I loved the book, but it was very clearly not “typical” Michael Crichton.  Turns out Binary is written under yet another pseudonym, one I’d never heard of. I dug around online (the book is long out of print), found a used copy for sale, ordered, and have it now.

So much to my surprise, I get to spend the weekend curled up with a new Michael Crichton book (considered new under the “it’s new to me” rule). Not a bad weekend at all.

Hope everyone has a good weekend, you all probably need one after this week!

About three years ago, I was lucky enough to go to Stanford for a summit on virtual reality technology. The twenty or so of us there got to see all of the latest and greatest VR being developed, from full body virtual reality to simple sims that would react to you. Among other things, I played with a virtual baby, and “jumped” off of a 20 foot cliff.

The baby in the ad below is a cross between the VR baby I played with that day, and the technology many companies have been utilizing for years to create realistic avatars (this one’s from Oddcast). It’s silly, and weird, but to me at least, it’s very, very cool.

I had Brad Pitt and Britney Spears “make this baby.” Make one of your own!

I always tend to go a little overboard with the self-analysis around my birthday, and nicely manage to depress myself. Because, of course, no matter where I am in life, there is somewhere else I could be.

Not that I’m saying I SHOULD be somewhere else. I just could be. Like everyone, my life has taken lots of turns and missteps along the way to getting here, and although I try not to look back very often, I always do around my birthday.

I don’t feel like doing that today. Today another year starts for me, and I’m looking forward to a good one.

And it has to be said – tomorrow starts another four years for the US, so please…everyone who can, get out and vote!!

I feel like I should say something profound, it being November 1st and the beginning of this whole “blogging for 30 days” month. I’m not good at profound, though. So some ramblings on blogging.

I’ve been blogging for a long time. My LiveJournal creation date is in early 2002, but I’d kind of started a bit before that in a different form. Like many people, whatever personal webpage I was working on at the time had an “about me” section. The “about me” would turn into a personal blog, entries in reverse order and all, and was updated almost as regularly as the rest of the site.

Before that, I had a .plan file on my VAX account. The updates there were closer to status updates on Facebook/MySpace, or Twitter blabberings, but even there, I would put basic info like “in class.” I didn’t keep the old entries, though (which is technically required to hit the definition of a “blog”).

Over the years my blogging has become much less personal, I’m sure in large part due to the fact that just about everyone’s online these days. I mean…my mom reads my Twitter. Weird, right? Not bad, just strange. The Internet was my world.

The majority of the entries in my former blog would be locked to friends-only, and would be extremely personal at times. I was a master of friend lists, and would post to different people depending on the topic. I trusted that privacy. I don’t anymore.

I very rarely see people blogging like we used to. It’s a necessary thing, of course, we were regularly talking about things we didn’t want the world to know. Not a good idea to put private information online these days.

I do miss it, though. I was friends with every single person who read my blog, and truly valued their comments and feedback. These days, I have nearly 1,000 followers on Twitter, and damn if I know half of them.

Our tiny Internet community exploded. It’s different, sure, but I’m very happy to welcome everyone on board. This is just the start - the next five years online are going to be amazing. And I for one can’t wait to see what happens.

Tomorrow is November 1st, which marks the beginning of NoBloPoMo, aka, National Blog Posting Month. The idea is to write a blog entry a day for the entire month of November. It’s a little nutsy, but I did this last year and really enjoyed it.

So, the warning. A blog entry a day means a lot of writing. I did write some pretty good, substantial blog entries during November last year, but I also wrote a lot of, well, junk. I’m sure I’ll end up doing the same this year. I do, however, want topic suggestions, which I didn’t do last year. Any topic, no matter how random, feel free to suggest it, either by emailing me or in the comments (or dm on twitter).

I’m going to have a lot of fun, and I hope everyone reading will too – talk to you all tomorrow!

I’m always being asked for links to people to follow on Twitter. This is often phrased as “gimme some things to follow, because I don’t understand why I should bother.” So, here you have it - my list of fun Twitter stuff.

First, learn all about twitter here:  A Newbies Guide to Twitter (http://twitter.zappos.com/start ) – this was written by the CEO of Zappos, (who you should also follow http://twitter.com/zappos ) and is still to date the best explanation I’ve seen.

Now that Tony’s taught you all about twitter, add these “people” who I find really entertaining:

Sockamillion http://twitter.com/sockington - Yes, this is a cat. But I think this is easily the funniest “person” on twitter – I adore seeing him update. I think my cats are jealous.

CobraCommander: http://twitter.com/CobraCommander - remember GI Joe?

SARAH http://twitter.com/_S_A_R_A_H_ - Sarah is the house in Eureka (tv show). Gotta love a twittering house.

Whole Foods http://twitter.com/wholefoods - Yummy.

Captain Hammer http://twitter.com/captainhammer - from the singalong blog, of course.

Darth Vader http://twitter.com/darthvader - needs no explanation

I Can Has Cheezburger http://twitter.com/ICHCheezburger - Cat pics, what else!

Donna Noble http://twitter.com/DonnaNoble - not so active these days, damn that amnesia

Martha Jones http://twitter.com/MarthaJones

Southwest Airlines http://twitter.com/SouthwestAir

Stop the Spam http://twitter.com/stopthespam Twitter spammer updates. Always fun to get a new follower update, then see that person reported by Stop the Spam within the same minute.

FreebieAlert http://twitter.com/FreebieAlert

TechInsider http://twitter.com/techinsider rumors, gossip. Not always correct.

The Coop http://twitter.com/andersonscooper FAKE Anderson Cooper.

Anderson Cooper http://twitter.com/andersoncooper REAL Anderson Cooper

Pirate Bay http://twitter.com/tpb News about IP and the internet

El Gato http://twitter.com/el_gato And another cat.

Twitter http://twitter.com/twitter Twitter news, status updates

CNN Breaking News http://twitter.com/cnnbrk

Mars Phoenix Lander http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix - if you were watching this guy a few weeks back, you would have seen the “wee, we found ice!” update. Cutest thing ever.

NASA News Feed http://twitter.com/NASA

For real people…search Twitter for your friends, for celebs, for websites you like - you never know who or what you’re going to find there. Another way to find people to follow is to look at who your friends are following.

You can also reading Twitter easier by hooking up sms or getting a client ( http://twitter.com/downloads or check google to find some, there are TONS).

There ya have it – the basics of twitter. If you do decide to join in on the obsession, leave your twitter name here, or shout out to me so I can follow you - @stephaniebambam. Just remember - 140 characters or less!

Enjoy!

I have “officially” moved my blog over here, my LiveJournal blog is no more. All posts there are gone, and thanks to wordpress being awesome, all of the posts from there are now here. Yay for archiving!

Anyway, here I am. Wordpress and Dreamhost. Thanks for all of the recommendations!!

I’m still working on things, but I gotta admit - Wordpress is as friendly to use as people say.

It isn’t EASY, or at least, not for what I’m doing - the one-click install didn’t fly - but it is still remarkably user friendly.

And I’m posting this through ScribeFire, which I just adore, but had poor LJ support.

Hopefully will be ready to fully pull the trigger on this blog by the weekend. Woo!