My Cat Thinks She's A Bird

June 9, 1999

It seems like everyone and their brother (or sister) are plugging Imagine Radio. And it is a cool service - you pick the artists you like, rate them according to how often you want to hear them, and then create a customized radio station. Anyway, I just wanted to point out that I plugged it back on March 31. I'm such a trendsetter - ha ha.

I didn't go to softball last night because I wasn't feeling that great. I'm not sure if it was the heat or what. I drank about three 24 oz. bottles of water yesterday when I woke up. I think I was dehydrated from sweating while sleeping. OK, that was kind of gross.

I love watching my cats talk to the birds. They are indoor cats, but they do like to sit in the window and smell the different smells outside. Grendel, in particular, likes to sit in the window and look at the various birds outside. And then suddenly she will very softly start chirping. It's like an uncontrollable impulse - I don't think she's even aware she does it. I've been looking in all my cat books for explanation of this phenomenon and I can't find it. My theory is that she is trying to pretend to be a bird to lure the other birds over. So far they haven't been fooled.

I don't envy those trying to put together an online 'zine for or about women these days. I'm speaking of sites like Hissyfit, Sins, Tomato Nation and such. It seems like all the niches have been filled. First of all, your site has to have a very distinctive personality to succeed, I think. And that requires the owner of the website to have a distinctive voice. The sites I mentioned above do have that. But I was looking at a bunch of sites yesterday (and I didn't bookmark any of them or I would link to them) that are trying to be part of the Girl Wide Web thing, but they are all so similar. I probably looked at 10 sites yesterday, and they all had the same theme going on. It was kind of a "We love Betty Page and vintage clothing" thing. It's too bad, because I think it's great that women are finding an outlet for their creativity and voice. And that's what the web is all about - it's much easier and cheaper to publish a website than a magazine. And maybe it's just that a lot of these sites are new and haven't found their unique voice yet. I guess I'll have to check back in a few months and see if things have changed.

I don't include my site in this group for a couple of reasons. One, I'm not trying to make money off this site. Of course, I don't have enough readers to sell advertising. But even if I did, that's not why I'm doing this.

Why am I doing this? There's been a lot of talk in the journalers community lately about awards and such. I'm not doing this to win awards (although I wouldn't turn one down, if offered!). I'm doing this for two reasons. One, I need the practice and a forum to try out web design, because it's what I would like to do when I get out of school. Two, forcing myself to write every day is a good exercise. Those are the main reasons, anyway. The smaller reason is the feedback, of course. I love to hear that something I wrote struck a chord with someone.

I'm not even sure if this all makes sense. It's something I need to think about some more, and maybe return to in a future entry. But that's enough for today.

I had a bunch of windows open to look for links, and Netscape crashed. This happens about once a day, and it really bugs me.

I'm kind of interested in these online courses offered by Ziff Davis University. Has anyone taken one of these? Are they useful?

Wired gave a bad review to Austin Powers. I have laughed at every trailer and commercial - how could I not laugh at the movie? Plus most guys are just going to see Heather Graham in a bikini anyway.

There's an interesting article in Upside about how advertising on the web differs from TV. Interesting.

Ryan Phillippe and Reese Witherspoon tied the knot last weekend. One of my friends, who shall remain nameless, is heartbroken.