Bike/Traffic Interactions
The website of Nick Disabato (aka nickd) is the second link post I ever made from this website (that would’ve been back in the middle of 2002). In fact, his was the first blog I ever read regularly. I think that would’ve been around late 1998. Back then, he had this dark brown design (before dark brown was a popular color for t-shirts and websites) with some pixellated video game characters at the top, and he was funny. He was this geeky kid with curly hair who lived in the Chicago suburbs, built his own computer, and was transitioning from high school to college. Reading nickd.org was a strange thing since I was only accustomed to chatting online, requiring constant attention. In a chat, there is an actual, live conversation in real time. In contrast, reading blogs catches you up with other’s lives whenever you have time to spare. I see Facebook as a standardization of that communication format — instead of visiting 20 websites to check on 20 friends, you just load up Facebook and soak in the information overload. (For the record, I’m posting anything I want to save permanently here at tumbledry, and disposable nonsense at Facebook. I hope to be around here at tumbledry long after Facebook has evolved into something less useful.) Anyhow, reading nickd’s blog, I was experiencing for the first time that weird juxtaposition of intensely personal content yet highly public delivery that blogs and most forms of online expression have. The concept is aptly summarized in the title of comedian Mike Birbiglia’s blog: My Secret Public Journal.
Things have changed a bit since then, but I just stumbled across nickd’s newest blog the other day. Here’s part of a post:
her shoe is off for some reason, so all that is on her foot is a sock. she is sleeping, and probably drunk. her foot is about eighteen inches from my face. it is 1:00 pm. the chicago river has already been dyed green with boats. right as the light changes i…
Can you guess how that paragraph ends? You don’t have to: find out by reading his post. Blogging lives!