A freelance journalist from the UK flies to Los Angeles to do an article for the Guardian, and ends up with a very different story when she is imprisoned for 26 hours and deported for not having a little-known journalist visa.

The idea of deporting someone for not having the proper paperwork is annoying, though not reprehensible, but her experiences of being treated like a criminal are terribly worrisome. Is this the cost of promoting democracy around the world? What happens when immigration officials tag webloggers as de-facto journalists?

Apologies in advance for a question several people may find in very poor taste, but such is the blogger's life. I thought of this while Rachel and I were flying to Las Vegas, eating honey roasted peanuts. I was disproportionately excited because so often they just serve salted peanuts on Southwest and it's a special treat to get two precious bags of the honey roasted variety. (Incidentally, either one is miles better than United's peanut, almond, and pretzel mix. I just can't enjoy small hard pretzels; I don't know why. I also don't like almonds, but I know where that comes from.) Anyhow, back to my inappropriate question:

Say there's a plane crash in your neighborhood, much like one near my cousin's home when a small plane and a Boeing 737 collided and both fell out of the sky in Cerritos several years ago. During the three mile drop to earth, debris scatters in a wide field, and lighter things are carried farther by the wind.

Now, say that later this afternoon you're in your debris-free backyard (you're aware of the crash, but the majority of debris has fallen several blocks away from your home) and you come across a pristine bag of honey roasted peanuts. Assuming that the tiny bag is in good shape and appears no different than normal, and assuming you love honey roasted peanuts, what do you do with the bag?

If you have no particular attraction to this variety of snack, substitute your own airline fare of choice. For example, a mini-bottle of cognac falls in your swimming pool.

Playing poker and talking about TV on Tuesday night, I came to the conclusion that Stargate is the opposite of Gilligan's Island.

Though they frequently find themselves on an 'uncharted desert isle' the one thing you can be sure of is that at the end of every story the group makes it back home every single time.

I think this is a broader pattern in TV. I think that most TV shows either fall into the category of 'Every week they need to achieve this same goal and they come perilously close to achieving it' (aka 'Damn!' shows like Gilligan's Island) or 'every week they need to achieve this same goal and come perilously close to not achieving it.' (aka 'Phew!' shows like Stargate)

Then there are a few outliers like Quantum Leap and Sliders, where it's all about the local 'Phew!' and the greater 'Damn!'

I have this new pet theory that there are some people who are bald or who keep their hair really short because at some point in their life they decided to give it a try, then when they'd had enough and tried growing it back out, they discovered that the 'middle stage,' hair that's too long to be sticky-uppy yet too short to do anything with, was unbearable, and went back to their buzz-cut ways.

These people are stuck on 'Bald Island' where only a two month vacation from people or a good collection of hats can rescue them.

Cheer me on and hope I'm wrong, because I think I'm going to take a visit there today.

Two by two we sallied forth, Karen and Crystal to the British Isles nearly two weeks ago, Ammy and Rick to Washington and Western Canada last week, and tonight Rachel and I fly off to the City of Sin (to meet up with my mom and sister). We're all coming home within about a day of each other though, pringing plenty of photographic evidence with us.

This is the first in a whole bunch of quick trips over the next couple months. Southwest is our friend in the skies.

I forgot. Was it Cory Doctorow who's doing high-level consulting for the campaign, or someone else? If you know, please comment or email, thanks!

As I constantly iterate on the design of Fury in my head, I'm influenced here and there by things I read or anecdotal experiences I have. Today's post by Phiipp Lenssen, Context, not Navigation, is having a big impact on the virtual-Fury in my head.

Most importantly, it resonates with my awareness that the experience and motivations of the everyday reader are completely different than the google visitor, and the look and feel should reflect that.

Categories were all the rage, and are de rigeur for most blogs nowadays, but they don't scale well at all. They tend to work best when the branching factor is constant, that is when there are roughly as many items in a category as there are are categories in total. Another way of putting it is, if each post is only in one category, then your number of categories should be roughly sqrt(number of posts). This doesn't scale well when you reach 2000 posts and 45 categories, with 45 posts in each category. I actually have 91 categories, because I'm inefficient, and because many posts are in multiple categories, and, well, I am a freak.

Anyhow, the article's very thought-provoking, and I'll have to see how it impacts my twin desires to further granualize and consolidate Fury's organizational structure. I should talk more about this soon. Maybe I'll even have a demo.

Despite my assertions that I can't give out Gmail accounts to everyone who emails me, about 20 strangers a day are doing just that. I'm sorry folks, but that's part of what a 'limited beta' means. Please don't send me resumes documenting how you've been an 'email professional' for 20 years, or how you'd be a great beta tester because you beta tested for Prodigy, AOL, and eWorld.

Part of being a good beta tester for a wide-use product is just being a normal, ordinary girlperson. (kidding!)

Updating last week's post where I wondered what would happen if traffic rules were relaxed in the US as they are in China, here's a counterpoint example in the form of a video of looser traffic regs in Bangkok (wmv file).

If this doesn't promote alternative transportation, I don't know what would.

Well, not so much a 'review' as a testament that Rachel and I saw it last night and thought it was really good. Naturally, it's not the same kind of movie as the original (sequels so seldom are), but it's good in a different way. Strike out character development and use the saved time for more cameo in-jokes and oblique (and overt) movie, cultural, and fairy tale references.

The movie never lets the audience rest, but in a telling example, Rachel and I want to go see it again after a few weeks because we lost several lines because the audience was laughing too hard.

The soundtrack is also great. Any animated piece that has both "I need a hero" (sung by a fairy godmother) and "Funkytown" has gotta be worth a look-see.

Anyhow, today we're off to North Beach (San Francisco) with Ali and Mark to see if we can take so many pictures that we have to use my new Belkin iPod media adapter to drain the 1 gig card and fill it up again.

After that, we're all going to see Dido in concert at Berkeley High School. It should be a pretty full day.