I think I’m about a week late on this one, but if you haven’t heard of chatroulette yet, you’re in for a treat.

The premise:
You visit chatroulette.com, where you authorize your webcam and then are connected to strangers all over the world. There is a ‘next’ button at the top, letting you skip to the next random stranger whenever the desire hits you.

Of course I love it. Of course it’s a timesink. Of course it can be a terrible idea. I played with it for about an hour on Friday night. The site said about 10,000 people were on it. I also saw a person in some kind of wolf costume (who disconnected before I could say anything). I think I might have seen people having sex. I certainly saw more penises than I can really every recall. (This is certainly not a ‘from work’ activity.)

Read the NYT article; I can vouch for pretty much all of it in the limited time I was hitting ‘next’. I found the chat portion less interesting — I wanted an automatic next every 10 or 15 seconds, just staring into an endless parade of windows.

I’d love to play with it with people — a group of 3 or 4 (or even 2) would be more fun than doing it by yourself. We will see if I can convince any friends to this.

And if you haven’t clicked the NYT article, check out the buzzfeed top 24 screenshots and then tell me you don’t want to read the article.

A highly recommended experience. For 15 minutes.

Update:
Dammit, it looks like Kottke and I spent Friday night the same way. This is what I get for posting before checking my feeds. Nevertheless, more evidence for why you should be familiar with this thing.

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I’ve been on a ‘clean off my desktop’ kick the last week or two, as the icons and documents have crept up, threatening to cover over half of the desktop. That’s no good.

So here are two more I kept without managing to post:

1. Japanese Fluorescent Light Fighting. It’s gross, but I think the pictures tell you all you need to know.
2. And the origins of the Moonwalk (via Rex, weeks later). This was cooler to watch around the time of MJ’s death, but it’s really an amazing montage, a great reminder that nothing happens in a void…
   

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Last night

I dreamt of trees

of alien trees

a towering stand

in a forest of white

I dreamt of trees

last night

growing like hardened

cotton candy

with their roots

in the air

though you would not

want to eat

I dreamt of trees

that came apart

like fractured styrofoam

I dreamt of trees in whom

tiny blue worms called home

I dreamt of strange trees

last night

I dreamt of trees

all around me

who’s job it was to tend

each tug or bump

a dusting of white would send

Perhaps

brownies and strawberries and ice cream

wasn’t the best idea

before bed

last night

I dreamt of trees.

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This link (which I can’t ruin by explaining) started it. And then I got passed this link — a NYT article about men who are in love with 2D representations of women.

Yes. You read that correctly.

And it’s just as wild as you might imagine — you know, if you find a grown man who is in love with a pillowcase to be wild. Your mileage might vary.

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my world is sufficiently rocked.

after thirteen years without a word exchanged, mike and i are talking again.

yes, that mike.

and it’s as if the world is turned upside down for me.  i’m still me, he’s still him, but we’re the grown-up versions – yet it doesn’t feel like that at all.  it’s like a time warp.  the things that were not good are better – so much better than i ever imagined they could be for him.  he’s like, this amazing grown-up version of the person i used to know, and used to love.

and i don’t know what any of this means.

thirteen fucking years.  we were children.  so how could there even be anything there now?  thirteen years ago i was a black-haired wannabe wild child with an attitude about everything and a fuckload of resentment for things i couldn’t name. i laugh at the me i was then.   so why does it feel like coming home to talk to the yin to my yang during those times, when i am not the yang i once thought i was?

i feel drunk, but have not had a drop to drink.    eeeeeek.

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Saturday I was standing in the lawn and garden section at Sears, waiting for tires to be put on my car. As I waited, I contemplated which yard tool would serve me best in the unlikely event of a zombie apocalypse. The axe is simply too poorly weighted. I mean, it has great initial power, but would be hard to pull back quickly for a second strike. Though the garden weasel held promise (!), the hatchet is light and emerged as my eventual winner, in spite of it’s short handle. There were no machetes, sadly. I briefly pondered whether it was too early out on the west coast to call Tripp on the matter before considering that there may in fact be something severely wrong with me.

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Last night I got coffee with a friend down at Dana Street in Mountain View. And as we walked around, there were a couple of books lying out on the sidewalk. And one of them? “Where the Sidewalk Ends.”

And inside? An inscription reading: “9th Birthday Present, January 1992, Amber [last name] If found call [telephone number]”

Now, there is no area code on the number. It was 17 years ago, which would make Amber 26 now. And looking on Facebook, there are 5 potential Ambers, none of them are in California, one isn’t even in the country.

So I don’t think there is much I can do — I suppose I could send FB messages to these people, asking if I have their copy of “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” It seems a little weird.

At the same time, this is such a…critical book to childhood, I can’t imagine why someone’s copy was lying on the sidewalk at 10pm on a Tuesday night.

Thoughts? What should I do?

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