....but I have pricked myself too many times with a needle, I've accidentally burned my fingers a few times.  So enough with the pirate costumes.  Time for some photoshopping action.

I present everyone's favorite butterface...Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas.

 

She's a totally different person without the bad plastic surgery!  She could be sooooo hottttt....

What are your top 25 most played songs? 
Submitted by Cooxie.  

In an odd twist of cross-city pollination, I was sitting in an Ottawa coffee shop catching up on Photojunkie's "My Toronto Includes..." when into the coffee shop walks a man who looks vaguely familiar.  I look down and there  he is on my screen - Graham Powell. [photo by Rannie Turingan]

In August I was approached by Lindsay Gibb, the Editor of Broken Pencil, asking if I would consider being a guinea pig for a new feature in the magazine. Each edition, starting with the one you see on the right, they will be inviting an illustrator to create a profile of someone they think is "profile-worthy".
   
Since this is The Food Issue, they thought I would be a likely candidate.  And since I'm always open to shameless self-promotion I agreed. Besides, it sounded fun.

Lindsay hooked me up with Jason Turner, the illustrator, and I'm really excited to see what he's done with all my whacky answers to questions like "Do you cook as well?" "How is the Ottawa book coming along?" and "what is your earliest memory of eating out."

I haven't found it in stores yet, but I'm looking.  Let me know if you see it anywhere. (And what you think)

I have to take another business flight to California. 

 

I do not like to fly.

It scares me.

 

I have gotten slightly better at it.  The panic attacks aren’t as severe as they used to be.  Sometimes I can even relax for ten minutes and enjoy it.

 

The People Who Pay Me think that this is just another one of my endearing eccentricities.

 

“Get outa here,” my boss says.  “You’re seriously afraid of flying?”

“Yes.”

“But we’ve been flying you out to California for a year.”

“And each time I’ve told you that it scares me.”

“Well,” he says, “we’ll be on this one together.”

“You said that last time and then you bailed.”

“No,” he reassures me, “this time I’m on the flight.”

“Can I hold your hand?” I ask him

“I will punch you in your mouth if you even try to touch me.”

 

Nothing that anyone suggests will work for me.  I’ve tried it all.  Getting drunk or doped up beforehand is fine until the engines rev.  Then my adrenaline surges, and no matter how many tranquilizers and sake bombs I’ve ingested, my body will overpower any attempt to subdue it.  Once my feet touch ground again, and my adrenaline slows back to normal, then the chemicals hit me with full force.  Which would be especially bad this time around, since I have to go right from the landing to a meeting.  Also, it could be difficult finding anyone who serves sake bombs at an airport at 7:00 AM.

 

People have tried to rationalize my fear away, and that doesn’t work for me either.  The whole “statistically speaking, you are safer in a plane than in a car” only works if you are equally or more afraid of dying in a car accident than in a place crash.  I’m not as afraid of dying in a car because everything I’ve read seems to suggest that, statistically speaking, it would likely be a much quicker fate.  Even if the drag toward death is prolonged, chances are you will either be too traumatized by shock, or unconscious, to be fully aware of the experience.  Not to mention that car accidents tend to happen suddenly and without warning.  Plane crashes give you plenty of time to sit there and listen to the screams and the crying of everyone around you.  You can spend your plummet toward the earth asking God’s forgiveness, having a heart attack, losing your mind, reaching someone on your cell (if it’s working), or fumbling for the hand next to you so you don’t have to endure all alone your rapid descent toward the moment when your legs jut up through your head and your organs turn to boiling jelly.  Call me old fashioned, but I’d choose a good, lightening fast, head on collision any day of the week over that. 

 

Which brings me to the crux of my neurosis:  this fear isn’t about the odds; it’s about an undeniable eventuality.  If I start talking about my fear of dying in a plane crash, then the other person will argue that the odds are so far against it that it’s not worth worrying about.  But if I mock someone for buying a lottery ticket for the same reason, they almost always will say, “I know, but it has to happen to somebody!”  That is exactly my point.  Not all of us will die in a plane, but some of us will.  I bet the people who are on a doomed craft as it nose dives are all thinking the same thing, in one form or another, over and over:  “The statistics don’t mean shit when this is happening to ME!”  The odds might be against it, but eventually a plane will crash and people will die.  How do any of us know that we won’t have a ticket on that flight?

 

As extreme as it might seem in this day and age, logic dictates that the only sure method to avoid dying that way is by not flying.  Of course, if I explain this theory to The People Who Pay Me, they will laugh at me, think I am crazy, offer to enroll me in Phobia-Relief Therapy, all of this right after I return from my trip, ‘cause there’s no trick in any of Hell's nine circles to get me out of this one.

 

I once had the secret of my fear nestled warmly in the palm of my hand.

 

It was when I was in grad school.  The toughest semester, . . . no, hell, strike that.  It might very well have been the toughest period of my life.  My girlfriend of five years, whom I had planned on marrying after graduation, was breaking up with me.  I was going to fly to see her right after my classes were over on this one Friday in March.  That week I received a call from my mother.  She told me that my father was going to have to go in for heart surgery.  But then his kidneys stopped functioning, so they had to keep him under observation until he was stable.  The doctors were hoping he would stabilize by Friday morning, and then they could perform open heart later in the day.  That meant that I was gong to be in the air headed toward my girlfriend so that she could break up with me in person, simultaneously wondering if my father was going to make it off of the operating table.  To make matters more beautiful, I was going to have to cram for my toughest mid-term on the return plane.  The class met on Thursday the day before my flight.  I walked into the classroom that Thursday, nervous enough with all that was looming over my head, and before the period was over, I ended up having a near-to-death experience forced on me by another student that ranks #3 on my Top Five Scariest Near-To-Death Experiences.[1]

 

Later, I’m sitting in the department grad office, and Li’l Nutjob comes to visit me.  Li’l Nutjob (a name she was known by among most of our class) was the stereotypical opportunist who you’ve all encountered.  She was a snake, a shark, and the whore of Babylon all minced together and wrapped in sheep’s clothing.  She could be trusted no further than the length of your eyeballs.  Her favorite tactic for advancement was to befriend someone, learn their darkest secrets, and reveal those details to a professor in order to knock the classmate (her perceived “competition”) out of the picture.  It sounds very exaggerated now, but that was the truth of her.  She was, and probably still is a disturbed, little Machiavellian princess.

 

Nutjob came slinking into the office, and did her usual poking and prodding to see if I knew anything that could be useful.  We talked tersely about the incident that had happened in class.  She pretended to be interested in my personal life and, in my weakened state, I fell for it.  She learned about my Dad, my girlfriend, my airplane phobia, and probably a couple of other things I’ve since forgotten.  I braced for her saccharine relationship advice, or a one-act, melodrama that began “when I lost my Pop from a heart attack . . ..” 

 

What she latched onto, though, was the fear of flying.

“It’s a control issue,” she said, flippantly.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Damn straight,” she shot back.  “You’re used to being in control and up in the plane complete strangers have control over your life and that freaks you out and there’s nothing you can do about it.”  

 

She went on to describe exactly what I went through when I flew.  She told me that when the plane shook, my body tensed up.  This tension in turn worsened my panic.  She advised me to do the opposite.  When I would feel the plane dip, she suggested I completely relax my body and go with the sensation.  The plane rises, start taking deep, slow breaths, and visualize your body rising with the motion of the plane, she said.  That way my stomach wouldn’t get all bent out of shape from the constant stress of straining against the natural movements of the plane.

 

Then Li’l Nutjob left the room. 

 

She had pinpointed the core of my fear.  I had never thought of it being about anything other than not wanting to die horribly.  But maybe it was a deeply embedded control issue.  She had read me.  That’s what made her so dangerous.  She was a master at manipulation because she knew how to read human behavior like she was reading an instruction manual.  Which was an amazing talent for someone who was incapable of empathy.

 

The next day I was on the plane.  Halfway through the flight the captain announced a slight emergency. 

 

Of course there is, I thought.  I mean, I was ready for this.  I felt like it had been preordained. 

 

The plane was heading into some unavoidable lake effect weather.  Pretty nasty, high velocity winds.  We were told to brace ourselves, keep calm, and not to worry because it wouldn’t last more then ten or fifteen minutes.

 

“Ha!” I laughed.  A couple of girls glanced nervously at me.  The stewardess looked back.  I’m thinking, 10-15 minutes is a lifetime, man!

 

The turbulence hit, and it felt like we were on a stagecoach traveling through the Rocky Mountains; objects bounced from trays (see! that’s why you put them in the upright position, you bastards!), a few people moaned and a few screamed, the lights flickered off.  This was the point where your mind either shuts down or you start to cry.

 

But I just sat there.  There was nothing I could do.  I thought that if the plane did reach its destination, I would have to say goodbye to a relationship that I had come to depend on.  It would hurt me more than I knew how to hurt, and I was scared because I didn’t know what would happen next.  Also, my father was maybe dying right at that moment.  It seemed morbidly poetic.  (A father dies on an operating table and miles away his son dies on a plane.  Coincidence?  Read the book!)  Going back to school meant facing a serious exam for which I was 100% unprepared.  A plane crash was starting to look like the best thing that could happen. 

 

I thought of the movie, Babe.  I saw, for reasons now lost, a strong parallel between Babe and myself.  And I began to sing, That’ll Do Pig, That’ll Do.

 

When you find yourself in the middle of a storm

 

BOOM! 

     “This is your captain, I’m asking everyone to have patience and stay calm –

 

And you're tired and cold and wet,

 

     “Mommy, I’m scared!”

     “Sssshhhh.”

 

A little courage goes a long long way,
Get's you a little bit further down the road each day,

 

BOOM BOOM BOOM!

 

And before you know it you'll hear someone say:

 

     “Ma’m, please, calm down.”

     “YOU calm down!”

BOOM

     “AAAAAAAAAAAH!”

 

That'll do, Pig, that'll do.

 

I was really hoping the plane wouldn’t pull through. 

 

I went on to have a horrible time visiting my girlfriend, as expected.  We didn’t break up that weekend.  Instead, we thought we’d draw it out a couple more weeks.  My father’s surgery was a smooth success.  On the trip back, my plane was delayed by four or five hours.  Which was fine, it forced me to focus on my studying.  I crammed all the way back home; again, comforted by the thought of going into a tailspin.  I got up the next morning, and hurried off to take my mid-term exam.

 

The story has a happy ending.  I got an A on the exam. 

 

Woo-hoo!

 

That ending blows, but it’s all I got.  I could try to pull out an uplifting moral, but there really isn’t one.

 

I do not like to fly.

It scares me.

 

Even on a good flight where I’m not panicked, I still have a very uncomfortable time.  It usually takes me a full day to recover from air travel.  What do you think the chances are I could get a stewardess to sit with me and hold me?  Brush my soft, full hair, and sing to me the song of her journeys.  

 

I might even be willing to pay for that.

 

Is that wrong?

 

More importantly, is it legal?

 

My wife is awesome.  She gets up at 5:40 am for work and still has energy to cook nice dinners for the squirt and me. I am very grateful that she does this as I am not a very good cook.  I can grill but not cok....it is quite sad actually.  I have been working late nearly every day since starting my new job last Monday and she has made sure that my tummy stays full.

Besides all of the food stuff, she is pretty and cool to hang out with and we usually just sit and laugh the whole night. I feel comfortable talking to her about anything and am always relaxed when I am with her.

She is a good catch and I am lucky to be with her.

It's that time again...say hello to 14, aka Colbert. We're running low on Daily Show correspondents so it must mean that the public launch is right around the corner.

Many of the changes we're making to improve Vox and its overall performance are happening behind the scenes so this release may seem a tad lighter than most. As always, we're constantly listening and growing so expect many more fun features to come.

Reader Overview

The first page of the Reader now gives you more information about what's happening in your neighborhood and a little taste of what users are reading throughout Vox. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to get to the information you care about most. This is one small step forward. We will continue to refine and improve recent activity and other ways to get content from you neighborhood.

Unlimited Invites
We've updated the style of the home page as well, but the biggest change you'll notice is that we've given everyone unlimited invites. Now's your chance to invite any friends or family you may have missed because of the previous invitation limits. If you already have all of your friends on Vox but it's been a little difficult to find them, check out the new people search widget at the very top of the home page.

[this is good] Goes Global

Tell a friend how wonderful their content is in Japanese, Spanish, French, or maybe even Traditional Chinese. Everyone loves to get a comment and it's even better to get a [this is good] in your native tongue.

Blog Footer
In the last release we added a footer to the application side of Vox and now we've added a similar navigation tool to the bottom of your blog. The blog footer is designed to follow the style of your current theme and shouldn't disrupt the overall look and feel of your blog.

14 New Themes
It's release 14 so we might as well include 14 new themes. OK, it's just a fun coincidence, but expect to see more themes in every release. We'll continue to add as many themes as we can from the Vox Banner Contest so please respond if you are contacted by a member of Team Vox for your permission. Thanks to Sofie and Paulina for their wonderful contributions to Vox!

 

 

That covers most of the visible changes made in release 14. We hope you like what you see and look forward to hearing your thoughts!

--Noam

We’re fast approaching the day when we officially launch Vox to the world. It’s coming at the end of the month (official date to be announced soon). The invitation-only beta has been a period of rapid iteration and your feedback has helped shaped Vox into its current form. We’ve been so amazingly pleased with our Vox members and how they’ve embraced the service. Not only that, we have learned so much about what Voxers want moving forward.

The invitation-only beta began with Six Apart employees and grew when their friends and family started posting back in early June. We soon gave those people invites who gave those people invites and so on. Along the way, Vox has become a vibrant community that can only get better. We want to thank all of you who have participated in the preview period (with a special shout out to our LiveJournal and TypePad members who have been with us for so long!)

What does "launch" mean? We will be taking off the invite-only system that requires an invitation from a current Vox user or an invitation from Six Apart (in the case of the Vox request invite page). Other than that, it will be business as usual for current Voxers and we’ll be still rapidly improving the product in the cycles that you’re all currently familiar with.

Of course you’ll still be able to invite people to Vox – this is the best way to get someone onto Vox and connected to you all in one step. So that won’t change at all. And all the privacy options are still intact, so the new people who come to Vox won’t suddenly see new or private content, unless you add them in your friend and/or family group.

As we spend these last days of the preview together, here's what you can do to help prepare for the launch:

• Help spread the word about Vox - now you can generate a Vox badge that can be posted on any blog or website.  
• Invite your friends and family to join, and let them reserve their username before the doors open.
• Celebrate Vox by having a meetup in your city (send Krissy a private message for more details).
• Share your launch day ideas.  Want to suggest a QotD or [this is good] link for launch day?  Have an idea of how to welcome the world to Vox?  Tell us in the comments.
  

Thanks again for everyone’s feedback! More to come real soon.

-Mena

I watch Breakfast Television most mornings, while I'm eating breakfast and getting ready for work. I don't really sit down and watch intently; it's just nice to have other human voices around while I adjust to living alone.

Anyways, they flash little news blurbs across the bottom of the screen during the show, and one of them this morning was "Bill Murray attends student party in Scotland, ends up doing dishes". I can't find any more info on this on the web, but I'm very curious.

Usually celebrity gossip instills only fear and disgust in me, but if this is true, Bill Murray is a sweet, sweet man.

Edited later to add:

Searching Vox tags for "bill murray" confirmed this for me and turned up this link. Much thanks to fele. Apparently, this was in St Andrews, the same place I was thinking of going to do a Masters in Philosophy of Science.

Also, frequenting a website called called "Nex" and having a friend named "Nox" has led to me mistyping the phrase "Vox tags" at least 3 times so far in  this one post.

I've realized that there is simply no way I'm going to be able to force myself to study for my CCNA exam unless I book a test and create a deadline for myself. So that's what I did.

November 8 at 4:30, on the SAIT Campus, I will be writing my Cisco Certified Network Associate exam, with the hopes that the next time I change jobs, this (along with a few other certs I want) will help me pull myself into a much higher tax bracket.