A brief interlude for a kvetch

Listen, have your opinions about Israel and Hamas and the "Zionist conspiracy" or whatever, but don't spam my photos on Flickr with your pro-Hamas, down-with-Israel "Nazi Zionist" crap propoganda, mmk? Thanks.

It's amazing how ugly the world is getting, isn't it? Synagogues set ablaze, warning sirens in Jerusalem, people who you maybe thought were friends spewing anti-Jewish and anti-Israel sentiments in your face. I'm not trying to be extreme, but it echoes of another time. It reminds me of a poem I wrote, and the line that history repeats, repeats, repeats. Maybe I'll post it here sometime. It's one of my slam poems, about being Jewish, about the world we live in, and how we have a tendency to recycle our emotions. They don't get worse or better, they don't get different, they just get reused.

Anyhow, here's the screenshot of the guy who decided to spam comment my photos with a bunch of "free Palestine" crap. Too bad the guy doesn't know his history.

A Flickr Slideshow and a Promise to Return.

So I'm pretty beat from the 2.5 days of traveling non-stop. My stomach hates me for all the crud I ingested, and my body in general is fighting to stay awake. I managed without a nap today after moving everything into my graduate housing dorm, as well, so I think I'm really doing quite swell. But I managed to put up a bunch of photos on Flickr, and I had planned on doing a video blog (that is, a vlog) to sort of detail some things and to show you all my new digs in Storrs, CT, I'm just out of energy for the night. So, what you will get, is this fun little Flickr slideshow, generated using the fabulous Flickr Slideshow Generator. But please come back tomorrow, when surely, I'll have a lot to say (semi-)live in a vlog!

Note: That first picture? Chavi at 1 a.m. in Ohio, exhausted and wanting to sleep but finding her brain on overdrive. Sans glasses, sans makeup, lots of sleepy thrown on and you have Full Disclosure Me. 

The World Wide Web and Chavi.

I have plenty of responding/writing to do about my Faith post, especially since I received several e-mails on the topic in addition to those in the comments field. Believe me, that will probably come Sunday night after some weekend reflection.

But for now, I wanted to post about my last night.

This whole Web 2.0 thing boggles my mind. Twitter, for example. I signed up for it eons ago, and only a couple months ago did I finally log back in and take the time to realize that it wasn't nearly as difficult as I was making it out to be. In fact, there wasn't much to it, and now I'm pleasantly addicted to it. It's sort of like when I got my BlackBerry and it took me a full two days to really feel like I was in sync with it, and not that I was too old and outside the generational gap for that kind of technology.
So last night I went to my first tech-style meetup: A Tweetup. It was at a bar in downtown Chicago on Clark Street and was instigated by some folks at the Chicago Tribune via Twitter and the Chicago Tribune site. The meetup was actually meant for folks of all e-stripes: Flickr users, bloggers, Twitter users, etc. And boy was the showing impressive. I showed up in time to get myself a fancy paper Chicago Tribune hat (which I proudly display here, of course), not to mention a prized "Spoiler Alert" sign held by a one Stephanie Izard -- Top Chef Chicago winner! It's probably as close as I'll ever get to Stephanie, so I'll take what I can get.

But Stephanie, if you're reading this (which you probably aren't), mazel tov on the win and THANK YOU for holding the "Spoiler Alert" sign. Yes, folks, I'm a huge geek.

After my time with the Twitterers and other folks, I headed up north to Belmont and Sheffield for a meetup hosted by OyChicago.com, a website for Jews "in the Loop." I ended up settling in nicely with a crowd of cool folks, including a super cool Sarah Follmer, who has written a few articles for OyChicago already. It was a pretty stellar time, organized by the awesome folks at OyChicago. I just wish I had eaten dinner so I could have stayed longer. But alas, I wasn't feeling so hot so heading out was only very natural. Did I mention that I was a featured Jew You Should Know on the OyChicago site? Yah. So I'm sort of almost but not really at all famous.

I have to say the Web world has swept me up and has me in its grips. I'm a contributor at HeatEatReview.com and JewsbyChoice.org, not to mention that I have this blog and my weight loss blog as well. Really, the e-world is my oyster and slowly but surely I'm taking it by storm. People recognize me on the street (and someone last night at the Tweetup knew me from an event I'd posted) from my "work" on Yelp.com, as well. I'm busy on Facebook and BrightKite, and my Flickr account is growing since I bought a Pro Account, and some of my photos were even used on a music blog!

It's such a big place, the web is. And I'm glad to be so interwoven into it all. Let's just hope that when I head back to school in a couple months I have the same amount of time to devote to these passions I have for social media and networking.