My friend Melisa Thorne (former colleague at eRoom) is doing the hard work.  She’s running in the Boston Marathon.  She’s running for the Flutie Foundation for Autism.  She’s collecting donations to support their work for families with autistic children.

I know you all give to charities, and I know you all pick worthy ones.  But it can’t hurt for me to give this one a nudge.  Melisa is a great person, and she’s running for a great cause.  If you haven’t done your charity donations yet, I hope you consider sending a few dollars her way.  You can make a donation at http://www.firstgiving.com/melisathorne.

Here’s Melisa’s latest update:

So what is the Amazon-Macmillan thing, anyway?  The short version is that Macmillan said that it wants to sell its ebook-for-the-Kindle at prices up to $15, and that’s $5 more than Amazon has set the price at.  Amazon’s reaction was to pull all Macmillan ebooks, hardcovers, and softcovers from its store – no sales.  After a couple days Amazon publicly relented, but the store still isn’t back to normal.

First, I’ll give two reasons that I don’t care about.  I don’t care about is the Kindle.  I hate the Kindle’s DRM, and I’m mildly surprised that so many otherwise-astute customers are willing to go along with it.  Why on earth would you “buy” a copy of a book that Amazon can remotely remove from your possession without your consent ?  You can pry my books out of my cold, dead hands is the way I feel about that type of thing.

The second thing I don’t care about is the price increase.  One company is trying to keep prices low so that it can create a huge marketshare useful for future profits.  One company wants to have a higher profit margin on bestselling books.  I couldn’t possibly care less which one wins; they’re both trying to extract money out of me.

Here’s what I do care about: my relationship with Amazon.  I’ve been their customer since 1998.  (I even worked for them for a while in ‘98-’99, when they bought PlanetAll.com).  I use them because they’re easy and they have a decent price.  I use them for their recommendations.  I use them to let me know when my favorite authors and bands have new releases.  I use them to complete trilogies and to find the early releases of my new favorite bands.  I order from them so much that I bought Amazon Prime for $79/year, which gives me free shipping.  Think about what my order volume is, given that I would spend more than $79 in shipping!

But I love my John Scalzi.  I love my Charles Stross.  I love my Orson Scott Card, Vernor Vinge and Neal Asher.  And Amazon isn’t giving them to me!  What kind of book store would I go to that wouldn’t sell me these authors?  What kind of recommendation engine would skip these authors who have provided me with so many hours of amusement?  The answer is: not one that I want to spend a lot of time in.

I’m not going so far as to boycott Amazon.  When they have what I want at the right price, I’ll still buy it.  But they’re no longer my go-to vendor.  They’re no longer the place I go to find the new album or the new book that will keep me interested.  I don’t trust them to give me the right answer anymore.  I now know that they’re willing to throw away 1/6 of my bookshelf in order to wield pricing power on a product that I’ll never buy. Amazon broke my trust this weekend, and I’m no longer interested in what they think I’ll find interesting.

I logged in to Amazon tonight and set my Amazon Prime to non-renewal status.  They didn’t ask why.  I guess I know why not: they don’t care about what I want, anyway.

Last Minutes with ODEN from phos pictures on Vimeo.

Another train came in. Everyone unloaded.  Immediately, the loud departure warning bell started ringing. We all piled on to the new train – the bell was ringing, and it was the only train with open doors.

I was dubious. Generally, the driver has to walk from one end of the train to the other (it’s Alewife, so the trains reverse direction). If that driver hasnt taken the walk, no one is going anywhere.  I stayed alert.

The train that had been there the whole time, the empty one, started up. It rolled a few feet and stopped. The doors opened.  I jumped out of the full train and hustled over.

“Are you headed out?” I shouted to the driver, who was leaning his head out the window.

He nodded.

“They’re all on the other train,” I shouted. “The other train is full of passengers.”

He gave a sort of embarassed shrug.

I got on his train. The door closed. We rolled out of Alewife.

I had a train all to myself.

(I think it was train #1636 if any MBTA people are reading)

Evidently I was not the only one dazzled by his performance.  Bill Janovitz of Buffalo Tom whipped out a tribute song.  Download the MP3 and give it a listen.

Dylan has written all about Catfish
I may never write like Bobby, WAKE like Pedro won’t pitch
But true Red Sox fans will always know what they wish
To have nine players just like Timmy Wakefield
Nine players just like Timmy Wakefield
Give me nine players just like Timmy Wakefield

Found via Universal Hub

Found via The Red Seat on Facebook.

I thought about it.  It didn’t take long to think of the toy.  It’s a small, clear, plastic cube, a few inches on each side, with a ton of small metal balls inside.  The inside of the cube has a bunch of interlocking “steps” of clear plastic.  You flip the cube over, and the balls loudly cascade down the steps.  

I decided I could take the toy with a clear conscience.  It was cheap – I wasn’t laying claim to anything huge.  And if someone else wanted it, it was easy enough to hand off.  The toy has been sitting on my coffee table since then.

Fast forward to present day: Aunt Mary scanned some old pictures and forwarded them to the family.  Check out Aunt Ellen’s hair from Christmas of ‘72.  Spectacular, isn’t it?  It’s like an alien spaceship landed on her head for an extended visit.

 I’m the baby in the picture; I’m almost 9 months old.  Once I got over the spectacle of the beehive, my gaze drifted to the toy that so clearly has my attention back in 1972.  My jaw dropped.

There’s the cube.  I’m a few months old, and I’m playing with the cube.  Thirty-five years later, Grandma asked me to pick something, and the one thing I asked for was the cube I’d played with as a baby.

It makes me wonder about brain development and memory.  It’s just a simple plastic cube, but it’s captured my attention for decades.  Do I still like it because I have associated good memories somewhere?  Or am I hardwired to enjoy bouncing ball-bearings?

I was scanning the blogs today, and Towleroad caught my eye: “Frat Boys Offer Fred Phelps An Animal House Protest For Tolerance.”  I looked at the video, and damn if that isn’t the ADPhi front porch!  I’m so proud of these guys. Who knew, sitting there in that house in 1996, that the chapter would be making headlines against bigotry.  It reminds me why I volunteer in the first place.

You can read a bit more about the event on the school paper.