Because we care

Posted by prolurkr at 10:49 PM | TrackBack

The end of a yeasty era

As a kid, when I was playing outside in the summer, I could always tell when the temperature was getting high and the humidity was going up as well.  No, I wasn't a weather maven watching dials and gages.  All I had to do was sniff the air and I knew.  I knew because the aroma of rising yeast dough and sugar glaze would be all around me wafting the 5 miles or so between my house and Sap's Bakery, home of the famous Sap's Sugar Glazed Yeast Doughnut.

Because of that overpowering smell, and the tour I took of the plant in about 6th grade, I haven't eaten many doughnuts as an adult.  I think the tour did me in when I saw men in hip-waders, like my uncle wore to clean up the milking parlor, standing in a sugar vat scrubbing it out.  Hip-waders = cow manure = sugar glazed doughnuts = enough said.  LOL

Though in truth my doughnutlessness may have happened simply because nothing made now tastes like a Sap's Glazed Yeast Doughnut.  Nothing even comes close.

Years ago the bakery was sold to what is now Interstate Brands, maker of Dolly Madison products.  Dolly Madison = saw dust= also enough said.  LOL  And in today's edition of The Republic, our local newspaper, it was announced that Dolly Madison has ended it's poor attempt to mass produce Sap Essex's stellar doughnuts.  The end of another remnant of my childhood. 

What can I say, the old-timers around here knew that Dolly Madison's version wasn't even close to the same as Sap's taste treat.  You ask how we knew?  Well no smells emerge from the Interstate Brands Bakery...none at all...unless you count the scent of diesel fuel from the 18-wheelers loading and unloading their cargo outside the plant.  The products just can't be the same if nothing smells sickingly sugary sweat and yeasty over 5-miles away.

Sap's yeast doughnut no longer produced

Related links: 

Posted by prolurkr at 09:34 AM | TrackBack

A sad sad day

Like many of you, I like to think of universities as special revered places.  Sadly today in the U.S. we get to see how special a campus can be.  I'm crying thinking about the students and the faculty that died so senselessly...and what had to have happened to the shooter to make him think this was something he should do.

The campus has now been closed and students evacuated

A US shooting rampage at the Virginia Tech university has left 33 people, including a suspected gunman, dead.

 

 

 

Posted by prolurkr at 06:18 PM | TrackBack

Have you ever had one of those days?

Well today appears to be one of them for me.  *sigh*  Multi-tasking got me into trouble, so...

Steve from Indiana Rep, I pushed the wrong button on FaceBook...email me your user info and I'll add you in.  Sorry.

Dan from BSU, now in Chicago, I can't find your email addy so if you see this email me please.

Thanks all.

Posted by prolurkr at 09:27 AM | TrackBack

Which Serenity character are you?

Your results:
You are Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command)

Posted by prolurkr at 08:44 AM | TrackBack

CFP - Journal Culture, Language and Representation

Journal Culture, Language and Representation,Volume 5 to appear in May 2008 will be devoted to:

Intermediality in Contemporary Culture

Intermediality is associated with the blurring of traditionally ascribed generic and formal boundaries through the incorporation of digital media into all forms of cultural practice, and the presence of one or more media in the space and form of another medium. This has led to the creation of intermedial spaces in-between media and a proliferation of texts, inter-texts, hyper-texts, hyper-fictions, and acts of remediation, transmediality, multimediality, hypermediality and a bewildering blur of associated realities. We live in an increasingly intermedial world where the human-computer interface places us in the position of being in-between media and the different realities they create.

Intermediality is the modern way to experience life; where reality is glimpsed through computer screens and reached through fingers tapping mobile phone touch pads. In this screen-saving world we are not sure what is 'live' and what is 'mediatized' and if we can differenciate between them anymore. Through digital technology, intermediality has become part of the global phenomenon that has the ability to link cultural communities in cyberspace. However, intermediality may also operate at the level of the individual artist as a medium using their body, voice and mind to inter-act with other media, and crucially, in the perception of the receiver/critic who interprets the intermedial scene.

Suggestions for investigation are given below but are not considered to be exclusive:

1. Theoretical reflections on ntermediality and intermedial processes.
2. Critical analysis of specific examples of intermediality in literature, cinema, television, the digital media or the performing arts of theatre, dance and music.
3.Intermedial representations of gender and identity in contemporary culture.
4. In-between the live and mediatized: how concepts of private and public space may be changing in an intermedial world.
5. Ethical and legal issues of intermedial representation in cyberspace.
6. Intermediality in theatre and performance.
7. Education and intermediality - new spaces for intermedial learning.
8. Historical perspectives on intermediality in the arts,literature, film, or any other field involving creative processes.
9. In-between thereal and the imagined realities of intermedial discourse.
10. Intermedial communitie and cultures.
11. Performativity and intermediality.
12. Intermediality / inter-disciplinarity / interculturalism.

Deadline for Submissions: 15 September 2007

Enquiries concerning this Call for Papers may be addressed to:
Freda Chapple (f.m.chapple@sheffield.ac.uk)

Any enquiries about the journal should be addressed to:
Jose R. Prado (prado@ang.uji.es)

Articles in English should be posted to:
Freda Chapple
Guest Editor
Culture, Language and Representation
University of Sheffield
School of Education, Institute for Longlife learning
196-198 West Street
Sheffield S1 4ET
UK

Articles in Spanish to be posted to:
Jose R. Prado
Campus Riu Sec
Universitat Jaume I
12071 Castellon
Spain

Posted by prolurkr at 08:30 PM | TrackBack

CFP - HICSS genre minitrack--paper due date 15 June 2006

Call for papers--HICSS Minitrack on Genres of Digital Documents

Genres are communicative actions with a socially recognized communicative purpose and/or common aspects of form (such as newsletters, FAQs, and homepages). Genres are situated in complex communicative practices; they are anchored in specific institutions and processes and can be equally applicable to physical as well as electronic documents. For successful organizational and societal implementations of digital media, understanding of the interplay and co-evolution between social and organizational purposes of communication
and affordances of new media plays a crucial role. In a digital information environment, documents have functionality as well as form and content, but in many ways the contextual clues are missing. For this reason, the genre lens provides certain fixity in communication and becomes increasingly important in providing users a resource for the interpretation of the content, role, and function of digital documents.

Genre theory has inspired analysis and design of a number of types of information systems and solutions such as e-learning, document/content management systems, electronic meeting systems, newspaper services, and mobile media services. The genre lens has even been suggested as a basis for critical debate and validation of new document and communication
solutions.

Topics of the minitrack will address the social and organizational aspects of genre and their interplay with genre forms as manifested in digital media. These include (but are not limited to):

*  Issues related to transformation of genres from a medium to another
*  The evolution of genres of digital documents
*  Understanding of change and socio-organizational enactment processes of genres, genre systems, and genre repertoires
*  Investigations of genre in use
*  Analyses of genres emerging in novel digital media, e.g. the Web, mobile communication technologies, e-mail, instant messaging, multi-media communication environments
*  Genres in non-text and multi-media digital documents
*  Role of genre in development and design of information systems, knowledge management, and information management in the organizational and societal context
*  Theoretical and methodological elaborations of genre theory for enhancing research and/or practice of utilizing digital media in the societal and organizational context
*  Use of the genre theory as a research tool
*  Genre-based design of systems and use of the genre lens in systems development processes (e.g. planning, requirements analysis, benchmarking, etc.)
*  Role of genre awareness and recognition in information and IT usage

HICSS will be held 7-10 January 2008 at the Hilton Waikoloa Village Resort, Waikoloa, Big Island, Hawaii. HICSS Proceedings are published and distributed by the IEEE Computer Society and carried on the IEEE Digital Library.

The firm deadline to submit papers is 15 June 2007. Authors will receive decisions regarding paper acceptances by 15 August 2007.  We would be happy to provide guidance and indication of appropriate content, so please feel free to contact us with an abstract at any time. Papers should be submitted on the reviewing system following the instructions on the HICSS website. For the latest information on the conference, please visit the HICSS web site at:    http://www.hicss.hawaii.edu or the mirror sites:   
http://hicss.sepa.tudelft.nl/    and   http://www.is.cityu.edu.hk/hicss/

Minitrack co-chairs:

Carina Ihlström Eriksson, Assistant Professor
School of Information Science, Computer and Electrical Engineering
Halmstad University
P.O. Box 823
S-301 18 Halmstad
Sweden
Phone: +46 35 167531
carina.ihlstrom@ide.hh.se
http://www.hh.se/staff/caih

Tero Päivärinta, Associate Professor
Department of Information Systems
Agder University College
P.O. Box 422
N-4604 Kristiansand
Norway
Phone: +47 3814 1662
tero.paivarinta@hia.no
http://home.hia.no/~terop/

Kevin Crowston, Professor
Syracuse University
School of Information Studies
348 Hinds Hall
Syracuse, NY 13244-4100 USA
Phone: +1 (315) 443-1676
Fax: +1 (866) 265-7407
Web: http://crowston.syr.edu/

Posted by prolurkr at 12:32 PM | TrackBack