Refresh. Reformat. Reconfigure.

How will this blog continue to compete in the global Web 2.0 world? Seriously. It’s old school, lame, uncool, unhip and all that. While social networking sins have sucked us up in the vortex of voyeuristic behavior (including my recent addiction to Face(shit)book and my yearning to tap into Second Life), I believe those editorial Sirs at the Economist have accurately predicted that Facebook, MySpace, and all the other existing social networking tools are exactly what CompuServe, Prodigy and AOL were a decade ago. Will the fad last? I foresee it will, but in a dynamically morphed form that continues to grow in this socially crazy networking globe.

Speaking of fads, here are Andre’s top trends of the moment:

1) Fashion inspired by Japanese school girls, Corps de ballet troupes, Asian horror flicks, and Jean Birkin’s daughter.
2) Calvin Klein’s Parma shoe (everyone knows this. Good luck finding a pair)
3) Christian Louboutin’s excruciatingly difficult to get on 6-inch heel thigh-high boots (at $1,790 should they be that difficult???)
4) Spidey stockings
5) Silk shantung sheath dresses
6) Anything inspired by Isabel and Ruben Toledo (retrospective coming to FIT in 2009)
7) 1960s Pucci blue plastic hoop earrings
8) Reading a book – in paper
9) French manicures (these wretched things are back again????)
10) Discontinued perfumes from France

WS/LGBTGIF and sometimes Y

I learned ---------------- at the conference:

- that “toilet training” isn’t necessarily what it appears to be on the surface
- that pscyhotropolis doesn’t cure depression
- that breakfast isn’t free when you have the state hotel rate
- that I’m woefully behind in understanding the intersex community
- that Patty LaBelle’s, Lady Marmalade, does sound better when sung during karaoke night at a lesbian bar in Green Bay, WI by a Superior/ex-Lutheran English Prof (acrobatically doing backbends while singing), and a Serbian/Danville, IL English Prof. named “Scott.”
- that discrepancies in how WS programs are administered across the UW system are quite vast
- that Lady Garmin can really get you around
- that crashing the New Plastics session or the Blood Donors Appreciation luncheon were tempting
- that I do not subscribe to the touchy feely approach in creating policies (like the Kofi Annan little boy dead bird African 25 year old lady story)
- that you can survive a 6 hour meeting with increased amounts of water and snacks
- that I will likely never forget the karaoke night at the lesbian bar in Green Bay where a Superior/ex-Lutheran English Prof (acrobatically doing backbends while singing), and a Serbian/Danville, IL English Prof. named “Scott” performed Patty LaBelle’s, Lady Marmalade.