My Site is the One on the Right

I finally redesigned one of my sites that was put up in 1996. It used to move product, but now it drives traffic due to high search relevancy. It didn’t help that someone stole my code and cloned my site (!) Go ahead, compare my page to theirs. Now, check the redesign. Nice. Special shout-out to Bare Bones for allowing the replacement of code blocks through whole folders of files using their BBEdit tool. I had to move to a new server because my old one got bought (again) by some crap company. Big hassle, but a good thing. Check out my new product launch. Saphira is on the East Coast, so I gaked a mobile phone blog for her. She also has this one.

This is some pretty serious business...

My life has been pretty serious as of late. The whole parenthood and head of household thing has taken on a new flavor as I come into my own. Still, the person I was is who I am and some stuff remains a family value to be passed to my kids. A big one is the D.I.Y. (do it yourself) ethic and aesthetic. It’s sooo punk! Thus, we packed it uptown to see The Runaways, the year’s best movie by far. (Avatar? Feh!) There was some big league teenstar power pulling us in. Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie was more than perfect. Same with Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett. Jailbait! Stella Maeve (Emma Boardman on Gossip Girl!) was cute as Sandy West, but the show-stealer was Michael Shannon (Cecil B. DeMented!) as Kim Fowley. That’s who I want to be when I grow up! Therein lies the contradiction…

Things don't get much better than this...

I had the intense pleasure of attending a Bris Milah at my shul this morning and found it to be a very moving experience. For those who can’t feel the significance of the mitzvah, it could appear to be quite barbaric and cruel. But for us “insiders,” it is the sort of thing that brings tears of joy. While circumcision is common in hospital births these days and nary raises an eyebrow, making a big deal of it as Jews do takes a bit of understanding. We have learned in the last few parshaot about the Covenant of Avraham and what it means to us today. It is a crucial element of our cultural identity and something we celebrate with feasting, singing and words of Torah. I personally had a bris at age 34 (ouch!), which is a long story that I’d be more than happy to tell you, so I can attest to its importance.