Web

Since I moved to Kenya for 6 months, I’m keeping a blog elsewhere, and writing in it more frequently along with my friends who are here with me as well. Check it out! Hello! Fine.

In a move reminiscent of Christ himself, my favorite e-zine, The Holy Observer, is back! This is Christian satire and parody at its finest. Perfectly irreverent and hilarious, they put their finger on everything that makes us cringe about Christians and their culture. A few years ago, the site went down without any explanation, so in their own tradition I wrote up a fake news article about what had happened. I never got around to posting it, but now is the perfect occasion. Looks like I may have been wrong! ...

A little while ago I linked to my Facebook applications, but that’s not the end of the story. My friend Justin and I have been keeping a blog on all things Facebook, particularly the new Platform I mentioned which has allowed third-party app development. We’ve gotten some pretty good traffic, and you should check it out: Inside Facebook

One of the reasons I’ve been forced to maintain blog silence recently is that I’ve been spending a lot of my free time working on several Facebook apps. As most people around the web now seem to have heard, Facebook has recently opened up their social networking site to allow third-party developers (like myself) to create little widgets for people to add to their profiles. I’ve so far created a suite of 4 of these mini applications, which allow Facebook users to show off what they’re reading (or listening to, or watching, or playing) and interact with friends in each of those spheres. The apps are called Books, CDs, Video Games, and DVDs, respectively. It would be great if you checked these out and added them to your profile! With close to 35,000 total users so far, it’s possible for me to run a small business based on the apps, which would be fun. I’d love your help. ...

I haven’t come out of blog hiding in a very long time, it seems. I have many, many things to share. And many things that are just past sharing. But this deserves special notice: Today, we at HopeRuns (the non-profit the friends of mine started in Kenya while I was there) released a brand new website, which I designed! I think it turned out pretty well, but take a look yourself, and check things out: ...

A few weeks ago, Claire and Lara (and therefore me by some kind of implication, I hope) started a weblog with the kids here at Tumaini (the orphanage where I’m “volunteering” in Kenya). I haven’t personally had time to give a decent entry on Kenya or Tumaini itself, which is an amazing place, and full of amazing kids. So I’m happy to be able to point you to their weblog, to get some idea of the craziness that goes on here! ...

Unfortunately, this is not a real entry. It is just a small note to say that I have finally joined the Twitter bandwagon. There is only one way to join a bandwagon, and that is with gusto! So while I have not had time to write a good report on Kenya yet, I have been doing some small Twitter updates. You can see my updates and sign up to follow them at http://twitter.com/jlipps! ...

Happy Christmas Eve! At this time of year, the blog is usually full of ruminations on the birth of Christ (like this entry) or self-pity wallowings (like this rather plaintive entry or this poem from last year). But right now I have neither the time nor energy to be deeply profound nor (believe it or not) deeply self-centered. So I thought I’d share, as rather paltry gifts, a few links to things I’ve loved recently; you may find them interesting! ...

My recent weeks in Orlando were excellent, though not very relaxing. Between intense meetings at Teleios World Domination HQ (we’re meeting resistance in certain parts of eastern Europe), and non-stop work on the new album, I got 2-3 hours less sleep per night than my normal. (There was also the fantastic celebration of my dad’s 50th birthday party, attended by close family and the uncorking of a very expensive bottle of wine which was a good bit older than I was. Not to mention the less-meaningful but more-rowdy celebration of Cinco de Mayo). The result, at least on the music side, was a brand new 6-song EP that sounds incredible. The performance, production, everything is stellar. My brother David was in charge of the engineering, mixing, production, and mastering, and he is becoming very talented at all of the above. ...

You should all be relieved to hear that Dan and I did not die on Mt Whitney. Though the summit attempt was a good deal more difficult than it was supposed to be, due to weather. In fact, on our way up the last 1,000 ft or so, our group kicked off a couple small avalanches, causing the team leader to declare emphatically that conditions were very unsafe. Things were so bad, we descended immediately, packed up camp (at 12,000 ft) as quickly as possible, and rushed all the way down the mountain. So unfortunately, we did not summit Mt Whitney. I did get this great picture of it during a short lull in the rogue winter storm that hit us: ...