This blog in review, 2007

This year the blog tended mainly towards the "keeping in touch" side of communication, and less to the side of thinking about things. I prefer the latter, and made a concerted effort to squeeze in a few of those before the end of the year. I also worked too hard for a big chunk of the year, which lowered post volume, but after 7 years I finally relaunched with a new look and feel and a codebase that doesn't make me barf, so the foundations are laid.

January

• I interviewed for and received a US L1 visa. Thus was my move to san Francisco confirmed.
• The iPhone was announced and I got extremely excited -- and even more excited when I actually got one.
• I said an emotional goodbye to London and then I was on my way.

February

• I arrived in San Francisco and was immediately taken by the city.
• I was impressed by the triumph of capitalism that is daily life in America.
• I then promptly injured my back, necessitating a trip to the ER and thus my introduction to American healthcare, in particular its assumption that you intend to sue someone.

March

• I complained at length about Citibank's awful IT and general lack of joined-up thinking (and switched to Wells Fargo).
• I predicted that Google's YouTube acquisition would lead to a ton of lawsuits (it did) and a rise in popularity of alternative sites that still allowed piracy (which it also did) and the death of YouTube (which it didn't).
• I saw Barack Obama speak in Oakland and was extremely impressed. The Iowa caucus is in less than a week, people!

April

• We had an 18th century tea party in Dolores park, part of the culture of theatrical participation which seems to be a key part of San Francisco life.
• The Bay Area paid me back, in spades, with the Hunky Jesus competition on Easter weekend and Yuri's Night (aka "Nerding man") at NASA's Ames Space center.
• Continuing the apparently cultural theme, I even wrote a poem about SF.
• I took part in the first survey of web development as a profession (the results were interesting but not terribly surprising).

May

• I ruminated on what makes San Francisco such a unique place.
• I became dependent upon twitter.
• The zombie flash mob was great (there have been a number of them since).
• I decided that Bubble 2.0 is well and truly underway, thanks to a bunch of big-budget acquisitions like Microsoft's $6billion buy of aQuantive.

June

• The schizophrenic nature of my grocery shopping was revealed.
• The obligatory post on the justification for Gay Pride as a concept coincided with San Francisco's pride week.
• I predicted that Apple will release a(nother) camera. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm sticking to this one.
• Oh, and I finally got my iPhone. It's still the best single thing I possess.

July

• A review of all the years of my life took surprisingly longer than I thought.
• The relaunch of seldo.com was greeted across the world (by cries of "wha?" and "oh god, so much cyan!", but nevertheless).
• But mainly it was too nice outside to blog much, especially with the last Harry Potter book to read (and Dumbledore is gay!)

August

• Regular mockery of the ridiculous, homophobic, weaselly American Family Association continued.
• Questions for the Gay FAQ were solicited. I've not got around to finishing this yet...
• I resolved never to be on the same social networking site as my children

September

• A hat party marked my 26th birthday, attended by Mikey from London.
• One Laptop Per Child received my solid endorsement.
• I was insensitive about monks in Burma, unintentionally.

October

• A size comparison of Trinidad and the Bay Area was surprising, at least to me.
• I enjoyed a Go! Team gig, which is unusual in that I thought I hated gigs.
• Microsoft's $240m investment in Facebook, valuing the company at $15billion, was widely derided as ridiculous.
• My first real Halloween was pretty awesome. Definitely the best holiday in the US.

November

• The nature of the competition between Google and Yahoo! means there will never be a winner, a fact I tried to make clear.
• I needed a vacation but didn't get one until December because the relaunch of the Yahoo! Widgets site took up so much of my time. Can't let that happen again.
• A high-level language for web applications is a good idea, but Google Web Toolkit is not it.
• My grandfather passed away in his hundredth year of life.

December

• I waxed philosophical about the nature and motivations of aesthetic appreciation of art, as always from an evolutionary biologist's perspective.
• I predicted the death of television (not for the first time).
• And Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, but I didn't report it because frankly I don't know enough about the situation to comment intelligently.