Hungary always has trouble portraying itself to foreigners. Tourist brochures and posters offer kitsch photos of Hungarian cowboys, algaic hot baths or Disneyesque turrets. The images rarely capture the Hungary’s incomparable blend of old and new, bravery and cowardice, east and west, hot and cold, idealism and cynicism, wine and coffee, innocence and sin, river and dirt. The place literally straddles a fault line. The top photo on this page is one of the first images I’ve seen in a long time that makes me long for Budapest. (Via Emmanuelle.)

Emmanuelle Richard has updated her blogroll. I love these categorized blogrolls and keep meaning to do more roll slicing and dicing in my own nav bar.

The fog of war.

I invested $29 in a fishing license yesterday and we went fishing at the foot of the falls at Puffers’ pond. No fish for us. But at one point, I sensed a big chocolate-colored dog at my feet and looked down and discovered a sleek fat beaver. He looked up at me, turned and waddled casually up the stream towards my son, then slipped into the water and surfed down the rapids out of sight.

The Amherst Bulletin reports:
Suspicious Activity Saturday 1:46 a.m. Police received a report of possible road rage when people on North Pleasant Street got out from their vehicle and were seen wielding a tire iron. Police said the people were just using the iron to repair a tire that had been damaged after going over a pothole.

Noise Complaints Sunday 12:41 a.m. A loud part on Phillips Street was not excessively noisy. 6:01 p.m. Yelling was heard in the area of The Boulders. It was just a man and woman whose relationshp was breaking up.

Suspicious Activity Sunday 11:18 p.m. Police spoke to a man sitting in a truck parked outside the Dunkin’ Donuts on College Street for several hours. The man checked out OK after he told police that he was just enjoying his new vehicle and lost track of time.

Suspicious Activity Wednesday 5:58 p.m. A man with long hair and a goatee knocking on the door of a Station Road home was just soliciting for the Sierra Club and was gone when police got there.

Citizen Assistance Wednesday 5:58 p.m. Teawaddle Lane residents told police that they lost their groceries somewhere between the supermarket and their home.

These make a lite reflection of the reports Ken Layne offers from Sparks.

Matt Welch, who coined the term warblog in 2001, has seen Google referals for the term jump from 27 in February to 942 in March.

Annoyed by eBay and Paypal’s increasingly restrictive policies, a group of kink vendo are trying to redirect their businesses to a new auctioneer. Network theory suggests that specialist hubs might be able to thrive and innovate when a network monopolist ignores their interests. See also this article by Christopher Null.

Former US senator and presidential candidate Gary Hart has a blog.

I’m excited to be invited to present a paper at the Vienna Blogtalk May 23-24. Thank you to Ben and Greg for critiquing my draft proposal.

Peter Merholz, my favorite info architect, has launched a multi-author blog focused on East Bay. He says “I believe that there’s a shining future in regional weblogs. They can be an amazing community resource. Particularly for communities too small to warrant a daily newspaper, but too large to be satisfied by a weekly 4-page newsletter.” Damn, I’ve got to get my Amherst blog going. (Via Corante.)