I love the 1″ button. Really, for the tiny amount of space it takes up it’s such a cheap and efficient communicator. It struck home when I was at the post office and I noticed someone with the Matt B button pictured here, and had a little chat about his cartoons and such. It seemed to me a nice thing to wear your heart on your sleeve, or lapel, and allow for these social interactions to happen.

For years I’ve dressed in a non-descript fashion, to a certain extent due to my dislike of marketing. But I’ve let myself be backed into a corner–while I might not be shilling for a brand with my t-shirt, I’m also closing myself off from like-minded people I randomly encounter.

So I started wearing some buttons that people had given me or I’d bought but never worn. I also got a bunch of No Media Kings buttons made, as you may have been able to guess by the site redesign. If you’d like to get one, just let me know your addy–if you’d be OK with me filling the rest of the envelope with promo postcards for you to pass around your area, I’m happy to pop for postage. (UPDATE: Sorry, all out of buttons… sign up for the mailing list if you’d like to hear when I’ve got s’more…)

Read on to see some of the buttons that have been recently lounging on my lapel.
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Contrary to public opinion, the nomediakings.org server is not in a climate-controlled location hidden somewhere in the Colorado Mountains. The machine is actually a couple feet away from me as I type this in my bedroom. (Click the pic to see it in context.)

I’ve been running my own server for the last year and a half. Since then, I’ve slowly been taking on other people on a word-of-mouth basis to the point where I’m hosting a dozen or so websites beyond my own. It’s a pretty big responsibility, and I didn’t want to take on more than I could handle.

But so far people have seemed to appreciate the reasonable prices and responsive service, and it hasn’t eaten into my time too much, so I’m throwing it open to the world at large.

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Audra Williams from Halifax didn’t quite steal our logo, but she did use the No Media Kings name when she published her spirited and lovely chapbook, Fiction Has Rules.

Then she sent me this metal printing slug, which sits in its inverted glory on my desk.

Hooray for neat mail!

Last year, a number of people received a mysterious (perhaps even mystifying) email from Susan and I inviting them to take part in Gang-Off 2002. People had to choose from a list of gangs taken from the book version of the ’70s gangsploitation flick The Warriors, and then given instructions on how to survive this test of brutality and cunning.

The Friday evening before Hallowe’en, around 20 people rendezvoused with their unknown gang members, and played out our sick little game on the streets of the city.
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