Liloia.com

The Short-Lived Adventures of Salt Girl

So I hear that it's Poem On Your Blog Day (via A Burst of Light). Here's my poem. (My as in mine, I wrote it. So don't take it and post it as your own. Write your own damn poem.)

There was a small girl
Who was made out of salt
Her parents were blameless
It wasn't their fault.

The nurse was dismissed
She incurred Mother's wrath
Nurse forgot salt girl's problem
And ran her a bath.

Her parents insisted
On swimming and tennis
The first a disaster
The second a menace

When Father went hunting
The girl came in handy
The elk and the deer
Licked her body like candy

But the end of the rope
Came when salt girl was five
Her brother convinced her
To melt snow on the drive

She moved out of London
Because of the rain
Three salty toes cracked
On the vibrating train

She arrived at the seaside
Smelled salt on the breeze
She was drawn to the ocean
Where she felt she should be.

The last we saw salt girl
She was halfway dissolved
Her parents stood smiling
Their problems were solved.

Iron Chef America

I love Alton Brown as the host, but it really isn't the same without sideline reporter Ota calling out Fukui-san!

Welcome PK!

Paula (shown below) recently nabbed herself a new Treo 600 (I hate her) and now has a camera phone. In an effort to fully test out her camera phone and sharing capabilities I had her add the address that I use to post to my moblog yesterday. I also wanted to compare the quality of her camera compared to mine (because I want one!) and the picture quality was pretty good.

After I left her, I looked at my site and saw some pictures there that weren't posted by me! Paula was posting to the site from her phone still! While I didn't care, I felt a little invaded but then I thought about it more. I have always wanted to run a group blog and this is a little bit closer to that goal. So, as of this post I am inviting Paula to stay on as a contributor to my moblog! Hopefully she doesn't post only pictures of dust bunnies and paper clips.

Savin Hill

As I waited for the Red Line last night trying to head back to South Station I saw the following sign.

Generally I head over to Deirdre's house in Dorchester once a week so we can watch The Soprano's together. She lives about two blocks from the Savin Hill station, and if I can't take that train it may kill our weekly visit. She offered to take me to the next stop (I think it is UMASS or something) but I feel bad asking her to do that. She already tolerates my presence and feeds me. :(

Yep. Better planning this year.

Where are Leia and Amidala?

I'm enrolled in several online survey programs because I have far more opinions than I know what to do with. Tonight's survey was about an upcoming line of children's toys based on the Star Wars movies. I dutifully recorded my opinions on the various iterations of action figures, gleefully checking boxes and rating my interest. It wasn't until later that I realized out of the entire set of 15 figurines, not a single one was female. Arguably, the Star Wars universe has only really spawned two female main characters, but all the more reason for those two to be represented.

Why would you make Jango Fett available before you made a Princess Leia toy? (Especially if you can work in that golden bikini.)

Just like Heinz

57 was the number I was sporting tonight.

I started to feel low while chatting on IM with Paula and decided to Test. I had eaten only an hour ago but realized that my meal was almost completely carb free. I had munched on two feta burgers, steamed carrots and brocoli. Yum.

Back when my sugar was completely out of control I would begin to feel low when I hit 150 or lower, which is still slightly above what I would like my upper limit to be. With blood sugars normally in the 300 range I would rarely see lows at all. Part of my rationale for maintaining the lack of control was that I felt worse when I was low than when I was high. More on that some other time.

Now I am happily eating some strawberries that Tara nabbed at Stop N' Shop this week and feeling quite a bit better. Now that I am in better control the lows aren't so bad and I can definitely feel the highs. :)

TV Turnoff Week

Starting tomorrow evening at 3PM until Friday night at midnight, the Liloia household will be keeping their TV off every day from 3PM to Midnight for the entire week.

It was supposed to be last week to coincide with National TV Turnoff Week but Trevor's school was on Spring vacation so I guess they thought that it might be hard to do it then. I will be doing my part to help Trevor avoid television for the week, but I can tell you that I won't be writing it off completely. Thankfully, as much as we would like him to be, Trevor is not a frequent reader of our blog and by the time he is old enough to know that Dad didn't skip TV all week long I think I will be in the clear!

Film Philosophy

Today I went to go see two more movies. I was trying to get out of the house and give Tara some sanity time, so I took Trevor to see:

Cliffords Really Big Movie

and then we snuck into

Home on the Range

It seems to me that there is a formula for any movie that contains non-humans as the main characters. I was thinking about it a lot today and I have assembled the following schema.

1. Animal family lives stable life.
2. New rambunctious character enters situation.
3. Tragedy causes action to be taken.
4. Multiple characters leave "home" in order to resolve situation.
5. Characters enjoy incredibly dangerous yet exciting quest.
6. An argument causes characters to separate.
7. Characters individually contemplate situation during montage.
8. (Optional) Negative event occurs to one character thus causing the others to "appreciate" them.
9. The situation is resolved.

Trust me, check it out. It happens in a bunch of movies. Like Finding Nemo, Brother Bear, 101 Dalmations, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, and the list goes on.

If you want to become a writer in this business follow the "Dave Liloia - Formula for Childrens Movie Success" and you'll be a winner!

By the way both movies were cute but lame.

Escalator?

The word escalate means to increase, enlarge, or intensify

So here's my question:

Is an escalator still an escalator when you are going down? It really should be called something else right? Like perhaps a diminisher, de-escalator, decreaser, declinor, descender. It would make sense.

Ella Enchanted

This weekend I went to go see Ella Enchanted. Normally, I would not step foot into a theater where something like this was taking place. My 5 year old, who normally riots at the idea of going to the movies (I don't know why) asked in advance to see the movie and was really excited about it.

As expected, the special effects were horrible. I think that they must have shot the entire movie in front of a green screen for the number of times the characters looked like they were out of synch with the scene around them

The acting wasn't any better with horrible performaces by Minnie Driver and...oh wait no one else famous decided to work on this crappy movie.

My wife (Tara) seemed to like the musical routines, but what can you expect, she is a chick.

All in all the movie was awful and I wish I could get that 90 minutes of my lfe back. Even the 5 year old said "That wasn't a very good movie"

Goodbye Ms. V

Last week we made the difficult decision to give away Vorahk. She was with us for almost 8 months but it was time for her to go. The squeaking wheel all night, the "don't touch me" personality, the flinging hamster poop all over the room was more than we were interested in.

In the end, it was more that Trevor didn't like her anymore and that Tara spent the most time cleaning her. I tried to help out as often as possible, but let's face it I wasn't doing my share. She is in a nice home right now (I think Dedham) of a guy who is really into hamsters. He already had a few others and seemed to have a lot of great tips on how to care for them. It was a little sad when she went, but I have a funny feeling that some new friend is on the horizon...

Welcome Feedster Readers!

Dave and I are honored to be listed as Feedster Feed of the Day!

You may be wondering what kind of site you've stumbed upon. Well, we do lots of things here at Liloia.com.

We talk about television:
Turnaround at The Restaurant
More Average Joe
Night of 1000 Gaffes
Firefly

Howard Dean:
Just Showing Up
A Day at Dean HQ

Books:
Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
The Tipping Point
Flatland
Gaiman's Gods.

Films:
Plank, the new Hulk?
You stole MY summer, Pete Jones.
Memento Mori - Skip it
Charlie's League of Extraordinary Terminator Pirates

And things that happen to us:
Furby on the back porch.
Lobster Mania!
Titanic sinks...again?
Commuter Rail Conundrum

Thanks for visiting!

All dressed up..

..and no place to go.

I finally got my act together and applied for a passport a few weeks ago. Thus far in my life I have gone to Canada only one and Puerto Rico in college. Oh, what a worldy man I am! The picture is horrible but as long as the document works I don't care.

The electric bill of the blogosphere.

Michael Demmons has called it quits. There's something that niggles at me about this particular leaving letter (of which there are many examples in the blogging world).

It's this part:
"As much as I love doing it, blogging takes up far too much of my time. So, I'm hanging it up."

I'd just like to make a little change and see how it reads:
"As much as I love doing it, making phone calls takes up far too much of my time. So, I'm hanging it up."

Besides the fabulous pun at the end, it doesn't make any sense! How do you shut off one entire channel of communication, one entire way of disseminating information? How do you stop having something to say?

It's a funny thing about blogging, some people view it as an all-or-nothing game. You either post dozens of items a day, or you quit. But it doesn't have to be that way. Not everyone is Dave Winer; posting blogging buckshot at the speed of sound. There's a special place in my heart for essayists. And let's not forget the photobloggers, for whom each post is precisely a thousand words.

Blogging is not a job, you don't quit it. Just like you don't quit the telephone company or the US Postal System. If you find yourself on the phone excessively, you make fewer calls. If you find yourself writing too many letters to pen pals, you lengthen the time between replies. But you don't stop answering the ring or checking the mailbox. You still have to call when you'll be late for dinner and you still have to mail in the electric bill.

Those people shouting lengthy monologues about right-wing conspiracies and the price of gouda on busy streetcorners to no one in particular... are those bloggers who shut down their sites and found they no longer had a public voice?

Floats

Stop what you're doing and play this game. It's relaxing and entertaining. (via Fark)

Solving the world's problems, two by two.

Thirty million aging baby boomers + Middle East = Instant Army!

You wanted to retire somewhere warm, didn't you?

Squeeze the trigger, don't pull, Grammie. Squeeze.

Teeny Little Superguy

"You're a super guy," I told Trevor as she showed me that he had dressed himself. And that's when the song popped into my head. You know that once that song gets stuck in your subconscious, it's not leaving without a fight.

So I had to Google the song lyrics and sing them until the song was banished from my brain. I was surprised to learn that Trevor had never heard of the Teeny Little Superguy, the smart dude on the side of a plastic cup. Wasn't that on Sesame Street or Electric Company?

"You can't tell a hero by his size!
I'm just a Teeny Little Superguy!"

Harder than a Hyperlink

On the very first day I used the World Wide Web, my biggest fear was that I would click a link and accidentally buy something. I scoff at my naivete back then. We all know that buying online is a 54-step process that includes your mother's maiden name, a random number on the back of your credit card, and one-third of your DNA sequence typed in order of the amino acids.

Today, I clicked a link and came within a hair's breadth of accidentally buying something. Thanks to MSN Passport, I was logged into a site when I clicked to learn more about a Microsoft product. Instead of a page of information, I found myself nine-tenths of the way through a shopping cart order. My shipping address and credit card were already filled in. I had only to confirm the order and I would have had $120.00 worth of something I didn't want.

Shopping should feel different than clicking a link. It should be easier than a three-ring circus, but harder than a hyperlink.

More Shelton

I can't wait to go home tomorrow. I spent the entire day today talking to the customer care reps and training them on what we are calling "Alternative Pack Sizes". I was pleasantly surprised how well prepared they were and that they are already doing almost 100% of the process we have proposed.

Tonight we hit a bar in Shelton called Porky's Cafe with a large group of the reps from work for some beers. Porky's is known for having really good hot wings, and I have had them before so I didn't pass them up. The flavor has a strong taste of Franks Red Hot sauce and is clearly not a homemade recipie.

12MB Down Memory Lane

Tonight, while cleaning useless files off my hard drive, I found several folders that I rarely touch. Inside one labeled KnowPost was the old KnowPost logo as well as the official KP bonsai tree. I placed the bonsai icon inside of each help popup with a little FAQ-related haiku which I composed to match the help question.

Not sure what to do?
Just let us know what you need.
We'd love to help you.

Then I poppped into a folder labeled GNE and found all sorts of fun little icons. I don't know why I saved these, but they bring back fond memories of playing The Game Neverending. Moving from hub to hub, hoping to find a stack of Desires or a side of beef. Concocting challenges for other late-night players, performance art in Nation Sack, trivia for purple paper — the GNE community was creative and active. I can't wait to play again.

But the strangest thing I found was a photo that arrived in my inbox years ago and I tucked into a folder for safe keeping. Why on earth did I keep a newspaper clipping (with photo) of Jimmy Fallon's First Communion?

Hanging Out

This week I had to head down to Shelton to give more training to Customer Care. So far everything is going well and it seems that I have firmed up my next trip down here in the first week of May to finalize the project I am currently working on.

Tonight I got to hang out and have a great dinner with some friends that moved down here. Dean and his wife Maureen moved down one year ago (last week) to join the group in Shelton. They are fun people to hang out with, and we got to do a little BBQ'ing tonight. This nice weather is spoiling me, I am afraid it will turn at any moment.

Now I am back in my hotel room just watching some Law and Oder SVU while I pound away on the keys. The room not only has free internet access but wireless access in the room too. Totally Sweet. And me with my Netgear USB Wireless Adapter. Now if only a certain young lady would come onto IM and chat with me...

Oops. My bad.

Apologies to anyone that I trackback spammed this weekend. I didn't realize I had auto-detect on. Every time I updated the page it was pinging down the list again. That's what I get for not paying attention while the page updated.

I played chicken with Netflix...

.... and Netflix won.

I like the service, but I was annoyed by the recent price increase. I read via Kuro5hin that Netflix has been trying to woo back customers who leave due to rising rates with an even lower price tier. I took a chance that they might make the offer. I was wrong.

I suspect that we fall under the high-frequency renter category and that's why we weren't offered the lower rate that our friends like Adam have received. We're the kind of customer that uses the service often, praises it to friends and returns films promptly. We're also the kind of customer for which Netflix delays shipments and raises rates. If your profitability depends on intentionally offering poor service to your most loyal customers, it's time to rethink the business model.

In any case, the drawback of playing this particular hand of poker with Netflix is that if you aren't asked to stay, your self-esteem plummets and you must sheepishly crawl back to the site and reactivate your account. No idea yet if they saved our queue of almost 200 titles and our collection of 500+ film ratings.

Blunt Trauma Tickles My Funny Bone

It occurs to me that there is often just half an inch of clearance between a clip that makes it on America's Funniest Videos and one that ends up on America's Deadliest Stunts.

Carb Control

Over the last three weeks, I have been working hard to control my blood sugar and stay healthy. While I am pleasantly surpised at how well it is going so far, there is one issue that is irking me.

I had though that reducing the number or amount of carbohydrates that I consumed would be enough (for example if I stopped eating chocolate every day!) but it seems like any carbs that I eat have a HUGE effect on my blood sugar.

I am trying to eat almost none, but this is proving to be difficult since almost everything has carbs in it somewhere.

Furby on the back porch.

Trevor came into the house, eyes wide.

"Dad, there's a little furry animal on the back steps!"

Sure enough, peering down off the back porch, there was a little bit of furball visible on the fourth step down. I leaned way over to get a better look and a brown eye blinked at me. I swear, this thing looked like a tribble or real life Furby. It was a small baby owl, looking drowsy and bored on this fine, sunny day.

It blends very well with the color and pattern on the back steps, I suspect he found it a good spot for a little camoflage. A few minutes later, he had flown away.

BloggerCon Session Photos

Andrew Grumet's Infrastructure Session
Andrew Grumet is up front speaking, Josh Ain is directly in front of me and Jay McCarthy is leaning over next to him. Shimon Rura is in the distance to the left of Jay.

Jeff Jarvis' Blogging as a Business Session I
Jeff Jarvis in front speaking, Sun in the red shirt to his left, and Deanna Briggs to the left of Sun.

Jeff Jarvis' Blogging as a Business Session II
Atul Acharya in front of me (caught him in a sideways glance), Jason McCabe Calacanis sitting in front (striped shirt), and Zephyr Teachout on the floor in front, looking up at the wiki projection.

Lisa Williams' Visions from Users Session
Lisa Williams standing in front, Shimon Rura to her right. Jessica Baumgart with braided hair in front of me, and Sun in the red shirt to her right. Across the way are Wendy Koslow and Joey DeVilla, Dave Winer is two seats up behind Wendy.

Steve Kirks In Visions From Users
Steve Kirks in the green shirt during Lisa Williams' session.

Blogging BloggerCon

I'll try not to use the word "blog" too frequently, but we all know it's going to be every other word.

Here's the deal:
INSOMNIA + CONFERENCE = AN INDEX OF POSTS ABOUT BLOGGERCON

I went browsing for conference coverage this evening, but Technorati's Link Cosmos wasn't doing a good job collecting all of the posts because everyone is pointing to different URLs. The nifty BloggerCon Feedster link channels all posts from registered attendees, but doesn't limit itself to BloggerCon posts. What I have listed below are conference-related, categorized by author, and alphabetized by last name. There are even a couple of BC-related posts from non-attendees thrown in, just for kicks.

If you:
a) are not on this list and have coverage you would like included, or
b) are on this list and would like to be removed,
email me and I will do your bidding.

Jessica Baumgart
Synthesizing BloggerCon
Postscript to the Librarianesque Session
BloggerCon Notes
New York Times Coverage of BloggerCon
Librarianesque Session Notes
Librarianesque Session Notes Are on the Way
BloggerCon Problem #1: Laptop Doesn't Have Wireless
Librarianesque Session at BloggerCon Info
BloggerCon Dinner was Great!

Tom Biro
BloggerCon Session: "Presidential Blogging"
Mmmm... Money From Blogs...

Jeremy Blachman
Blogger Con
Oh Well, At Least I Tried
Usually the lack of posts all day means that I've had nothing to say...

Stowe Boyd
My Trip To BloggerCon II

Dan Bricklin
NY Times article on BloggerCon II
Pictures from BloggerCon II

Scott Brodeur
Photo op
The Blog Biz
BloggerCon II
Shirky's Power Law
Presidential Bloggers
BloggerCon

Jeremy Brown
International blogging at Bloggercon II
Blog-free BloggerCon

Rick Bruner
BloggerCon Wrap-up
Live From BloggerCon

Dudley Carr
Blogger Con II - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
BloggerCon II -- The Return of Dave

Robert Cox
Three Cheers for Dave Winer and the gang at Berkman...
BloggerCon Session: What is Journalism: Jay Rosen ...

John Daley
Blo$$ing:
Power law II
Power laws:
Blogging for Business:
Bloggercon - Visions for Users
Harvard or bust:

Ray Daly
BloggerCon2: Reflections
BloggerCon2: Blogging a a Business
BloggerCon2: Shirky's Power Law
BloggerCon2: Blogging in Business
BloggerCon2: Vision from Users
BloggerCon2: What is Journalism?

Hossein Derakhshan
Watch it while you are missing it
Notes from a distance - Presidential bloggers
Brainstorming at Bloggercon - International blogging
Bloggercon notes - Blogging as Business

Joey DeVilla
BloggerCon Notes 3: Blogging in Business, David Weinberger
BloggerCon Notes 2: Visions from Users, Lisa Williams
BloggerCon Notes 1: National Anthem Session, Dave Winer
Hello from BloggerCon 2!
Opening session @ BloggerCon
Lisa Williams at her "Visions from Users" discussion at BloggerCon
Philip Greenspun @ BloggerCon
John Perry Barlow @ BloggerCon

Betsy Devine
Betsy's last BloggerCon five: Lessons of BloggerCon
Betsy's top Bloggercon ten: International
Picturing Bloggercon II
Betsy's Bloggercon top ten: Presidential bloggers
Betsy's top Bloggercon ten: Journalism

Joshua Farber
After the Con
Oh, For Blog's Sake
And I Was There

Michael Feldman
BloggerCon Goes Global

Michael Femia
More Tales From BloggerCon
BloggerCon Kickoff

Seth Finkelstein
BloggerCon II obligatory post
Revenge Of The A-List(er/ers)
A-List Example

Debra Galant
Shuffle your mind
Bloggercon, from the Slithering Reptile perspective

Steve Garfield
John Perry Barlow's Desktop: The Barlowettes
Links from BloggerCon
BloggenCon Kickoff Dinner

Kathleen Gilroy
Bloggercon II

Andrew Grumet
Thanks, Dave, for BloggerCon II
BloggerCon photos from Amy Langfield's Treo 600.
Lisa's session
BloggerCon is kicking off.

Rex Hammock
Making Blogs Make Money Session
Blogging in Academia Session
Blogging in Business Session
Visions from Users Session

Mary Hodder
Bloggercon Notes
The Practice and/or The Tool: Journalism and Blogging

Jack Hodgson
BloggerCon Final Words
My BloggerCon II blogroll
BloggerCon -- Session: "Blogging as a Business" Notes
BloggerCon -- Session: "Personal TV networks" Notes
Bloggercon -- Lunch
BloggerCon -- Session: "Infrastructure" Notes
BloggerCon -- Session: "What is Journalism" Notes
BloggerCon II Wrap Up
BloggerConII

Mark James
Missed it

Jeff Jarvis
The Citizens' Media Association: a proposal
Not to be an ass but...
Later
The Blogs as Business wiki
International
Pres
What is journalism?
At Bloggercon

Susan Kaup
Photos from BloggerCon dinner party at Durgin Park
Photos from BloggerCon II

Steve Kirks
Acton Jackson
Lisa Williams caught me flat-footed...
Ideas from BloggerCon II:
Been through two sessions now at BloggerCon II...

Daniel Kreiss
now i am sure that Julie Flaherty was writing about BloggerCon II from a business perspective...
a couple of the really interesting folks i met at BloggerCon II
So, a couple of the folks who have been facilitating
Along the same lines of the themes I have been developing...
After coming out of a session blogging and academia, facilitated by Michael Watkins
i am finally here at BloggerCon II in Cambridge after a day of cross-country flight...

Dean Landsman
FINAL REPORT: BloggerCon II
The Berkman Cener for Internet and Society at Harvard Law, since granting a Fellowship to Dave Winer...
Kudos to Dave Winer
BloggerCon II, Here I Come!

Amy Langfield
Notes on Blogging for Dollars
Business Blogging Models
Back from BloggerCon
frank at bloggercon
over
hi from bloggercon
SRO with Jeff Jarvis
like magic
david weinbergers magnetic personality
my view of henry's head at bloggercon
BloggerCon II

Julie Leung
What we've got in common
No longer disembodied
BloggerCon pictures: Sunday
Souvenirs: what I brought home from BloggerCon
My BloggerCon claim to fame
BloggerCon pictures: Saturday
"...if they said what they really felt...": John Perry Barlow
"Only... when Americans think it is important...": Blogging the World
"Human face on a very inhuman process": Presidential bloggers
"Breadcrumbs" & "babies": Visions from users
Safe, sound and sleepy

Tara Liloia
BloggerCon Session Photos
BloggerCon: Blogging as Business & Wrapup
BloggerCon: Shirky's Power Law
BloggerCon: Durgin Park Dinner
BloggerCon: Welcome & Visions from Users

Chris Lott
BloggerCon: Blogging as a Business
BloggerCon: Power Law and Academia

Tristan Louis
Thoughts before BloggerCon 2 - Blogs and Journalism
Back from BloggerCon 2

Jevon MacDonald
Bloggercon 2.0 - Done

Rebecca MacKinnon
Jeff Jarvis: making money with blogs
My session: now on the blackboard
Dan Gillmor's sesison on presidential blogs
Jay Rosen's B-con session

Jay McCarthy
What is Journalism?
On journalists being better...
Terry Heaton asks...
Mary Hodder points out...

Jim Moore
BloggerCon II review
Personal Television Networks

Shannon Okey
Hello from Bloggercon II...

Ryan Overbey
Religion Blogging Session at BloggerCon 2

John Palfrey
Post-BloggerCon II
Happy BloggerCon II!

Frank Paynter
Lunch with Dean and Jim
Connections
Mad Dog Suitt
missing meeja blues...
Connections
Art for the sake of Accordion Music
You see the nicest people...

Daisy Pignetti
Before discussing the sessions...
Blogger Con -- Finally A Conference that Surpassed My Expectations!

Christina Pikas
BloggerConII: Librarianesque Session with Jessica Baumgart
Notes and thoughts from BloggerConII: Journalism with Jay Rosen
Notes and thoughts from BloggerConII: Opening Ceremonies

Ralph Poole
Channel 9: The two Microsoft guys who came to Bloggercon
After Bloggercon, I am wondering what an Iron Blogger competition would look like.
I met the very famous video blogger Steve Garfield at a Bloggercon dinner tonight
"Hyper-Commenting" at Bloggercon
The lyrics of three candidate songs that did not open Bloggercon this morning

Lenn Pryor
Learnings from BloggerCon II
Presidental Blogging Session - Dan Gillmor
Presidental Blogging Session - Dan Gillmor
Moblogging BloggerCon
Live from BloggerCon

Will Richardson
A New Literacy?
What is Journalism?

Jim Roberts
And The Band Played On
BloggerCon II Fini
BloggerCon II Continued
Visions From Users
BloggerCon II Day All
BloggerCon II Dinner

Jay Rosen
Brain Food for BloggerCon: Journalism and Weblogging in Their Corrected Fullness

Shimon Rura
BloggerCon!

Robert Scoble
Channel9 gets credit at BloggerCon

Steve Silver
BloggerCon Roundup

Bryan Strawser
BloggerCon Photos
Jeff Jarvis: Blogging as a Business
The Fat Man Sings
The Emotional Life of Weblogs, Part IV
The Emotional Life of Weblogs, Part III
The Emotional Life of Weblogs, Part II
BloggerCon Photos from Sooz
John Perry Barlow: "The Emotional Life of Weblogs"
Personal TV Networks, Part 2
Personal TV Networks, Part I
Presidential Bloggers, Part III
BloggerCon Posts at Feedster
More on Presidential Bloggers
Dan Gillmor: Presidential Bloggers
Presidential Bloggers Outline
Presidential Bloggers
Lisa Williams: Visions from Users
BloggerCon Kickoff

Halley Suitt
BloggerCon: Jim Moore
BloggerCon: Jay Rosen
BloggerCon: Frank Paynter
BloggerCon: Renee Blodgett
BloggerCon: Treo Nation
BloggerCon: Dan Gillmor
BloggerCon: Britt Blaser
BloggerCon Betsy Devine
BloggerCon: Werner Vogels
BloggerCon: Mary Hodder
BloggerCon: Jeff Jarvis

Werner Vogels
BloggerCon II Photos
No Shows
Images from Bloggercon II
Bostonian

Stephen Waters
BloggerCon II Journalism Session
BloggerCon II Presidential Bloggers Session
BloggerCon II Blogging in Academia

Steven Weiss
On blogging and religion
Blog your rabbi, an idea from BloggerCon
Esotericism and blogging, a response to Jay Rosen

Lisa Williams
Corrections Dep't.
Creating a Continuing Bloggercon Community
Blogging Tip Session
Can you say what you want on your blog?
How long will it take for blogging to become common among businesses? Let's do the math.
Blogging in Business

Dave Winer
Wired News report on BloggerCon.
I found out yesterday at John Perry Barlow's...
Thanks to all the discussion leaders at BloggerCon II. The sessions were lively, interesting, kept me...
I'm in Jay Rosen's session on What is Journalism? Rebecca is blogging the session.

BloggerCon: Blogging as Business & Wrapup

Jeff Jarvis powerhoused through this topic. No doubts that we explored the topics of making money via blogs to its fullest extent. The conversation started out with methods by which bloggers can leverage their content to make money. Some of the methods were:

- Sell ads yourself
- Join an ad network
- Sell items via a service like CafePress
- Request donations
- Charge for gated content
- Advertorial posts
- Sell books you've written
- Blog for a trade association

There are more than I can list here, you can view the full list of ideas at the wiki created for this session. There were some really fun ideas thrown out, like Iron Bloggers, action figures, and gathering bloggers as a special interest group to demand things. Most are far-fetched, but who knows what that kind of thinking can lead to.

For me, the most valuable thing I got from the session was a focused idea of the role blogging should play at my company. I used to think our blogs attempts were fitting a square peg into a round hole. But I think with a change of focus, we have have an incredibly dynamic resource on our sites.

Wrapup

Last year's BloggerCon, I was a newbie to this community (but not to blogging). This year, I got to meet many people who I've read about, corresponded with, and commented to. It always surprises me how warm and welcoming the members of the blogging community are. I met some fantastic new people, spoke with many bloggers with incredible ideas and managed to pluck a few insights and ideas of my own.

The next BloggerCon will not be on the East Coast, but be sure that I will make every attempt to be there.

BloggerCon: Shirky's Power Law

This session didn't become what I thought it would be — and that's a good thing. With as much rage as a discussion of the blogging A-list can ignite, the discussion was surprisingly productive and civilized. Some of that is probably due to Philip Greenspun's upbeat tone and excellent discussion-handling.

He kicked off with a great discussion of "great personal moments in blogging". From simple pleasures, like "The day I received my first comment," to more public acknowledgement, "I was cited in an article as a 'respected blogger'". It was clear that many of us have received some sort of positive reinforcement via our blogs — no matter how small and unknown our sites are. People are finding us.

We talked about how people rise to the A-list and how they stay there. What role traditional media plays in that process and how "fame" changes the top weblogs. However, the point I found most inspriring from the discussion was one blogger's comment that he recieves a spike in traffic and feedback each time he posts about his cat. As of Monday, I'm making up a fake Liloia cat and posting about it weekly on our site. Let's just see what happens.

Any and all name suggestions for my fake cat will be taken under consideration.

While you were out...

While I was at BloggerCon, the other half of the crack blogging team at Liloia.com was making significant strides in the advancement of Bluetooth.

BloggerCon: Durgin Park Dinner

Hey look, it's Bernhard Seefeld and I at dinner on Friday night before BloggerCon II.

BloggerCon: Blacklist Abuse

By Tara

Something just occured to me in Andrew Grumet's session on Infrastructure: What if someone used MT-blacklist in order to blacklist non-spammers?

For example, if I don't like Andrew's comment on my blog, I could use MT-blacklist to add him to my site blacklist, effectively excluding him from ever posting again. But that's not the real damage.

MT-Blacklist maintains a server where you can upload the latest spammers data for all of the MT community to use. I could make it impossible for Andrew to post comments on any MT-blacklist enabled blog.

Could you effectively shut someone out of an entire section of the blogging community? What happens if I get on that list? How do I get off that list?

BloggerCon: Welcome & Visions from Users

UPDATE: Oh for pete's sake -- the following post is by Tara (not Dave). Grrr.

From the stifling heat of Pound 200, I bring you my take on BloggerCon II. This time around, I know more of the attendees and discussion leaders (not difficult, considering last year I knew none). But, like last time, the seating arrangement in Pound hall is some of the most uncomforable known to mankind.

So far, Lisa Williams has talked about Visions from Users in her session. Some of the wishlist items that came out of that discussion were:

- support for hierarchical categorization
- popfile-like categorization
- integrating different styles of posts (long essays/filter style)
- the ability to listen to blogs while you’re doing the dishes (not necessarily audblogs, but text-to-speech)
- audblog posts with titles or at-a-glance info
- sites more accessible to mobile readers and text readers
- sidebar on your blog showing what you’ve commented elsewhere
- trackback is hard to explain and implement
- hard to see distributed conversations even with Technorati, trackback, comments
- more comment control – highlighting ones the poster likes
- threaded comments like forums
- printer-friendly entries
- database structures
- email this post to a friend
- educate more users on RSS and aggregators

And Andrew Grumet is now talking about blog infrastructure. I'm interested in learning more about BitTorrent, gotta go pay attention...

Welcome

Where's Tara?

I will be at BloggerCon II this weekend, trying to glean insights from people smarter than me, hoping that I can get my laptop wifi-enabled with a minimum of hardware-related embarassment, and spelling "Liloia" out loud an infinite number of times.

If I had any sense at all, I'd have Blogcards, or at least regular business cards from work. But I have neither sense, nor cards. If I can get my hands on some blank business cards somewhere, maybe I can whip up something Martha Stewart-y by tomorrow. {Update: After a quick trip to AC Moore, it's all good, crafty goddess that I am.]

Here are some other people who have mentioned they're on the way to Harvard:

Thoughts before BloggerCon 2 - Part 1

BloggerCon II on the Horizon

"It's not sinful, it's Syndication!"

Off to Pound Hall

Religion Blogging Session at BloggerCon 2

You know you have too much hair when...

It gets stuck inside of an egg salad sandwich.

Let's just say that making a low-carb wrap out of iceberg lettuce leaves is far better in theory than in actual practice. Instead of a low-carb wrap, you might call this creation an Exploding Salad Bomb or Is That Celery on Your Cheek? They keep the carbs low by forcing you to lick sticky bits of sandwich off of your desk.

IT workers fight back! Presenting...

The Tech Worker Challenge!

"Avoid speeding IT employers who don't care if they run you over and crush you, your career and your future.

Try to avoid getting laid off with no notice, having your job shipped overseas, being illegally blacklisted, having your pension robbed, and more.."

Just to round out today's online gaming collection, anyone know if there's a game called, "I called IS three weeks ago to get my printer fixed and it still won't print"?

Friday Work Game

Have you ever dreamed of being an overworked and underappreciated IT manager? Me neither.

Um, let's start again.

Do you like playing GAMES at WORK? Me too!

Americans like to work, even when we play. Just take a look a The Intel IT Manager Game and you'll begin to wonder why someone would even play a game that promises futility, frustration, and people who use CD-ROM trays as cupholders.

"As IT manager you need to monitor industry trends and administer mission-critical resources for an entire company. At the same time, you have to manage increasingly tighter budgets - finding ways to do more with less - and possess the people skills to oversee staff and run interference with top decision makers."

Hang on, have to turn my brain back on. Hey Intel, just because it's a game about work, doesn't mean you have to make it sound like work. Play itself is remarkably Sims-like. Simple drag-and-drop functions allow you to assign IT workers to struggling users and network problems. And just so you don't forget that this is an Intel-sponsored playtime, every so often the CEO drags you into his office for a pop quiz on Intel product lines. Really.

But hey, if you're in IT, you can even slightly sorta maybe pretend that this is training.

The Apprentice

This evening Donald Trump made the difficult decision to hire Bill instead of Kwame. It is the exact decision that I would have made.

Bill, the entrepreneur will be better suited to make decisions on the fly and handle tough issues as they occur. During the finale he was given the option of managing the construction of a new office tower in Chicago or a luxury golf resort in California. I would have taken the golf resort, but Bill lives in the Chicago area...

Kwame is a really sharp guy but I think he lacks the real edge needed to be the #1 pick.

Michael Moore

A letter from our friend Michael Moore

Heads Up

April 14, 2004

Friends,

I have never seen a head so far up a Presidential ass (pardon my Falluja) than the one I saw last night at the "news conference" given by George W. Bush. He's still talking about finding "weapons of mass destruction" -- this time on Saddam's "turkey farm." Turkey indeed. Clearly the White House believes there are enough idiots in the 17 swing states who will buy this. I think they are in for a rude awakening.

I've been holed up for weeks in the editing room finishing my film ("Fahrenheit 911"). That's why you haven't heard from me lately. But after last night's Lyndon Johnson impersonation from the East Room -- essentially promising to send even more troops into the Iraq sinkhole -- I had to write you all a note.

First, can we stop the Orwellian language and start using the proper names for things? Those are not “contractors” in Iraq. They are not there to fix a roof or to pour concrete in a driveway. They are MERCENARIES and SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE. They are there for the money, and the money is very good if you live long enough to spend it.

Halliburton is not a "company" doing business in Iraq. It is a WAR PROFITEER, bilking millions from the pockets of average Americans. In past wars they would have been arrested -- or worse.

The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not "insurgents" or "terrorists" or "The Enemy." They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush? You closed down a friggin' weekly newspaper, you great giver of freedom and democracy! Then all hell broke loose. The paper only had 10,000 readers! Why are you smirking?

One year after we wiped the face of the Saddam statue with our American flag before yanking him down, it is now too dangerous for a single media person to go to that square in Baghdad and file a report on the wonderful one-year anniversary celebration. Of course, there is no celebration, and those brave blow-dried "embeds" can't even leave the safety of the fort in downtown Baghdad. They never actually SEE what is taking place across Iraq (most of the pictures we see on TV are shot by Arab media and some Europeans). When you watch a report "from Iraq" what you are getting is the press release handed out by the U.S. occupation force and repeated to you as "news."

I currently have two cameramen/reporters doing work for me in Iraq for my movie (unbeknownst to the Army). They are talking to soldiers and gathering the true sentiment about what is really going on. They Fed Ex the footage back to me each week. That's right, Fed Ex. Who said we haven't brought freedom to Iraq! The funniest story my guys tell me is how when they fly into Baghdad, they don't have to show a passport or go through immigration. Why not? Because they have not traveled from a foreign country -- they're coming from America TO America, a place that is ours, a new American territory called Iraq.

There is a lot of talk amongst Bush's opponents that we should turn this war over to the United Nations. Why should the other countries of this world, countries who tried to talk us out of this folly, now have to clean up our mess? I oppose the U.N. or anyone else risking the lives of their citizens to extract us from our debacle. I'm sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe -- just maybe -- God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end.

Until then, enjoy the "pacification" of Falluja, the "containment" of Sadr City, and the next Tet Offensive – oops, I mean, "terrorist attack by a small group of Baathist loyalists" (Hahaha! I love writing those words, Baathist loyalists, it makes me sound so Peter Jennings!) -- followed by a "news conference" where we will be told that we must "stay the course" because we are "winning the hearts and minds of the people."

I'll write again soon. Don't despair. Remember, the American people are not that stupid. Sure, we can be frightened into a war, but we always come around sooner or later -- and the one way this is NOT like Vietnam is that it hasn't taken the public four long years to figure out they were lied to.

Now if Bush would just quit speaking in public and giving me more free material for my movie, I can get back to work and get it done. I've got four weeks left 'til completion.

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

Things You Should Know About 041504

Universe shaped like a Pringle. Thousands give up Atkins to partake.

Cat survives 30-day trip in shipping box. Asks upon arrival if he beat the rattlesnake.

Tara's Reality Television Personality Web Design Service

Remember that wacky Average Joe couple? Neither do I, but I do know how to find their Web sites. In the grand tradition of reality television star Web site reviews that began way back in the day with The Restaurant, let's have a look at what Gil and Larissa have to offer online.

Gil Hyatt's Web site comes very close to being as shallow as Gil seemed on the last Average Joe episode. The site claims to be "Version 4.0." Let's all hope that in Version 4.1, Gil discovers the not-so-ancient and definitely-not-lost art of hyperlinking. No joke, view the source and do a search for "href" — this single useless page is absoultely link-free. Ladies and gentlemen, we've reached the end of the Internet. Please watch your step as you exit the Web.

Gil, trust me, hand your site over to Nick Denton, who will make a Net man out of you.

A little corner text (tucked into nested tables that will make your mother cry) announces, "Site Design by Larissa Meek," which brings us to LarissaMeek.com. Now I'm willing to give credit where credit is due. Larissa does offer links, content and many, many spots where you can purchase her artwork (all of which reminds me of Gevalia coffee ads). But my rising hopes are dashed once again with a link to another site "developed by Larissa and her design partner at MB34": Dr. Jon Grazer. These MB34 designers clearly have an anti-hyperlink philosophy which bears looking into.

Aside from a little mystifying habit of calling the Trump Taj Mahal, the "Taj Ma Hal," Larissa's site is probably one of the better reality televisionista Web presences I've seen in a while. Gidon Horowitz had a promising little bloggy thing going that pushed him up on the list, but it's gone now.

Once again, I offer my online design and content skills to help out those of you who were once anonymous, and now find yourself aquiring mad GoogleJuice as a result of reality television. Don't know what GoogleJuice is? It doesn't matter! You can pay me to know what it means, as well as how to GoogleBomb the bimbo who just ate the last of the tribe's rice and got you voted off.

Blogcritics

Today, after much prodding from Tara, I joined Blogcritics. This site is a group weblog (using Movable Type like us!!) that allows members to post reviews and commentary on Books, Music, Movies, TV, politics, anything.

Check out the two posts I made so far. We'll see how it goes.

Bang, bang on the door

I read this article from CSO Magazine as I was getting it ready for online publication and the first few paragraphs, about the insane things people do when panic spreads, reminded me of a night in college.

New Brunswick, where the majority of Rutgers University is located, is one of those cities in which a crack house exists steps away from a posh $50-a-plate Ethiopian dinner enclave. Our house, The French House, was located next to a small park that was occupied more often by prostitutes and drug users than by children. Despite it being a shady, grassy area, we never dared hang out there lest anyone wanted a used syringe in the foot.

One evening, while sitting in mandatory French class, we heard a high-pitched bang that sounded like a gunshot, then a second one. We waited quietly, looking to our young Parisian house director for guidance. She was frozen at the white board, listening. Suddenly someone began to pound wth full force on the front door. Twelve college women ran out of the living room screaming in under two seconds. But where did we flee to? Surely, to the safety of our locked rooms! Nope. All of us blindly headed out the back door; the closest exit and the closest door to the gunshot sound.

It occurred to us later, after we had calmed down, that we had run directly toward the danger. We giggled and teased ourselves, but it never left my head that panic truly does blind you to the obvious.

The pounding turned out to be Cecilia on her way back from field hockey, who — as usual — had forgotten her key.

My new favorite sentence:

"Once I went to a Pakistani restaurant and they had way cooler drinks than we do, like this one that tasted like a fairy-floss cloud rained into a bottle."
—Unexplained Snacks of America

Freight trains made of air

Between the large coffee I drank at 10:00pm and whatever glass thing it was that just shattered outside, I'm wide awake, checking windows, tugging on doors, hoping that whatever it was that splintered in this blustery wind (wind that sounds like a freight train) wasn't a basement window or some other critical part of our house.

Something else, large and metal, just fell and clanked onto the pavement. These are the kind of winds that knock down power poles, take out cable television, and land little discontented farm girls in Emerald Cities.

I just confused Stewart Brand with Stewart Deck and wondered silently why the Taquitos guy was suddenly so interested in the Long Now Foundation.

Two things bother me about the Food Network tonight:
1) Al Roker, a man with a stomach intentionally constricted to the size of an egg, has no business hosting a show about decadent, oversized sugar cookies. I can't trust his opinion if he can't eat one.
2) Every time I watch Emeril ham it up in his stage kitchen, it nags me that in his sitcom, he had all the BAM! of a bowl of cream of wheat. It's like the opposite of stuttering folk who can sing without stumbling. The man can wax poetic off the cuff about andouille sausage, but can't give life to the scripted words of a television show.

The wind is suddenly gone. It went from screaming past the windows to deathly still in the last ten minutes. The woman upstairs is pacing her apartment, but calmly enough that I don't think the crash was from her part of the house.

Are you up at 2am too? Read this intriguing article by a man who lived below the famed apartment rigged to sell in The Apprentice. It's a long piece, but your only other choice is to watch Al Roker pretend to endorse chocolate mousse pie while secretly lunching on a single saltine.

TRIBOU - Moving on Uuuup.

I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate my good buddy Will Tribou for taking the leap from a LAME Tripod/Geocities account to actually purchasing his own URL and almost taking his website the full path from "Home Page" to full-on blog.

Will, I love that you have Tribou.com but let's do a few more things dude.

- Make your blog the main page and put all that other crap behind the scenes. If you are writing new text every few days I don't want to have to search for it, and if I am interested in reading static text I will seek it out.

- Let's take you all the way and get rid of that Geocities account so I don't have to keep seeing that popup. Let's get you a "man's man" account with no compulsive popups

- Take that silliness about Sarah outta there. Yeah yeah, you love her, she loves you, blah blah blah. Anyone who visits often knows it already. Make a whole section about it, but please don't force me to reread the entire story every time I visit your site!

- Let me install Movable Type for you. It will make updating the site TOE-TALLY EZ and let you swap out your crude HTML for a standard template that will make it look like you really know what you are talking A-BOOT!

Vanity email and URL's rock. Keep on keeping on Will.

Free Prize... Great Idea

BLOGGERS! Enter for a chance to win a free book! Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece by Debra Hamel Neaira (pronounced "neh-EYE-ruh") grew up in a brothel in Corinth in the early fourth century B.C. and became one of the city-state's higher-priced courtesans while still a teenager. Read about her life as a prostitute and about the larger world of fourth-century Athens in which her drama played itself out. A "gripping story of politics, sex and sleaze in ancient Athens...." --The Sunday Telegraph amazon | more information | Bloggers! Enter to win a free book! (drawing 8/1/04)

Proof of Contortion

Last night I finished reading The Contortionist's Handbook. What a great book. I think this will have to be added to my top ten list along with Invisible Monsters and October Country.

Instead of talking about the book, I wanted to share what was my favorite paragraph in the entire book.

When you're in love, your brain secretes endorphines into your blood. Organic morphine leaks out of a gland in your skull, feels like a low-grade opium rush. Some people confuse the two, the head rush and the love. You think you're in love with a person, but you're in love with a syringe. Skin like liquid silk, hair, eyes, laugh, smile, impulses, trust, confidence, curves, perfume, sweat, affection, but still a syringe. You're high and hooked, and soon comes the more, more more: marriage, career, mortgage, children, school, it's harder and harder to feel that rush.
Happens all the time, men and women. Body clocks twenty years out of sync between genders, the rush dries up. You look for new hooks, new fixes, anything for that more, more, more. Some people burn their lives to the groud doing so, fodder for talk radio and daytime television. These same people assail the evils of drugs and urine test their children.

Read this book.

Last night I stayed up late reading Tara's other book club selection. This was a short play by David Auburn called Proof. What a fantastic play, I hope that someday I get the opportunity to see this Pulitzer prize winning drama portrayed on stage. It was a fun read that introduced interesting characters and a witty dialogue that kept my interest the entire time while being very believable.

Fifth Sentences

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
(via Caterina)

"And the innovations you create will have a far faster (and bigger) payback than the more ordinary stuff you're spending so much time and effort on."
— From Seth Godin's upcoming book, Free Prize Inside, which just arrived yesterday packed inside of a cereal box

Heading Out

Right now we are all getting dressed and ready to head out for the day. We spent the last day and a half with Tara's family and now it's my turn. I think first we'll head up to my uncle's house to see my grandmother and then move to the hospital to see my grandfather.

Apparently he is doing much better than earlier and is steadily improving. He is tired of all the tests being performed and is asking the nurses if he can "see their supervisor!"

I'll post later tonight to tell everyone how he is doing.

Oh, today is also my brother Paul's birthday. Today he turns 24. Happy Birthday Paul!

B Not So Good

Yesterday I left work early to grab a train home and begin our trip to NJ (which is where we are now). I had some time to kill and was pretty hungry so I headed into B Good which is directly next to the Back Bay station. I had heard some good reviews of this place when it first opened on Adam's site here and here. Since I walk by it twice a day, I had wanted to head inside for some time now.

As I walked in, I was pleased to see that they had a wide variety of low carb options as well as salads available. Jackpot. I decided to order a cheeseburger with no bun and some raw veggie sticks. Salivating, I stood at the counter ready to place my order. The cashier had her back to me doing something with a binder. I politely waited, and didn't say anything because she turned slightly when I got there so I assumed she had seen me. 1 minute...2 minutes...3..so then I thought, maybe I am supposed to place my order over by the grill (which is where some other people had been standing a moment earlier) so I head over.

The two guys working this area finish up with the customer ahead of me, look me right in the eye and then turn around to do something else. Now I am starting to get mad. I go back to the counter where the girl still has her back facing me to ask her to help me when a couple walks in and stands NEXT TO ME.

Immediately the cashier turns around, and asks them how she can help them. IMMEDIATELY, no hesitation, no throat clearing to get her attention, no "miss can you help us". Grrr. And Tara wonders why I am dubbed "Hostile Dave". There is nothing that aggrevates me more that bad customer service.

When all of this happened I cut my losses, put my headphones back on and walked out. Now that I think of it, the cashier obviously saw me leave as well and didn't even inquire if she could help me then. (And I had to walk around the other customer because I was AHEAD of them)

I ended up grabbing a Diet Coke (with lemon - good stuff) and a bag of Cashews from the fruit stand on the other side of Back Bay station. At least I saved some money in the process.

The Contortionist's Handbook

I started reading The Contortionist's Handbook this week. So far this is an awesome book. One of my favorite authors Chuck Palahniuk is quoted on the front cover of the books saying "this is the best book I have read in easily five years".

Aside from the obvious draw for Chuck in that the characters in this book mirrors the style of his, the main character hails from Oregon. Anyone who is a fan of Chuck, know about his love affair with Oregon and even more specifically Portland.

So far, awesome book and I am only on page 30. :)

Jigsaw Journalism in the Blogosphere

The BloggerCon II sessions are heavy on the journalism this year. So, like a dutiful attendee, I've been mulling over the relationship between blogs and journalism, specifically, the blogging community's ability to piece together issue or event coverage using the distributed power of the blogosphere.

Arianna's column helped crystalize my thinking tonight:
"And because blogs are ongoing and daily, indeed sometimes hourly, bloggers will often start with a small story, or a piece of one -- a contradictory quote, an unearthed document, a detail that doesn't add up -- that the big outlets would deem too minor. But it's only minor until, well, it's not. Big media can't see the forest for the trees. Until it's assembled for them by the bloggers."

Like Arianna says, the beauty of the blog news network is that no one part of the network needs to own the complete story. We're all so connected that we can sleuth out details separately and offer them for anyone who cares to assemble the pieces. We build off of each other's research with lightning speed to create a more complete body of work than a mainstream media outlet could with one or two journalists.

The blog community has more man-hours to devote to issues, because we simply have more "men." We are scattered throughout the world, so we can offer global coverage. We don't hoard information and we freely point out other's good ideas via hyperlinks. Conversely, we also generously dole out criticism to people that appear to have the facts wrong.

Unlike traditional journalists, few bloggers subscribe to the myth of objectivity. Most of us intentionally and openly tinge our writing with bias. But we quickly become familiar with a writer's angle and we incorporate that bias into our understanding of the issue. Disagreement doesn't preclude linking — in fact, arguments often encourage it.

I like to think of bloggers as jigsaw journalists, each contributing pieces to create a complete picture.

Reading frenzy

In the last two weeks I read three books that I keep meaning to talk about here. So without further ado...

Angels and Demons - Dan Brown

This prequel to DaVinci Code introduces us to the main character (who I care so little about that I don't even remember his name) on an innane adventure through Vatican City on the night a new pope is to be selected. Hmmm. Yeah, not so much. The book was a good read, but totally unbelievable. It had all the appeal of a badly acted Spanish soap opera. And that is coming from the guy currently covered in X-Men comic books from 1993.

Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them - Al Franken

Holy cow. I had no idea. Why did I stray for so long??? This book (which is so funny and well researched that I am definitely going back to read ALL of his books) makes me proud to be a Democrat and confused as to how anyone (after reading this book) could vote to re-elect the Evil Empire that is GWB. Additionally let me take this opportunity to plug his new liberal radio station Air America Radio, which is fantastic. My favorite so far is Janeane Garofalo 's program who last night debated her Texas living, George Bush loving father right on the program.

Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom - Cory Doctorow

I saved the best for last, truly. This book is a fantastic read and for anyone who is a fan of Snow Crash, 1984 or Neuromancer this is a MUST. Cory has done for science fiction what Chuck Palahniuk did for fiction. He takes a fresh perspective on the subject of life on earth and challenges all of our preconceived notions of normalcy with a suprisingly reasonable concept. I loved it and finished it in 18 hours.

Before the Internet

Where did people get to see a one-legged man rocking out to Dance Dance Revolution? (via MeFi)

Fifteen kids, 37 years old.

"With her 14 children in tow and pregnant with her 15th, Michelle Duggar waddled into Arkansas' Capitol on Wednesday to accept the state's Young Mother award.

"We're letting the Lord give us the gifts that he wants to give us and I'm open to more gifts," she said."

Well, Michelle is certainly open to something...

Last-minute trip to NJ...

...means four hours in the car with Hostile Dave and Spanky the Wonder Kid in which I will attempt to determine which of these activities will not cause carsickness:

- typing
- stealthily putting together an Easter basket
- reading Al Franken's book
- listening to music
- knitting
- staring out of the window, gripping the armrest
- respiration

It changes every time, because my life's fun and unpredictable that way.

Waiting for the call

I haven't mentioned this to anyone yet, but there has been some sad happenings occuring in my family. As I understand it, my grandfather has had a series of "mini-strokes" over the last few days and has been hospitalized to recover from them. The effect (until a few minutes ago) seemed to be that he couldn't walk, and his speech was hindered. As of yesterday morning he was apparently doing a little better and they projected that he might be going home in a few days.

My Mom just called me a few minutes ago.

My aunt called her, sounding pretty sad and asked her to get my Dad to the hospital as soon as possible. Things have taken a turn for the worse and they wanted him there. She was halfway to the hospital when she called and promised to let me know as soon as she gets there what the story is. I may be jumping in a car (we only have one, so I can't go without messing up Tara and Trevor) and heading down there tonight. Waiting for the call is a little distracting and I am finding it hard to focus. I guess I will just take it slow for now.

UPDATE - Got the call a little after 2. Not good news, but not going down yet. We just decided to cancel our plans for this weekend and regardless of what happens to head to NJ for the weekend. :(

IMSAI 8080 at 1200 baud

Nothing better on a Sunday afternoon than a cold glass of soda and the WarGames DVD. If you've never seen this movie, there are probably a bunch of pop culture references that just sail over your head; "Shall we play a game?"

Problem: In realistic Cold War-era drills, "22 percent of our [nuclear] missile commanders failed to launch their missiles."

Solution: "Get the men out of the loop." Remove the human from the equation and replace him with an efficient, emotionless computer.

New, even bigger, problem: Computers, far from the elegant, efficient machines we envisioned, are too literal about executing their flawed creators instructions. Instead of men hesitant to destroy millions of other humans, we end up with a computer that does not care about the consequences of its actions and refuses to abort the missile launch program, even after being told that there is no emergency.

And you gotta love a computer called the WOPR (whopper).

158

On Monday, I mentioned that I was working on improving my health and to reduce my blood sugar levels. After 5 days, I have to say that things are going pretty well. Technically I started almost two weeks ago when I made the conscious decision to stop eating sweets. They have always been my downfall and this was a really tough thing to stop doing. My boss (god love her) always keeps candy on her desk and this was a real distraction from my goal. I am glad to report that two weeks later, this hasn't been a problem. At all.

Regarding the more recent decision to eat better and take care of myself, this has been a lot easier than I had thought. In 5 days it seems that I have lost 3 pounds by cutting out the carbs.

I have figured out that my Humilin N (longer lasting insulin) injections were not enough and that I had to increase them by a few units. I came to this conclusion after observing a number of morning where my blood sugar was very high before I even ate anything and after a night of very low carb (or no carb) dinners.

My evening blood sugar numbers have remained relatively stable (between 115 and 150 - this is really good for me). The only drawback I see so far is that I am always hungry. Hopefully this will subside as I continue on, or perhaps I should keep more zero carb snacks around. Regardless I am feeling a lot better than I have in a long time.

Oh, 158. Forgot to tell you about that. This is my blood sugar rating from this morning. It is the lowest my blood sugar has been in the morning for months, maybe even longer. I wasn't taking all that good care of myself before mostly because I couldn't do it on my own.

I owe 100% of my improvement to Tara.

She decided to help me by begining to transition all of the food in the house to low carb alternatives, a choice that we have been making over the last few months. Tara, thank you sweetie. If I can keep this up, I think we can look forward to a lot more time together. I love you.

Hmm....

As per CNN:

"I've become the boy who cried wolf," he acknowledged, offering some assurance that his decision to end the show after two seasons isn't just another hoax.

"Let's put it this way," he said. "I'm getting ready to start shooting two movies, I'm still working on 'That '70s Show,' I'm producing two other shows for MTV and creating a one-hour drama pilot for Fox ... I don't have the time."

Liar.

Anyway, "Punk'd" returns to MTV on Sunday, April 25.

Unless Kutcher gets eaten by a wolf in the meantime.

CNN.com - Clever Kutcher: 'Punk'd' IS returning - Apr 1, 2004

As per Dave: Wouldn't it be great if Ashton was eaten by a wolf? I would pay to see that.

Got you! Did not!

I got the scoop on what April Fools Day in kindergarten consists of. Apparently, five-year-olds spend the day in conversations like these:

KID A TO KID B: There's a spider on your back, April Fools!
[both kids double over in laughter]

[twenty seconds later...]

KID B TO KID A: There's a hundred twenty million monsters behind you, April Fools!
[both kids double over in laughter again]

There about a hundred and fifty variations of this joke and I got to hear them all while fixing dinner this evening.

Battle Weary

As I sit in the living room watching The Apprentice, I am reminded of the difficult day that I just had. Kwame and Troy, two great friends decide to battle head to head in the boardroom. Trump comments on Troy's decision to bring his friend in with him. Troy responds with "Friends are friends, and business is business, don't use the two in the same sentence."

In four seperate events today, I was forced to battle out issues with coworkers. As exhausting as they were, all of them resulted (ultimately) in positive work that met the needs of our customers. At one point, one of the people I was duke-ing (spelling?) it out with said to me "Dave, you know I don't hate you right?". Of course I knew it, and that was the important part to remember. Work is work, friends are friends and no matter what happens that is a hard lesson to learn. It is really easy to confuse personal relationships with business ones.

Troy took his rejection really well and probably showed the most maturity out of anyone who Trump has told "You're Fired". I admired his tact and professionalism and would consider myself lucky to have the chance to meet and/or work with him given the opportunity.

Nick Denton presents... again.

Man, that Nick Denton. He's handling more domain names than Network Solutions. The creator of Gawker, Gizmodo and Fleshbot, today brings us Kinja. The site appears to be an aggregator without RSS. Indeed, Kinja claims to be able to "digest" blogs that are not RSS-enabled. Kinja's taking a role as the AOL of aggregators and aiming for users who can't or won't go the DIY route.

Kinja purports to make discovering blogs easier for newcomers; however, when I registered, the first action I was presented with was to add my favorite blogs. I'm pretending I'm a blogging newbie — so I don't have any favorite blogs yet. If my mother tried Kinja, she'd hit that page and sit there wondering what to do. It doesn't pass the Mom Test.

Being the blogging triathlete that I am, I popped in a few familiar URLs. My own (ah, vanity) and the ever-popular Scripting News. My site is not categorized with Kinja, but I did get a page full of Dave Winer's mug (and not the cactus one). I added a few more URLs and found the digest behaved in a way that I wasn't expecting. With each new addition, the digest was filled with posts from the new site, obliterating the sites I had already added. I poked around for a way to manage the digest, but the only option (as yet) is to add and remove sites. The digest page doesn't appear to be readily changeable. It doesn't pass the Tara Wants Things to Be Logical and Configurable Test.

So if Kinja isn't crystal clear for newbies, yet doesn't offer functionality for advanced users, who exactly is this site meant for?