SV * VINTAGE ADVERTISING COUNTRY STORE CANISTERS
SV * VINTAGE ADVERTISING COUNTRY STORE CANISTERS
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Today I’ve been officially blogging for six years. Ironically, yesterday marked Chris’ five-year blogiversary. It’s going around! Not much more to it than noting the date, except to bring up the imminent next blogger meetup. Which will be this month, on the 30th—next Wednesday. Shannon, Jen, BOR, and I are in talks to figure out where. (Stay tuned for further announcements.) So obviously the four of us at least are in. Who else is in?
Six years of blogging
It’s been at the back of my mind recently that this month marks six years of blogging for me. I am of course talking about "official" blogging, with the software and reverse-chronology posts and comments and such—naturally I had web pages before 2002 but none of those were blogs. Six years of blogging. April 22nd, 2002, to be exact, and since then I’ve spun out two other blogs (which lately have been getting far more attention from me) and written a crazy amount of words—exactly how many will have to be a topic for another post. But I keep thinking that this is some sort of milestone (since I missed the five-year anniversary) and that it should be celebrated somehow. Shannon’s organizing another blogger meetup this month, I believe, so maybe something in conjunction with that. Thoughts?
Pictures to accompany my Coast notes
Finally, some pictures to accompany my oregon Coast travelogue post from the beginning of this month. Nothing earth-shaking here, just what you’d expect. Their big sign on Highway 101. You can’t miss it. Click through for the rest of the pictures
One of those ideas I wish I’d thought up
The Mount Rushmore Of… is a new blog that is one of those obvious-in-hindsight ideas I wish I’d thought up, because it satisfies the "Top X List" jones of twitchy web surfers everywhere. Everyone knows what Mount Rushmore is, right? Mount Rushmore is a National Memorial featuring the sculptures of the heads of the most influential Presidents of the first 150 years of the United States. The Mount Rushmore Of takes that same principle and asks the question of who’s head should be carved in stone for other subjects, like: Who is on the Mount Rushmore of Baseball? Who is on the Mount Rushmore of Punk Rock? And so on… Debate encouraged. Naturally. Incidentally, Neal Stewart, the mastermind behind it, also writes the highly entertaining Turkey Sandwich Report. Oh yeah, he works in beer, too—a marketer, but I don’t hold that against him.
Braindump
Just offloading some things and ideas that have been rattling around. CNN ran a story last week entitled, "Nine cool jobs that pay well." (Paying "well" is relative in their article, I guess.) Top of the list? Brewmaster ($42,430). And good news if you want to take advantage of how cool it would be to be a brewmaster: Beer is recession proof. Where are the open source MySpace/Facebook clones? Are there any? In particular, I’m wondering if there is an open source social networking application written in PHP. There didn’t seem to be any last time I checked, so I was half thinking of writing one myself. …not with the intent of competing with MyFaceSpaceBook or anything like that; for that matter, anyone can create a free social network on Ning. I was more thinking in terms of, what if I wanted to create a separate, private social network site that didn’t rely on the Ning shared hosting paradigm? Or plop that software down on an intranet somewhere, behind a firewall? Any PHP apps out there I can just download and install for that? Hence my thinking on writing one. Mostly just because. "Digital nostalgia." Not sure where I’m going with that yet, but it’s sparked by William Gibson’s comments about eBay in this interview.
Blogger bash Wednesday
I cross-posted this over on Hack bend, as well: that blogger bash I wrote about? Yeah, it’s on for sure. This Wednesday, April 30th, at The Summit Saloon and Stage in downtown bend at 125 NW oregon Avenue. Starts about 5:30ish and goes til whenever. Here’s the "official" description: The first blogger meetup was a big success! Since then there’s been a lot of growth and new folks have popped up in our local "blogosphere". Meetups like this are a nice chance for all of us to gather, unwind, and put some faces together with the blogs. This event is primarily intended for bloggers who wish to meet other bloggers. If you don’t have a blog, then this may not be the get-together for you. So, if you just can’t stand not being there and don’t already have a blog… what are you waiting for?! I’ll be there for sure. Will you?
Here’s something I bet you didn’t know about Ashland…
I’m referring to Ashland, oregon, naturally, and something I found out from this article (via Jack Bog) (emphasis mine): Ashland city ordinances allow nudity anywhere in town, but genitalia must be covered in city parks and the downtown commercial district. I was pretty surprised when I read that; I don’t remember a single naked person while in Ashland last year. But overall—that’s pretty crazy; I had no idea it was that liberal of a town. You can bet I’ll be reading the bend city code pretty closely the next few days to see what our local ordinances say about the subject. (The article overall is about a fruitcake "activist" who likes to wander around around (nearly) nude, and the city of Ashland’s refusal to allow her to be in their Fourth of July parade. She’s claiming "discrimination" against her by the Ashland Chamber of Commerce, claims she’s "not trying to get attention" (riiiiiiiiight), and for good measure even throws in a hint of creepy pedophilia in there. Seriously, she sounds mental. I’d deny her, too.)
I was on a media panel today
This is cross-posted from Hack bend (I was there in a "Hack bend" capacity) because it’s cool and I’m just narcissistic enough to post multiple times: Last month I had been invited to be on media panel at the Deschutes County offices, as the resident blogging expert representing how blogging and "new media" are becoming more prevalent in news and reporting and such. (The "expert" notion is up for debate, of course. I just do what I do.) The panel was to supplement media communications training for County employees and was held today—and I have to say, it was interesting and enlightening, and definitely something I’d do again if asked. With me on the panel were Barney Lerten, of KTVZ; Heather Roberts, of KOHD; Heidi Hagemeier, of the Bulletin; and R.L. Garrigus from the bend Radio Group. I’ve known Barney from back when he was still bend.com, and had known of the others but not met them before. All very nice folks, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out they were already familiar with Hack bend(!). For the most part, it was as much a learning experience for me as for the County employees, I suspect; I talked a bit about the blogging aspect of things as it pertains to media and reporting and communication, but to a large extent I just listened to the others, all of whom come from more established channels with much more background than I. And a big thanks to Anna Johnson, the Public Communications Coordinator with the County, for inviting me and arranging it all. Thanks!
The past 6 Aprils
Since I’m celebrating six years of blogging this month, I thought it’d be interesting to go back through the past six Aprils and link to some highlights. April 2002 - Really not much to see here… I was just starting blogging, playing with the software I was developing, and it’s really just mundane stuff. I think Pong was a highlight. April 2003 - Even less than in 2002. We saw Bon Jovi for the first time and there was more work on the software. April 2004 - I was blogging up a storm. Pretty geeky stuff, an equal mixture of technical posts and non-technical-but-still-geeky posts and some random things. My musings for an A-Team movie first appeared, and—strangely enough—I first noted the use of the word "blog" on Law & Order. April 2005 - I feel like I was hitting my stride in blogging style. A lot less of the technical posts and more… I don’t know, "general" posts? Fun posts? More of a mix of links, ideas, commentary, irony… Not sure if that’s the best way to describe them, but here’s a sample to judge for yourself: Superman is a dick Globe Sesame Street top 25 Scrapple $40 a day Cougar! (and Cougar! The Return and Cougar! Reloaded) The Burger King creeps me out (with 673 comments!) Things about bend that I miss April 2006 - More of the same. I really think it was around 2005 and into 2006 that I found my "voice" and I don’t really cringe when I read those and later posts. You can see the seeds of Hack bend being sown with this post (and I started Hack bend the following month, in May ‘06), and this post and this post still make me laugh. A lot. April 2007 - I blogged a lot less—no kidding, right—but I prefer to think of it as "quality over quantity" in this case. My favorite for that month has to be this post, showcasing just how wonderfully twisted San Diego-area activities can be.
Kung Fu Panda
The headline refers to the movie, of course, which I took the kids to see today. It was great. No, I mean it—it was great. (No spoilers.) Several things contributed to it’s greatness. First, not knowing (until the credits roll) who any of actors doing the voices are, except of course for Jack Black. I think sometimes on animated movies I get distracted by actually knowing who the actors are and then listening for them, rather than enjoying the movie. For instance, the voice behind Tai Lung (the snow leopard villain) was really good—really well cast—and itchingly familiar. Turned out to be Ian McShane, who played Swearingen on "Deadwood" (possibly the best TV show of all time), and that was masterful. But had I known it was him beforehand, I would have been listening for "Deadwood" instead. Jack Black, by the way, is also perfectly cast. But you probably already knew that. Second, this movie doesn’t suffer from what a lot of animated movies these days (particularly Dreamworks ones) does: slapstick humor propped up by "modern" or meta-themed jokes. In other words, nothing is out of place here (plot-wise, humor-wise)—with one exception which I’ll get to—and comedy doesn’t rely on "outside the box" or "frame of reference" jokes. (An example? How about Pinocchio wearing thong underwear in "Shrek 2"?) Third, that "one exception": Po the Panda—as played by Black—is such an otaku of kung fu and the hero characters that he actually has action figures and posters of them (the "Furious Five") all over his room. Yes, this seems out of place in ancient (? or medieval?) China, but it’s what pulls this movie together; Po is the ultimate geeknerd, the comic book-type obsessive who already knows (cerebrally, anyway) all about the Five and kung fu and the history of the epic battles of good and evil just like the "modern" geeknerds on the internet and in comic book shops today. It works because it resonates, I suppose, and if you’ve actually read this far then it’s very likely you know exactly what I mean and it resonates with you too. Fourth, it’s great fun with elaborate, enjoyable kung fu fight scenes. Ah, the wonders of animation. It’s well worth seeing. Thumbs up.
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