Apparently my last post got sucked into the wrong series of Internet tubes, so here’s the point-form version:
Dang.
[tags]eggstasy, moosewood, rebar, the queen, wordpress[/tags]
It’s cold. It’s colder than cold. It’s hell ass balls cold. It’s so cold every car made before 2002 squeals when it’s started. It’s so cold my headphone cord turned into a pipe on the way home.
.:.
My Nomad randomly played “What An Idiot He is” by Ashley MacIsaac today. I don’t think I’ve heard it in eight years; had I, I would’ve wondered how Ashley came to write a song about future president Bush.
“He’s always got a dumb expression on his face
Makes me feel sorry for the human race
‘Cause I’ve got a funny feeling that he’s runnin’ the place…”
.:.
I’m on my third WordPress theme of the day. I kind of like this one so far.
[tags]cold weather, ashley macisaac[/tags]
By the way, if you read this blog in your browser you’ve noticed the new look & feel. Well, don’t get attached. I don’t hate it, but I get so many errors when I post that I’m gonna scrap it tonight.
[UPDATE: Switched back to the old theme.]
[tags]shitty wordpress themes[/tags]
No posts yesterday as my hosting provider seemed to be down for maintenance. You didn’t miss much, honestly. Just the countdown to relaxo-vision.
[tags]relaxo-vision[/tags]
We finished season 4 of The Wire last night. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: best show on TV. And I cannot wait for season 5.
.:.
I see that someone has claimed my old Radiodan blogspot URL. In case anyone’s worried that I’ve lapsed into writing long treatises on the subject of radio dramas, t’ain’t me. Update your links & readers.
.:.
Use transit in Toronto? This map is quickly going to become indispensable, methinks. [via Torontoist]
[tags]the wire, radiodan, toronto transit[/tags]
My brother has left the dark ages and entered the age of enlightenment. That is, he’s switched from Blogger to WordPress. Go say hi.
.:.
From Yahoo: Kate Winslet slams ‘ultra-thin’ glamorization. Hear, hear. For my part, I encourage more women to look like Kate Winslet.
The three examples the article suggests as poor role models are “Kate Moss, Nicole Richie and Victoria Beckham”; I daresay there are reasons beyond their looks which make them poor role models…
.:.
After leaving the latest season of The Wire sitting on the shelf for several weeks (except the season premiere, which we watched a few weeks back), we’ve been on a tear this weekend. We have just four episodes left…and I think the finale aired tonight.
Dominic West has hardly been on this season; maybe he was busy filming 300.
[tags]blogger, wordpress, kate winslet, the wire, dominic west[/tags]
Like Scott Adams, Malcolm Gladwell has an amazing ability to break everything down logically and succinctly. His latest post about how to define racism — using Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and Michael Irwin as recent celebrity examples — is dead on.
Adams, for his part, points out today how American taxpayers could’ve been spared the expense of the Baker-Hamilton report on Iraq by just reading his blog.
.:.
Another blog I’ve come across more recently, but which is equally interesting, is The Economist’s Free Exchange blog. It’s written by multiple people, and it deals with economic issues. I know, I know, economic discussions usually rival duck calling and sock drawer organization for excitement, but Free Exchange is written in plain enough terms that it makes sense — and holds interest for — the average intelligent person. This post about a luxury goods embargo against North Korea is a good example; it shows how little politicians actually know about economics.
Of course, this newfound interest in plain-talking economics — which has led to a proliferation of blogs on the subject — is largely due to Freakonomics, but bravo to The Economist for running with it.
[tags]scott adams, dilbert, malcolm gladwell, racism, mel gibson, michael richards, michael irwin, baker-hamilton report, iraq, economist, free exchange, luxury goods embargo, freakonomics[/tags]
I’ve decided to update the look of my blog a bit; that black & white theme was getting a little tedious.
I’ll likely replace that cutesy header image, and I need a new favicon, but overall I like it.
[update: cutesy header image replaced and old favicon struck; new one coming whenever i get my arse to it.]
[tags]wordpress themes[/tags]
I just happened to glance at my economics textbooks, which I haven’t looked at since I finished the course in March. The name of one of the authors seemed familiar…I had to think about it…Bernanke, Bernanke…Oh.
Yes, that Bernanke.
Huh. Who knew the guy who co-wrote our economics textbook would go on to be chairman of the Fed?
.:.
Posting’s been light (and rather airy) lately ’cause I gots International Business coming out my ears. However, I’ve managed to get ahead of my work plan, even while getting some extra gym time in. Trust me, I need it; yesterday I saw a picture of myself taken on Friday. Not good. Something must be done.
.:.
Summerlicious is nearly upon us. We booked Goldfish for dinner with a couple of friends, but I’d like to get Canoe for our dinner with T-Bone. Indeed, I’d like to get Canoe every year and never do, so fooey to that. Perhaps Bymark; I notice they’ve made the wonderburger part of the ‘licious menu (as opposed to the required upgrade of ‘liciouses past).
.:.
Sigh…the afore mentioned burger is “8 oz. USDA Prime beef with brie de meaux, grilled porcini, truffle aioli and crisp onion rings.” And I wonder how I gain weight?
[tags]ben bernanke, tubbiness, summerlicious[/tags]
The mesh conference wrapped up a couple of hours ago. Final thoughts:
Day 2 wasn’t quite as good as day 1, if you ask me. There was more of a marketing focus today (there was a venture capital/PR stream as well, but I ignored that), and it felt like the potential of the conference got a bit lost in the noise of the “blogs are an extension of marketing” vs. “blogs are the end of marketing” debate; yesterday, the “old” media vs. “new” media debate seemed more reasoned and friendly, but today the marketing/PR people seemed to be dug into a trench. Or maybe that was just how I heard it. Anyway…
The first two keynote speakers — Steve Rubel and Paul Kedrosky — were both great, especially Kedrosky. He’s very funny, and has some great stories about who’s getting funding and why.
By the way, lots of people were liveblogging the keynote sessions, in case you want the summary versions of what was said. Technorati should point you in the right direction.
Of the “15 minutes of fame” spots, my favourite was Favorville.com…even though the poor guy talking to us about it was interrupted by a shrill and persistent fire alarm. It drives me nuts when the security desk comes on every few minutes to tell you…exactly what they told you a few minutes ago. Or to give you useless information like “The fire alarm was triggered on the fourth floor of the south building…that’s the fourth floor of the south building…not the concourse level.” Uh, that’s great; can you clarify for me whether or not there are deadly flames? That I’d like to know. Sheezus.
Tara Hunt was next. Maybe I was expecting the wrong things from her keynote, but I wasn’t wowed. Strange, ’cause if you hear her talk for five minutes, you’d kind of expect to be wowed when she has a whole hour to herself. She’s obviously smart, and I could just tell from her comments and reactions in the afternoon panel (which I’ll get to in a minute) that our brains were in the same place on the topics at hand…but I just didn’t feel like I knew anything new after her hour was up.
After lunch I had three session. The first and third were very focused on marketing, brand, PR…all stuff that I think is the devil, so it was interesting watching the two camps — the old guard who suspect something’s up and keep saying “blog-o-sphere” hoping that they’ll fit in, and the idealists who want to lead a revolution to kill marketing and PR as we know it but keep getting shouted down in their company’s meetings — face off politely. The best point of the day, I thought, went to Jonathan Ehrlich from Chapters.Indigo, who simply stated that you can have the best marketing in the world, but unless you have a kickass product behind it,the marketing’s pointless. To me, this seems like common sense, but some people actually debated him about it. Specifically, they claimed that it was marketing that made the iPod great; Ehrlich’s point was that the product was good first; then came the top-notch marketing. Good product + great marketing = #1; great product + shite marketing = Creative Labs. Their players have more functions, longer battery lives and better prices. Ever heard of ’em? Exactly.
The second session of the afternoon was about corporate blogging. Tara Hunt was back for this one; they also brought up Jeremy Wright and Debbie Weil, whose comments were as vapid as her site is godawful. You know when someone gets about 50% of what’s going on (I mean in the grand scheme of things, not just what went on in the session), but thinks they’re an expert, and talks to everyone else — most of whom fully get it — as if they’re the expert? Everyone in the room just rolls their eyes and laughs a little bit? That’s kinda what this was like. In spite of this, I did manage to catch a few useful tips from Jeremy and the audience about how to sell executives on corporate blogging, so maybe I can take another run at mine.
.:.
The conference was a pretty good time, and tomorrow I’ll be pushing some of what filtered into my head out into my work blog(s), but I’ll be curious to see what’s on the agenda for next year. Will there be two days’ worth of new topics 363 days from now? Hard to say. Did I get anything out of it this year? Honestly, I think it may have been worth the money just to get the kind of kick in the ass that the 5-minute speech from Elissa Gjertson of Are You Frank? gave yesterday.
.:.
I arrived home today to find my “Bomb The Blogosphere” t-shirt in the mail, one day after I really needed it. Oh fate, why must you tempt me with tardy vestments?
[tags]mesh06, mesho conference[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 