Categories
Weblogging

Weblogging buddies

Damn it, Mike! After I did my last posting I thought I would do a little weblog trolling and there it is, another Mike Golby classic. Yet more excellent writing mixing humor and philosophy with nibbles and bites of life in South Africa. What are you? Some kind of bottomless good writing machine?

Unless you start slacking off, I’m going to come down there and kick your butt.

-earlier-

First of all, I did not elope with Tutor. I was too tall and he was too short and he had this thing for cherry lollipops that was a little too kinky for my blood, and so on and so forth. Besides, it was just a summer thing…

Well, damn. I wasn’t going to bore you all with details of the Trials and Tribulations of Burningbird, at least until some things get resolved. But, after seeing weblog after weblog filled with glowing cries of joy based on Userland’s adding RSS titles, links, OPML, and what not to Radio, I figured that my weblog will at the least be a change of pace.

(Come to think of it, there are all these Radio weblogs spending much of their time extolling Radio features. Might as well staple a Userland ad to your butts, people. At least then we’ll be spared some of the noise when you sit down.)

On to the Trials and Tribulation:

Connected up with a terrific person at General Hospital and she found me a physician. I see him as well as getting several tests performed on the 3rd of April. The nurse agreed with me in that I have the symptoms of a person with an umbilical hernia…at best. If it isn’t a hernia it could be a couple of other things that I would rather not contemplate. Regardless, I have to go into clinic and hospital for ultrasound and possible surgery.

(If it is hernia, how did I get it? Well, you see I have this huge mattress and it needs to be turned every few months and … well, you get the idea.)

I am in a world of hurt and that’s making me cranky — one reason I was going to take a break from weblogging. However, I’ve decided to use the crankiness to good effect and write Scathing Weblogs, instead. Warning: if you want sweetness and light within a weblog for the next couple of weeks, I suggest you go check out some other weblog that features a lot of cute kitten pictures or something. The best I can do is this.

I have been feverishly sending out job applications — permanent and contracting — all over the place and had one whole phone call, today. One whole phone call. That’s one. 1. And it was for a 4 week gig to port an Access database to Informix. The only problem is, I haven’t used Access or Informix for years.

I am broke. I need a job. I don’t give a rat’s ass if I haven’t worked with these particular database systems in a few years. Gimme the job!

No go.

I also finished my corporate tax filings for the US and for Massachusetts and California states today. What a pain in the friggen butt! Why don’t they just speak plain English on these forms:

How much did you make?

Send us all of it.

You know if webloggers blogged in a manner similar to how the tax forms work, our weblogs would look something like the following:

I have this great story. See AccordianGuy for the start, unless your weblog start day was before June, in which case you’ll want to go to Karl’s weblog. However, before going to this weblog, you need to check your eligibility at Eric’s, first.

At Eric’s: Please see Phil’s weblog — he has a cute kitten story. Then access Elaine’s header for directions in how to proceed. But you’ll need to go to Liane’s to find out how to access Elaine’s weblog. And use the Section Al78u8o Ref YYFN instructions (as defined under weblog law dated 1987) at Victor’s to find out what day it is. If it’s not Tuesday, disregard previous instruction.

Whatever you do, don’t go to this weblog or you’ll come away with a compulsion to staple an ad for Radio 8.0 on your butt.

Categories
Weblogging

Weblogging break

Hi kids. Friends. Strangers who just happen to be wandering by and looked in.

Due to a set of circumstances that, for once, I’m not going to bore you all with, I’m taking a break from the weblog.

Love, hugs, and kisses to my virtual neighbors, The Plutonians. Note new members in the neighborhood — Captain Blowtorch aka Hunt for Happy Tutor, Transcendental PetroglyphsKipling’s If (your blog’s been exposed Alistair), Steven’s, and Gretchen Pirillo.

Stop by, say Hi, take them a casserole, drop a lascivious comment on the way out.

Back soon.

The Bird that Burns

Categories
RDF

RSS debate

Well, now. Do you think that Dave is talking about the recent RSS posts from myself, Jonathon Delacour, and Jon Udell when he writes the following under the title of Meta-Blogging:

Aggregation: Is goodness. Think of it as a way of upping the bandwidth of people whose minds are sponges and want to learn as much as possible. In time of crisis think of it as the Web’s Emergency Broadcast System.

I won’t get into issues of quantity versus quality, and indiscriminate sucking up of data regardless of worth, but Emergency Broadcast System?

In my area there’s a horn that goes off every Tuesday at noon that’s a test of the emergency notification system in my area. So tell me, Dave — are you saying that aggregation is equivalent to a loud raucous noise that drives all intelligent thought from your mind so that you’ll react instinctively.

NOISE! Argghhh! Click the next link!

NOISE! Argghhh! Click the next link!

As we saw with the events of September 11th, there were few weblogs that weren’t focused on what was happening in the Eastern part of the US. In times of crises the very act of aggregation negates the usefulness of aggregation because all links lead to one event, one act.

As a compliment I will say that in a crises, I first turn to Scripting News for information because I know that most webloggers will point out new and breaking information directly to Dave and he’ll pass the information along. Aggregation, yes. But intelligent aggregation.

And whatever happened to the art of debate.

Categories
Connecting

Anger is good

Anger is good.

No, scratch that. Anger is good, healthy, natural, and, at times, even a salvation.

I’m not talking about the type of anger that makes you postal, has you clutch your heart and keel over, or that fills you with so much rage that you spit. I’m talking about the type of anger that fills you with purpose, gives focus to the undefined, and that empowers you.

Anger can find you in the center of darkness more quickly at times then the kindest words.

Sharon reads an essay by a “…impertinent little fucknozzle”, and exclaims with passion, “Shithead picked the wrong day to piss in my cornflakes.” I followed Sharon’s advice and sent an email comment about the essay, telling the publication that the author was “An impertinent little fucknozzle”. Let them work out the insult — I’m rallying to the cry of my friend who is angry!

Anger. It’s one of the seven deadly sins (along with sloth, lust, pride, greed, envy, and gluttony). Considered a sin, yet without anger humanity is nothing more than spiritless acquiescence. It fires the imagination as much as it fires our brains and hearts. Consider Shakespeare’s Othello:

Thou hadst been better have been born a dog
Than answer my waked wrath!

The anger that empowers one against injustice, hypocrisy, and ignorance can be no sin. Martin Luther King spoke of love and brotherhood, but it was anger that fueled the roots of the Civil Rights movement. It was anger that united a country against a war in Viet Nam.

And it was anger that pulled us out of despair after the events of September 11th, 2001.

However, as much as a healthy anger wakens us to purpose, an unhealthy anger pulls us into an obsession that can blind us to everything but the need to exterminate the target of our anger, regardless of the cost. In “Moby Dick”, it was obsessive anger that drove Ahab:

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Obsessive anger. Six months after an act of savagery that angered a world, I hope that in the midst of taking a moment to remember those who died from these acts that we also remember that meeting acts of obsessive anger with more acts of obsessive anger is not a fitting tribute, to anyone.

Categories
Weblogging

Hunting the Happy Tutor

I really needed a light diversion today….

It started with the stark words of Farewell at the former happy home of Happy Tutor.

Then, odd little entries began appearing in weblogs.com:

“Hunting the Happy Tutor”

All leading to a new weblog site at www.wealthbondage.com, under the control of a Captain Blowtorch. And within this new weblog are postings about the destruction of Wealth Bondage and the burning of the company headquarters, as well as the hunt for Happy Tutor and his aid.

Finally, tonight, we read that the previous members of the Wealth Bondage/Happy Tutor blogroll will soon be contacted — for what nefarious reason we shudder to think.

On hearing this, a member of said blogroll was heard to say:

My name is on that Blogroll. Should I trust that Captain Blowtorch will be lenient (since I was a recent addition)? Or should I pray instead that the Tutor and his assistant, Mr Dick Minim, will prevail and that I will be allowed to return to my role as an unassuming youth seeking instruction with humility, by which means I may hope to gain good fortune.

Hmmmm. Unassuming youth. Unassuming youth?

Unassuming. Youth. And humility?

Me thinks we’re too late — the hapless blogrolled person has been taken over by a pod person.

-earlier-

Mike Golby has written an important essay today in response to one that Meryl wrote earlier.

Brilliant writing and a very difficult subject.

Update Posting wasn’t pulled, it was a blogger problem. I’ve been having the same problems myself lately. Gladly, the link’s been restored.

-earlier

A bright moment for today — Allan Moult is back online with G’Day Cobbers again!

Stop by. Say hi. Bring him a pie and tell him that you missed him.

Welcome back, Allan!

(Thanks to Steve for spotting Allan’s return.)