Category: Weblogging

Looks like the Boys of Blogging are heading out for a brew with the champion beer taster of Oz.

Of course, we know that they will sip their brew (or “piss” as they affectionately refer to it) rather than chug it down. And we know that they’ll limit themselves to a decorous 1-2 beers rather than 5, 9, 12 or more. After all, bloggers do everything with restraint, don’t we?

No inebriated night of debauchery for these gentlemen. No siree. Besides, Garth is getting married soon…he has to behave himself.

-earlier-

As can be seen from the time markups, all of my favorite webloggers are ahead of me in time. Their tomorrow is my today at some point. Or my today is their yesterday, from their perspective.

I can watch the weblogs come online as one would watch the sun rise in the East, set in the West. First up is members of the Australian Delegation (the +19); next is Chris in South Korea (+17) — depending on his consumption of plum wine, of course. Following is Mike in South Africa (+10), and then the Europeans such as Gary and A Secret Smile (+8), followed by Rogi in the Azores (+7). Finally comes the yanks in the state, Eastern part of the country first.

My blog is last to rise, last to set. Well, in the virtual neighborhood, that is.

Anyhow, on a related note, Sharon and I have been discussing a get together when I’m in the Washington DC area in May speaking at Nextware. If you’re an East Coaster, or if you’re attending NextWare, and are interested in a meet, holler, and we’ll see if we can’t work out a true blog party.

-earlier-

Chris sent me an email asking what the little “+xx” values were attached to each blog to the left. I answered that they were each blogger’s sex rating. Well, he was quite pleased with his rating. I imagine the Aussies would be quite pleased, too. However, Doc and others local to myself might be a tad uptight.

In case you’re curious, the numbers represent the time difference — in hours — between my home base and the other weblogs.

Through this incestuous circle of weblog linking with which we find ourselves, I found PageCount – Into the Lake of Fire, a blog created by Mike Golby from South Africa.

Mike trips fantastically over a wide variety of interrelated subjects, from Jeneane Sessum’s review of Chris Locke’s Bombast Transcripts to yesterday’s touching weblog posting that Chris made, dropping quotes from the bible equally with ones from Bob Dylan and Pete Seger. Sometimes dizzying but never dull — and that’s about the best thing you can say about a weblog, isn’t it?

-earlier-

Uh, oh. We’re going there again — you know where.

Jacob from FuzzyBlogic is weighing in on the you know what. And this was picked up by Doc, which was then picked up by Dave.

There’s a hell of a lot of *POP* going on in weblogdom today.

BTW, who all thinks I should offer to host Mike Sanders Keep Trying weblog on my server? Because I keep trying and keep trying and keep trying, but the site is inaccessible…a lot. At least, I’m having a lot of problems accessing the site.

-earlier-

I got tired of looking up people’s current times so I’m printing out my “home base” time in California, and then showing the hour difference between me and my favorite webloggers. This effort is a work in progress and times will be filled in as I find them for folks.

Small world, isn’t it?

-earlier-

Hey! I’m a faction!

Now I feel like I should get my gang and go beat someone up. Wait a sec…I did this already, yesterday.

I guess the scam now is to put the word G**glewhack into your weblog and try and steal Google hits according to Andy, who found this at Richard’s and Dave.

I also found out that there’s now an official G**glewhack site.

Why am I using the asterisks? Because I don’t want more hits for G**glewhack. This weblog isn’t about G**glewhack. As it is, I’m getting too many for Z*ldman because I mentioned him a couple of times.

No G**glewhack here. No Z*ldman, either. Just barbie’d chooch…and friends.

Update: Oooh. I’m so excited. I checked my referrers and found the following:

66.108.58.218 – – [16/Feb/2002:17:41:24 -0800] “GET /weblog/index.php HTTP/1.1” 200 42823 “http://www.frankieboots.com/” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.13; Mac_PowerPC)”

I guess I’m in.

-earlier-

I was thinking of dropping the TechBlog. I was spending more time weblogging than working on my “regular” web site content and those babies are getting rusty.

However, I am addicted to weblogging — I am a blogaholic.

Instead of dropping TechBlog, I’m dropping two of my web sites: SolarLily and NetJetter. Thanks to my handy dandy PostCon (Post Content Management) system, it will be easy to merge their content into my other sites without 404 errors slipping through.

And I’m going to tie my P2P Smoke website into the TechBlog, since the latter focuses primarily on P2P anyhow.

BTW, I heard from Oracle about a possible position working on Financial software. I don’t know — am I an Oracle employee type of person? Can you all picture me working at Oracle?

Wired has an article out about weblogging. If we all clap our hands and think happy thoughts will the mainstream journals that psychoanalyze weblogging to death go *POP*, do you think? I’m willing to give it a try.

My special thanks to Rogi, Dave D., Julian, Tom, Justin, and Chris for expressing curiousity and interest about what I’m discussing within the TechBlog. Particular thanks for folks who question the ideas I’m throwing out, and suggest other approaches or technologies.

There is nothing more discouraging than to become excited about something and then receive silence. Dave in particular caught it — dozens of comments for Radio, zip for discussions about smart web services.

If my ideas are full of horsepuckey — tell me! You may find that the ideas are good, but my expression of same lacked clarity. Of if they are a case of been there, done that — tell me! You may find that I’m taking a different approach than one you’ve tried. If you think the ideas have been implemented elsewhere — tell me! I’ll learn, they’ll learn, dammit we’ll all learn.

You don’t have to be nice — I can take “you’re full of little green beans”, and return it share for share.

We could really have some fun.

Chris, otherwise known as Stavros the Wonder Chicken (Waeguk is not soup) counts me as part of his virtual neighborhood.

After reading today’s posting I feel priviledged and honored that he would say so. Not many could face such early losses and come away with such inner strength as Chris has. And we’re richer for his sharing his life with us.

Chris, I regret that the neighborhood is virtual and that you’re on the other side of the planet, because I bet sharing a brew and a chat with you would be a highly rewarding experience.

-earlier-

Well, I’ve managed to snap at two of my favorite weblogging people tonight. I should quit now before I antagonize the rest.

To those who’ve been the recipient of bites today — my apologies. To those others who managed to avoid the bites — lucky yous.

-earlier-

Jonathon responded to my note on nobility and death.

One clarification: I am not taking away from the nobility of the actions of a person in how they face death, or the actions they take before death. I consider these to be the last acts of life.

But to use nobility in reference in death in order to somehow make the act acceptable or more palatable — for newscasting or for politics — is wrong.

-earlier-

Steve talks about our current “war on terrorism” and its impact on the language we use today. For instance, we say “hero” instead of “dead” when referring to a dead soldier.

There is no nobility in death, only in the lives we lead. Trying to make death pretty or noble hides what it really is — the loss of a life and the hurt and the pain and suffering of those who are left behind. The unfulfilled potential.

-earlier-

One person somewhere in the Universe will really hate my new color scheme. One person somewhere in the Universe will really love my new color scheme. The rest of the Universe will fall in between.

I can live with this.

-earlier-

Reasons to own a cat — from NJ Meryl:

It’s a little disconcerting to think of yourself from a cat’s-eye-view. But then again, it’s a lot comforting to be followed from room to room by a small, purring creature who only wants to stay within arm’s reach because he loves you so.

-earlier-

Updated Mike Sanders is continuing the discussion began here this weekend about weblogging and introspection. I missed the fact that Anita Bora also weighed in on this issue, as did From the Treetop (who happens to be listening to U2’s All that You Can’t Leave Behind, as I am at this time).

I like Mike’s comment: It is interesting how a “Do Your Own Thing” response can sound so authoritarian. I also caught that, and for a moment this weekend I was ready to burn brightly into the velvet black of a weblogging night (fried Rogi, anyone?). But then my foot hurt and my mind went in other directions.

Thoughtful commentary and what I would expect from Mike. Even though he’s not had Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream.

I’m OK. You’re OK. Weblogging is OK.

My last posting demonstrates that some of the best writing that occurs at this weblog occurs within the comments rather than within the posting, itself.

Still continuing the theme of how much to share online. When does sharing stop and uncontrolled dumping of self begin.

There was a point made, and a good one, that if you can write in a manner that is coherent than both the reader and the writer gain from the experience, regardless of the content of the writing. If your emotions are so strong, the rage so heavy, the fear so overwhelming, the despair so great that you can no longer communicate in any meaningful manner than the sharing becomes confusing to the reader and ultimately a betrayal of self online. The writer regrets the written. If you write something you regret having written than you’ve crossed the line. The content doesn’t matter as much as the end result.

So, how far does one take the coherency? One can write of emotions from an intellectual viewpoint, and the writing can be rich. However, at times the intellectualization of writing flattens the peaks and fills in the troughs of our experiences, our feelings.

The cluetrain folks were mentioned in the comments so let’s consider them for a moment:

I read David Weinberger or Doc Searls and they have a wonderful way with words, but there is an intellectualism at times in their writing that makes me uncomfortable with my own weblog postings. Does this make sense?

However, I read Chris Locke when he is in rare form and I feel that one can pour out your inner self and it becomes art, and it becomes literature, and it becomes something ultimately rewarding to the reader and the writer.

The question continues…