SOTU Bingo, Anyone?

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Just when you thought you heard it all…

John Dickerson’s Slate.com article, “State of the Union Watch Parties – Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?” talks about some of the festivities that will be going on throughout the country tomorrow night. My personal favorite:

At the Center for Global Development party, participants will play “SOTU bingo” listening for references to “HIV/AIDS,” “trade,” and “Africa” in the speech. Each time Bush says one of those phrases, players mark the box on their card, screaming “Bingo!” if they get a full plate. (They win mugs and T-shirts). Given how little Bush talks about those issues, the cards also have boxes with filler words like “peace,” “freedom,” and “democracy” that are more likely to be mentioned. The CGD party sold out in two hours…

And yes, you can click the cards link to download a PDF file with 11 cards for your own party.

Hard Disk Project Done

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And problems gone (knock wood).

If you’ve been following this topic, you know that I was having hard disk problems and decided to resolve them by reformatting my hard disk and reinstalling all my software from scratch.

After some problems getting Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger to install properly — I think there were scratches or dust on the disc — I was finally able to start installing software on my hard disk. iLife ’06 went first because I needed to work with iWeb for a project and I wanted to get my iPhoto library back online. One by one I pulled out the original program discs for my big software products: Microsoft Office, Photoshop, and InDesign. And then I pulled out the archives I use to save the original installers for downloaded software like Fetch, Nicecast, Audacity, and others. It took me most of the day last Wednesday to get the job 75% done. I’ll do the rest as I need to.

One thing that disappointed me was that I couldn’t find my original Auto F/X Photographic Edges disc. I use that product to add interesting edges to photos on wickenburg-az.com. But I poked around on the Web and found an old article (and here’s another one) that explained how to add interesting edge effects with various built-in Photoshop filters. I created an effect I liked, turned it into a Photoshop action, and can now apply it without the overhead of the Auto F/X package.

It took quite a while to get all my music and photos from the backup hard disk to my nice, clean hard disk. But everything transfered over without problems and I can access everything just like I could before the reformat.

The result of all this work and worry? My computer is running great, with no unexplained pauses, unexpectedly quitting applications, or lockups. Was it worth it? Of course it was!

Oprah’s revenge

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Or Frey gets fried.

I wrote about my feelings on the James Frey scandal in a previous post.

Today, I’m spending the day nursing a cold (so I can fly tomorrow without coughing myself out of the sky), and have been surfing the ‘Net all day. I finally tracked down and read the latest on the Frey/Oprah situation. You can read a good article about it by Harriet Frey (no relation) on Salon.com, “Oprah’s revenge.” (If you’re not a Salon.com member, you’ll have to sit through a very short advertisement to read the article; it’s worth it.)

I also read a few of the dozens of comments following the article. The one that seems to echo my sentiments perfectly said, in part:

But maybe an underlying reason this subject has become so controverial is BECAUSE Frey’s story is just more drop in the seemingly endless river of bullshit Americans are compelled to swim through by a media addicted to conflating reality and fiction. Fictionalized truth may have been a groundbreaking, freeing approach for Capote. Several decades later though, the method has clearly reached the viral stage, detached from its original purpose and spread thoughout the culture, where it has become a primary tool of media types on the make, trying to distinguish themselves in a tough, highly competitive industry. As a reader, I want to trust an author. If it is a work of fiction, I can admire the writer’s skill and imagination; if it is non-fiction, I want to be able to rely on the author’s accuracy.

(I added the emphasis.)

Sadly, James Frey’s career is now made. It doesn’t matter if his writing is any good. The math says all. If only 25% of his readers like his book, it isn’t a big deal when he sells only 10,000 copies. But if he sells over a million? That’s 250,000 fans. He can thank Oprah for giving him the million plus readers he needs to assure his future success.

What is a blog?

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Or, more specifically, what is my blog?

Blog is short for Web log. From the moment I discovered blogging — back in September 2004, I think it was — I’ve always thought of a blog as a sort of online journal. A place to write about the things I think and do. A way of recording them for the future and sharing them with others who might either think or do similar things or find my thoughts and actions interesting.

That’s what my blog is and always has been: an online journal.

Bloggers have been getting a lot of press lately. Especially political bloggers. I just read “Not Just Another Column on Blogging,” by Jack Shafer on Slate.com. In that piece, he discusses several things that have changed the newspaper industry. Blogging, he argues, is one of them.

From his article:

Michael Kinsley made me laugh a decade ago when he argued against Web populists replacing professional writers, saying that when he goes to a restaurant, he wants the chef to cook his entree, not the guy sitting at the next table. I’m not laughing anymore: When there are millions of aspiring chefs in the room willing to make your dinner for free, a least a hundred of them are likely to deal a good meal. Mainstream publishers no longer have a lock on the means of production, making the future of reading and viewing anybody’s game.

The problem, it seems, is finding the 100 capable of making a good meal. Fortunately, I don’t spend enough time surfing the Web to sample the available offerings. (And I hope you don’t, either. There are far better ways to waste time.)

Anyway, this isn’t me that he’s talking about. My blog may state political opinions, but it does not attempt to replace reporters, who I still try to trust to report the truth. Some of my blog entries are rehashings of the “truth” that I’ve heard or read, filtered through my brain, which includes personal experiences and preferences.

Again, from the top: my blog reports the things I think and do. It should not be used as a primary source of information for anything. (Does that sound like a legal disclaimer? Kind of eerie, if you ask me.)

Also, my blog has never been a way to gain popularity with readers or site visitors. In fact, some of my viewpoints are very unpopular with certain subsets of people. But this blog isn’t an entry in some kind of popularity contest. It’s my way to exercise the free speech I’m granted in the U.S. Consitution. (The same Constitution that has been in the news a lot lately.)

I’m also not trying to convince people who don’t agree with me on issues to agree with me. I hope that people will think about the things I write here, even when they don’t agree with me. After all, I think about most things I hear and read. That’s how my opinions come about. I don’t just echo the sentiments of others.

(I also hope that people think. Period. I’m so tired of talking to people who echo the thoughts of others.)

In general, I don’t care if others agree or disagree with me. I’d love to read (and share) rational, well-thought-out arguments from both sides. That’s what the Comments links are for. (Duh.) Just don’t get nasty. Nasty doesn’t get deleted. Nasty remains online to show the world just how immature some people can be.

Anyway, this entry was brought about primarily by reading Mr. Shafer’s article today and thinking about how my blog doesn’t fit into what is quickly becoming the definition of a blog: an amateur’s attempt at serious journalism.

This isn’t journalism. It’s my diary. I just don’t keep it locked up.

And heck, no one is forcing you to read it.