Something Requisitely Witty and Urbane

Say Hello To...

So, I was doing a DFW area blogging survey which required me to look over my blogroll and I realized a grevious omission.

Being Amber Rhea has been one of my favorite reads for 6 months or more. Even when I get behind on my blogreading, she is among the handful that I make sure I keep up with on a daily basis. It's a crime that I haven't included her until now.

So, problem corrected.

My L.O.S.E.R Number...

... is 384.72.

Just in case anyone was curious.

Articles

For bookmarking purposes, and for anyone interested.  I've already posted the text before, but here's a link to the online version of my first article for the college newspaper.

Al Gore

I'm blogging from class (the proliferation of wi-fi is so fetch), so I'll have to make this quick, but Ezra Klein has hit the big time with his first cover article for The New Prospect.  It is on the re-emergence of Al Gore as a possible '08 candidate, and his attempts to rehabilitate his image back to the progressive he was before joining forces with modero-Clinton.

So Gore sought a way to bypass the filter. Every time he gives a speech under MoveOn’s auspices, a guaranteed 3 million MoveOn members get the address blasted directly in their inboxes, where it can be read in full. From there, the speech gets e-mailed around, promoted on the blogs, passed from friend to neighbor -- what tech types call “viral marketing.” At no point in this process does a news editor or television producer decide which sound bites will be emphasized for ratings. MoveOn allows him to speak on his own terms and individuals to distribute his speeches on theirs. It’s Gore Unplugged, and everyone’s got a ticket.

If the Internet is reinventing Gore, though, Gore is using its lessons to reinvent television. His October 2005 speech to the We Media conference was a tour de force, ranging from Johannes Gutenberg to Thomas Paine, Walter Lippmann to John Kenneth Galbraith, the historian Henry Steele Commager to the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas. Gore was a know-it-all, and he didn’t care if they knew it too. He blasted the media for accepting “fewer reporters, fewer stories, smaller budgets, less travel, fewer bureaus, less independent judgment, more vulnerability to influence by management, and more dependence on government sources and canned public relations hand-outs,” for chasing sensationalism and conflict, for becoming “dumbed-down and tarted-up.” He lamented that “the inherent value or validity of political propositions put forward by candidates for office is now largely irrelevant compared to the advertising campaigns that shape the perceptions of voters.” But most of all, he decried television’s unidirectionality. “[A]long with my partner, Joel Hyatt, I am trying to work within the medium of television to recreate a multi-way conversation that includes individuals and operates according to a meritocracy of ideas.”

If Ezra's right, and I'm not so sure I completely agree with the entire premise, then Gore is gearing up for a total netroots campaign.  I don't know that it is a good strategy, using the netroots almost exclusively, but a firming up "meet the new image, same as the old image" persona and establishing it as truth is a vital first step.  The "draft Gore" movement could gain steam, and suddenly every Democratic frontrunner story becomes a "but Gore is building steam as well, and he's not even doing anything" one as well.  Interesting to watch.

Treat your Video Game Hero's with Care

This is really a pretty spectacular video.  (via BB)

Idol TV Chatter

American Idol

A pretty lackluster week on American Idol with the fairly boring Stevie Wonder theme.  Why is it that someone as great as Stevie Wonder just can't be duplicated when people try to sing his stuff? Sub-question: Is it better to flame out or to fade away?

The only thing redeeming about this episode was Kevin Covais singing "Part Time Lover."  I WAS this kid when I was 16.  From his good-natured joking about being a sex symbol, to hamming it up on the out of character song to his absolute throttling of Simon made me laugh out loud and entertained me more than anything else has on this show.  That combined with the fact that Melissa forgot her lyrics and Bucky is still just awful is the only thing saving his ass for another week.

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The Shield

Sweet Lord!  I'm not sure that I can recall a show that makes my adrenaline rush more than this show.  This season has been absolutely phenomenal.  I know that the "Vic Mackey as anti-hero" meme has been played out when discussing this show, but it has never been more apparent than when contrasted against the foil of Forrest Whittaker's fantastic Kavanaugh.  Kavanaugh is the good guy, but the show has been so adept at making us love Mackey, even though he is a reprehensible human being that hating Kavanaugh, who's squeaky clean, "I'd send my wife to prison if she broke the law" stature is just too easy.  Even as Mackey is having to face the consequences of the life he's led -- the kind of cop that on any other cop show would be chastised for being the kind of police that gives everyone else a bad name -- we still want him to get away with it. There's just not enough superlatives to praise this show.

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The Sopranos

Is Tony dead or isn't he?  I was surprised at just how good this season premiere episode was.  It was tight and beautiful storytelling.

I'm sure this isn't the first time that this theory has been floated, but I came up with it on my own, so I'm writing it here for posterity's sake:  Tony is dead.  This episode was actually the episode that, if shown in chronological order, would have appeared at the "end" of the first half of this season (which HBO is breaking up into two segments, waiting 6 months or so before showing the last half, so that it really resembles two seasons but still allowing them to call it one).  The rest of the first half of this season will go back to the beginning and fill in the blanks.  In Sunday's episode, it's been 15 months since Johnny Sack got nabbed by the Feds.  Next week's episode will be what would have been the season premiere, and they'll go in chronological order up to the episode we just saw, which would have been the season "finale."  The last half of the season, next year, will the power struggle and all out war, with Johnny Sack in federal prison and Tony dead, between the Christopher led Jersey family and the Philly Lotardo led New York family.

Evidence to support my claim that Tony is dead:  Tony is dead because the whole episode was about death.  From the poem in the opening montage about the 7 souls peeling away when we die, to the constant references to Tony's demise, ("God forbid he has a coronary"), or the suicide of the never before seen top earner in the family, the theme of the episode was death.  Tony is dead as a doornail.

Evidence to support my "last episode is first" theory: Every season premiere of this show has begun with Tony walking down the driveway to get the paper.  This episode began with two Agents in a car saying (and I'm paraphrasing), "The American public is stupid.  Package it the right way, and they'll buy anything."

UPDATE:  Here is the text to the poem at the opening of the episode, which was from a William S. Burrough's piece.

The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls, Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren, the Secret Name. This corresponds to my Director, He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.

Second soul, and second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right buttons.

Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is third man out . . . depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense- but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go beck to Heaven for another vessel.

The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the Land of the Dead. Number four is Ba, the heart, often treacherous. This is a hawk's body with your face on it, shrunk down to the size of a fist. Many a hero has been brought down, like Samson, by a perfidious Ba.

Number five is Ka, the Double, most closely associated with the subject. The Ka, which usually reaches adolescence at the time of bodily death, is the only reliable guide through the Land of the Dead to the western Lands.

Number six is Khaibit, the Shadow, Memory, your whole past conditioning from this and other lives.

Number seven is Sekhu, the Remains.

Blogging

Although I may not be quite qualified to do so, as of late, I'm writing and article for the paper about blogging, and I'm looking for a little bit of help.

I'm writing this article with the idea that, by now, most college level students will already know what a blog is (although I'm quite sure I'll include some prefunctory descriptions and definitions), so I'm trying to write an article that is different than just the same old "You've heard the word on television... so what are these 'blog' things, anyway?" type of crap.

So, as kind of a case study, I'm asking some questions, and hopefully your answers will help me write an article that provides more of an understanding of the day to day process of blogging, and less about what blogs are.

Please leave your answers to the following questions in the comments for use in my article, and I'm sure I'll ask some of you follow-ups on a personal basis.  The more feedback I get, the better.  Thanks in advance, guys.

1. If you had to label your blog, what "type" of blog do you write?
2. How long have you been blogging?
3. What prompted you to start blogging?
4. What do you find satisfying about blogging?
5. Why do you look to blogs for information? Do you do so more or less than other more traditional entertainment or news sources?
6. What about blogs that you read make you want to read them?

Help...

Internet connection problems have become the reason du jour for my blogging absense.

In the mean time, Amber could use your help.   Go and give, if you feel so inclined.

My First Journalistic Endevour

As promised, here is the text of my first article in the school newspaper, really blowing the doors off of the whole Pay-per-Print thing.  I promise I won't bore you with every article I write, but this being my first one, it felt noteworthy.

Profit or Loss

It's 5 cents a copy now in the Student REsource Center, copies that used to be free.  So where is the money going, and how happy are the users?
by Dylan Biles - Contributing Writer

            Last August, North Lake College instituted a new policy in the Student Resource Center (K307) that requires students to pay 5 cents for each page they print or copy they make. After 7 months, the effectiveness of the system is still unclear.

            The Pay-Per-Print program works this way: money is deposited into a student’s account, and is then debited from that account when a page is printed or a copy is made. But after the nickel is spent, many students have no idea where their money goes.

            According to Vice-President of Business Services, Christa Slejko, 4 cents of every nickel spent is paid to Danka and its sister company OCS, the contractors who provide maintenance, paper, ink cartridges and toner, as well as installing the payment software system. The remaining cent is put into Fund 12, a fund earmarked at North Lake for student activities and services such as Athletics, SPAR, Student Government and the News-Register, among others.

The system has had some glitches, according to many staff members. Student Resource Center Coordinator, Nancee Ott, has witnessed problems with the system firsthand. “Every once in a while we have to reboot because it just quits. People forget their password. It takes their money sometimes and we have to put it back in their account, and we have to trust them to do that,” said Ott.

Internet Services Support Manager Jim Casey, who oversaw the installation of the computer system, said that many of the problems are still being dealt with. He said that initially, the system often failed to register the account, or it created duplicate accounts which left students with no way to access their money. As a result, he said, the system often had to be rebooted, sometimes three or four times a day. 

            Things are improving slightly, however. “We probably reboot the services now once a day on average,” said Casey. “It’s getting better… it’s still not to our liking because any service like this shouldn’t have to be rebooted on a daily basis, maybe once a year, but not the kind of situation we’ve been forced to deal with.”

            The program has had mixed reviews among the students at North Lake as well. CoreyAnn Beavens believes that the program is fair, but that the system leaves something to be desired. “Five cents is a very fair price,” she said. “The system is just difficult to set up. You have to get help. The system is difficult to follow, and it should be self-reliant.”

            Ethan Laurence, another student at North Lake, agrees. “I’ve had difficulties setting up my account. It’s very non-intuitive. The system is set up poorly, in my opinion.”

            The Pay-Per-Print program is new to North Lake, but other DCCC campuses have already implemented similar systems over two years ago. “Some of the campuses already had Pay-Per-Print, some of them wanted it, because printing has gotten to be very expensive,” said Judy Keller, assistant dean of the Student Resource Center. “It’s the paper, the toner, and with all of these nice printers, the cartridges are not cheap anymore.”

            For campuses which had not yet implemented the Pay-Per-Print program, DCCC Chancellor Jesus Carreon’s new emphasis on consistency for all campuses kicked in. The Chancellor’s vision is for students to be able to move seamlessly from one campus to another, according to Slejko. “The Chancellor wants consistent services for students on all campuses. North Lake was not one of the campuses which heavily advocated the program,” said Slejko, “but did so in the name of consistent services.”

            To implement the services, the District decided to hire Danka and OCS to help, according to Casey. “OCS actually sells the software and Danka does the service for us as far as the paper and toner.”

            North Lake was the last college in the District to implement the Pay-Per-Print program. Before the program, the college charged 10 cents per copy but printing was free. This added up to a huge expense. According to Ott, the computer lab registers approximately 8000 to 9000 log ins per month. Of those log ins, Ott estimates that approximately 75 percent result in pages being printed. 

As a compromise, when the Pay-Per-Print program was initiated, they college evened out the price of printed pages and copies to 5 cents per page. This is 3 cents less than charged at area Kinko’s stores, and five cents less than is charged at the University of North Texas or the University of Texas at Arlington.

Until August 31, the end of the fiscal year in the District, North Lake won’t know whether or not the Pay-Per-Print program is profitable. “Right now,” said Slejko, “I can’t take a good snapshot.”

Indecent Exposure

I need your help, ya'll.

I have a friend who has a blog.  She blogs by the pseudonym Humor Girl, so I will respect her anonymity here, but I feel comfortable, since I have kept my work place anonymous on my blog, to tell you that I work with her. Her blog is mostly a "documenting my life" sort of blog, complete with camera phone pictures.

Let me start this post by saying that I like Humor Girl.  I personally think she is a nice person, and that she doesn't have any ill-intent towards anyone.  I genuinely think she's a good person.

That being said, a couple of weeks ago, she wrote a post about about a girl who sits in front of her in class.  This girl, apparently, wears pants that, when she sits, exposes the top of her butt crack.  Humor Girl is sickened by this and decided to say so on her blog.

Accompanying the blog post is a picture, taken by Humor Girl, of the offending butt crack.

A few days later, she posted another post, because Accidental Buttcrack Girl was committing the same social faux pas.

While at work, I told Humor Girl (pseudonyms are funny... I feel strange calling this person I know in real life by that name) that I thought it was in poor taste for her to put this girl's picture on her blog against her will.  Humor Girl was fairly indignant, an said that her post was in humor and that there is no way anyone could find out because it doesn't show the girl's face.

This conversation has gone on for several weeks, off and on.  Most people at work seem to think it is fairly harmless, but when they ask me why I'm so bothered by it, the explanation that this girl is being exposed against her will to the internets at least causes them to say, "Ok... I see what you are saying."

My criticism, however, has seemed to stick in Humor Girl's craw.  Today she wrote a post rebutting the "growing controversy" (which has, literally, grown within the four walls of our small restaurant):

She is anonymous.

I am anonymous.

None of my blog-readers (excluding friends and family) know where I go to school. 

There is virtually no way that this girl could identify her butt.

  HOWEVER.....

People are seriously pissed, ya'll!! They're creating an ANTI HG website or something!? They think it was mean and are losing sleep over my cold-blooded intentions!! They're telling everyone about my cleaverly disguised malevolent nature and are ensuring that people judge my character!! (Behind my back, of course!)
"HG took a picture of someone's BUTT!  And POSTED it WITHOUT HER PERMISSION!!  What a heartless cow."

I think I'm nice.  They think i'm evil.  I'll let you be the judge.

She then goes on to compare her picture, in which anonymity protects the subject of the picture, to pictures in magazines like US Weekly, where pictures of celebrities meant to show of their physical flaws and accidental nudity, are much, much worse.

Where to begin.  Humor Girl, I would believe, would admit that I never called her names (certainly not a heartless cow).  I am also not "seriously pissed," I was just bothered about it enough to mention something to her.  I would have never brought it up again if she hadn't brought it up again.

But, getting beyond the high school drama aspects of the scenario.

I believe that, in spite of being in poor taste (which is not typical of Humor Girl), it is an absolute invasion of ABG's privacy to post ANY picture of her that shows her in an unflattering manner on a website without her permission, buttcrack or no.  That's not to say that it is illegal or that it doesn't happen all the time, it is simply wrong.

If this girl were to find out, or if anyone at Humor Girl's University were to find out that one of their students was posting another of their student's butt cracks on their website, I doubt they would be happy about it either.

As to the US Weekly argument, it isn't right for US Weekly to print these pictures either.  They are gross invasions of celebrity privacy as well.  In fact, such magazines are often the targets of libel and slander lawsuits for this very thing.

That being said, celebrities go about their daily lives with an honest expectation that they will be photographed at any time.  The rightness or wrongness of that is a discussion for another day, but they expect it to happen at any time.  ABG does not have an honest expectation to go to school and and have her buttcrack photographed and subsequently posted on the internet.

But, if Humor Girl truly believes that it isn't wrong, then I'd suggest that she, at her next class meeting, tell ABG about the picture.  I'm pretty sure that Humor Girl won't do this because she knows that, at the very least, what she's done is mean-spirited.  I'm pretty sure ABG won't find it funny either.

What do you think, gang? Am I overreacting?