The Weather News Buzz

Some Channel 5 news guy named Darrell Phillips thinks my post about local television weather coverage is "interesting."

I believe this blog belongs to one of the webmasters at the (local paper). It's interesting then that he should take so strong a position regarding their commercial partner, WREG.

Right. So why is that interesting? Channel 5 coverage sucked too from what I've been told. I wonder if Mr. Phillips would find it interesting if the paper reported some scandal at WREG or published an op-ed criticizing them for some actions. Because it would happen, if warranted.

The facts are the facts and it looks like ALL local news went crazy this past Monday with their severe storm coverage. My criticisms would have been leveled at Channel 5 if I actually watched Channel 5, which I don't at all. Except for "Scrubs." That's a good show.

My main gripe is that the local news and their apologists use the "if it saves one life" issue to justify their stupid actions. That's so disingenuous. Sure, there are good times to totally preempt scheduled coverage but those times are rare and should be used sparingly. I've heard all the excuses and bleeding heart justifications but it's all posturing. And anyone who complains is labeled a cold-hearted jerk who would rather watch "Fear Factor" than save lives.

Did you know wearing a helmet while driving a car would probably save at least one life each year? Yeah, it's true. So why don't we do it? Because it's stupid and a freaking inconvenience. Same principle applies to the local weather coverage. The "if a little is good, then a lot is better" philosophy drives me insane, because it's a lie. Sometimes a little is better and a lot is worse.

I have no earthly idea who Darrell Phillips is and the only two names of local news folks I can name off the top of my head is Joe Birch and Tim Simpson (both weather people). Oh, and Andy Wise but I'm not sure if he's still around. My point, I don't watch local news... at all. Maybe it's my newspaper and Web bias but I just do not watch local news. So maybe that's why I say it sucks when I see local news (from any channel) instead of the shows I expect to see.

posted by Eric J | 10:58 PM

October 20 at 10 p.m.

A few quick things:

1. Go see "Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence." Like practically all Japanese anime films, the story is really tough to follow but that's not important. What's important is the stunning, jaw-dropping animation. This is what all animation should be like. Go see this movie on the Big Screen while you can. You won't regret it, if you're a fan of excellent animation.

2. Watching the Championship Series on TiVo sucks. I agree with Matt Wood that sports on TiVo (at least the ALCS) is not that satisfying.

3. Memphis severe weather coverage sucks. Hey, when there's a tornado coming there's this thing called a TORNADO SIREN that blares like a giant siren (which is exactly what it is) warning people to get your ass to safety. And guess what, those Tornado Sirens work, they test them every week.

4. There are now at least three blogs totally or partially dedicated to criticizing yours truly. Have I hit the big time? No, I've just annoyed one seriously unstable dumbass. It's good to blog.

5. Oh, and that new Jerry Bruckheimer movie with Nic Cage, "National Treasure," looks so freakin' stupid. Can I legally shoot Jerry Bruckheimer? He can't be human can he?

posted by Eric J | 10:23 PM

News Channel 3... YOU SUCK!

Just wanted to give a little congrats to our beloved WREG here in Memphis who pre-empted every show on CBS last night to show Doppler Weather coverage. Thanks you buffoons for screwing up "Everybody Loves Raymond" and my wife's "CSI - Some City (no idea which one)" by showing your STUPID Storm Coverage. YOU SUCK!

You know those little scrolling text things all the Cable News Channels use? Use those you morons. Or even a split screen is better than all Tim Simpson, all the time. By 10 p.m. I was rooting for the "killer tornados" to swoop down and destroy Channel 3. Go storm, Go!

Did I mention that Channel 3 SUCKS. No idea what the other channels were doing, I discovered all this as I was checking my TiVo late last night. If they other channels did the same thing then YOU SUCK TOO!

posted by Eric J | 10:39 AM

My Prozac

I don't take Prozac. In fact, I don't get depressed... not really. Even at when things are at their bleakest, I always seem to find a silver lining and keep on trucking. Why is this? Well, for a long, long time I thought it was due to my sunny disposition but I now realize that's just not the case. My disposition is rarely sunny as I've been told by my "friends."

No, what I discovered is that I stay optimistic and upbeat by combining two things on a daily basis: Seinfeld and Coffee. That's right, I watch at least one episode of Seinfeld every day and drink copious amounts of coffee which keeps me so deliriously happy that I'm bursting with... well... I'm getting a bit carried away. However, I really think that there is something very wonderful about my Seinfeld and Coffee combo. In a pinch, I could swap I Love Lucy for Seinfeld.

So, if you're feeling down and gray, don't worry. Just grab a Grande Coffee and start watching Seinfeld.

DISCLAIMER: Eric is not a medical doctor nor should this be taken as medical or psychological advice. Eric also believes that "walking it off" is sound medical advice.

posted by Eric J | 01:51 PM

The Comment Spam Wars

Mark Glaser writes about the "Comment Spam Wars" and explains how this unfortunate phenomenon is causing bloggers to rethink comment strategies. It's a great read and clearly defines the current state of this issue.

Spammers find a way to game Google search results by posting links in comments sections of popular blogs. Now the makers of Movable Type and bloggers are banding together to try to keep real-time interactivity alive in the blogosphere. Here's a look at the battle so far.

This issue is especially relevant to me because we're aggressively utilizing blogs at work to expand our content and reach out to the communities. With this blog expansion comes the dreaded comment spam and the key to winning this battle, as Glaser points out, is to minimize the maintenance required to manage the spam.

How do you deal with comment spam? I use MT-Blacklist but am thinking of some other solutions. Turning off HTML in comments is becoming more and more appealing to me each day. Any thoughts?

posted by Eric J | 06:25 PM

Burn those feeds

I spent a good part of this afternoon creating an RSS (or RDF or XML or Whatever) News type page. The page basically pulls in Site Feeds from several sites using Cafe RSS. If you haven't used Cafe RSS, you should. It's so simple and easy to install. Thanks to Matt Wood for the heads up on this nifty tool.

Anyway, so I'm setting up this news feed page and realized that Blogger doesn't produce XML. It produces Atom.xml which is fun and cool and oh so trendy but does NOT work with lil ole Cafe RSS. Not fun because many of the sites I wanted to include are hosted on Blogspot.

What do do? Well, Blogger recommends using something called FeedBurner and so I check it out. And you know what? It kicks ass. I signed up and translated four Atom.xml feeds to generic RSS in no time. And it was all free. I love free.

So, allow FeedBurner to solve your Syndication compatability woes. It did for me :D

posted by Eric J | 09:06 AM

Blogging 101 - Be Brief

Explanation
I'm publishing an instructional series called "Blogging 101." The primary purpose of this series is to share my blogging knowledge and experience with you. I hope you find this series helpful and informative. I've been blogging for over two years and have learned a great deal about how to utilize this powerful publishing tool to effectively communicate. I also believe that this series will help me become a better blogger. Some say that the best way to learn is to teach. I want to put that to the test. I'll be doing that regularly beginning with today's Lesson One.

Lesson One - Be Brief
Now that I've dispensed with introductions, let's jump into "Lesson One." Bloggers should be brief whenever possible. As Mark Bernstein says, "Write tight. Omit unnecessary words."

Don't be afraid to edit. While blogs are necessarily informal, a good blogger will remove extraneous words to keep his writing as short as possible. See if you can condense that ten word sentence into five. In blogging, less is often more.

Another way to be brief is to avoid rambling. If you have more than one or two points to make in a blog post, consider breaking it up into several posts. I've often written a lengthy post and later broke it into two or three separate and distinct posts.

What If I Can't Be Brief?
I understand that all posts can't be brief. If after editing and condensing your post, you find that it's still really long, try categorizing the post by subjects or themes. Use sub-heads to notify the reader about the content of each "section." See what I've done in this post? Using sub-heads breaks the post up and allows readers to scan it for compelling content.

On the information superhighway (which will be part of a later "avoiding cliche's" lesson) blogs are like billboards. If a billboard is too wordy, it loses its effectiveness. So too with blogs.

Be Brief - Summary
Here's my personal blogging rule of thumb.

Edit my post. When done editing, edit again. After that, edit some more. And finally, right before publishing, edit one last time.

So, in keeping with the spirit of this "lesson," I'm done. The next lesson will discuss "floating vs. fixed width" blogs.

posted by Eric J | 05:55 PM