Come On Down

The Blogger Bash III is set for this Wed. (Dec. 1) at 7 p.m. It's at Cafe Francisco which is at 400 N. Main (next to T.J. Mulligans). The place closes at 10 so that's when I suppose we'll wrap it up if we haven't already done so before then.

Be sure to come and bring your laptop if you're geek enough. My last post has a list of some folks who said they'll be there. I also sent an email to some folks, including Mike Hollihan who really got all this crazy stuff going in the first place. If you know of someone who should be at the Bash but doesn't know about it then put them in the loop. Nobody likes being out of the loop.

posted by Eric J | 08:31 PM

Blogger Bash III

So let's do this Blogger Bash thing. So far the following people have said they're in:

• Len Cleavelin
• Rachel (but I don't think she's bringing the city)
• Mark Richens
• Abby
• Brock Sides

Add me to that mix and you've got four, which is hardly a bash but we'll make due I suppose. I'm thinking of doing this on the Wed. after Thanksgiving which would be Dec. 1 on my calendar. We'll meet at Cafe Francisco located downtown on N. Main Street.

Tell your buddies and come on down. You don't even need to have a blog to come but it would help if you regularly read blogs. Check back here for more details as they become available.

posted by Eric J | 08:45 PM

Fly On The Wall

Here is the complete "Fly On The Wall" column from the Memphis Flyer republished here with permission from Chris Davis (who I believe is behind the excellent Flypaper Theory Blog). I should mention that the column makes it look like Darrell Phillips works for Channel 3 when he really works for Channel 5. Davis ran a correction the following week. I did not make that mistake and actually I thought I made it pretty clear that he worked for Channel 5 but if I didn't, I apologize for any confusion.

And while on the subject, I'll share some more of my thoughts on this whole "mess." First of all it's really cool what happened. Follow the path and see how the world is changing:

• I got annoyed because my TiVo didn't record the shows I wanted to watch. Instead it recorded a couple hours of storm coverage. Notice that I wasn't actually watching television, I was time-shifting (is that still the phrase?) and watching it later that night and believe me, I would have skipped those commercials.


• I was so annoyed I blogged about it here, on my PERSONAL blog.


• A broadcast news reporter with his own blog (not sure if it's personal or business) reads my blog and decides to use his blog to comment about my blog post.


• I saw my referrer logs, saw he posted about (and linked to) my blog and so I wrote a post about his blog and what I thought of his comments.


• Somehow the Flyer gets wind of this and decides to devote an entire column to the "awful spat."


• Not only does the Flyer write about this "awful spat" but it gets in on the fun and posts a Dopplar Cam Radar picture. Hilarious. Genius? Maybe.


• This has not happened yet but I'm hoping, against all hope, that during the next "severe storm" we will actually see some of my suggestions used (text crawls, split screens, etc.). I know they won't be but... well a man can dream can't he?

This is an example of blogs and media doing... something. Ok, not quite sure what we have here but it's interesting at the very least. And I found a new blog from this whole ordeal (The Flypaper Theory). Keen.

Now, all you bloggers out there, we need to have another blogger bash. Not sure how many of you still read this blog but since Mike Hollihan is still on hiatus, somebody needs to organize a meeting. I'll do it then. Let's hook up after Thanksgiving at Cafe Francisco where we can bring out laptops and spill beer and coffee on them. You in or out? And Chris Davis better be there, I gotta meet this guy.

posted by Eric J | 09:51 PM

Bob@

Comment Spam Sucks (I'm sure that statement will be deemed "interesting" soon enough ;o). I'm looking into switching all my blogs to the latest version of MT even if it means I must shell out some cash. I'm running MT version 2.661 and I get around 300-500 comment spams each week. About twice that many get blocked by MT-Blacklist and never make it to my comments. It's getting to be a real pain and I need some sort of registration tool I'm afraid. I think the latest MT offers this so I'm looking into it.

However, for now I've just decided to block a BUNCH of stuff. The word "holdem" will not be allowed on any of my MT blogs. The words "porn" and "incest" is banned too. I don't imagine many legitimate uses for those words anyway but there may be a time when someone makes a comment using one of those words appropriately... or at least tries to because now those words are banned.

And I've also banned the word "Bob@" which seems to be what a LOT of comment spam uses as an email address. Bob@1287yahoo.com or something. Since I've blocked "bob@" my activity logs show about half of all comment denials are from that word alone. If there's some guy out there named Bob with an email address like bob@msn.com then he's SOL. Of course, he'll figure out that bob@ is banned and use something else... I hope. If not, then I probably don't want to read his comments anyway.

My main point is that these stupid comment spammers have forced me to be even more restrictive in what words can and can't be used in my comments. I hate you comment spammers. I hope you all die horrible deaths. And bob@, you're the worst offender and I have especially bad thoughts for you. Go to hell.

posted by Eric J | 08:41 PM

Flyer Flap

If you live in Memphis then you may be aware of the Memphis Flyer write-up of this blog and the WEATHER COVERAGE CONTROVERSY! A co-worker mentioned something about it in the bathroom last week and I was like, "Wha?"

Apparently, the Memphis Flyer devoted an entire "Fly on the Wall" column to this blog, its posts about the horrible weather craziness at the local news channels and Darrell Phillips. It's all really quite humorous to me, how my goofy rantings inspired a column in the weekly tabloid but the Flyer's Web site doesn't archive all their columns (I don't think) so I can't link to it. I might scan in some excerpts or something to give you a better idea of what happened.

The real cool thing about this, in my mind, is that it's another case of blogs influencing print products.

And for the record, I have nothing against Darrell Phillips. I'm sure he's a great guy and if I watched the local news I bet he'd be my favorite reporter. After all, he's a news reporter who blogs so that's pretty damn cool in my book. Some people I talked to about this thing got the impression that I didn't like Mr. Phillips or something. I don't know him so I can't say one way or the other.

Anyway, I'll post more about this soon. Maybe the guys at the Flyer will give me permission to republish their entire column. That would be cool of them.

posted by Eric J | 08:09 PM

Are You Eric?

Went to two bookstores tonight, passing time and shopping for children's books and anything that looked interesting. Picked up the new Biz Stone Blogging book at Bookstar on Poplar (are there any others?) and then got so irritated at the Bookstar helper guy that I decided to leave before I made a scene. I was trying to explain that I wanted to find the section of the store where they put technology books. Not books about how to set up a router or learn C++ but books that pontificated about technology (such as Lawrence Lessig's book Free Culture).

As I was checking out at Bookstar the pleasant cashier lady quizzically looked at my Blogger Hoodie and said, "does this book have anything to do with your sweatshirt?"

"Yeah, it does sort of," I replied knowing that she had no idea what a blog was and would probably snicker at the silliness of the word as I left with my son.

After I left Bookstar my son and I (he got two books of his own) headed to Davis-Kidd.

Tonight was "Book Night" for his Pre-K class at Davis-Kidd so we went to eat some dinner (the bleu cheese tomato soup was tasty), listen to stories and buy books. Each purchase helps the school somehow.

While he was listening to some story about Bears with my wife, I walked up to the register to purchase my copy of Free Culture and the cashier gal says something like "nice sweatshirt." Awesome, a fellow blogger.

"Yeah, thanks but a lot of people still don't know what "Blogger" is," says I.

"Do you have a blog?" she says.

Does a bear poop in the woods? "I have several. Do you have one?"

"No" she says. "But I read several local ones." She mentioned Rachel and the City and another one I can't remember.

"Rachel, yeah I know her," which I do... sort of. I met her at the last "Blogger Bash" so I guess I sort of know her. I also read her blog, if that means anything.

"What are your blogs?"

"Well, there's Webraw and there's also the one I do for The Local Paper."

"Are you Eric?" she asks.

Yes. Yes I am.

My ego was boosted just a bit when she asked that but as I sit and reflect on our conversation I'm not entirely sure she didn't just read my name off my credit card. I can't remember if I'd handed it to her yet or not but it doesn't really matter. What matters (to me) is that I actually ran into someone who could briefly "talk blog" and that in itself is very, very cool to a blog geek like me.

Thanks Davis-Kidd blog cashier girl. I'll never go back to Bookstar again.

posted by Eric J | 08:00 PM

Just can't drop it

My post about the miserable local news weather coverage got a bit of attention, mainly because someone at Channel 5 thought it was "interesting" that I would state the obvious about Channel 3 and their weather coverage... that it sucked (at least in one instance). Apparently my comments were interesting since Channel 3 is a "news partner" with my employer. I still fail to see why this is interesting and found Tom Walter's column on Election Night coverage equally honest and uninteresting.

Walter states:

A little before 10 p.m., right after CBS tossed it back to WREG-TV Channel 3, Roswell Encina told us, "As Dan Rather just reported, President Bush just won the 21 electoral votes in the state of Pennsylvania."

Except that Rather called Pennsylvania for Kerry. We didn't need to hear it again, even if it had been correct, mere minutes later.

Isn't it "interesting" that Tom Walter would mention this flub considering that Channel 3 is a "news partner with his employer? No! It's just honest reporting. Walter also had this to say about Channel 3's Mike Matthews:

There are other reasons why local reporters shouldn't venture into national races: banality and belaboring the obvious.

During the 5 p.m. news on Channel 3, reporter Mike Matthews called the presidential race "the most partisan in 40 years." Like political parties were invented this year?

He also said, "No question, whoever wins this race will win because of hard work, but the real work won't begin until the election is over."

Again, is Walter correct? I think so. Was he "interesting" if you consider his employer's news partners? Not at all.

The point is that my criticisms were honest and were limited to my experience. I clarified this by saying that I didn't watch Channel 5. I did hear Channel 5 also dropped the ball and so they deserve criticism as well. What concerns me is that some believe that relationships should color opinions and reporting. Do the folks at Channel 5 think of who their "news partners" are before they criticize someone? I hope not.

I know I should just drop this but it really annoys me. I think I'm done with it now. Just to build some bridges, Channel 3 is a great channel most of the time and so is Channel 5. I don't watch them much but they do a great service for this community. Let's have a hug.

posted by Eric J | 01:39 PM