Rory Blyth and that girl.  Rory writes blog posts the way I used to try to write songs.  It’s hard to explain, but that’s a compliment.  I say try to write songs because I spent teens of hours writing more than a few songs that aren’t nearly as interesting as some of these posts Rory cranks out, seemingly in one take.

Seth Finkelstein’s New Year’s Resolutions.  Good advice for many of us.

TDavid’s sons rock (star).  I played Wii Tennis for the first time at a New Year’s Eve party.  I thought it was a blast, which is why I can’t let my kids talk me into getting a Wii.

Warner is right- this is wrong.

Earl says that for him iTunes is about convenience.  I get that, but I want my music, just like my internet content, to be free-range, existing outside of the Apple, or Facebook, walls.  The deal killer for me was when I found out I couldn’t move music files directly from my computer to an iPod.  Rory tells me about ml_iPod in the Comments.

Steven Hodson talks about the same thing that got me all worked up with the Groundhog Day post.  I don’t know if it’s still getting pumped into Jake’s feed- I unsubscribed when it kept showing up day after day.

So what do you do when you find a giant 40,000 year old mastodon skull?  Auction it off, of course.

Coming soon to the Ocho: competitive video gaming.  I will say that I’d rather watch someone play Frogger than poker.  Or golf.

Cassidy, my 9 year old, uses only Ask.com for her internet school research.  I asked her why, and she said that’s what they use at school.  I was surprised that Google wasn’t her search engine of choice.  My search engine evolution went like this:  Alta Vista (seems to be still online) to Hotbot (looks dead to me) to Google.

Amy Gahran has a good post on how and why to start blogging.  There are so many reasons people blog.  Many of them are designed, directly or indirectly, around monetary goals.  Those blogs generally bore me, because it’s so easy to spot the true motive.  If you have a financial motive, you must do two things: be honest about it and give people something of value to make it worth their while to visit your blog.  If you’re blogging for other reasons, bless your heart.  In that case, just pick something you care about and write passionately.  Don’t be afraid to ask established bloggers for help.  It’s not that hard to have an active and reasonably popular blog.  It only gets screwed up when you decide you’re a blog star or make it all about money.  Basically, blogs are like email.  Lots of them are spam, lots of them are trying to give you information you don’t need or want, and some of them are fun and informative.

In related news, Wired has 10 tips for new bloggers.  I agree with all but 1 and 9.

Claus Valca on Firefox 3.0 and, perhaps, my new feed reader.  Download Squad has more.  Based on Claus’ post, I am going to try NewsFox.

Needlepoint this truism by Doc Searls and put in on your wall: “today’s ‘social networks’ look to me like yesterday’s online services.”  Amen: “I wonder if it pisses Yahoo off that Myspace has taken over the internet with what is, in large part, merely an updated version of Geocities- something that Yahoo had a decade ago?”

Richard Querin on the “ironically named” Facebook Funwall.  I realize that no one other than Doc and Richard agrees with me, but I just do not understand the Facebook hysteria.  Now if I owned Facebook and was the one making money off all these fence painters, then I would be hysterical.

Bookmark this link: Dwight tells you how to solve the extremely frustrating and reoccurring “my computers can’t see each other” network problem.  Now if someone would just tell me how to once and for all get rid of password protected sharing in Vista…

Hear Ya has the best records of 2007, with MP3’s.  Good list.

Join us in 40 minutes and help us record our next podcast live in Second Life.

Dave Winer on Twitter outages: “it’s not good enough when the service takes a 12-hour break while many of the humans that depend on it are awake and working.”  Note to Dave:  Twitter not “a basic form of communication” for anyone who has any semblance of a normal life.  Surely, we can manage to get along for 12 hours without knowing what someone across the country had for lunch.  And if we have to know, can’t we just call them (you know, on a telephone) and ask them?  Secondly, I think Dave’s definition of “working” is different than mine, if the absence of Twitter adversely affects his ability to work.  Why can’t we use tech to improve our lives without trying to turn it into something bigger than it is?  I know the answer to that, actually.

While I am at it, can we please stop with the posts proclaiming that something is dead just to get more traffic.  It would be a tragedy to let Google destroy Wikipedia, all in the name of collecting more of our data and tossing more ads in our face.  Everyone without skin in the game should rally together to make sure that doesn’t happen.  TDavid has some thoughts on it.

Mashable reports that EMI will cut funding to the RIAA.  That’s a good start.

Steve Spaulding has his list of the best videos of 2007.  Here’s mine.  I’ve heard a lot of music, and this is the best cover I have heard.  Ever.  You have to watch the whole thing to get to the smoking guitar work.  Someone’s going to point out that is was shot in 2006, but it was uploaded in 2007.

 

I was off the grid, but for those who missed it, Edgeio has ironically jumped into the deal pool.  There is zero money in embedding classified ads in social networks, for crying out loud.  eBay is more reliable, more efficient and simply easier.  If Yahoo and Amazon can’t put a dent in eBay, isn’t it folly to think a few bloggers will?  Even the anti-establishment types (among others) have Craigslist.

My kids and I watched and enjoyed every episode of Kid Nation.  TVSquad has the scoop on the season finale.

Frank Paynter found a hilarious and accurate video about Bubble 2.0 and blogging.

I got the evaluation summaries today from a recent speech at a conference here in Houston.  My favorite evaluation of all time: “Scary, country boy lawyer.  But I will read every word he writes.”  I don’t know if that’s a slam, a compliment or both, but I wish I could change the name plate on my office door from “Kent Newsome” to “Scary Country Boy Lawyer.”  Maybe I’ll legally change my name.

I just came across a recent concert film of REM on DirecTV’s channel T101.  They still rock.  Check it out.  It’s free.

Pandora added classical music to its library.  That’s too bad.  I hate classical music.  And I rarely use the word hate.

Lifehacker has started a series on digital photography.  More than just the basics you already know.  Looks very promising.

Even better, WikiHow has a tutorial on folding a towel elephant.  I’m going to put one in my kids’ bathroom and see if they notice.

Cracked has 9 words that don’t mean what you think they do.  I had non-plussed backwards.

Farmgate, one of my daily reads, has an agricultural forecast for 2008.  Generally good news.  Need more farming karma?  Granny J has tractors.  I could drive a tractor well before I ever tried to drive a car.

Newsome.Org got linked in a CBS story about keeping teens safe online.

Steve Spaulding does Zager and Evans, with a little help from the Discovery Channel.

Up until I read this, I didn’t care a whit about the writer’s strike.  If I need to go somewhere and picket to get one last ride with the best show (recently) on television, then picketing I will go.  On a happier note, I just noticed that Love American Style, one of my favorite shows when I was a kid, is out on DVD.  I have Disc 1 in my queue.

I’m going to do the wrap-up for my swivel feeds experiment over the long weekend.  And then I am going to unsubscribe to a lot of blogs.

Ayelet on one of the reasons I am not drinking the social network kool-aid.  There is far too much self-promotion in these social networks (and Twitter), and far too little value or entertainment.  There are too many different motivations for social networking, many of which are at cross purposes.

On the other hand, if you need a good reason to join Pownce, meet Mustard Empire.  He/she has single handedly revived my long buried and presumed dead interest in hip hop.  This song by the Winnie Coopers (great name) is a 10+.

Chris Brogan on passion in personal branding.  I’ve been including personal branding concepts in almost all of my recent conference speeches.  Even the scary country boy lawyer one.

PulverTV (sorry, I don’t do the non-initial caps thing unless I’m talking about eBay or an i something) looks very interesting.  I’d love to do some content for it, if I had more time.  Somebody in a comment to Jeff’s post said “live is where it’s at.”  Personally, I don’t believe that’s true.  I think interesting and archivable is where it’s at.  Neither of those require, and one is inconsistent with, live.  Live is hard for professionals.  It’s nearly impossible for the rest of us.

What I’d rather have than either an eBook reader or an iPod Touchbook:  a nice, solid paperback of another installment in the Hyperion series.  I’m well into the fourth and final book, and I think it may be the greatest series of books since the Lord of the Rings.  Nobody other than hard-core gadget freaks wants to read books on an eBook reader or an iSomething.  Could we possibly get any nerdier?

Seth has an interesting twist on the blogosphere caste system.  I don’t have any paid links.  The A-Listers won’t have anything to do with me.  And I think the entire SEO thing is somewhere between sad and irritating.  In fact, I think most of the internet and the entire blogosphere are rapidly disintegrating into a scene from Escape from New York.  Paging Snake Plissken.

39 years ago today

History News Network has the Top 10 Myths About Thanksgiving.

The dogs all get prettier at cursing time.  Scott Adams has some thoughts.

TDavid looks at captchas and their effect on the number of comments.  My sense is that captchas on my blog reduced spam by around 80% and comments by around 20%.  I’ll take that trade.

I liked Kill Point.  And like every other show I like, it got canceled.  Meanwhile, somebody somewhere is about to launch Dancing with 70’s Era Let’s Make a Deal Contestants.

If you’ve been sitting around wondering who owns the Yellow Pages business in Russia, Blognation has your answer.  To anyone who says Yellow Pages, I simply say Google.  I don’t think I’ve opened a Yellow Pages book in years.  I’ve never been to an online edition.

Will Truman on pet fanatics (among other things).  Here’s my thing with pets.  You have to hit the sweet spot.  I absolutely do not trust people who have no pets.  On the other hand, I am absolutely terrified of people who are obsessed with their pets.

I have many Pownce invitations.  If anyone wants one, leave a comment.

The (formerly) Walled Street Journal is going to stop charging for its online content.  The WSJ has enough mindshare in the financial and business news arena that the advertising model will probably work.  Having said that, I don’t see why the same sort of analysis shouldn’t apply to the print version- at least to the extent required to permit a significant reduction in the print subscription cost.  Jeff Jarvis has some interesting thoughts.

Looking to get a head start on your holiday shopping?  Here are the 25 most baffling toys from around the world.

Mashable asks the perfectly rhetorical question.  Isn’t that sort of like asking which one of the Victoria’s Secret models is the prettiest?

Dwight has the scoop on the new Zunes.  PC Magazine says they’re more fun than iPods.  Maybe, but nobody cares.

In the interest of being fair, Bloglines is much faster today.

Sandy, which happens to also be the name of my secretary, is your personal email assistant.  It looks promising.

I just love it when the app de jour starts to redefine the future of the world.  The same world that is populated with people, 97% of whom have never heard of said app de jour.  Personally, I think the future will be modeled on the iPhone.  Or maybe on a Kit Kat.

Amy Gahran rediscovers Twitter.  I run hot and cold on Twitter, but one thing I do not like is when people use it largely or solely merely to point to their blog posts.  I find that spam-like.

Cool New Blog Alert: Jeff Balke is now doing a blog for the Houston Chronicle about the music industry, from a musician’s perspective.

Mike Arrington seems to be once again in mid–tantrum, this time punishing us all by canceling all his speaking engagements.  Let’s take a brief reality check.  I speak at 10-20 real-world conferences a year.  I was introduced recently as the “best ethics speaker in America” (I don’t think I’m even close, but nonetheless that’s what the moderator said).  In other words, I have a lot of conference experience- both the getting booked part, the saying no thanks part and the showing up part.  Never once has there been any confusion between me and a conference organizer as to whether I was or was not going to speak.  On one hand, I don’t think conference organizers can rightfully assume that someone has agreed to speak based on some email “maybes.”  On the other hand I find the “I don’t read my email” excuse to be ludicrous on its face.

Bloglines is really slow lately.  Lots and lots of URL freeze with lifetimes spent “waiting for http://www.bloglines.com…”  I guess I am going to have to capitulate to the inevitability of Google Reader.

I’m further into Endymion now.  I was premature in my criticism.  It’s very good.

The most unintentionally hilarious post title of all time.

Ars Technica (I always want to scream Battlestar Galactica over and over every time I see that) has the top Windows 7 feature requests.  I didn’t see “dump UAC” on the list.  Too bad.

Mario Sundar has clips from the fake Steve Jobs deal.  Guy thinks he was awesome and offers outsiders joke support on the inside jokes.

A Calorie Counter has comparisons of nutrition facts for fast food restaurants.  Scary.

Some funny quotes from our President.  My favorite: “For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings.  And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It’s just unacceptable. And we’re going to do something about it.”

Someone please invite Dave Winer to Davos, whatever the heck that is, so he can stop fishing for an invitation and continue being fame-averse in peace.

I’m back home briefly after business trips to Boston, San Diego, Dallas and Austin (twice).  October was a crazy month, with little time for blogging or blog reading.

Here are a few things that caught my attention during my travels.

San Diego is a beautiful town.  I was there just before the fire became an issue.  I’m certain I couldn’t afford to live out there, but it is pretty.  I had dinner at Osetra.  It was OK, but not as good as its reputation.  The hostess told me she was the highest paid hostess in San Diego.  So there you go.  I spoke at a conference at the W Hotel.  That place is about 3 notches too hip for me.

I read somewhere that Google is trying to get some phone company to agree to put Google bloatware on its phones.  I don’t want that crap on my phones any more than I want it on my computer.  Note to Google:  it’s pretty easy for people to install stuff they decide they want.  You don’t really have to force it on them.  Or do you?

Congrats to Mike and family!  I am sorry I was off the grid for the big event.

I think Deadstring Brothers is one of the best bands working today.  Hear Ya has the scoop on their new record, and an MP3 to sample.

Some asshole spammed my comments repeatedly while I was off the grid.  You know who I hate more than asshole spammers?  The stupid  f***kers who buy enough stuff from spammers to keep the system from self-imploding.  Spam has already made email worthless.  Are blog comments next?

Steve Rubel says in one post pretty much everything I believe, and have been writing for a long time, about Web 2.0.  It’s been very obvious for a very long time that almost everything related to the internet is about money.  Which is why so much of it bores me to tears.  Dwight has a great take on it.

Sympathies to Karl Martino.  I still grieve for my mom, and it’s been over 9 years.  It gets easier, but it’s never going to be OK.

Raina got an iPhone.  It is beyond cool.  If it could pull my corporate email, I’d pay to get out of my Verizon contract and buy one this second.

I’m finally getting around to reading the last two Hyperion books.  The first one is one of my all-time favorite books.  The second one is just as good.  So far Endymion is not doing it for me, but it’s early.

I saw Knocked Up.  Hilarious movie.  Highly recommended.

800 feeds and nothing to read.  Lots of boring stuff in the blogosphere tonight.

Dave Winer tells us how to avoid sounding like an monkey.  I’m not exactly sure the point of his homily, other than he’s a math guy and people shouldn’t use fancy words to make something seem more complicated than it is.  To which I say semantic web, semantic web, semantic web, semantic web, etc.  I’m a math guy too, and I sort of agree with his point.  Only if you’re going to take that position, let’s apply it consistently.  Semantic web, semantic web, semantic web.

Microsoft is allowing PC makers to offer a Windows Visa downgrade to Windows XP.  I f*#%king hate the way Vista deals with photos.  Otherwise I think it’s a reasonably stable OS.  Much more so on my new HP than on my 3 year old homemade box.

I have been listening to and writing positively about Pandora lately.  But I think I have discovered a flaw.  Depth.  Granted, I have defined a narrow genome: mid-tempo, wistful alternative country.  But I am finding that the same 20 or so songs play a lot (as in every time) on my station.  Granted, they are great songs, but the music discovery angle seems to be diminishing rapidly.  I don’t want to take those songs completely out of the rotation for a month, which is an option under the “Guide Us” tab.  Any Pandora developers have any suggestions for me?  I hope so, because my deep Pandora love is starting to fade a little.

Thomas Hawk has guidelines for photowalking.  It’s a really good read.  When Thomas gets around to writing his book on photography, I will pre-order 10 copies from Amazon, keep one and give 9 to my local library.  Hopefully, by then I’ll have learned how to really use Photoshop.  My lack of Photoshop skills acts as a karma deterrent to my photographical aspirations.  Here’s one of the many awesome Thomas Hawk photos.

The Toad Post of the Day Award goes to Ethan and GrannyJ.  If you prefer frogs, there’s this.

Best song I heard for the 1st time in the past 6 months: Carry Me Ohio by Sun Kil Moon.

Here are the songs that played on my awesome Pandora station while I wrote this post:  The Lemonheads, My Drug Buddy; Hackensaw Boys, Sun’s Work Undone; David Andrews, Everything to Lose; Steve Earle, I Don’t Want to Lose You; Elliott Smith, Ballad of Big Nothing; Hilken Mancini & Chris Colbourn, Situations Count; Whiskeytown, Houses on the Hill; Jon Nolan, Mary (Won’t You Come Along); Son Volt, Driving the View; Paul Westerberg, What a Day (for a Night); Whiskeytown, Under Your Breath; Danny Scherr, Fade Me In; The Foxymorons, The Lazy Librarian’s Son; Cracker, Sunday Train; Fingers Cut, Rough Dream; The Shins, Gone for Good; John Hiatt, Ethylene; Elliott Smith, Rose Parade; Ben Harper, Diamonds on the Inside.  Tell me that’s not an excellent set?  Here’s the link, if you want to listen.

Ed Bott on the non-TIVO DirecTV DVR.  I’ve had a few of them, since I convinced DirecTV to switch out my HD-TIVOs for free.  They are not nearly as good as TIVO’s, primarily because they don’t do suggestions.  But I haven’t had much trouble with them so far.

Frank Paynter on Mint: “I would like to see this application released and supported by a responsible, federally insured financial institution. I’d feel a lot better about establishing a Mint customer relationship through Citi than I would through a private firm that put their eggs in the TechCrunch basket.”

Ian Delaney on Facebook applications.  He does a good job of presenting the pros and cons of Facebook as a way to connect with others.  While I’m no Facebook fan, I agree that for most people, Facebook is an addition to, not an alternative to, personal contact.

J.D. Roth has a good read on beating procrastination.  I’m going to read it…later.

Liz Strauss has 7 Secrets to a Fiercely Loyal Community of Readers.  Good, solid advice.

Tapedeck.Org lets you relive all those mix tapes you made for all those girls all those years ago.

Tom Evslin has a great read on the meaning of livestrong.  Roger Ehrenberg has another great read on living right.  Posts like Roger’s are why I consider myself a student of the blogosphere.

Amy Gahran is checking out Jott.  I got bashed a couple of months ago for saying Jott is more useful than Twitter.  I still feel that way. {Ducking}

Citizen’s Literature: Bill Liversidge’s book is about to come out.  I think it’s cool that Bill stayed the course in the face of obstacles from traditional publishing.

Doc Searls asks if marketing can be conversational.  I have my doubts too.  Conversation with a hidden agenda is not really conversation.  I think you probably can doctor up marketing to become more interesting by using a conversational template, the same way some ads are more tolerable because they adopt a humor template, a musical template, etc.  But if you are only engaging me to sell me something, we are not having a conversation.

Engadget has a roundup of the Canon EOS 40D reviews.  Must…not…buy.  Must…not…

Shelley Powers has a thoughtful take on the Jena 6.  Doug Karr wishes things had developed a little bit differently.  Jackson Miller has some thoughts as well, as does his sister.  The whole thing just makes me sad.

Many thanks to Michael Walsh for including Newsome.Org in his starter list for online tech!

TVSquad on the new Survivor China.  I’m a pretty big Survivor fan, but it’s too early to tell how this one is going to be.  I was sorry to see Chicken go, and I really didn’t like the waitress from New York.  I think it’s interesting that they pre-selected the tribes, probably to avoid a mis-match that can lead to single tribe domination.