He Knew He Was Right

Well, I'm in one of my I-don't-feel-like-blogging spells. I was away for work for last week, and then needed to catch up in the yard big time, plus I also wanted to spend some time with friends, and really just have a lot of baseball and football to watch. All that has left little time for posting much here. The closest I've come to a worthy topic lately followed that shameful loss the Giants suffered last week to a hard-to-figure-out Seahawk squad. Maybe before Sunday, I will get one out on that, but there's just too much sports to watch to spend much time posting. I mean, the MLB playoff rain delays do provide adequate time, but, there's just not much to write about. Then I sat in front of my computer and relented to this "dynamic viewing" option Blogger offered. My first reaction was nice job! Well done for sure. Some post have slightly altered formatting, but nothing too irritating as far as I'm concerned. I really like how it brings some older p...

So my friend PaulBe asked me how useful I find the check-in features of certain social media sites. We swapped a few messages about it and he laid down the gauntlet for me to share my thoughts here. I use two check-in services: Gowalla and Facebook's Places. Let's start with Gowalla, which may be something of a Betamax to Four Square's VHS. I went with it, however, after reading this and deciding that it suited me as one who travels place to place more than interacts with friends at, say, a local coffee shop. Further, I really have no interest in competing for mayorships, or even being in one particular place more or less than someone else, which seems to be more of the goal with FS. I'm mostly more interested in recording where I've been, especially places outside of my local community, and Gowalla serves me well in that regard. One thing I wish Gowalla (and for that matter, Places) offered would be a report of some kind that shows when I was where. For examp...

Well, blogosphere, thanks for all the birthday greetings. Not a single one of you checked in with even the mildest "Happy birthday, Tom". What? You didn't know it was my birthday? It's not provided here? That's no excuse. But, don't feel bad: The Twitterverse ignored me too. Then again, even the crustier LinkedIn world chimed in with a birthday salutation... Facebook, however, more than made up for it. From two days prior to a full week later, it was rather remarkable as scores of family and friends checked in. I was away on business for my birthday. When I woke up in the hotel room that morning, the little red light on my Blackberry was flickering away, letting me know that friends had written birthday messages on my Wall through all hours of the night. After a quick scan of those postings, I went into the bathroom, and threw water on my face. Looking up at the mirror I could only laugh at a wet, single, very lengthy eyebrow hair that somehow had previo...

When thinking of how I am using different social networking outlets, I wonder what makes me Tweet, share on Facebook, or write something out in length here. It struck me, then, that my favorite composer, Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dangle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-horowitz-ticolensic-grander-knotty-spelltinkle-grandlich-grumblemeyer-spelterwasser-kürstlich-himbleeisen-bahnwagen-gutenabend-bitte-eine-nürnburger-bratwustle-gerspurten-mit -zweimache-luber-hundsfut-gumberaber-shönendanker-kalbsfleisch-mittler-raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm would have struggled mightily with some of these wonderful sites. I mean, the poor guy wouldn't get more than "Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern-schplenden-schlitter-crasscrenbon-fried-digger-dangle-dungle-burstein-von-knacker-thrasher-apple-banger-ho" into the Tweet box, and would have only four characters to spare before or after his name in the 420-character limit...

So, I’ve been on Blogger for two months now. I’ve been pretty steady with my posting, trying to get a bunch up pretty quickly and then two or three a week after that. My posts have centered on the ‘interests’ listed in my profile, and have been largely in the 500-word range—hopefully not too long to be cumbersome for the casual passer by, but also meaty enough to tell the whole story. The Analytics function, however, reveals a very limited audience that has me thinking that I am accomplishing little more than trying to keep my writing sharp. Those who have found their way to this page have done so largely at my prodding: If I think a post interesting enough, I Tweet it or Post it to Facebook. I’ve emailed the URL of the blog to a few others which apparently led here as well. Further, there have been a few hits from folks searching various terms, including “MTA gripe”, “Metrocard”, “Al Trautwig NBC Petter Northug”, and “Noisy train crowd”. A few of these were terms used within a post, a...