fhb

So notes our Washington correspondent about the attached photo (pictured: Gracie the Wonder Pup).

"A bird flew into the kitchen window with great force and died. Gracie graciously retrieved it for me. Unlike what she usually does to my arm or knees, she handled it with a soft mouth. She also left it outside the door, so I could neatly take care of the poor thing."

Kindlized

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:45:38 PST

Portrait of a study in contrasts. Peggy and I in front of the living room fireplace on a snowy New Hamster day. Peggy is playing Spider Solitaire on her new iPhone. Fred is reading the New York Times on his Kindle...

So, Santa was overly generous this year and a new Kindle was found under the tree by one super-spoiled Freddy. First impressions from a new Kindle owner.

I was concerned about how well the Kindle's "Whispernet" connection (Whispernet is the wireless connection either being supplied by Sprint or AT&T, I'm not sure which). Given that our cell phones barely work unless we stand out in the driveway, I thought Whispernet was going to be a bit problematic. And indeed, at best I only get two bars of signal strength. On the one hand, cruising the Web or downloading content from other-than-Amazon through the Kindle ranges from difficult to impossible. On the other hand, getting content from Amazon is simple and without problem.

Magazines and Newspapers: Kindle may never kill printed books, but I think it (and its various e-Reader brethen) is probably going to be the death-blow to print newspapers and magazines. Within a few days of adding the New York Times to my Kindle, we had killed the delivery of the print Sunday edition. A telling piece of evidence is that the Kindle subscription is less than half of the price of the Sunday print version... plus I now get the other six days as well, all for $14 a month. It's still an open question about whether I'll move my New Yorker subscription over to the Kindle. According to various reports the Kindle version is incomplete and lacking cartoons. Given that those issues get worked out, I may consider subscribing through the Kindle when my print subscription ends in 2011.

There is little as cool as waking up in the morning, switching on the Kindle, and by the time I'm sipping my first cup of coffee, I have the Times ready for my persusal.

I was disappointed to discover that there was no Kindle version of Wired, about the only magazine except the New Yorker and Cigar Aficionado (I know, I know) I read regularly. According to the rumor mills, Wired's publisher, Conde Nast, is preparing a multimedia version of the mag for the rumored-but-probably-true Apple tablet.

***

Experience. Pros: The reading experience is ah, "book-like" enough that very quickly you forget that you're looking at a high-tech device rather than paper. Pluses: You can change the font size, an important factor for anyone with 50+-old eyes, as we all discover eventually. The built-in dictionary is way cool. Move the cursor in front of the word, and see an abbreviated definition. Click, and call up the full definition. I think of myself as a fairly literate guy, but I didn't know that maven is from the Yiddish, for example. The controls are simple and relatively easy to use, although I still have a tendency to poke the wrong button at times.

Minuses: The only button placement I really object to is "Previous," which is midway up the left side of the Kindle. While it probably works if you're holding a "bare" Kindle (that is, sans cover), I'm holding a beautiful leather cover from Oberon rather than the device. With cover on, you can't click "Previous" easily. You have to poke it. I didn't realize how much I refer back to earlier pages until it became difficult to do.

Although text is easier to read on than a computer, the Kindle screen will occasionally reflect light until you find the right angle. The "page-turn-Flash" that everyone complained about when the Kindle 1 was released is there, but to me barely noticeable, no more distracting than turning a page.

While I keep on reading claims that the Kindle will hold a charge for as long as a week (with the Wireless turned off except when needed), my Kindle seems to be draining the battery much faster than that. I haven't decided whether that's a problem yet or not. "Seems" is still the operative word. Stay tuned on that one.

- Cover: Believe me, you want a cover, and you want a nice cover., You want to be gripping and holding leather rather than plastic. It changes the entire Kindle reading experience. So, spend the extra cash. Mine is from Oberon Design in California. Santa somehow knew that the cover to the left - in blue - was the one I wanted and had it ready for me on Christmas Day.

- And finally, Books.

So far, I have a few free public domain books, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and The Time Machine on my Kindle. I'm kind of looking forward to reading old favorites, Dickens, Twain, Wells, Verne, on the Kindle. I found the links to various archives of free/public domain eContent through one of my first Amazon purchases, The Complete User's Guide To the Amazing Amazon Kindle 2 by Stephen Windwalker, which I heartily recommend at its low-cost .99 cents. It covers Kindle basics, probably nothing you couldn't suss out on your own, but its real value is its links to on-line content, especially free content.

My second purchase was David Grann's The Lost City of Z, one of those "meaning-to-read" books that got lost in the daily noise and which I ws reminded of when it showed up on one of those "best books of 2009" lists. In a couple of minutes and $9.99 later, the book was on my Kindle.

And that's both the delight and danger of the Kindle, especially for someone like me. Read an interesting review and want that book? No need to wait for the next trip to the bookstore or to be put on the library waiting list. And the chances are good that in a week you'll have forgotten the title, or why you thought it interesting, or will have been distracted by the next, new shiny object and not get the book. But no more of that. Now you can have it on your Kindle in the time it takes to read this blog post.

So, a couple of house rules are already in effect: one set by Peggy and one set by me. Peggy has me on an allowance, which is probably a very good idea, knowing me. Me, I'm going to try the enforce the rule I use for buying physical books. No new purchases until the books already on the "to-read" list are either abandoned or finished.

Of the two, I think the allowance rule will probably be more effective.

A Kindle Lover Unboxes a Nook

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 05:49:09 PST

Len Edgerly, host of the great The Kindle Chronicles podcast, unboxes the somewhat unfortunately named Barnes and Noble "Nook." I was at a local B&N over the weekend, and they had a little booth set up directly inside the entrance with two people eager to tell you all about the Nook, even though all they had to offer the curious were two mock-ups.

"We'll have it in the store on Monday," said one of the demo people.

"To buy?" I asked.

"No," he answered. "Just to show."

I like the idea of the Nook, especially the thought of cruising into a B&N with Nook in hand and browsing through books. And the Nook touch interface looks a lot more elegant and iTouchish than the Kindle. But, having said that, I'm a scarred enough technophile to be wary of early adoption of anything. All-in-all, everything I've read or heard indicates that a Kindle 2 is a more realistic eReader choice than a Nook at this stage of the game... especially if you're hoping Santa might put one in your stocking. But the eREader wars are heating up, and that's likely a good thing for consumers.

Happy Thanksgiving!

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:13:10 PST

fhb is back. Stay tuned.

Too Many Goodbyes

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:13:59 PDT

As you've probably gathered, I don't update fhb all that much anymore (I think once every five months would qualify as "not all that much"). I'm still writing regularly over at Dreamtime, which better suits my interests at the moment.

Of course I have the issue that Bob Dylan has apparently ended Theme Time Radio Hour with the "Goodbye" show, but I still have a few more Dreamtime posts, maybe even a podcast or two, and some other plans.

It's not turning out to be a good year for radio shows we like, as today we heard the news that Jeff Turton's long-running Jazz Brunch has ended after 26 years on WFNX, which parallels the time that Peggy and I have been together. We started listening to the Jazz Brunch shortly after Peggy moved in with me during that brief (but enjoyable) period we were living together in sin. We listened to the Jazz Brunch after we married; after a move from Massachusetts to New Hampshire; after we bought our first home, a condo, and then after we bought our first house and home, the one I'm writing in today and where we heard Jeff's announcement.

A lot of Sundays. We went to see Jeff and have brunch when he was doing the live Jazz Brunches in Cambridge. We bought a lot of wonderful wine thanks to Howie Rubin at Bauer Wine's recommendations. I even went to Bauer Wine after missing Howie's regular appearances on the show. "How come you don't do Jazz Brunch anymore?" I asked. "Because they won't pay me," he answered.

We listened to Jeff's son Ben grow up over the years through his annual appearances. We learned how much Jeff hated winter and Christmas music, especially jazz Christmas music. We ate at the East Coast Grill in Cambridge because we heard about it on the Jazz Brunch. Jeff introduced us to more artists and their music than I can name now, but included Debra Henson-Conant, Madeline Peyroux, Nancy Wilson's Guess Who I Saw Today, and Sarah Vaughan's Just A Little Lovin' to acknowledge a few singers and songs we first heard on the Jazz Brunch. I spent years tracking both Wilson's and Vaughn's cuts down, and in fact only found the album containing the live version of Guess Who I Saw Today last October in San Francisco, triumphantly bringing it home to Peggy after 20-odd years of looking for it. Jeff Turton is probably directly responsible for several hundred dollars worth of CDs residing on my shelves.

In other words, Jeff Turton and the Jazz Brunch have been a big part of our lives as long as we've been together. It was evident that the end was nearing. Jeff's on-air time was cut from six hours - from 6 a.m. to noon - down to four a couple of years ago, the Jazz Brunch apparently only remaining on at all because WFNX's owner liked jazz. In the past year Peggy and I started looking for other alternatives to listen to on Sundays as Jeff fiddled with the programming to try to attract a more contemporary audience. Instead, I think he probably alienated his core listeners, like us. There are only so many jazz covers of pop tunes or weird "world music" you can listen to until you start longing for some straight-ahead Thelonius Monk or Abby Lincoln, which had all but disappeared on the Jazz Brunch in recent months.

But we still checked it out regularly, hoping that we'd hear the older programming that had made us Jazz Brunch fans, and we were listening to it today, and were at least happy to be there at the end, as we were at the beginning. We'll miss the Jazz Brunch, and Jeff Turton. Jeff you have our thanks for being part of our Sundays over the last 26 years.

As you get older, you find that few changes are good.

And Daily Deer

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 12:46:06 PST

And, continuing the Double-D theme of the day, here's a pic of "Daily Deer," so named because of his habit of showing up almost every day and grazing on fallen bird seeds, as well as our yews, which I wish he wouldn't.

But, I have a soft spot for DD, because he's got a bum hind leg. We first thought he had dislocated it, or had been hit by a car, but have now concluded it's a birth defect. He gets along quite well on three, thank you very much, even through the snow.

On the other hand, he looks like he's expending a lot of energy doing with three legs what other deers do with four, so I put out a feed block for him (you can see it behind DD), and he seems to be enjoying chawing on that. After consulting with our vet, I've now also expanded the DD menu to apples, carrots, and a hay bale and Peggy has taken to calling me "Farmer John."

DD may have put out the word that I'm a soft touch, as a few days ago, a posse of four new deers, including a Fall fawn, showed up behind him. Although DD is too slow-moving to keep up with them, they all seemed used to hanging out together, and I suspect they all share some bedding place in the woods behind us.

I dithered about "nature taking its course" and all that, but again, after a frank discussion with our vet, who I trust, we figured that as long as DD nether looked like he was suffering or starving I'd at least give him a fighting chance. As the vet said, if he can make it through the Winter, the chances are he'll do fine come Spring. Interestingly, she says deers with only three good legs are quite usual, and many of them live a deer's normal allotted time.

And, I have this nagging thought that DD is a sign to an often-morose Farmer John that " you have to farm in the weather you are given, you can't be waiting for the sun to shine."

Live long and prosper, DD.

Demolition Days

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:02:44 PST

For those asking for news of how bad the flooding in our basement was... it was this bad. Or more accurately, this was the aftermath.

About the only thing that we didn't have to take down was the ceiling, but at that point it seemed ridiculous to renovate the basement office and leave the funky, old, ill-lit, mouse-infested ceiling in. So it went too.

As did the dark, old, `60s-era wall paneling, pleasing Peggy to no end. We found that the walls had been incorrectly studded and most of the paneling wasn't anchored to anything. Hence the reason behind the walls bulging out from the pressure of the water behind them.

As did all the insulation , which was still soaked six inches up after three weeks. We were going to cut the wet insulation out, saving what we could, but the insulation was so inefficient compared to modern standards that we had it all pulled.

As did all the studding. We were going to add new wall studding in, but found that the floor studs - after repeated soaking over the years, were sodden, rotted so badly that they were crumbling, and covered with black mold. So we pulled it all out.

The rug, an indoor/outdoor, has been pulled, but is salvageable. The pad wasn't. We probably won't replace the pad - "once is accident, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."

I lost about 30 years of books, happily not all of them. Mostly the paperbacks. Peggy lost Christmas decorations, books, boxes of memories. Probably other things that we won't know about until we try to find them.

Yes, we know, We appreciate the sentiment. We're getting over it.

What was the finished basement is now an empty shell. Actually, it isn't an empty shell. As I write this, new studding and wallboard have arrived and are being loaded downstairs.

As that frosty poet, Robert Frost, once said, "In three words I can sum up everything I've learned in life: It goes on."

And it does. And so will we.

Into `09

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:02:32 PST

I have a semi-policy not to talk problems on fhb, mostly because I could easily turn the blog into a forum about nothing except my problems. Occasionally, like we all do I run into a string of bad luck where there seems to be nothing to talk about except problems... and that's been pretty much true since mid-October, and is partially the reason I stopped blogging at fhb.

But y'know, writing that brings to light that the statement isn't entirely true. Yeah, we've had some tough times in recent months, and we're not out of the woods yet.

But up to October, it was a pretty good year, although the last three months overshadowed the preceding nine. But we had a great trip up at my ancestral watering hole in Moosehead Lake, Maine.

I did some work - both for clients and for myself - that were as good as anything I've ever done, and of which I'm still exceedingly proud.

We had one of the best Thanksgivings ever with our family. Thanks to their generosity, we also have access to a beautiful house on Martha's Vineyard whenever we want it.

Dreamtime continues to keep me sane and whole.

I have two cats who love me unconditionally, because they don't know any better.

And I have Peggy - who certainly does know better, but who still loves me, too.

I'm not sure at this point how much I'll continue blogging at fhb, although the fact that I wrote the word "continue" without thinking about it indicates to me that I'm not quite ready to shut it down altogether. As I've said, most of my writing is over at Dreamtime now, and posts here will probably continue to be sporadic at best.

But 2008 is over. Let's see what 2009 brings.

Use iGoogle? Hate the Look & Feel Changes? Here's How to Revert

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 08:52:38 PDT

Google, with it's usual arrogance, foisted off a new version of the iGoogle look and feel with zippo warning to users. I left my iGoogle page yesterday, opened it another tab a few minutes later, and had a classic "WTF" moment, thinking somehow I had chaged my page settings accidently. I spent a fruitless afternoon trying to revert to my old settings, until finally realizing today that it wasn't me, but that great big Goog in the sky.

I'm going to leave aside the arguments about whether the changes are good or bad. Personally I think they suck, especially moving the tabs to the left side of the page and the mail preview that can no longer be turned off. But opinions of suckiness aside, the point is that I was/am familiar with how my iGoogle page works. I don't want to have to adapt to some new way of working because some Google engineer thinks it's "better" for me.Maybe eventually I will, but at my own speed and inclination, Google, not yours.

Hidden on the "Google Operating System" blog are these instructions to get the old interface back - at least temporarily:

If you have the new version, but you prefer the previous interface, go to the settings page and select English (UK) from the list of languages. Please note that this is just a temporary fix.

News You Can't Make Up - Part the Nth

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 10:43:30 PDT

via William Gibson:

A US Illuminati black op to seek, locate and disarm a Soviet nuke disguised as a blue plastic cow sculpture ended in failure when the special agent charged with the task got stuck in an air duct in Knoxville Museum of Art, and was obliged to call for traditional law enforcement assistance.

According to Knoxville's WBIR, 25-year-old Richard Anthony Smith rang 911 at around 4.30am on Wednesday to alert the authorities to his predicament. When officers arrived, they found him trapped in said duct about 45 feet below the roof, having "repelled [sic] from a CH2 Huey"* onto the museum. Smith simply said: "Mission failed."

Once extricated, the spook - dressed in "camo top and bottom, black shirt and green hat" - elaborated that he was in fact a "special agent with the United States Illuminati, badge number 0931" ordered by "Director Womack" to "defuse and confiscate a Soviet-made MERV6SS-22AN warhead, with 14.5 kg of enriched uranium and a plutonium trigger, capable of delivering a 40-kiloton yield".

Full story here which also includes my favorite part - that after becoming stuck in the duct, Gibson received another call from "Director Womack" advising that he had made a mistake, and the cow sculpture was actually in Memphis.

City By the Bay

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:05:08 PDT

Another podcast series, as Leo LaPorte likes to say, is in the can, this one from Oracle OpenWorld (OOW) in San Francisco, which is where I've spent my last week.

OOW surprised me by its size - over 43,000 in attendance, according to reports. It was kind of like a Comdex, the super-technology show in Las Vegas which I used to work regularly in the `90s. Blocked-off streets, packed sidewalks, hotel lobbies so crowded that it was hard to move through them. This all in San Francisco, so outside of the influx of the 43K technophiles, you also had the early Fall turistas on the streets. San Francisco is probably one of the best cities in the world to visit in the Fall if it isn't raining, and nary a drop did we see that week. Weather was mild and in the mid-70s during the day, mid-60s at night.

I haven't been in the City for the past eight years. In fact, I haven't been much of anywhere in the past eight years. I've traveled more in 2008 than I have in the previous eight combined. I was pleased to find that few of the personal landmarks I remembered had changed. I was able to hit Napa Valley Wines and take care of our holiday wine needs in one fell - albeit expensive - swoop. Vy's Jewelry was still in the same location in Chinatown, so Peggy got a present for being abandoned with two unhappy cats as I worked and played out west. I went back to one of my all-time favorite sushi places, Sanraku on Sutter, and found a new favorite, Colibri Mexican Bistro on Geary, which I highly recommend - I had one of the best meals of my life there, undoubtedly oiled by two margaritas with blue agave tequila.

I didn't get to Kayo Books or Hunan Home, or John's Grill, which would have pretty much rounded up Fred's Cooks Tour of S.F., but given I produced and engineered a dozen podcasts over a four-day period, I was pretty pleased that I got in as much personal time in as I did.

I have a love/hate relationship with San Francisco. It's one of the great cities of the world. If you like walking around as much as I do, it's a perfect place to visit. But, the armies of street people/homeless/bums/winos/panhandlers can get me down, especially when San Francisco is on the tolerant side of the pendulum, as it seems to be now, and essentially leaves them alone just as long as they're not aggressively scaring away the tourists. So walking can become similar to running a gantlet. You shake the head and stare straight ahead, and hurt inside, trying not to wonder about their stories.

But that's the down side. The up side was that it was a great trip - a good job done well in a beautiful, intriguing city.

How Heinlein Responded to Fan Mail

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 06:22:53 PDT

Click on the image for a readable version. Not a problem that I have, although I do get the occasional cranky email asking why I didn't answer someone's earlier email, and most of my responses to Dreamtime email are a canned version of "Thanks for the kind words." But it's interesting to see how RAH handled the situation. Harlan Ellison used to send a pre-printed postcard, as I remember, which said in a florid pseudo-Chinese style something to the effect of "if I spent the time replying to how much you enjoyed [insert title here], I'd have less time to write the stuff you enjoy. So forgive this canned response."

I think my favorite of the group is the terse, "Please do not write to me again."

via Kevin Kelly

Not Vetting Sarah

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 12:48:56 PDT

From the usual gang of idiots over at Mad magazine. I was (almost) willing to forgive Palin anything until the polar bears.

Rusticatin'

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 10:11:55 PDT

We're back from our annual Labor Day vacay, this time taken way up North at Beaver Cove, Moosehead Lake, Maine, where men are men and spend most of their time lazin' on the deck.

Peggy and Fred took a 3-hour cruise on the steamship Katahdin - highly recommended - which covered less than half of the 40-mile Moosehead Lake.

During his tour narration, our captain noted that the lake trout population, known locally as "togue," had been virtually wiped out because some idiot - or group of idiots - had introduced Yellow Perch into the lake. When I was a kid in the `60s, it wasn't unusual to catch a dozen or more togue in one day's fishing. Tragically, all gone now, and probably not to come back.

While visiting the quarterdeck, I mentioned to the captain I grew up on Sebago Lake, the second largest lake in Maine. "Oh, that pond?" the captain grinned at me.

We found that the only direct route to Moxie Falls involved a route that personified the phrase 20 miles of bad road. About 5 1/2 miles in on a badly rutted, washed out road with large rocks poking out just waiting to take out things without which our long-suffering Murano would probably not run, we met a beat-up pickup heading in the opposite direction. "You can't go down there, the road's terrible," the driver called.. "You couldn't make it without a 4-wheel drive. Where you headed?"

"Moxie Falls," I replied. "Maybe, I should turn ..."

"We're going right by it," he interrupted. "Follow me." And with that he sped off on another road that led off God Knows Where which a) was even worse than the one that we were on and b) our GPS, which had gamely sent us down the original road didn't even recognize as a road.

In fact, the GPS - which we've anthropomorphized with the name "Tommy," gave up trying to navigate us, except to point an arrow at where we had been, apparently in the hope we'd recover our senses and return to Known Territory. Which we eventually did after about a mile or more of following the Mad Mainer, who blasted along the road at upwards of 40 miles an hour as I crawled over ruts and rocks. As his dust trail disappeared into the trackless wastelands, I found a spot to turn around, not an easy thing to do, and headed back to where Tommy's arrow pointed. After a long long long time, we finally made it back to the point where Tommy was willing to acknowledge that there was a road there, such as it was, and then only had to spend another 5 1/2 miles crawling back out to the paved road.

We'd finally make it to Moxie Falls the following day after Peggy plotted out a circuitous route that covered about 60-odd miles to a destination that was about 20 miles away as the crow flies but, by God, had the benefit of being entirely upon pavement.

Moxie Falls is very beautiful, if a little difficult to visit.

We also found the lodge my family stayed at during our regular visits to Moosehead in the `60s - Maynards. Already old when I first came there, Maynards was established in the early 1920s, the place is virtually unchanged in 2008, the only noticeable difference that I could find is that the cabins now have a full bath. Back in 1964 it was an outside shower and an outhouse.

And we did many other things, the things you do when you're on vacay in the Great North Woods: We visited Kamp-Kamp, the largest store in Greenville, Maine where Peggy longed for moose antlers and Fred for a set of Classic Illustrated Comics that could have come straight from my bunk at Maynards. We bought hand-picked blueberries and blackberries and fresh-baked goods for dessert every night. We hiked the Lily Pond State Park, read about local things in the local paper - including the kids fined for leaping jay-naked off the Black Frog restaurant dock.

And mostly we relaxed, 'cause that's what it's all about.

What Makes a Good Blog?

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:16:11 PDT

via Merlin Mann, who I hope doesn't think I'm ripping him off, and if he does, I'm sure will something snarky about me on Twitter (just kidding, Merlin)...

***

Good blogs have a voice. Who wrote this? What is their name? What can I figure out about who they are that they have never overtly told me? What’s their personality like and what do they have to contribute — even when it’s “just” curation. What tics and foibles fascinate make me about this blog and the person who makes it? Most importantly: what obsesses this person?
Good blogs reflect focused obsessions. People start real blogs because they think about something a lot. Maybe even five things. But, their brain so overflows with curiosity about a family of topics that they can’t stop reading and writing about it. They make and consume smart forebrain porn. So: where do this person’s obsessions take them?
Good blogs are the product of “Attention times Interest.” A blog shows me where someone’s attention tends to go. Then, on some level, they encourage me to follow the evolution of their interest through a day or a year. There’s a story here. Ethical “via” links make it easy for me to follow their specific trail of attention, then join them for a walk made out of words.
Good blog posts are made of paragraphs. Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It’s not a blog: it’s a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it’s not really a blog.
Good “non-post” blogs have style and curation. Some of the best blogs use unusual formats, employ only photos and video, or utilize the list format to artistic effect. I regret there are not more blogs that see format as the container for creativity — rather than an excuse to write less or link without context more.
Good blogs are weird. Blogs make fart noises and occasionally vex readers with the degree to which the blogger’s obsession will inevitably diverge from the reader’s. If this isn’t happening every few weeks, the blogger is either bored, half-assing, or taking new medication.
Good blogs make you want to start your own blog. At some point, everyone wants to kill the Buddha and make their own obsessions the focus. This is good. It means you care.
Good blogs try. I’ve come to believe that creative life in the first-world comes down to those who try just a little bit harder. Then, there’s the other 98%. They’re still eating the free continental breakfast over at FriendFeed. A good blog is written by a blogger who thinks longer, works harder, and obsesses more. Ultimately, a good blogger tries. That’s why “good” is getting rare.
Good blogs know when to break their own rules. Duh. I made a list, didn’t I? Yes. I did. Big fan.

***

Although I've never taken the time to articulate my thoughts on the subject, Merlin pretty well captures what I attempt to do when I "blog," more so at Dreamtime than here. But I do try to have so small measure of craft even with fhb, which I consider more a public diary than anything else.

And it's why I keep fhb going, although my focus is obviously on Dreamtime these days. And when I think about it, most of the blogs I still read, and podcasts I still listen to, follow Merlin's list of what gets my attention - and why.

The Ultimate iPhone Application

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:56:25 PDT

And for $999, you too can tell the world, "I am Rich." Actually, you can't right now, as the humorless Apple has removed the app.

Stupidest design of a home page ever?

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:57:19 PDT

You decide.

"...and I'll whisper, 'No.'"

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 06:25:57 PDT

The new WATCHMEN trailer, the best evidence to date that the movie will cleave closely to the graphic novel. I like the word "cleave" as no matter which definition you use, I'm right.

Some fanboy impressions, in no particular order...

Osterman in the intrinsic field vault. His body dissolving parallels the panel in WATCHMEN IV, Page 8.
Archie the Owl Ship emerging from the Hudson: WATCHMEN X, Page 11.
Random scenes of the Silk Spectre and Nite Owl. The Comedian tossed out his window. Ozymandias in front of his world video monitoring station.
Dr. Manhattan. This appears to be a scene from Manhattan's origin, when he was still learning how to rebuild his body, possibly replicating WATCHMEN IV, Page 9.
Archie descending through flames, possibly to the Sing-Sing riot. Rorschach improvising a flamethrower (WATCHMEN V. Page 26).
The Silk Spectre. Dr. Manhattan x 3 in that infamous scene where Laurie cries out:, "Jon, be one person again!" (WATCHMEN II. Pages 4-5).
Nite Owl in a very Batman-like pose. The Comedian's funeral. The Comedian in Vietnam. The Vigilante riots. (various from WATCHMEN II) Voice-over, "God help us all." The last is probably a reference to the quote in WATCHMEN IV, "God exists, and he's American." A chilling prospect, when you think about it.
Manhattan appears after successfully reconstructing himself. (WATCHMEN IV, Page 10). Note the full frontal nudity. Manhattan and Laurie kiss (WATCHMEN IV, Page 18). The Comedian smashing a wall, possibly after discovering the secret that would lead to his death, Rorschach throwing someone (Moloch?) against a wall. Ozymandias fighting off an assassin (WATCHMEN V, Pages 14-15).. Nite Owl screaming and Manhattan incinerating a Vietnamese (the two unrelated, The latter from WATCHMEN IV, Page 20).
More vigalante riot footage, this obviously parralleling WATCHMEN II, Page 16.The Rorschach voiceover is a variation of the statement in Rorscach's journal entry which opens the WATCHMEN series, which reads in part: "The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up against their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!'... and I'll look down and whisper, 'no'."
The Martian clock tower.

Dreamtime Trucks Along With Episode 56

noreply@blogger.com (Fred Bals) — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:04:53 PDT

Time for a Dreamtime plug, which I haven't done in a bit. We're up to Episode 56 and about 3,000 regular listeners, as far as I can tell, which ain't bad for an amateur podcast.

It's Summertime, the living is easy, and our July Twenty-Ought-Eight show is all about solar rays and happiness, direct from the sun and fun capital of the world, Merrimack, NH.

Featuring Eric Burdon and the Animals from the Summer of Love, Mickey & Sylvia, (with a sidelong look at Dave "Baby" Cortez and The Rocky Fellers), Bob Denver (in-between gigs as Maynard G. Krebs and Gilligan), thoughts on the Man Who Walked on Water, our favorite Disney girl, Annette and her seldom-seen belly-button, a visit to the racetrack, and winding up with a hip-hop version of Cruel Summer. Plus Dreamtime favorite Summer movies, and a few jingles thrown into the mix.

Episode 56 - Ho Daddy! The Summer Surf and Turf special

The Miami Beach audience is the greatest in the woild - Jackie Gleason