I no longer update this blog and haven’t for some time. I’m not going to delete it instead I’m going to let it collect dust out in the garage. It was fun while it lasted and received some fun press along the way. Why stop? Because I’m busy pretending to have a real job, twittering (@andrwmyr), and tumbling (Bloodthirsty Capitalist).

I deleted my personal Facebook account at the end of June. At the time, I was using my preferred username: http://www.facebook.com/andrwmyr. 20 days after deleting my account, I signed up for a Facebook again. I used the same email as my previous account and all the same personal information. When I went to choose my vanity URL for the new account Facebook wouldn’t let me choose my previous username. I had to choose a new username.

I guess Facebook doesn’t attach vanity URLs to your email or other personal info. It looks like they attach it to your profile ID and nothing else. So, if you kill your profile ID you can get a new vanity URL.

If you want to kill your profile ID, this is how I deleted my Facebook account. And, Facebook’s blog post on usernames.

Update: Facebook now letting you change your username once from the “Account Settings” page.

Eastbound & Down is pure gold. I highly recommend it. F-ing hilarious show.

I didn’t watch it on HBO or Comcast On Demand because I don’t have HBO or Comcast. Instead, I typed a couple keywords into Google and found some high-quality streams on the first page of results. Buying the Season 1 DVD or paying for Comcast cable seemed like too much trouble.

What does this mean for HBO? Well, I hope they make enough money off HBO subscriptions, Comcast partnerships, and DVD sells to keep making badass shows like Eastbound & Down because I find it too easy to stream their shows online than pay for HBO or Comcast cable.

It sounds like HBO is changing their old model a bit with this announcement that they will try Comcast’s On Demand Online trial this summer. You’ll still need HBO in your cable TV package to watch HBO online, which is kind of lame, but at least HBO is starting to put their content online.

I live in Windsor, California. Not Windsor, Canada.

When I use Google to search for a restaurant or business in Windsor, California, Google assumes I am searching for something in Windsor, Canada. I have never searched for something in Windsor, Canada. Ever. Why hasn’t Google learned this with 1000+ local searches?

Look what happens I search for taquerias in “Windsor, CA”:

I shouldn’t have to change the “CA” to “California” when I’m searching from a mobile or computer located in Windsor, California. Google, why the massive fail?

Recently, I deleted my Facebook account because I had lost all control of it and couldn’t find an easy way to clean it up. It sucks to lose all the contacts I made over the years but I think I made the right decision.

How to delete your Facebook account:

Make sure you are logged in to Facebook. Go to Facebook’s “Delete My Account” page. Click “Submit” and follow the instructions.

I created a page (Update: Page no longer exists) aggregating PressDemocrat.com’s available local news feeds. It’s clean, light, and navigable. Take a look and let me know what you think:

My goal is to facilitate a conversation around making the page better. I want everyone’s feedback on how to make the page better. I’m open to try anything. The page is limited only by the availability of PressDemocrat.com’s feeds.

Am I stealing PressDemocrat.com’s content or conversations? No, I’m using feeds they’ve made publicly available. And, I’m using them to redirect people back to PressDemocrat.com’s content and conversations.

Your ideas, comments, and emails are valuable to making the page better. Email us at andrew@buzzyeah.com.

I update Buzzyeah with new posts very infrequently, so I thought I’d point out a few places where I update on a daily basis (if not a multiple-times-a-day basis).

1) @andrwmyr at Twitter. Here you’ll find a diarrhea stream of news links I think are cool, my half-baked opinions and thoughts, what I’m up to on any particular day, and hollow flippant-ness.

2) My FriendFeed stream. It tracks almost everything do on the Internet from YouTube to Flickr to Digg to Twitter and so on and so on.

When a reader leaves an insightful, thoughtful comment on Buzzyeah, it will get reblogged. Like this comment:

What you say is true. I used read the PD first thing in the morning and then check my internet news aggregator. Now I check the internet aggregator first and then the PD. I find that the PD front section is useless. It carries news stories that were on the internet news aggregators 24 and 48 hours ago. I do read the Empire section of the PD because it has more or less local news that is harder to get on my internet aggregator (probably because I haven’t bothered to tune the aggregator for local news yet). I don’t even look at the sports section much anymore because it’s all available on the net on a more timely basis. If the PD really wanted to keep my eyes on their news they would put up a portal that lenses local, national, and world news based on its impact on Sonoma county. Stories could be linked to local blogs and commentary like Memeorandum does.

Originally posted as a comment by obsequiem on BUZZYEAH using Disqus.

When I visit PressDemocrat.com, I go for one thing: Sonoma County news. Someone in Mendocino County might visit the site for Mendo County news, which is great, but not the reason I visit. Ok, with that said, how do I locate Sonoma County news on PressDemocrat.com. Ahh… herein lies the problem. Local news granularity is sorely missing on the site.

When scrolling down PressDemocrat.com’s frontpage, you won’t find sections for “Santa Rosa news” or “Windsor news”:

When you go to the “Local” page under “News”, you won’t find sections for “Santa Rosa news” or “Windsor news” either. You will find a section for Petaluma news, but that’s because its a feed for Petaluma360 one of PressDemocrat.com’s other sites:

I can’t wait until PressDemocrat.com adds clear local news granularity to the site. I’d love to visit the homepage and find sections for “Santa Rosa news” or “Windsor news”. I’d like it even more if Northern California news got the above-the-fold treatment over national news. I’d like it even even even more if Santa Rosa news, Windsor news, etc, got their own pages.

Note: I’m strictly talking about PressDemocrat.com, not the print edition. The Make PressDemocrat.com Better conversation I’m starting has nothing to do with the excellent print edition. They are completely different worlds.

Scott Karp’s Publishing 2.0 blog is an excellent conversation starter around the topic of news organizations increasing, bettering their Web presence. I’ve been reading it heavily. Here’s a couple interesting posts:

Reinventing Local News Distribution On The Web (Scott Karp on Mar 13, 2008)

Drudge Report: News Site That Sends Readers Away With Links Has Highest Engagement (Scott Karp on Sept 15, 2008)

Why Every News Site Should Put a Continuously Updated News Aggregation on the Homepage (Scott Karp on Sept 17, 2008)

Nervous About Link Journalism? Ignore Web’s ‘Cesspool’ And Tap Its ‘Natural Spring’ (Josh Korr on Oct 13, 2008)

Mainstream News Organizations Entering the Web’s Link Economy Will Shift the Balance of Power and Wealth (Scott Karp on Oct 16, 2008)

On another note, it was reported yesterday that the #3 newsmagazine US News and Report is dropping print for the Web. This is a trend that will continue to happen with news organizations. I’d love to hear more discussion and thoughts about print-to-Web transitions and strategies by news organization insiders.

Photo credit: News Int’l/AFP/Getty