She’s been a subscriber since I met her over two and half years ago and I’ve been reading it most of my adult life. When I was a kid we got the Long Beach Press Telegram most of the time. I still will read the LA Times but mainly via the internet. I know they have been working hard to hire bloggers and improve their online offerings but I do hope they continue to improve and start to get serious about mobile offerings. How ’bout an iphone app?

I am a web person, making my living online, but I do love to have a paper delivered to my door, hold it in my hands, and read it daily. Going forward that newspaper is going to be the New York Times.

The decline in quality of the LA Times is the biggest reason for this decision. It’s an inevitable consequence of their decision to cut section after section and good reporter after good reporter.

LA Observed is doing a great job as usual covering all the latest happenings and departures over at the LA Times. Check out their posts that are tagged with Los Angeles Times.

I haven’t looked at it so much since I threw it together but I totally dig it!

Of course it wouldn’t have been so easy to throw together without the design of the image posted here provided by Jon Fox.

I’m constantly evolving the way I keep up with things but lately this is how I’ve been doing it, with the key being quick and easy.

1. I still use del.icio.us to bookmark and tag sites that I want to keep and go back to and use as part of my regular browsing and as a point of reference.
2. Secondly, I use Google Reader to read my favorite sites and blogs and share whatever I find interesting.
3. The third, and most common way for me of late, is sharing links via popurls.

All of these actions end up in my Friendfeed along with a bunch of other “things” I do and share while online.

If you love a good drama then this is the mini series for you.

I knew nothing of it going into other than the preview we saw before another flcik we rented and she had seen the second half years ago while living abroad and it was on the telly. Gotta love that ‘ol BBC broadcasting.

Just now while deciding to share with exuberance this must see television I Googled and found the old stuff on it but was surprised (really not surprised) to find that I’m not the only American who noticed and it is being turned into an “American political thriller” film. Ah, ok. I guess Americans don’t speak proper English so we need to take that stuff they make over the pond, muck it up, call it our own, and cram it all into two hours (short attention span).

Well, thumbs up none the less.

So many come and go and most are just that, a flash in the pan, with nothing much going for them. Where Plurk falls is still up in the air. With all the ups and downs that Twitter has been experiencing there couldn’t be a better time for another fine chap to come along to fill the void of allowing any Joe Shmoe to broadcast his latest life update to the masses or anyone that cares to take notice. And for those that have been paying attention, Twitter has been shaping up and staying up more than not.

Plurk’s interesting twist on Twitter’s constant question of “What are you doing?” is taking the “is” and giving the user a choice of other options. Jorge is chlling at home watching the Dodgers. Jorge was at work but is now heading to the movies. Jorge wishes that the Lakers did’t choke. Jorge loves Jen. You get the idea. That, along with the Karma points thing and the some-think-nifty-and-others-don’t slide time line view it gives the experience of documenting the often times trivial and mundane yet sometimes fun and interesting small, open group discussions a unique twist if not raising it all to a new level.

I dig it but not exactly abandoning my twitter account just yet. But you can check my plurk updates in all they’re glory here.

As a side note, I find it interesting that sites like techcrunch haven’t even whispered about plurk. Is it simpley because they don’t hold a stake in the company or that it’s being developed abroad?

Not until recently did I find out that they also carry sunglasses. I was in the market for a new pair and went out of my way to drive to a shop in a mini mall in the OC that I usually score the kind I like. No luck this time. Bumber, right? Well, I went online like I do for everything else when the brick and mortar world lets me down and what do ya know? Zappos has the kind I like and then some. Their customer service kicks serious booty. I know that none of this is news. But you gotta love it when a company has what you want and is willing to make you happy when you’re forking over 100+ bucks for something. That’s what they did when they price matched and beat the competition for the pair of sunglasses I wanted and threw in next day shipping for free. I love that!

Anyhow, what actually prompted me to write this post was the fact that zappos is kicking serious booty online in another arena other than selling stuff we like to buy. They are also blogging and twittering up a storm. I started following the CEO on twitter a few weeks ago and as it turns out they have a ton of employees using twitter.

Here’s a good conversation on Twittering for Companies.

You can check it out here: http://sportsnation.espn.go.com/jorgemir

If you love sports then you probably go to espn.com about 12 times a day or more depending on how much you try to get away with while you’re supposed to be working. Now you should have a little more to do while you’re there. You can have your own little piece of personal space on the site to post photos and blog entries and interact with your fellow fan via comments and groups. This is just the beginnings as we have a ton of other cool things planned for the site.

There was a previous version of Fan Profiles up but this version that is now live is completely new from soup to nuts and is completely written in Ruby on Rails. We’re still working out the kinks but it sure feels good to have it out there and getting used by all the fine fans of the site.

You can follow along with the development of Fan Profiles and more at our ESPN Dev Blog: http://espndev.com/blog/

Give a listen to my muxtape!

Dusty’s

Originally uploaded by xero79

We went to dinner at Dusty’s tonight and had a pretty good experience. The prices are a little bit pricey for a neighborhood joint and the menu is pretty limited but it was worth it still. I had the filet which is hard to go wrong with any place you order it and Jen had the duck which she said she liked. We’re always looking for something new and have driven by this place a million times so it was nice to finally check it out.

You can see 2007 here and 2006 here.