smays.com

Weekend in Tulsa

Living on tulsa time.
Living on tulsa time.
Gonna set my watch back to it
cause you know that Ive been through it.
Living on tulsa time.

Off to Oklahoma for a weekend with Brother Blane and family. Light blogging for a few days.

Let's cut back to 10mg on the Paxil

This rabbit needs a home

Pete here has been fixed and he needs a home. He's going absolutely ape-shit in this cage in the waiting room of the West Side Vet Clinic, 4736 Country Club Drive, Jefferson City, MO 65109. Phone: (573) 893-7707.

I'd take the little bugger but Ripley and Lucy would think he's just another toy animal that needs unstuffing. Comon, you can't say no to this face.

And and while we're on the subject of pets...

UPDATE: The nice folks at the clinic called to let me know Peter has a home. Don't know who but betcha Petey is gettin' some kisses and hugs tonight.

A Walk Around the Lake (video)

I had a feeling Henry might enjoy making a few videos. He's a gifted digital artist (that's a photographer who doesn't have to take assignments) but has always focused on still images. The video above (4 min) is a walk around the lake at the Prairie Garden Trust with Pete, Sam and Boots.

I think this is only Henry's second video and I predict we'll see some very cool stuff once he gets the hang of a different medium.

My favorite part is when Sam stops to take a leak.

Share Screen on OS X

Apple Fan Boy Alert

I use a handy little app called SiteSucker to back up my blogs. It runs best when you aren't doing a lot of other stuff on the computer at the same time it's sucking down the files. So I have it running upstairs on the Mac Mini.

I'm downstairs on the MacBook Pro but I want to know when SiteSucker is finished with one blog so I can strt on the next. Rather than run up and down the stairs checking, I click a little button in Finder on the MacBook and --voila!-- I can see the desktop on the Mini.

Yes, I'm sure I can do this on Windows... or YOU can do this on Windows. I can't. And it's handy as hell.

This post is about technology and media, not politics.

I "follow" Barack Obama's Twitter feed. If you don't know what that means, it's okay (unless you happen to be a journalist). A few minutes ago the campaign "tweeted" that the senator was getting ready to speak in Springfield, Missouri and I could watch it live by clicking the included link.

It took me to the "live" page on the Obama website where a USTREAM player was feeding live video. As I write this there are 830 viewers. Only a fraction of the number watching on the cable news channels that might be airing this speech.

I mention this only because no "traditional media" were necessary to make this happen. The Obama campaign has an email address for each of the millions (?) of people who have contributed to his campaign. We all got a ping that he was about to speak.

[901 viewers]

I think this is huge. Sure, a campaign still need MSM to get elected. Today. Will that be as true four years from now? Will it be true at all 8 years from now?

[1,045 viewers]

Of course it is not just the live stream. This speech --and all of the others-- will be available from now until election day. And beyond?

[1,095 viewers]

So, the Rolling Stones are out?

Programming Tivo from web

We've been DirecTV users since it began. When Tivo came along, that seemed like a natural extension. I frequently use the web to check the DirecTV listings but just discovered I can also program the Tivo via the web.

Let's say I'm sitting here in the Coffee Zone, surfin' and slurpin' and see that there's some special on HBO tonight but I won't be home to watch or record. Just log in, find the channel and program, click the Record to Receiver link and you're set.

Trailer for Oliver Stone's "W." (video)

I might be the last person to figure this out but, based on this trailer, Stone appears to tackle two questions: "How in the hell did George W. Bush ever become president of the United States?" And, "What happened to him before he got to the Oval Office that made him so inept once there?" Or maybe that's one question.

Sputnik Monroe

Long before the glitz and glamor that is "professional wrestling" today, Memphis, Tennessee, was something of a mecca for the... let's not call it a sport... for the business. Some of the big names of the day would also appear in small town venues, including the VFW in Kennett, Missouri. From here, I'll let Michael Spooner share his Brush With Near Greatness:

"For those who may not know, Sputnik Monroe was a celebrated Memphis wrestler in the late 1950's and 60's.  He, along with many other wrestlers, came to Kennett to fight.  I recall, at least in Kennett, no one seemed to like Sputnik since he had this 'bad guy' reputation.  And for a couple of seasons we, too, did our share of booing Sputnik. Until the day, one Saturday afternoon, when he came to our home as a guest for dinner.  This wasn't a complete surprise since we were warned of his visit.  Nevertheless, my sisters and I were shaking in our boots, while at the same time, immensely excited that an 'almost movie star' was coming to our house. 

Well how did this happen, you ask?  First of all, Sputnik and my mother never dated. My mother, however, did date a wonderful guy named Skip Pepper from Memphis for a few  years in the late 50's.  At the time Skip owned a Dollar Store in Kennett, located on the north west corner of the town square.  Skip knew Sputnik as a friend (we didn't know this until we learned of his coming to dinner).  It was Skip who arranged the visit."

It's a shame Michael's mom never dated Sputnik. A guy could do a lot worse than "My Mom Dated Sputnik Monroe" for the title of an autobiography.

From Sputnik's Wikipedia entry: On May 4, 2007, HBO announced they would make a movie based on Monroe's life. On September 6, 2007 Julien Nitzberg confirmed the first draft of the Sputnik movie had been completed. A Los Angeles-based rock band is named after him. More on Sputnik Monroe. And I found this tribute to Sputnik following his death.

If you were with me here at the Coffee Zone, I could demonstrate the Man's signature "Sputnik Strut."

12seconds.tv

From the website: "12seconds is the best place online for video status updates. It's a super easy way to share what you're doing with your friends and family using short video clips. You can use your web cam or mobile phone. Show your friends where you are, share your thoughts, or tell them how you're doing. We are building a video status platform that will help you keep up to date with your friends 12 seconds at a time."

Why only 12 seconds?

"Because anything longer is boring. The scientists here at the 12seconds dodecaplex have conducted countless hours of research to determine the precise amount of time it takes for boredom or apathy to set in during typical Internet video viewing. Our patent pending Electro-Tear-Duct Prongers have determined that exactly 12 seconds of video is the ideal amount of time to keep anything interesting."

The thing that caught my attention was how 12seconds.tv. integrates with Twitter. You're walking down the street and spot to dogs doing the wild thing. You whip out your camera phone and shoot 12 seconds of video and off it goes to your page on 12seconds.tv. With corresponding tweet.

This reminds me of Twitpic, a similar service for still images. And eyejolt, which makes it easy to email short videos to friends. Not sure why I couldn't get it to work with Twitter but I'll fiddle some more. This is the kind of app that might get my to buy a phone that can shoot/send video.

On a down note, I didn't think quality of the resulting video was very good.

X-Files: Hard to Believe

I wanted to believe the new X-Files movie would be a good follow-up to the first movie and the TV series. I was a fan of both and had high hopes for the new film which Barb and I watched last night. What a stinker.

This is where I'd insert a spoiler alert but I just don't think there's anything to spoil. But I'll give you my fuzzy understanding of the plot after the jump.

The magazine cover has nothing to do with the new film. I just wanted some kind of reminder of Scully and Mulder when they were still hot.

Live from the conference room!

I started fooling with putting video online 5 or 6 years ago. It was extremely primitive back then. YouTube and embedded players were years down the road. I was doing everything on Windows (Studio 9) and the idea of a live video stream was science fiction. But I never doubted figuring out how to do this would come in handy.

On Monday, we're going to stream live video of a sales meeting, including a role-playing session. The sales reps in our "outer offices" will watch in (almost) real time and then take part in a discussion by conference call.

Not sure what my point is here, but whether it's Photoshop, or blogging or podcasting or video streaming... you have to play with the stuff BEFORE you have a practical application.

"So how'd you get that pussy blogging job, smays.com?

"Well, I started spending every spare moment online in 1996... and the rest was just dumb luck."

Oh, yeah. We're not using some six figure video conferencing set-up on Monday. Just a cheap camcorder and a MacBook Pro.

Mountain Biking with helmet-cam (video)

Co-worker Roger is on holiday with family in Colorado. This video --shot with his new ATC3K Action Cam-- shows him biking down the mountain. Note that about half-way through he goes AROUND the jump instead of over.

"The web is your future"

"A lot of experienced news people — whether broadcast or print — feel
like they’ve been baited and switched, that they were trained and hired
to do one thing but are now being required to do something else. That’s
understandable, but it’s also completely irrelevant." -- Terry Heaton

zPhone

My new zPhone arrived yesterday and it's everything I hoped it would be. I sprung for the white patent leather shoulder harness so I have a feeling I'll be turning heads when I pull this rascal out.

I haven't figured out how to set it to vibrate but I'm told you know when you have a call. My favorite feature, however, is the paper print out of missed calls.

I opted for the International Orange model, but the zPhone also comes in cammo. Sold out, of course.

Life aboard the USS Learfield (video)

Photofunia #2 (Too much fun to stop)

Photofunia

Thanks to the Lord High Commander of Planet Nelson for pointing us to Photofunia. I like this site a lot more than he did. Grown-up that he is, he dismissed the site as a place to fiddle away an "Internet minute." I expect to spend countless hours there.

Flood damage to Cedar Rapids church

There's been much in the news about the 4,000 homes flooded in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last month, but 30 churches were also lost there. Radio Iowa reporter Matt Kelly did a good piece (including some photos) on the damage to one of those churches.

Built in 1904, Salem United Methodist, near Cedar Rapids' downtown, had 11 feet of riverwater inside, reaching the cross on the sanctuary wall. His story and images showed how bad the flooding was in a way you never see when the water is covering everything.

I especially liked this photo of a smiling Jesus. This is a guy you could go surfing with, maybe have a beer.

If you're happy and you know it...

I've been thinking some about fear and happiness recently, so these excerpts from an article by Roger Fransecky ("Happiness Is A Choice") caught my attention:

"Dan Baker's book, What Happy People Know, confirms the wisdom of the research into what (Dr. Martin) Seligman calls "authentic happiness" and "learned optimism." Baker notes that a major barrier to happiness is fear. He writes, "We all have a neurological fear system embedded deep within our brains, a neural network that once helped us survive as a species, but now limits our lives. The biological circuitry of fear is the greatest enemy of happiness."

We've written about how fear binds us, edits our hopes and diminishes our potential for happiness. Baker reminds us that fear is the repository for our past traumas, our fear of the future and our archaic instinctual terrors. Fear can be a gift, our way of staying out of the darkness and moving into the light of awareness and new beginnings. But if our fears own us, we have to break free...by awareness of those fears, and through the courage to challenge our fears to see if they are still real."

For additional information on "neurological fear systems embedded deep within our brains," reference the work of Dr. Warren Chapin. Additional insights on Happiness.

CEO Bloggers

NBC News did a good piece on CEO bloggers as the kicker to this evenings newscast. Bill Marriott writes his blog posts in long-hand (he doesn't type) and someone posts them for him.

Phil Mooney has been the historian/archivist for Coca-Cola for 30 years and is Faithfully posting away since March of 2006.

So Learfield CEO (and Chief Blogger in Residence) Clyde Lear is good company. Faithfully blogging away since March of 2006.

For some reason the flash code for this player messes with embedded links, so here are the blog mentioned above:

http://www.blogs.marriott.com/
http://www.coca-colaconversations.com/
http://www.growlearfield.com

"It's a Class War, Stupid"

My favorite political pundit, Matt Taibbi, penned a cheerful article about politics, media and class in America. Since nobody is going to click on a link to an article thus described, here's the final paragraph:

"These fantasy elections we've been having — overblown sports contests with great production values, decided by haircuts and sound bytes and high-tech mudslinging campaigns — those were sort of fun while they lasted, and were certainly useful in providing jerk-off pundit-dickheads like me with high-paying jobs. But we just can't afford them anymore. We have officially spent and mismanaged our way out of la-la land and back to the ugly place where politics really lives — a depressingly serious and desperate argument about how to keep large numbers of us from starving and freezing to death. Or losing our homes, or having our cars repossessed. For a long time America has been too embarrassed to talk about class; we all liked to imagine ourselves in the wealthy column, or at least potentially so, flush enough to afford this pissing away of our political power on meaningless game-show debates once every four years. The reality is much different, and this might be the year we're all forced to admit it."

The Pew News IQ Quiz

The Pew Research Center has a little 12 question "News IQ Quiz," that "tests your knowledge of prominent people and major events in the news." Take the quiz and see how you did in comparison with 1,003 randomly sampled adults asked the same questions in a recent national survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.

I got 11 of the 12 questions correct but I gotta tell you... they are pretty easy questions. As I clicked through this short quiz, I realized that if a lot of the American people can not answer most of these questions, that explains why politicians and people in government think they can tell us anything and we'll believe it. We will! Our delightful mix of ignorance and prejudice makes us sheep. Easily frightened off the edge of the cliff by 30 second TV ads.

I missed the question on the Dow Jones.

High Street Beat

Bloggers love few things as much as help a new blogger get started. George and I spent the morning with Jefferson City Mayor John Landwehr (and his wife Peggy) helping him get a blog set up. By the time you read this, HighStreetBeat.com should get you there. If not, this link will.

Hizhonor envisions the blog as a place to share news about Jefferson City...with the world. People, places, events, etc. And he's armed with a Flip Video camera and a YouTube account so look for lots of video. The site just went up today so it's "under construction" as we used to say.

He has a page on the official Jeff City website, called "Mayor's Monthly Memo." But a month is a lifetime in Internet years and memos are waaay too last century. He's looking for ideas and feedback so hit the comment links or the Gmail link on the left side of his page.

Big Time Blogger Hangs Up (spikes/clubs/gloves)

Every now and then a super-star blogger "retires" from blogging. Or threatens to. One of the more recent is Jason Calacanis. From his farewell post:

"Starting today all of my thoughts will be reserved for a new medium. Something smaller, something more intimate, and something very personal: an email list. Today the email list has about 600 members, I'm going to cut it off when it reaches 750. Frankly, that's enough more than enough people to have a conversation with. I'm going to try and build a deeper relationship with fewer people--try to get back to my roots."

Huh. I think this is where I came in on the Internet movie. Yeah, I'd say 750 people might be enough to keep the old conversation ball in the air.

Chris Pirillo wonders if we're getting "too big for our niches?"

"Perhaps it is time to step back and figure out what’s possible in this new landscape. Can we maintain conversation and community at a large scale without things devolving into chaos? Is beating the CNNs and CNETs at their own mass-market game what we really want, or do we need to go back to the idea of finding our niche?"

I don't know anything about A-List bloggers but my buddy Chuck blogs (among other things) for a living and he and his wife work their asses off. I can see why someone might run out of steam if it all got too big.

I find blogging fun and relaxing. I know --or know of-- many of the 250-300 people that visit here. Blogging for bucks? Not for me.

"Freedom is a shitty business model"

Some nuggets from interview at gothamist.com with Internet Technologist Clay Shirky:

"(Blogging is) headed everywhere, because the underlying pattern of cheap amateur publishing is what's important, not the current manifestations. The word blog itself is going to fade into the middle distance, in the same way words like home page and portal did. Those words used to mean something relatively crisp and specific, but became so overloaded as to be meaningless.

So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this -- the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast.

The thing that will change the future in the future is the same thing that changed the future in the past --- freedom, in both its grand and narrow senses.

A lot of the fights in the next 5 years are going to be between people who want this kind of freedom in their technologies vs. business people who think freedom is a shitty business model compared with control.

The internet means you don't have to convince anyone that something is a good idea before trying it, and that in turn means that you don't need to be a huge company to change the world."

That last part... about not having to convince anyone before trying something? Probably my favorite thing about the internet.

If you haven't ready Shirky's book,  Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, I highly recommend it.

What brings people to smays.com?

A week ago I added SiteMeter to get a better handle on the trickle of traffic we get here at smays.com. One of the many features is a map showing location of recent visitors. I was curious about my visitor from Japan so I clicked on the dot and it pulled up a variety of information, including what he/she found (Google search) that brought them to my door. Irashaimasu.

 

Waiting for iPhones in Kansas City

George just got off the phone with Alice (his wife). They stopped by the Kansas City Apple store and found 120 people waiting in line. The store is out of phones. They're waiting for the UPS truck in hopes the store gets more iPhones. [Photo is from June 11th, courtesy of Bob Heater. Don't have a shot of today's madness.]

Taisir Yanis, Fez #16

انه في حين كان رأينا منذ اكثر من الدخان الابيض معبد فاس. حتى رفع رباعية لقطة Espresso ونرحب فاس # 16 ، taisir yanis. Taisir هو المالك / المالك وسوء الحمار barista من البن في المنطقة ، على مادة الكافيين في نقطة الصفر جيفرسون سيتي ، ميسوري. منزل fezzes # 14 ، 6 # # 1 و. Taisir كتابي من اللغة الانجليزيه هي... متشكك ، ولذا فاننا video'd التماسه للاستحقاق. جميلة نحن على يقين من انه يتحدث العربية ولكنه سوف يكون خلال ايام قليلة علينا قبل ان تحصل على النسخ. ولكن نظرا للطريقة التي تسير الامور ، نحن حظيت باهتمام انه قد يكون من المفيد ان يكون ليتحدث العربية الأعضاء في النظام. انا انفاق المزيد من الوقت مع نوعية taisir من طرف زوجتي حتى بوسعي ان اشهد على الجداره. انضم لي ان ارحب taisir الى النظام الملكي وتعالى من فاس. يمكنك استخدام التعليق على الوصله ادناه او البريد الالكتروني في taisir yaniscoffeezone@gmail.com. [Video]

Let's hold the first meet-up in Montfoort

Last week I started using SiteMeter to get a better sense of who's visiting smays.com. There's a wealth of data that I haven't taken time to explore but I did come across a section that lists where people are "coming from."

Most of these are the result of some bizarre Google search and never come back but it illustrates how connected --if only in this small way-- the world has become.

And for any international visitor who might be reading this... I am very sorry about George W. Bush. I hope we can make it up to the world.

Hey Gomer, what the name of that song on the radio?

My digital homey David Brazeal didn't pop for an new 3G iPhone but did upgrade his original iPhone with some nifty new software. In this short (2 min) video, David shows us Shazam.

Don't know the name of that song on the radio? No problemo. Shazam does.

A pee with a view

Old pal and blogger-to-be Yolonda shares the following:

"Nuts & Volts Magazine now has a monthly feature of “fascinating websites.”  This month’s strange nominee is Urinal.net. The site’s a few years old, so you may have “passed” this way before (so to speak).  I thought of you because of your pissing dwarf Twitter contest entry.  My favorite  – a pee with a view in Kowloon."

And I'm pretty sure I can't "go" with the entire city of Kowloon watching.

And I can't mention urinals with acknowledging my own fascination with theater restrooms. Specifically, how damned good I look in theater restrooms.  My first post on this was in April of 2002, but I didn't get up my courage to document it until 2004.

 

$4 million for a radio station website?

Boston sports radio station WEEI-AM is upgrading their website, WEEI.com. According to one source, the station could spend as much as $4 million on the site.

GM Tim Murphy says the goal is "...to support and help our phenomenal talent on air and to make their shows as good as they could possibly be." To do that, WEEI has hired two Boston Herald sportswriters.

The station plans to roll out the new Web site in January. [BostonHerald.com]

One cold Bud for the Computer Guys

I can't recall posting on the purchase of Anheuser-Busch by Belgian beverage giant, InBev. I'm a Bud fan but have been drinking Beck's (made by InBev) for a year or two. New owners always tell you nothing is gonna change but it's not true and nobody believes them anyway.

But The Game is truely global now and we have to get used to it. Just as the rest of the world has had to deal with our military and economic superiority. Both of which are facing serious challenges. As Bob Dylan said, "How does it feeeel?"

I mark this moment with this musical tribute. One of my favorites.

JibJab: "Time For Some Campaignin"

The JibJag guys still have the stuff. A dose of wicked reality humor. Had to pull the Flash player. Screwing up my page load.

Why no iPhone for smays.com

Given my love of tech toys in general and Apple stuff in particular, I find myself frequently explaining why I don't have an iPhone (or plans to own one). Put aside the fact that I might make or receive 5 mobile calls in a week... it's really a matter of time.

The time it would take me to get up and running is manageable. But I know I would be tweaking and "playing" with the phone until Steve Jobs is called back to that Garage in the Sky. It would be all-consuming.

For someone with very few real-world responsibilities (kids, chores, community service, etc), my days are full. Work, reading, exercise, dogs and, yes, blogging. Oh yeah... and Barb. She doesn't get her share of my time.

The iPhone would be one more digital child I don't have time to raise, care for and play with.

"...and the rockets' red glare..."

Ann and Jim point us to this video of Sheryl Crow singing the national anthem (only the clueless don't offer embed code) at the All-Star Game earlier this week.

Nobody sings the song especially well but SC gave a nice rendition. According to the article, she didn't just show up, sing, and split. She watched batting practice and hung with the crowd.

I don't watch sports so I don't often see the national anthem sung... but can't recall seeing someone sing it while playing the guitar.

Don't Look Back! (A short film in one take)

Yes, I know I misspelled tortoise. It's called creative license, okay?

Audio Highjack Pro. Good product. Great customer service.

Rogue Amoeba makes a great application called Audio Hijack Pro. I've heard nothing but good things about this tool so I jumped on their website and bought it. A great price, too. Just $32. (Mac only). They had a free trial option but I was positive this was what I needed.

Turns out it wasn't. I screwed up. But for the hell of it, I emailed the support guys at AHP, told them what I had done and asked if they'd give me a break. And they did.

I got a well-deserved scolding first for not taking advantage of the free trial offer but they went above and beyond and deserve a little link love for it.

And I promise to always do the trial before I buy.

We've come a long way from the banner ad

A tip of the fez to The Dulle Man for pointing us to this clever bit of marketing. It's probably funnier if you speak Portuguese, but it works if you don't.

Put your first name in the first field and your last name in the second field... then click on "Vizualizar" link, bottom/left. And if you're quick enough, you can grab a frame like this.

iPhones come to Learfield IT Department

First came the MacBook Pros. Phil, then Shane. But nothing was going to replace their beloved Blackberry's. Until their new 3G iPhones arrived. Apple hardware is creeping into Learfield's IT department like a drunk husband stumbling in after a night out with the boys.

Audix USB12 Microphone (video)

"Don't come in my ear."

I have only the vaguest idea of who Laura Ingraham is but she apparently has a show on Fox called "Just In." As in, "this just in." I doubt I'll ever see the show but that's okay, 'cause there's no way it could be as good as these behind-the-scenes outtakes:

Watching this is like having a naked Victoria's Secrets model drill your teeth. It hurts but you don't want it to be over.

Will everyone need a web page?

WSJ's Jason Fry wonders if we're getting closer to the day when everyone will need a web page. He starts with the question of how we're to find each other in a rapidly evolving future.

"...landlines are disappearing, yet there's no "white pages" for cellphones. And we don't want one -- the rise of email, IM and other forms of messaging have transformed the phone call into an intrusive way to communicate, best reserved for certain situations between people who already have a relationship. Which is fine, but raises the issue of how we're supposed to get in touch with people we don't already know. The most likely solution to the problem is a single point of contact, with additional levels of contact information unlocked by us as we deem appropriate. A Web page -- whether it's on an outpost such as Facebook or LinkedIn or a site built out with communications tools -- can serve that function pretty well.

A personal Web page is an opportunity to tell your story and balance out other narratives that you can't control."

I found this piece very interesting. When I google "steve mays" I want this blog to show up on the first page of results. Ego? Sure, for now. And it will probably never have financial or business implications for me but that might not be true for a twenty-something.

Citizens for a Bleaker America

'No Values Voters' Looking To Support Most Evil Candidate

You tell me. How cool would it be to answer the question, "So, what do you do?" with, "Oh, I'm a writer for The Onion." I have a really great job at a really good company. But I can't honestly say I have the BEST job in the world. I think I'd settle for just knowing someone that worked for The Onion. Sort of a Brush With Comic Genius.

[Flash player doesn't seem to load after the first few hours. So I yanked it. Just follow link above.]

ABC.com reaches record video traffic

"ABC.com users watched a record 815 million minutes of full-length
episodes during the month of May — 37 million episodes in all — a 53%
increase over the previous month and an increase of nearly 110% over
the previous year. It appears this online video thing is catching on." [Lost Remote]

Hold that espresso between your knees

I came across this delightful/horrible story on a blog called And I Am Not Lying. It's about an encounter at a coffee shop in Arlington, VA. You can read the post for yourself, which included this classic Jack Nicholson scene from Five Easy Pieces:

This is the kind of stunt I always wanted to pull but didn't have the balls. Instead I'd say something so mean it would make the other person burst into tears. I am now working toward enlightenment but still love the clip.

Video now and then

Escape from Kyle Shields on Vimeo. More on the video above.

Brings back memories Be kind. "Then" was 50 years ago.

Orville Redenbacher called. He wants his tie back.

Answer: Intact mastodon skeleton, Brittney Spears' underpants, and a flattering photo of smays.com
Question: Name three extremely rare items.

I'm not bashful about posting pix of smays.com but it's always a pleasure to find one that doesn't look like it fell off a nursing home clipboard. My thanks to New Media Mini-Mogul Chuck Zimmerman for sharing this one.

This is my little corner at the Coffee Zone. You'll find me here every morning from 6:30 until 8:00. I'm not a "morning talker" however. This 90 min is my quiet time, set aside for blogging and surfing.