Last minute

I know I’m a little late on this, but it’s been a hectic week.

Last week for class, we watched Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the books Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, speak at the UMass Fine Arts Center. Foer’s second book, a fictionalized account of 9/11 from the perspective of a particularly clever young boy (that’s the best I can do for a summary since I haven’t read it, to be honest), was read by all the smart and nerdy kids at UMass as part of their Dean’s Book course for Commonwealth College.

About to be kicked off a boat on Martha’s Vineyard

so I can’t elaborate too much, but if you don’t know about Wonkette, check it out. I remember hearing about this blog in a media criticism class a couple years ago and never really taking the time to look around, but I started reading it yesterday and find myself checking for updates any time I’m near a computer. It’s refreshing to see someone just unleash the way she does, without censoring herself. I love reading Andrew Sullivan, and Ben Smith, but she adds a humor element that I find myself needing after I get angry/depressed from the other two.

I’ll be in a cab until Sunday afternoon, with short breaks for food pellets and water, sleep if I’m lucky, so I’ll update whenever I’m near Wi-Fi (read: picking up rich assholes at the airport), which is a rare pleasure this late in the season.

Maybe next time I’m at the Iron Horse…

…it’ll be to see professor Scott Brodeur rock out as the frontman of band Storybox. For all my classmates, and anyone else who might be interested, you can check out some of their songs on their MySpace.

I think we should request an end-of-the-semester concert to celebrate, or at least get free tickets to his next show; I think my wife would enjoy the mellower, more jazzy songs, but I’m a fan of Bouncing Days. Has anyone ever told you you sound a little like the lead singer of They Might Be Giants, Scott?

Why illegal immigration looks like such a good idea

When people in my cab or bus ask me about my wife, and eventually the conversation rolls around to the “citizenship issue,” they’re always amazed when I tell them how long the immigration and naturalization process actually takes. Most just assume that since we got married she’s automatically a citizen, just like that, even in the post-9/11 world.

If only it were so simple.

Dependencies

My name is Drew and I have a problem. I’m too dependent on the technology around me.

My problem is that I have high expectations for things. Last night, during the Foer speech/Twitter experiment, my Motorola MOTO Q9c locked up and I had to do a master reset, causing me to lose all of my contacts, calendar settings, email settings, to-do list… essentially everything I need to keep my life in order, and the second it happened, my first panic-moment reaction, was “Oh crap, I am so effed.”

Not so Comcastic

When the Comcast technician comes tomorrow I’m going to teabag him.

Three weeks to get a technician to set up internet and he forgets to turn it on, followed by the worst customer support experience of my life.

Bottom line: Post frequency will start to increase tomorrow, finally.

Since we just talked about this last night…

Great piece (via Sullivan, of course) about Drudge:

What explains the change in tone? It’s easy to lapse into the tired old logic that Drudge is nothing more than a conservative mouthpiece returning to his roots as election day nears.

Time to fire things up a bit

Mr. Sullivan has a great post of a reader’s further pointing out the flaws in Sarah Palin’s character, which I’m always a big fan of doing, but I took issue with the hypocritical nature of her response. I thought I’d post a link to the original and copy/paste my letter below to get some discussion going on this.

Beware who you link to (or suffer the fools)

A Sheboygan, WI woman is suing the mayor and other city officials after she was criminally investigated, received death threats and her business tanked. Her supposed crime? Linking to the local police department website on her own site.

I shit you not.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story (via BoingBoing):

“Jennifer Reisinger says the Sheboygan city attorney ordered her to remove from her Web site a link to the city’s police department, in what she believes was retaliation for her support of recalling Mayor Juan Perez, according to the suit filed last week.

The city went further, the lawsuit claims, launching a criminal investigation of Reisinger for linking to the department on one of her sites.

The city’s actions torpedoed Reisinger’s Web site marketing business and led to death threats against her, according to the lawsuit.”

The Drudgington Post Report!

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the magnitude of Drudge Report and that what he’s done as a journalist in many ways helped blogging and online journalism get where it is today, but I don’t necessarily have to like the site. As some of you may have noticed, I’m a little left-leaning, and Drudge isn’t exactly subtle with his right-leaning headlines. Essentially, Drudge is a collection of links to stories typically written but more traditional journalists, with his own snarky headlines as links.

The Huffington Post, which I’m a little more inclined to peruse more often because of the more liberal take on things, at least has some more original content. Sure, it links out to a lot of other established news organizations, but it also has blog commentary to match.

I have a hard time calling either of these really journalism, per se, as they tend to link out to content produced by others (Drudge more so than Huffington). And, let’s be honest, if I want a list of headlines I’d be more inclined to go to a site that’s just going to list them with their original headers than an unorganized mess like Drudge.

Which brings me to the main point I just don’t bother with these sites that often: They’re unorganized, difficult to manage, and I just can’t stand a messy website. Huffington is that way on the top but is a little more manageable as you scroll down, but Drudge greets you with a large ad and then a pile of black-text links strewn wherever they fit. Sorry guys, I’d rather spend my time reading the content than picking through poorly designed websites.