I know that I have mentioned this to people in the past but I love WebbAlert. It is by far one of my favorite vlogs. It’s hosted by Morgan Webb who I remember from the days of her bleached hair on the ScreenSavers and short lived success on GameOver. It’s funny how so many people from ZDNet/TechTV have gone on to do great things.

I caught on to Webb Alert during its early days and have stuck around ever since. A constant drum but on daily material (except Fridays) keeps me coming back. I don’t know how many people they have producing the show but I have to give them credit that the writing is great and Morgan isn’t bad either. ;-P

Even though the video quality isn’t top notch the content is spot on. I like the idea of waking up and digesting a 4-5 video clip of the quick facts instead of having to scroll through a hundred RSS feeds to try and find the juice. I really think Webb Alert, in the way that it is produced, is pioneering the way we get our morning news over the web.

I know that CNN and MSNBC rebroadcast their shows online but screw that. I don’t want to watch stories online. I want a 5-10 minute round-up on either Tech News, Wall Street, Politics and then be able to link from there.

I’m finding out more and more with my job that it is really hard to keep remote people engaged at all times in an attempt to get things done. Anyone who is not physically at my place of business or a contractor seems to have the tendency to drift off into other things that are totally unrelated to what we hired them for.

My definition of “Engaged“:

• Constant communication: I cannot stress this enough. Whether it be e-mail, chat, or a phone call. If it can’t be constant then set something up that works.
• Take the initiative and call me if you come to road blocks instead of waiting for me to call you and then giving me a fucking excuse. That’s unacceptable!
• Take an hour and do some independent research and develop ideas/questions on your own. There is no honor in ignorance. ASK QUESTIONS!

If anyone knows how to make this process less painful then let me know. I’m starting to see that the word managing translates more into “checking up on people in an effort to keep them engaged” and less of delegating in an attempt to make things easier. In the end more things get done but 50% of your time gets eaten up just checking on people. This leaves less time for your own projects let alone trying to research or learn anything.

I’ll start this post off by saying that I have become a much bigger fan, along with a few others, of SouthPark now that the shows are airing online for free. I would much rather be able to take the shows anywhere I want instead of having to sit around and watch them on a TV.

I look forward to seeing many other programs follow this trend so that cable networks can get lost and there can be more control by the people that make the shows great in the first place. Not the networks that ruin the show after the fact.

Check out some of the latest episodes. South Park Studios.

So I’ve been noticing lately that there seems to be no monopoly on religion. I just never figured out why they would choose to build so many of their churches next to those of competing religions. I thought I would start a photo documentary of this irony by starting a Flickr group named Two Churches One Frame.

Not that this group is going to be the NEXT BIG THANG but still. Why not.

While surfing around on the internet last night I landed on the movie site of the film Street Kings. I’m a fan of the works written by David Ayer and I like Keanu Reeves as an actor as well. What really grabbed me on the website was the music in the preview. After some hard-core googling I found that the words during the first part of the trailer were coming from none other than Lupe Fiasco. The Little Lupe Fiasco? I appreciate all music but don’t really keep up with any particular genera which is why I appreciate music that grabs me because I feel that it comes from me genuinely “feeling” the music.

What makes the songs “Little Weapon” and “Put You on Game” so intense is that Lupe raps from the first person view of a African child soldier and a LA gang banger. I’m sure he’s not the first to do this but still I think he executes it very nicely with some lyrics that should hit anyone who listens deep in their mental cavity.

“The Jefferson 1” is the now famous title of the individual who was arrested when a group of people decided to celebrate the birthday of Thomas Jefferson (which I didn’t think anybody remembered) by dancing at his memorial.  When I first learned about this at ImprovEverywhere I thought that this was a GREAT idea for people to actually draw attention to the long forgotten birthday of a founder of our country in a positive way.   Sadly as I read on and learned of The Jefferson 1 being arrested it has upset me as a young enthusiastic supporter of what the Improv Everywhere spirit represents.

Below I’m linking to a variety of other related articles in a hope to continue drawing attention to the issues raised by this event.  This will hopefully help since I know there isn’t a lot of traffic to this blog.

Improv Everywhere: Headphone Dancing Ends in Arrest in DC

The Coparazzi: Woman Arrested for Dancing to Her Ipod

The Dainty Knife: D.C. Woman Arrested at Peaceful Celebration of Jefferson’s Birthday

beka531: Woman Arrested for Dancing at the Jefferson Memorial

CelticBear’s Musings: “Read these walls that you guard!”

Snarky Bastards: Free The Jefferson 1!

The Blog of M’Gath: Asking “Why?” is now a crime

cozcommunio: Is Quiet Dancing Disorderly?

So I just installed wordpress as you can see and I actually plan on using it this time. I don’t really care for other blogging platforms that I have no control over. I kind of want to say what I want to say when I want to or at least have the ability to export the data whenever my host decides to boot me off. I’m going for a couple of posts per week while mixing in some video and photos here and there.