Woosh! 

Wow, nice way to air the place out quick after days of air conditioned air -- just open the windows for a while and let in the 65 mph winds.

Whackedout site 

Tortured potato. Ravaged puppets, celebriducks. I think there might be a place there for Leppery.

I think I need a testimonial 

Almost a year ago I moved over to the publishing arm of the non-profit where I've worked for five years. I really love the work and the people but there's one thing I can't seem to get across. Everyone I work with in the 15-person department is a print publication writer, editor or designer with little or no experience in the online world and they are picky -- which is something I approve of in an editorial staff! You and I know that the formatting of a web page can't be as refined or precise as a book or magazine page laid out in Quark, right?

But I get notes about:

- Eliminating widows (something you can't do if you are working with variable column widths, or even if you have a fixed width, people may change the font size, so you just can't worry about widows.)

- M- and n-dashes. Eh. Two schools of thought on that, but I'm not that bothered by seeing two hyphens stand in for a dash on a web page.

- Line spacing funking up when a superscript character is introduced. It's when it gets down to this kind of thing that I start to sigh and feel misunderstood!

I almost want to ask somebody who knows to tell them that I'm a champion at this business of making things look nice in HTML and tweak my little heart out at length to put in things like a padding-top:-3px; to nudge an image just teensy bit up to look better. But sometimes they look at me as though they wonder if I know what I'm doing (I'm not a trained designer, after all), or that I am just making excuses when I tell them there is only so much you can do in this medium. Maybe a link to send them. Know of a good one?

Sobering reminder 

The HR folks at my workplace send around notices when employees' relatives die, sometimes giving details about the wake and funeral times and where to send any charitable contributions. Usually it's somebody's parent and you think, oh that's too bad. You judge from the age of the employee what the age of the parent must have been and chalk it up to one of those clock-ticking things.

This afternoon, though, I got an e-mail about a coworker's husband. She's about my age also with teenage kids, and it hit me quite a bit harder and closer to home. He had some indications of heart problems but nothing like this was expected. I think I'll go back on the high blood pressure medication. I don't want to leave my kids just yet.

Fortunate coverage 

Fortune magazine's take on the Rocketboom rhubarb.

Good for Kirkpatrick, the writer, for allowing that "We old media fogies, burdened as we are by sodden notions of what is 'appropriate' for our vaunted brands, may want to ponder whether or not a little more spontaneity and unpredictability is called for in this age of reality TV, user involvement, and easy boredom."

I'm in love 

Vaio UX series.

OK, Sony, so here's the deal:

I want you to give me one of these in exchange for blogging about it.

I'll use it at home and at work (and if you throw in the LCD projector I'll even use it in meetings at work).

I will talk here on my blog about all the different ways I use it, but I won't promise it will be all positive. (Though as you can see I am inclined to like it.)

I'll make at least 50 posts about it, and in each one I'll disclose that I didn't pay for it.

I want to be able to keep it because I am expecting to love it and will not want to be parted from it.

It will be the best $600 (or whatever your cost is) you ever spent on marketing.

You'll be applauded for not trying to control the spin, and I'll write about that too.

Contact.

Isn't he skipping a step or two? 

88Slide producer envisions wider distribution channels for video blogs. "If General Motors decides to enable RSS feeds into the back of a headrest..."

The geek in me wants to make fun of traditional TV people getting into the space, but of course there is room for everybody, and I say things that reveal a lack of complete understanding all the time myself. (Plus I think I know what he means to say -- he's talking about headrest monitors, already in production, and the next steps to give them embedded devices that would connect to the net or [easier and cheaper?] to become a node on your home wireless network.)

I'd read 88Slide was one possibility for a new home for Amanda Congdon. I hadn't realized it was a quiz show. I always thought trivia had possibilities as podcasts. I think I'll go back to work on my Flash idea.