Department of Holidays: Happy Mother’s Day to Raina and all the other moms out there.  Here’s my post from two years ago about my mom.

Dollhouse Department:  I was pretty underwhelmed by the first few episodes, but the show really grew on me.  I thought the season (and likely series) finale was excellent. io9 has a good recap, an argument that Dollhouse is Joss Whedon’s greatest work, a theory on why everyone in the Dollhouse may be a doll, and a faint hope for a spin-off.  I still prefer Firefly, another great show canned too early by Fox, but I hope we see more Dollhouse.

Drag and Drop Encoding to Go:  EncodeHD promises a simple drag and drop application to encode your video for playback on your device of choice.  iPhones are supported, of course.

MediaSmart Server Department:  Thankfully, HP has decided to do the right thing and push the new software to the first generation servers, like mine.  No space shuttle required. 

Blip.fm Department:  Thanks to @accepta for being the first (to my knowledge) to blip of one of my songs.  Lots of my songs are available via the Blip.fm search box, so please blip away!

Department of Stupidity:  I have and will continue to raise a vigorous defense against those who continually criticize everything Christian, but crap like this does not help my cause.  It’s important to remember that there are extreme views in every organization and in every faith and those at the edges do not represent the generally quieter and more rational majority.

Speaking of Church:  The United Methodist Church has smartly adopted a social media approach to its web site.

Cool Video Department:  Here’s a neat time lapse of a ship moving through Houston at night (via A Welsh View).

Photography Workflow:  Thomas Hawk describes how he manages his massive photography jones.

More Awesome Photography:  I can’t describe how much I dig Joshua Hoffine’s horror photography.  You have to check this out. 

Publish or Perish Department:  Here’s a list of 20 top print on demand services.  And here are 6 ways to publish your book.

Hunting for Real Men:  I have no respect (to put it mildly) for those dudes who go to Africa and shoot lions and elephants and whatnot.  They should stone up and do it this way.

Nerdy Pop Quiz: Here’s a list of 64 things every geek should know.  I only know about half of them, so maybe there’s hope for me yet.

Fab Four Department:  30 Days Out has some Beatles rarities.  Check out this rehearsal take of “I’m Only Sleeping.”

Jobs I Don’t Want Department:  And last, but definitely not least, if you want a new job, maybe you too can be a snapping turtle hunter.

So Now I Actually Know What They’re Talking About:  I’ve seen all these articles about waterboarding, without really knowing what it is.  Some reporter bet he could withstand 15 seconds of it.  Think he made it?  Take a look.

Girl Power Department:  Dr. Isis at the Science Blogs is doing a really cool series called the Letters to Our Daughters Project, in which accomplished female scientists write letters of advice to young women considering a career in science.  As the father of two daughters who would be thrilled to see them pursue and enjoy a career in science, I think this is interesting and worthwhile.  Here’s a excerpt from the first one:

About a year later a classmate turned to her and called her a bitch. She thanked him for noticing, and then related how she had not reached her mother’s level of "bitchdom" yet. He said nothing more, and did not try to insult her the rest of the year. She came home from school empowered rather than insulted.

Here’s an excerpt from the second and most recent installment:

Fortunately for me as a smart girl, my family and my teachers never told me that I could not be who I wanted to be when I grew up.

Amen.  I have consistently told my girls they can be anything they want to be when they grow up.  They aren’t going to (and shouldn’t) choose a career just because I want them to, so they might as well do something that makes them happy.  I like to expose them to stories about smart, cool women who chose their path, as opposed to having it chosen for them. 

We Came to the Pyramids:  Speaking of Isis, there’s this on the day before the 5th day of May:

Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child.
What drives me to you is what drives me insane.
I still can remember the way that you smiled
On the fifth day of May in the drizzlin’ rain.

If Kafka Did Airports:  This is really funny (via Will Truman):

Do Bears Poop in the Woods Department:  Yes, yes a million times yes.  Like every other thing in the Web 2.0 space.  But as far as I can tell they haven’t sought out the overhype.

Burma-Blog:  I would’ve guessed it was Texas.  Oh, that’s right, we’re still a state.

Writing blog posts
Well you can dream
That they’ll be
On Techmeme
Burma-Blog

Caveman General Says:  That some dinosaurs survived the asteroid cataclysm.  I wonder if it was Space Invaders that got ‘em.  Or maybe this:

Speaking of the Surgeon General:  Just remember that “the Surgeon General has one lung and a voicebox but he could still kick your sorry ass.”

Mythbusting Department:  I love the epic battles between fairy tales and scientists.

Deep Art Ment:  I go to great lengths to avoid all ads.  DVR, XM Radio, Adblock Plus, you name it.  Yet I like to read old Sears catalogs (I bought two from the 60′s off of eBay a few years ago) and old print ads.  Here are some ads you won’t see anymore.  And here’s a neat list of vintage illustrations.

Now I Can’t Eat that Either:  Want to know how much sugar is in that healthy dish you’re about to consume?

Nice Monkey:  On the other hand, some teas allegedly increase your metabolism.  I’m not sure I buy it, but it makes me feel better about the Arizona Diet Peach Tea monkey I carry around on my back.

There are Some Who Call Me Tim Department:  Here’s how 10 iconic tech products got their name.  I didn’t know that Firefox started out as Firebird. 

Adventures in Victim Retaliation:  Here’s the hilarious story of how some dude punked the guy who stole his laptop via remote access.  He should have let the guy keep it and started a blog with daily updates and live webcam feeds, particularly since the police refused to swing at the softball he lobbed at them.

Living Deliberately:  This fellow suffered through 2 long weeks without Twitter in the name of journalism.  I think there are pockets of Twitter that function as a free-form message board, if you manage your follows well, but the larger platform is without a doubt a self-promotion and spam fest.

Good Mashup Department:  This is pretty funny.  Star Trek, Lost style.  The funniest Star Trek parody ever were the Star Trek cats segments in the old Robotman cartoon.

Stupidity for Traffic:  This is a really stupid headline.  Maybe Palm is having issues with the Pre, but why don’t we act like grownups and see how it works before we bury it.  The crap people do for attention really amazes me (as I give them attention, thereby rewarding hyperbolic behavior). 

Fringe Movies Department:  Here’s a list of the top 10 classic midnight movies.  I’ve seen all of them, except the first one.  I love Rocky Horror, and I thought Eraserhead was worse than horrible.

Evernote Department:  Ron tells us how to encrypt notes in the most wonderful Evernote.  I like this feature, as I migrate more and more of my data into Evernote.  Ron needs to stop posting new tips and answer my question about sub-folders.

The E Word:  Here are some educational web sites for kids that are fun.  Hey, where’s Webkinz on this list!  Here are some good math apps for the iPhone or iPod Touch.  And here are some Web 2.0 apps for learning.

What We Need Here is a Boycott:  So PC World not only does the annoying partial feed thing, it also breaks up some articles into many separate pages.  I’d love to know what they think are the essential iPhone apps, but I’m not going to click that hard.  Here is my list, on one handy page.  Without ads.  Imagine that.

What is that Bald Spot in the Distance:  The universe is so flat you can stand on a sardine can and see the back of your head.

Like Wimpy’s Hamburger Money: Looks like the final release candidate for Windows 7 will be here on Tuesday.  Thankfully, I’m running the beta on an old laptop with no data I care about on it.

Welcome Wagon:  I’m really glad to see Seth Finkelstein on Twitter (follow him here).  I just wish he’d use it more and talk with other non-BigHeads like me.  Twitter needs more Seths and less celebrities.

Defrosting Windows Department:  Here’s a handy way to kill frozen Windows applications.

Good New Music:  I dig this new Weinland record.  Here’s Sunken Eyes, and here’s the Neilish I’m Sure It Helps.  Buy it here.

Chiseled in Stone:  The great Vern Gosdin died recently.  I loved his eighties country records and The Gosdin Brothers’ Sounds of Goodbye is indeed an overlooked classic.  Groover’s Paradise has an MP3.  So does Setting the Woods on Fire.  The Adios Lounge has a story.

TIVO Deathwatch Department:  I haven’t updated my TIVO Deathwatch in a while because I thought TIVO was already dead.  Now I’m holding out hope for a resurrection in the form of this new DirecTV TIVO.  The question, of course, is how do we know this isn’t a Lucy football move, that will end up with DirecTV abandoning TIVO again?

I’d Be Happy with One:  Here’s a list of 10 ways to be useful on Twitter.  My list would be number 5 written ten times.

Scary and Funny:  io9 has a good write up on Supernatural.  Supernatural is a very well written show.  The scary episodes are generally really scary (particularly for TV), and the occasional comedic episodes are almost always hilarious.

More Stating of the Obvious:  In the second stating the obvious study of the week, some egghead got paid to determine that employees will find ways around corporate firewalls.
0; Wow, I’d never have guessed that.  I wonder if alcoholics drink more beer than meerkats?

No Gander in Sight Department:  OK, this is the kind of bullshit thing that infuriates me.  It’s perfectly fine to crap all over Christians, but say anything even remotely non-positive about any other group and the world stops for a gigantic protest.  I’m no bible beater, but this sort of crap enrages me.  Fully.

If This Isn’t an Omen, What Is Department:  The Newspaper Association of America is going online-only. 

Luke Needs to Study Harder.  Some little girl gets inspired by some Globetrotters song or whatnot and rocks an IQ of 156.

Safety in Math:  Here’s why you only have to worry about the little monsters in your closet.

Cry Baby Department:  So Microsoft wants to give us all free PC security products, and we have to worry about other companies crying about it.  Seems to me that any lawmaker who wants to force consumers to have to pay for what they could otherwise get for free isn’t doing us any favors.  I say any company should be able to give away anything it wants, without penalty.

Celebrity of the Day:  Everybody is bleating about Sarah Palin joining Twitter.  She has over 10,000 followers and follows a whopping 45 people.  When did Twitter turn into People Magazine?

Rich Men with Clubs:  If you like golf, change sports.  If for some reason you are unwilling to do that, this looks like an interesting golf game for your iPhone.

Once You Go Mac:  Here’s a very interesting read about a guy’s switch to Mac after a lifetime of PC use.

This afternoon and tonight I am beginning on my quest for a more manageable email inbox, Delicious inbox and, most importantly, Google Reader starred items list.  Here are some specifics:

1. Email: I am a terrible emailer.  Anyone who is related to me will attest to this.  So my email gets backed up for weeks.  I have emails from people I know, bands I’d love to write about and developers that wanted me to preview their now public applications sitting in my inbox.  No more.  I’m going to move things out of there from now on.  Folders or the trash can.  That’s my plan.

2. Delicious: I am not a big user of Delicious, but it is a good way to save sites I see outside of Google Reader and for other Delicious users to send me links.  If anyone- as opposed to only other Delicious users- could send me links via my Delicious inbox, I’d use the service more.  As it is, without a major overhaul I think Delicious is dying on the vine.  As such, I need to get stuff cleared out of there.  For the time being, I’ll still check my Delicious inbox.  One useful thing about the Delicious Firefox add-on is that it notifies you of new items in your Delicious inbox.

3. Google Reader: Google Reader, both natively and as a part of my Content Manager page, is a big part of my online experience.  I use starred items as my primary holding place for both things I want to read later and items I want to write about later.  I wish I liked Read It Later better, so I could move my deferred reading list there and save the starred items for writing topics.  As is, I have hundreds of starred items, and they are about to get un-starred.  Really interesting things will get added to this post for your benefit.  Everything else is going to be tossed out, and I intend to clean out my starred items list at least weekly.  We’ll see how it goes.

So here’s the stuff that made the cut.

Maybe I should use more of these.  Right now I use Windows Live Writer, and that’s it.  I think my list would be a lot different.  Or I could come up with a bunch of form emails.  On a related note, here’s someone’s list of the top 10 tools for your blog or web site.  Be careful with those iPhone site optimizers.  Many people, including me, would rather read a site in its regular format via Safari than to be forced into an alternate iPhone format.  I used Intersquash here for a while and it worked great, but I decided I didn’t want to force people into the iPhone layout.  Last and maybe not least, here are 25 blogger widgets. 

Trivial Pursuit has come to the iPhone.  It was one of our favorite family games when Mom was alive.  My sister generally kicked out butts, but we kept trying.  Wheel of Fortune is also available.  So is everybody’s favorite bar game, shuffleboard.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff at Rules of Thumb.org.  For example, did you know that “a farting horse will never tire; a farting man is one to hire”?

Here’s a free way to make nice business cards at home.

Photography Aisle:  Want to take better portraits?  How about a free plug-in to make your photos look like film?  Here’s another app to help mask the crappiness of the iPhone’s camera.  Or you can stitch a few crappy iPhone photos together and make a bigger crappy photo.  Here are 10 cool to bizarre effects you can add to your photos, and here are 10 more image generators.  If you, like me, think that Photoshop is harder than writing limericks in Latin, here are some tutorials.  And some more, for watercolor effects.  And if you make it through all that and still have your senses about you, here is someone’s list of the 100 most popular Photoshop tutorials.  

How about some cool magnet tricks?

If you don’t want to write a script to protect your email address from spammers, you can use Scrim.  Here’s mine, so protected. 

Now I know why I was so underwhelmed after browbeating my mom to buy me some seamonkeys.  I was expecting them to look like the picture on the back of the comic.  Of course that disappointment was mild compared to those x-ray glasses.

PBS has a site for streaming some of its shows.  So now you don’t need a TV to watch boring shows (Ken Burns’ excellent films excepted).

I sure wish I’d had an iPhone in high school.  We had to buy the Cliff’s Notes, and sometimes they made us read books that didn’t have Cliff’s Notes.  How wrong was that?

Ron’s Evernote Tips has a regular supply of great ways to use the excellent Evernote application.

So YouTube has a new design for channels.  I’m not sure what channels are in that context.  Let me go look. . . .  OK, here’s my channel, with the paltry amount of videos I have added.  I like the fact you can edit the page from the page, sort of like My Yahoo.  I don’t like the fact that some asshole label keeps making YouTube strip the
music from my little videos.  I think I’m done with YouTube until it outlives the music industry.  Maybe I should take a look at Fliggo.

Here’s a roundup of VHS to DVD converters.  I say if you have a ton of VHS tapes you want to convert, buy one of the Panasonic dual decks and if not, take the tapes to a shop and have someone do the conversion for you.

I’m finding out that I do a lot of stuff wrong on Twitter.  Another thing I do wrong is unfollow people who don’t follow me back, unless it’s a big media news source or someone really, really interesting.  Here’s an app that can help with that.  I like the way it loads over your Twitter background.

If you are a southpaw like me and two of my three kids, you might be interested in this mouse.  A C-Note is a lot for a mouse, but using a right-handed mouse is like sitting at those right-handed desks in primary school.

If you want a personal cloud, there’s the really hard way, the not quite ready for primetime way, and what looks like the very easy way.  I’ve ordered a Pogoplug and will review it when it arrives.

Recall my pet rules.  I don’t trust anyone who doesn’t like pets.  And I am scared to death of people who are obsessed with cats.  I love cats.  I just don’t base my life on mine.  I’m crazy enough on my own.

Yes, my email gets backed up.  But I don’t really think Tweetdecking it would make me more efficient.

If the new iPhone comes out this summer as rumored and hoped, I told Cassidy I’d give her my current iPhone.  What I didn’t tell her is that I would put a big heap of this on it first.  If she doesn’t like that, there’s always this.

Daily Booth makes it easy to do that picture a day thing.  I don’t know that I’d ever do that, but I think it’s a cool little app.

ReadWriteWeb does love the jargon.  Cloud agents?

This may be the coolest album cover I’ve ever seen.  I can’t find any songs to sample, but you can hear snippets at Amazon.

Here’s a list of iPhone accessible news sites.  I think dedicated apps is the way to go, but if not, an iPhone friendly design is a decent alternative.

Here’s a less than impossible way to make a favicon.

I love the idea behind Songfacts, but it bums me out that one of my favorite REM songs was written as a tribute to Leonard Cohen.  Sorry, but I do not get the whole Leonard Cohen thing.  Just like I think MacArthur Park is a stupid song (though I dig Jimmy Webb), despite the arguments I hear from some of my musician buddies.

This article sheds some light on why Taj Mahal‘s publishing company is called Cheraw S.C., Inc.  I’m from Cheraw, and have always wondered about that.

Online Reality Show: Penelope Trunk makes a lot of excellent points about the uber myth that is blogging as a way to make a living.  People continue to confuse the software platform that we call a blog with the guy next door pounding away at the keyboard.  They are very different things, and most of the high traffic “blogs” are either old media sponsored, new big media owned or online pioneers who made a gigantic space grab while the rest of us were still trying to decipher stock quotes in the newspaper.  Meanwhile, some continue to hype the myth while one of the few who hit the blogging lottery is realizing that the best way to make a small fortune through blogging is to start with a large fortune.  All in all, it’s a case of wishful thinking overwhelming horrible odds.  Like Vegas, only not as fun to watch.

Wally Bangs Department: Wally has a flyer from Cantrell’s, one of my old Nashville hangouts.  I saw a lot of good music there back in the day.  Oh, and one night some biker chick flashed me there.  That was awesome.  Really, for those who wonder if I’m kidding.  The other best writer on the net is Will Truman.  Here’s one of the best blog posts I’ve ever read, and here’s his latest masterpiece.

Deep Art Ment: I love old album covers by obscure bands like this.  Here’s another one by the same band.  Listen to them @ YouTube.  Not bad.

What to Do with the Empty Bag: Mashable has a fun read on protecting your online identity.  So how does one becomes an “online identity expert”?  Is it an apprentice thing, like Castaneda and Juan Matus, or is there a degree in online identity?  There’s nothing as wonderful as watching “experts” fill the perceived vacuum of a new area of popular interest.  I wonder whatever happened to the hordes of Y2K experts?  I obviously agree with the personal branding idea of a central online location that connects to other websites.  Too bad the entire social media movement is designed to prevent that from happening.

Sour Grapes Department: This is going to sound whiny, but only because I am whining.  I continue to be amazed at how many “big” blogs say the same stuff I’ve already said over and over.  Yet I rarely get included in their conversations.  On the other hand, it’s mostly an equal, unequal playing field.  Very little about the blogosphere is based on merit, so most unaffiliated bloggers are in the same leaking boat, thus proving again the point Penelope makes above.  Louis Gray‘s well-deserved profile being one of the few examples where hard work alone pays off in the blogosphere.  I’d love to see him become the next self-made blogger to get hired by one of the “big” blogs.

Mac Mini Department: PC World takes another look at the Mac Mini media center.  Dave Wallace thinks this might help.  I hacked my Mac Mini as soon as I got it.  It’s a tough little computer.

Bad Java, Bad: Trying to sneak software onto computers is so nineties.

Windows Agony Prevention: Here’s how to make Windows Explorer stop treating every single folder like a video collection.  Restore the Windows Explorer columns to sanity.  This drives me crazy.

Double Edged Logic Department: A Techdirt commenter makes a very good point about the newspapers’ Google complaints.  If Google is robbing them, then they are robbing the people who actually do the newsworthy things they write about.

That’s Not Funny, Bone: Here’s everything you need to know about the funny bone.  Which runs along the runs along the humerus.  Get it?

FriendFeed Chaos: FriendFeed is simply too chaotic unless you live on it, which I don’t.  It desperately needs RSS output for filters, to allow you to output filtered content to other locations.  More than that, it needs an RSS feed that contains only the most recent one or two items that each of your friends have posted.  Until then, it’s useless to me.  It got a lot of well-deserved buzz when the beta was released, but it needs to give users a way to slice, dice and export content.

Freaky Photo of the Day: ID this interesting photo for a free subscription to Newsome.Org.

I Had No Idea: That CompuServe still existed.  CompuServe was my initial gateway to the pre-internet.  I have fond memories of the Sports Simulation forum back in the day.  I was so awesome at Front Page Sports Football.  Great career play implementation, that has still not been matched.

Marriage Made in Nerdville: You can now send stuff to my beloved Evernote via Twitter.  What they need to do now is to convert #hashtags to tags on importation.

Spam vs the World Department: Crap like this and that stupid, obvious and utterly idiotic Twitter traffic machine nonsense are the worst thing about Twitter.  I don’t know what Twitter’s position or plan is with regard to spam, but if they aren’t proactive, spam will kill Twitter.  You can count on it.  At least all those self-affirming, very serious and unintentionally hilarious Deep Thoughts-like posts are funny.

Oversharing Department: Speaking of all those Deep Thoughts, the New York Times tries and generally fails to play the role of Twitter apologist.  Few if any of the examples mentioned in that article couldn’t be done much better via email or text message.

That’s Not a Nut, that’s a Cherry Bomb: What do all parks do for self-improvement?  Why detonate some squirrels, of course.

Saying a Lot Department: Here are Rush Limbaugh’s 10 dumbest remarks.  I’m profoundly apolitical, but I lose a lot of respect for someone who lives on either end of the spectrum, when we all know the truth lies somewhere in the middle.  End dwellers aren’t looking for truth or justice.

Still Whining: Dave Winer is still crying about not being included in Twitter’s suggested users list.  Now he points a green finger at Mashable.  I wonder if he has convinced himself it’s about who’s on that list as opposed to that he’s not?  Dave will not talk to me, so I’d love the thoughts of some of his minions.

Yes, Yes, Yes Department: Feedburner is completely and totally messed up.  It is unforgivable that Google would acquire a tool used by so many bloggers and then completely ignore it to death.  If Google isn’t going to take care of it, give it to Mozilla and let it go open source.

Horrifying Twitter Post of the Week:

I’d like to add a witty comment, but there’s nothing I could possibly add to that.

OK, Maybe I Can: Why do I feel like I’m caught in a yelling match between Jack Handy and P.T. Barnum every time I visit Twitter?

Lots of good stuff tonight.

Wally Bangs Department: When a blog post starts off with this sentence, you know it’s going to be good: “Twenty four years ago I loaned Ken Kesey’s Garage Sale to a dude that worked with me at McDonalds.”  I wish Wally Bangs would quit all other pursuits and just write blog posts all day.

Make Light Not War: I was really surprised it wasn’t via Facebook.  Or Twitter.  This is an interesting video.  I love it when scientists talk about scientific topics without sounding like eggheads.

Beautiful Math Department: I like this math game for the iPhone or iPod Touch.  I have to somehow let Delaney see it on her own and ask for it so she won’t realize it’s the “E” word.

Stupid Jargon Department:  I am fired up that Alan Meckler is fired up about the “Semantic Web.”  Anything that increases the chance that the entire “Semantic Web” concept will disappear into deep obscurity, like Virtual Reality World Magazine or CD-ROM World, is a very good thing.  If you doubt that, don’t take my word for it.  Take a moment to consider Business 2.0′s attempted definition:

[The Web is] basically a compendium of billions of text documents designed to be read by humans. You can search it for keywords, but the results aren’t much use until you sort through them to find the page that has the info you want. To take the Web to the next level – to move from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 – the information in those documents will have to be turned into data that a machine can read and evaluate on its own. Only then will computers be able to take over tasks we now do by hand: find the nearest restaurant, book the best flight, buy the cheapest CD.

A Truly Smart Server:  HP is preparing an update for its MediaSmart Sever software to add video streaming functionality for remote devices.  Yes, including the iPhone.  Plus, an improved Time Machine configuration.  My pal Ed Bott has more on this.  Unfortunately, this update doesn’t work on first generation MediaSmart Servers- like mine.

Great Record of the Day: 30 Days Out, one of my favorite music blogs, has a post on the Byrds’ excellent 1968 record.  This was the great Gram Parsons’ only album with the band.  Gram Parsons and Clarence White is a combination that would make a Reece’s Cup feel inadequate.  Here’s the most excellent track, You Ain’t Going Nowhere.

Expensive Hardware Department: Engadget has a detailed review of the very expensive and, in my opinion, not worth the high price Dell Adamo.  Engadget says it’s pretty, but tends to agree with me about the price thing.

HD Camcorder Roundup:  PC World has a primer on shopping for an HD camcorder, a list of cameras that also take HD video and a link to Macworld’s HD camcorder buying guide.  As noted before, here is my HD camcorder buying guide.  I’m going to buy one the day they are available.

Desperately Seeking Smartphone: After reports that some carriers thought their proposed Smartphone was boring, Dell is looking to partner up with China Mobile to release a Smartphone in China.

Light a Firecracker, Mini-Explosion Results: I generally enjoy Penelope Trunk’s posts.  And she seems like a good person, if perhaps not at the very top of the curve on the self-awareness scale.  But how a parent can tell the world “No school today and the nanny’s on vacation. A whole day with the kids gets so boring: all intergalactic battles and no intellectual banter” (here‘s the Twitter post in question) and then go nuts when someone craps all over you is a supreme mystery to me.  Yes, parenting is hard work and yes there are times every parent gets frustrated.  But there’s such a thing as over-sharing.  And another thing.  There’s a whole lot more to life than so-called intellectual banter.  Now I’m sure that Penelope knows and appreciates that, and I bet she’s a good mom.  But for crying out loud, don’t say something like that to a world full of devoted parents and then act surprised by the resulting firestorm.  And not just because it might be banal (that’s an intellectual word that would be useful in bantering).

Worst First Impression Ever:  Here is the absolute worst possible way to start a Twitter relationship with me.  This is an actual DM I received (picture, name and link removed to protect the mercenary).

Backwards Department:  Here’s Guest Poster’s (what a serendipitous name) recipe for doing better on Twitter.  There’s more strategy in that post than there is in Chess and Risk combined.  What’s wrong with just saying something interesting and leaving it at that?  Many, many, many people focus on the value they receive from a Twitter post and not on the value their readers get from the Twitter post.

SemiPhone:  You too can turn your kid’s iPod Touch into almost a phone.

Private Cloud Department:  Pogoplug helps you easily create a private cloud.  I hope it is easier and more accessible than my private cloud has turned out to be.  The lack of easier local access is probably a deal-stopper for me.

Take Yourself too Seriously Much:  This is a fun video, and an interesting post in general.  I completely agree with this quote:  “I would rather start with ten people saying something nice about me, because I was good to them, than to have 100,000 people to shout my message at.”  You would think one of Guy’s ghost writers could have taken a break from spamming Twitter long enough to give the little kids props for making a clever video.  By all accounts, Guy (upper case) seems like a decent guy (lower case) in person, but for a so-called social networking expert, he does a bad job of projecting likeability online.  Demi Moore is significantly more humble and much more interesting, and she’s a real celebrity who actually writes her own Twitter posts.

Terminator Terminated Department:  Here is a really well done and concise run down of the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles story line leading into tomorrow’s finale.  I like the show, but I don’t love it.  Still, any science fiction that doesn’t start with Stargate is better than another stupid sitcom or reality show.

One Good Apple:  Most productivity lists are 90% fluff, but here’s a reasonably good one.

Him Draw Pretty:  For those who, like me, are bored to tears by the WSJ and the Economist, here’s a nifty visual guide to deflation.

More Boring Stuff from Andy:  It’s bad enough that he keeps tossing out these operas and whatnot that someone may one day try to make me go see, now Andrew Lloyd Weber is crapping all over the internet.  That’s about what I’d expect from a dude who goes by three names.  I don’t trust any guy who goes by three names.  I used to work with a guy who went by four names.  I could write a novel on how messed up that is.

More Interesting Stuff from Jerry:  I think Guns, Germs, and Steel is a very interesting book.  Here’s a lecture from Jared Diamond on the evolution of religion.

Teach Your Children Well:  Here’s a list of 10 Tech Skills Your Teen Needs Now.  How about a little code writing?  Hardware building?

Rockwell Department:  HubSpot has a primer on monitoring your social media presence in 10 minutes a day.  I agree that Google Alerts are great for monitoring relevant mentions, etc.  I think a FriendFeed filter is another good way to monitor conversations.

Archaeology Department:  I used to want to be an archeologist so I could dig up dinosaurs and such.  Looks like I have to give up that idea.  Good thing anthropology is still going strong, so we can find out that male chimps like hookers.

Poor Little Rich Guy Department:  So the guy who co-wrote the Rickrolling theme says he is getting exploited by Google.  He compares his treatment to the exploitation of migrant workers in the Middle East: “I feel like one of those workers, because I earned less for a year’s work off Google or YouTube than they did off the Bahrain government.”  Nice.  Some also exploited by Google newspaper estimated that this dude was worth $68,000,000.00 or so back in 2004.  My heart breaks for him.