Merry Christmas

May your Christmas be full of joy! 

The Best of 2005

Mr. Snitch, arguably Jersey's favorite Hoboken blogger, is hosting an effort to identify the best posts of 2005. Drop in and give him a link to something you found of high enough caliber to be included in the year's top 100.

I've got a few in mind myself. More later...

The Carnival of NJ Bloggers #30

Mamacita (Humor, News & Entertainment for Women Who Can't Be Fooled) hosts the 30th edition of The Carnival of NJ Bloggers. Who knew something as simple as putting together a list of links could get controversial?

Incredibly Hard*

One of my little projects at work is a video production telling the story of our product. I got a script approved by management last week, hitting all of the important points that they wanted to discuss in the video. When the narrator read it for me last week, it ran 12:48.
Friday, a final decision was made that we needed a short version, around 5:00 long.
I'm supposed to be in the studio with the editor on Monday. I spent most of Saturday trying to pare down the script, with very little flexibility in what I could do, since the script is already recorded. The narration runs about 2 words per second, so I've basically had to take a 1500 word piece down to 600, without losing the meaningful bits.

The old saw about writing short pieces being harder than writing long pieces is absolutely true.

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*I wonder what kind of search engine hits this will generate?

One Year

Exactly one year ago, I stepped into the world of exposing expressing myself in public. It was a bit of a slow start, until I wrote about local and state political issues. I had no idea that I would have the opportunity to connect with such a wide variety of people, across New Jersey, across the country, and around the world.
While I didn't exactly set the blogging world on fire, I did at least get a few people to pay attention. The purpose of this post isn't to brag about a successful year, but rather to thank those of you who've stopped in and read, commented on, linked to, or even thought about what I've written. Special thanks go out to Patrick for my first trackback and Fausta for letting me guest blog, even though I didn't do a very good job of it. Enlighten New Jersey also deserves thanks for coming up with the Carnival of the New Jersey Bloggers, which led to my very own (and only) Instalanche.
The next year looks to be an interesting one. We should have a rowdy battle for the Senate seat currently held by Governor-Elect Corzine, and non-political life should also provide significant blog fodder.
Thanks again to the 13,219 unique visitors who've stopped by to read my stuff. It's been fun! See you again, real soon.

Internet Oracle

Back in 1998, I first stumbled across The Internet Oracle,™

an anonymous, cooperative email system for creative, (usually) humorous writing, serving the Net since 1989 and realizing its first virtual personality.

It's a pretty cool system. Users ask the oracle a question by email to oracle@cs.indiana.edu, and as long as the words "tell me" appear in the subject line, it will be forwarded to another user for an answer. All of the answers are reviewed by the Oracle's Priests, who select the best for a periodic digest. Users vote on the digested "Oracularities," and the best of those are then published for each set of 25 digests.

Here's an example from the latest best-of digest:

The Internet Oracle has pondered your question deeply. Your question was:

> O Oracle most helpful, > > Despite the fact that I lost my arms in a horrible accident 2 years > ago, none of the arms dealers I've spoken to are willing to help. Why > is that?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Like you, I'm stumped.

Give it a try! Just don't ask the w**dch*ck question.

Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers #29

Liz Thompson, New Jersey's favorite blogging Mommy, hosts the best Carnival of New Jersey Bloggers yet! If you haven't visited one of our Carnivals, make it a point to read this one.