The Last Thing!

Whew, finally done.

Well, I'm supposed to share my thoughts on this whole project, so here goes. All in all, it was a rather enjoyable trip, though not without some potholes and blowouts along the way. On the plus side, I got to look at and try out a bunch of things that I never would have, left to my own devices. Heck, a bunch of 'em I'd never even heard of before! The online productivity tools (word processor, etc.) were great and really useful.

My gut feeling, though, is that many of the sites are more "flavor of the month" rather than useful: examples would be delicious (gack), flickr, and that avatar generator. The last two were somewhat entertaining, but not something I'll ever have need of again. Yes, I know some of this is supposed to be play, but still.

I'm also a bit peeved that no mention was made of discussion forums, which can actually be useful. I belong to a couple of them myself, having joined long before Internet 2.0 was invented. The purpose of this exercise was to--and I quote--"learn about the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the context of information on the Internet today" yet where were My Space and Facebook? Seems to me that everyone in the whole world (except me, natch) belongs to one or both of those. I've still never visited either site and probably won't unless some compelling reason to arises. I can't for the life of me think of what that compelling reason might be...

Also, shouldn't we have at least touched on online gaming? Considering that's what 90% of the people using our public computers are doing, it'd be nice to know what the heck they're up to.

I'd have covered online chat, as well.

But that's all water under the bridge. I'm done, and am looking forward to my 1.8 CEUs. On the off chance that I should win a Wii or a Zune out of this, I have one word:

Ebay.

Things 21 and 22!

Woohoo! Coming down to the wire on this little project.

Okay, #21: Podcasts. Yeah, they're pretty cool, 'specially because I'm a fan of radio programs, which they're kind of like. (Whoa! Did you pick up the crappy syntax in that sentence?) Unfortunately, I didn't find anything I liked--one site had just too many choices and the descriptions weren't very lucid; the other site had some stuff with potential but I couldn't get any of them to actually run. Frustrated, I decided to forgo checking Yahoo Podcasts.
I am glad to report that I discovered by my ownself--without aid of this 23 Things project--that "Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me!" is available as a podcast (http://www.waitwait.npr.org).
For those of you who are as slow on the uptake as I, this is like the only thing worth listening to on broadcast radio. It's funny as you-know-what.
Number 22: Downloadable audio books. Hmmm. Well, to be honest, downloadable audios and I have a long history that left a bad taste in my mouth (along with a lot of other people, I might add.) Overdrive did have two books I'd be willing to listen to (though one is a craft/cookbook, and I'm wondering how that translates to audio. But I digress.) Neither book was actually available so.... I think I'll continue taking my books in paper form, thank you.

Is it just me?

Or does Paris Hilton look like a hillbilly?

Leftover Chinese

That'll be the name of my rock band when I form one. Not that I have any intention of ever actually forming a band--no musical talent, you know--but if I ever do, isn't that a great name?

Too Delicious!

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather.

I found out today that around the system, a few people have discovered my little chunk o' the Blogosphere and dubbed it a "Must Read", couldyoudie? You know what that means, don't you? Two words:

Cult. Following.

Who'da thunk it? Forced to participate and used only for my own personal rants, I never imagined anyone would actually read this. Now it turns out I'm kind of like Ed Wood.

Or peyote.

Read on, people! Your king is pleased.

Woo Hoo! Fun Stuff!

Geez, finally got around to doing some fun stuff, namely YouTube. Did I like it? Oh, you betcha. I could troll for interesting videos all day and night. Really, there's something for everyone here and I only barely scratched the surface.
Not that it's new to me. I actually posted a couple of videos more than a year ago. Here's one, of a cool sign my friend has in his basement.

Today's post is brought to you by the letter E

Flickr. Mappr. Montagr.

What the hell happened to the letter e? It's a perfectly good letter, and my personal favorite vowel.

Whn did popl dcid to stop using it?

Because really, it just looks stupid.

I think the cell phone companies started it--first there was the Razr. Then came the Cruzr. Then the Oystr. Now the Marbl. Whr will it all nd?

Hmm. This is making me think of something, to wit: which is most annoying, the Missing E, the use of Z as a pluralizer, or internal capitalization? I think I'll post a poll, see if anyone votes.

Oh by the way, none of the three will make it past Second Place, as The Apostrophe In Plurals wins, hands down.

Or should I say hand's down?