June 18, 2004

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It is time again to look at the week that was around the blog-o-planet.

My desperate bid for traffic finally hit pay-dirt this week. Firstly a link from Michele, then from Sgt. Hook of Operation Shoe Fly has seen the Sitemeter spinning off the charts. Combined with the efforts of others (who will be recognised in time) it has been semi-successful gambit (there hasn't been an Insta-lance yet). But it isn't over. The average will be determined next week, so until then keep visiting and spreading the word. You'll be helping Afghan kids AND me. And won't that make you feel a lot better? (that's a rhetorical question) The other benefit is it has opened up a lot of new blogs to me, including the interesting The Mud and the Blood and the Beer.

Enough about me. Dagoddess is owed lots of linkage this week, so that is what she gets. She talks about her meeting with a singing repairman and questions the sanity of "fruit leather" makers before demonstrating her own incredible skills in this obscure art.

Paul, the blogosphere's thinking women's sex symbol, has an interesting new diet and a close encounter at work.

Wretchard discusses who's oil is really at stake in the Middle East and has an innovative proposal to pay for oil's security (June 14th entry). Conrad reports on another shocking case of torture while more seriously Instapunk has some graphic depictions of what torture really is (via Silent Running).

Citizen Smash starts what will become a compulsory series on separating myths and facts on terrorism by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.

Wind Rider talks about reporting and consistency after the Sept 11 commission report.

Wetwired gives a unique history lesson.

Pork Tornado finds the wildest roller-coaster of all.

Rusty admits he's a blogoholic and how he came to this point. And he's nearly reached the top.

One of the two big fusses this week was over superblogger Andrew Sullivan's. Ace starts here in catching Sullivan out, followed up with more here, here, here, and here. Allah comes in for the defence while Tim Blair weighs up both sides and realises who he doesn't want to marry. This is what the blogosphere is good at - even a "superblogger" can be kept on their toes by other bloggers. On the other hand Sullivan has a right to change his mind on Bush for whatever reason he chooses. The beauty of the internet is if you don't like what someone says you can simply stop reading them. There's plenty of others out there instead. James from OTB adds some thoughts.

The Sassy Lawyer wonders if sex, sport and intelligence mix?

In celebrations, Helen turns one (and enjoys a day at the races), Blackfive also turns one and Bill hits 100,000.

Kevin remembers the world's most famous car chase.

The second big blogosphere news of the week was the closing down of weblogs.com by Dave Winer. Michele and others weren't happy about how it was done. Some are offering help to the stranded blogs. Dave explains his actions by audio and in a post. There's an interesting contrast between the attitudes of Six Apart and what happened here, in light of Six Apart's backdown revamp of their pricing scheme where they prove they can actually listen to the people who made them big in the first place. By Thursday Dave had come up with a transition plan and hopefully the chance for everyone to blog happily ever after.

Jeff interviews Madonna Esther.

Big Hominid clearly explains some basic rules of English. The recent wave of books about English grammar clearly demonstrates the inadequacies of English teaching in primary and secondary schools. I was fortunate enough (although I didn't realise it at the time) to get several years of formal English grammar lessons at school and those rules have served well ever since. Cranial Cavity thinks perhaps schools should now think about teaching blogging instead.

Alex has a report of what's really happening in the trenches.

Jim admits he actually likes spam.

Survivor 2 has its second tribal council.

Ryan describes how he ended up naked surrounded by three pissed off Japanese men in a fight.

Master blogger Tony Pierce gives some pearls of wisdom on how to blog.

Lastly Pixy has a fantastic post on magic.

UPDATE: For some reason I forgot to include the Plain Layne potential hoax. There's a good summary of the situation at Kottke, in-depth analysis here and it seems the commenters of that blog are taking control. Which proves that sometimes blogs take on lives of their own, regardless of the author(s). And it also proves that in the blogosphere, like in the real world, not everything is what it appears.

UPDATED UPDATE: Jay has an interesting summary of some differing views of blogging plus his own thoughts on the value of Wonkette et al.

posted by Simon on 06.18.04 at 04:47 PM in the




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Comments:

Outg--damnstanding on the Sitemeter stats! Any estimates on how much the lovely charity will be seeing (and....er....which charity?)

posted by: Helen on 06.18.04 at 05:01 PM [permalink]

The charity is looking like Sgt Hook's Shoe Fly operation - there's a link above. As for the amount, it depends on the average by late next week...

posted by: Simon on 06.18.04 at 05:18 PM [permalink]

I owe you boobage, or at the very least, your own fruit leather outfit, babe!

You're wonderful.

posted by: Da Goddess on 06.18.04 at 10:16 PM [permalink]

I vote for Operation Shoe Fly--if we're voting for a charity. Thanks Simon!

posted by: Katherine on 06.19.04 at 02:25 AM [permalink]




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