1980 Over My Shoulder
I’ve been looking for a bit of writing inspiration lately — blogging has been slow, I haven’t had the energy or creativity to devote to working on the hockey book, and work has been, well, more than a job. Perhaps it was the rainy day today, or perhaps it was the fact that I got [...]
Elias on Twitter
Patrik Elias has his own Twitter page. And it’s 80% him, a bit from his management team but for the most part it’s unedited Patty-streams. There are a whopping three people following him – c’mon, folks, when you get a glimpse into the daily grind of a professional athlete, it’s “Real Life” meets “Slap Shot” [...]
Anti-Marketing Call From The Rock
When my kids were little and tele-marketing was all the dinner time rage, I used to put them on the phone with the hardiest of cold callers. I thought of it as fair play; they were interrupting my family team and my dinner for some unwanted spiel about credit cards, home loans, timeshares, or other [...]
Face(Book) Time With Elias
I discovered that Elias has a Facebook fan page a few weeks ago, and while it’s short of content (for now), it takes you to some interesting places and seems to be populated somewhat regularly with syndicated news feeds. A few emails back and forth, and perhaps some trackbacks from his sports management team, and [...]
Last Shift For Jack Falla
The night after the Devils played the last game of their 2007-2008 season, I ordered the pile of sports books that had collected on my nightstand and began devoting former hockey-watching hours to reading. I had picked up Jack Falla’s Home Ice based on a blurb for it in some other hockey-related reading, and Saved [...]
WordCamp NY
Attention bloggers and particularly WordPress users: WordCampNY is now open for business, just one month away. Details: Sunday, October 5, 101 Park Avenue, New York, 4th Floor. I’m proud to announce that my employer, Sun Microsystems, will be hosting the event (we’re donating use of the space), and I’m looking forward to seeing some fellow [...]
Removing the Back(b)log
I’ve been reading much more than writing, having gone through about half of the sci-fi volumes ordered two months ago. But: blogging is writing, and writing is a skill like playing a sport or musical instrument that requires practice, experimentation and regular exercise. In various email exchanges with Cory Doctorow I’ve asked him how he [...]
Summer Writing Projects
Writing is much like a sport: if you don’t exercise and practice regularly, you start to flail and eventually struggle to find even a few worthy ideas. My work blog has suffered from lack of attention for the past two months as travel, business management and lack of attention conspire to make it harder to [...]
Team Asthma
Got this incredibly slick stick from Meredith Gran, author of the Octopus Pie online comic. She asked readers to send her hand-written notes so she could see others’ scribbles; what we got back was a personalized note backing mass-produced iconography. “Team Asthma” is how my wife has referred to my hockey endeavors over the years, [...]
Self-Fulfilling Prophesies and Typos
I check the logs on this blog every few days just to get a sense of what kind of topics generate traffic, and how people find my blog amidst the millions of voices on the net. I’ve discovered some interesting and perhaps perturbing truths: Google AdSense is really self-referential. Before rebuilding this site, I had [...]