100. saidme (7)

99. vmarinelli (8)

98. aedison (8)

97. nick (8)

96. urbanhipster (8)

95. Ryan_Durham (8)

94. zolora (8)

93. mellafabulous (8)

92. bcompton (8)

91. grossefemme (8)

90. frostinglickr (8)

89. GorillaSushi (8)

88. squibble (8)

87. nonlinearmind (9)

86. dwineman (9)

85. jasonpermenter (9)

84. idvssuperego (9)

83. poeks (9)

82. eoporto (9)

81. timdawks (9)

80. bliccy (9)

79. frageelay (10)

78. Kalli (10)

77. zeldman (10)

76. LidMo (10)

75. tehawesome (10)

74. Aimee_B_Loved (10)

73. sippymccloy (10)

72. luckyshirt (10)

71. supa (10)

70. indefensible (10)

69. juliafish (11)

68. Lilykily (11)

67. adtothebone (11)

66. secretsquirrel (11)

65. yhf (11)

64. giromide (11)

63. ungraceful (11)

62. pheend (11)

61. gordonshumway (11)

60. ErsatzMoe (11)

59. katefeetie (12)

58. FanEffingTastic (12)

57. AngleofAttack (13)

56. nonsequiturific (13)

55. apelad (13)

54. summerjane (13)

53. califmom (13)

52. CcSteff (14)

51. srslainey (14)

50. biorhythmist (14)

49. abigvictory (14)

48. OverlandParker (14)

47. awryone (14)

46. smartasshat (14)

45. mayjah (15)

44. ChiNurse (15)

43. joesmithreally (16)

42. arjunbasu (16)

41. phyllisstein (16)

40. Jessabelle2o7 (16)

39. bsheepies (16)

38. Moltz (16)

37. thedayhascome (16)

36. essdogg (17)

35. blondediva11 (17)

34. BrilliantOrange (17)

33. evehorizon (17)

32. stevewhitaker (17)

31. melissasantos (18)

30. sniffyjenkins (18)

29. kolchak (19)

28. toldorknown (19)

27. adamisacson (19)

26. essentially_me (19)

25. myracles (20)

24. ladawn (20)

23. LucyRcardo (21)

22. ShawnaF (21)

21. GoNowGo (21)

20. yowhatsthehaps (21)

19. trelvix (21)

18. CranberryPerson (22)

17. tj (22)

16. BlueLanugo (23)

15. 3hoss (23)

14. texburgher (24)

13. InSoOutSo (26)

12. badbanana (28)

11. joeschmitt (28)

10. byx (28)

9. Zaius13 (30)

8. DieLaughing (35)

7. Yayaa (36)

6. hotdogsladies (40)

5. rsmallbone (43)

4. penbleth (45)

3. sween (45)

2. blobert (45)

1. lukeinvan (52)

Honorable Mentions:

Ultranima

BBGEE (still waiting…)

Freakdad

SarahWV

MtnLaurel

Some folks just throw their #followfriday tweets out with a list of names. Some like to categorize and qualify. The best, in my opinion, are the ones that work a tweep into a joke or little story. Lately It seems that the longer #followfriday goes on, the longer the list of tweets gets. Some folks, like @joeschmitt, have taken to making lists of people whom they follow, which certainly makes it easier to keep up on your recommendations but has some problems of it’s own, such as the whole “Why aren’t I on his list?” problem.

Aside: I should point out that if you’re going to fret about making @joeschmitt’s (or anyone else’s) list, you might want to keep in mind that these lists are FOR you, not ABOUT you. Try to see them in the spirit in which they were intended: Hey, here’s some cool people you should check out! Not: This is the cool kids club and you’re not in it.

This last week has been fairly demanding of my time between work, The Boy, @ultranima’s new car and my folks visiting. I haven’t had enough time to keep up on tweets, much less work on my #followfriday recommendations. I was thinking of making my own list but just thinking about how long it would be makes me tired.

I’m lazy. Not proud.

But then @poeks whipped up a perl script that does something genius: It generates a list of the people you favorite most. So with just a couple of terminal commands, I get a list of the people who have given me the most joy recently which I can turn around and share with all of you. Even better, if you run it weekly, it changes and updates. This fills my lazy, nerdish heart with joy.

So, here’s my hot 100 list for this #followfriday. Everyone on this list has gotten a star from me. Follow any or all of them and you’re sure to be entertained.

100. teamvagina (9)

99. luckyshirt (9)

98. eoporto (9)

97. MrsHands (10)

96. zeldman (10)

95. idvssuperego (10)

94. erong (10)

93. BillCorbett (10)

92. gordonshumway (10)

91. AmyJane (10)

90. awryone (10)

89. adtothebone (11)

88. nonlinearDog (11)

87. FanEffingTastic (11)

86. KatyDidSays (11)

85. MODAT (12)

84. Aimee_B_Loved (12)

83. sippymccloy (12)

82. supa (12)

81. sokeri (12)

80. LucyRcardo (13)

79. bcompton (13)

78. rongillmore (13)

77. LauraLiz_Curran (13)

76. nonsequiturific (14)

75. AinsleyofAttack (14)

74. apelad (14)

73. urbanhipster (14)

72. Dnastyy (14)

71. Jessabelle2o7 (14)

70. indefensible (14)

69. squibble (14)

68. Lilykily (15)

67. frostinglickr (15)

66. warrenellis (15)

65. nonlinearmind (16)

64. nick (16)

63. YummyCupcakes (16)

62. ShawnaF (17)

61. adangerlove (17)

60. phyllisstein (17)

59. toplessmama (17)

58. stevewhitaker (17)

57. frageelay (18)

56. CcSteff (18)

55. secretsquirrel (18)

54. summerjane (18)

53. giromide (18)

52. grossefemme (18)

51. AngleofAttack (19)

50. ungraceful (19)

49. thestoryofb (19)

48. bsheepies (20)

47. ErsatzMoe (20)

46. bliccy (20)

45. juliafish (21)

44. Freakdad (21)

43. katefeetie (21)

42. smartasshat (21)

41. toldorknown (22)

40. myracles (23)

39. LidMo (24)

38. Moltz (24)

37. thedayhascome (25)

36. blondediva11 (26)

35. arjunbasu (26)

34. adamisacson (26)

33. mayjah (27)

32. melissasantos (28)

31. GoNowGo (28)

30. InSoOutSo (28)

29. essentially_me (28)

28. 3hoss (28)

27. essdogg (30)

26. sniffyjenkins (30)

25. pheend (32)

24. tj (33)

23. evehorizon (33)

22. BrilliantOrange (34)

21. biorhythmist (34)

20. blobert (35)

19. OverlandParker (36)

18. yowhatsthehaps (38)

17. ladawn (40)

16. Zaius13 (42)

15. joeschmitt (42)

14. BlueLanugo (43)

13. byx (45)

12. texburgher (47)

11. hotdogsladies (50)

10. trelvix (52)

9. badbanana (56)

8. CranberryPerson (60)

7. yhf (63)

6. DieLaughing (67)

5. rsmallbone (67)

4. penbleth (70)

3. lukeinvan (75)

2. Yayaa (76)

1. sween (94)

Stay tuned, new list next week!

Sure, you sneer now, but back in the day, AOL was the place to be. Many of the modern conventions of online discourse that we assume have always been got their start in IRC but on AOL they downshifted and really started moving. Like trolls. Sure, trolls have probably existed all the way back to Darpanet but on AOL, lemme tell you, AOL is where the opportunity for Internet assholery became available to the masses for the first time.

Round about 1994, I was working as a pediatric nurse in a transitional home for medically fragile children. I was a fairly new nurse and still learning my way when a child came into our care. I’ll call him Micah for privacy. Micah was born with a neurological defect that severely inhibited the formation of his cerebral cortex. He had what doctors call “smooth brain syndrome.” In a nutshell, the folds and creases that give the brain the surface area it needs for higher order cognitve functions never formed for Micah and never would. For as long as he lived, Micah would never have any cognitive ability much greater than that of an infant.

Outwardly there was nothing obviously wrong with Micah, aside from a certain newborn floppiness that looks odd in an 18 month old and a lack of attentive gaze. With blonde hair, china blue eyes and a high, sweet laugh, Micah became a favorite in the nursery and rarely went long without being rocked or loved on by someone.

Micah ended up living in my facility for several months, long past the age to which he was expected to survive. Since it seemed as if Micah, despite severe disabilty, was basically healthy, it was determined that he would be discharged to a less medically intensive level of care. Micah’s parents were unable to care for him at home, so he was transitioned to a foster home with foster parents experienced in caring for severely disabled kids.

Micah was close to the age of my own son (this was before we knew The Boy was autistic) and bore a slight resemblance, so, after months of caring for this boy as intimately as any parent, I am not ashamed to say that I loved this child. It was hard to let him go, but I did get to meet the foster parents, wonderful people, and was finally able to make peace with the idea.

It was about a month later that we received word that Micah had passed away in his sleep. An undiagnosed cardiac defect—not uncommon in children like Micah—caused him to arrest while sleeping. By the time anyone realized he had slipped away it was too late to have done anything even if a DNR order had not been in place.

Micah was the first pediatric patient I cared for to die and the news of his death came hard. My nurse manager knew about my connection to Micah and sent me home from work until the funeral. I wept for almost two days straight. I don’t think I’d ever cried so hard before and rarely have I since.

Which brings me back to AOL.

I was home late at night hurting and I needed someone to talk with. I think my wife might have been at work and my parent were certainly asleep so, without much thought, I signed into AOL and surfed through the chat rooms. I found one titled “Dealing with Grief,” and logged in. There was just one other person in the chat, a man who identified himself as a grief counselor. We started talking and I let him know how I was feeling. He listened to me for a bit, waited until I was good and exposed and said to me, “you need to get some balls.“

I was stunned, to say the least. I asked him what he was talking about, certain that I hadn’t read that correctly.

“sack up, nancy and quit your queerbait crying about the fucking dead kid.” And then he signed off.

I never went in another chat room, of any kind, ever again. I don’t even like instant messaging.

Which, in turn, brings me to the present. My previous post was an attempt to convey the inspiration I had felt at having found what I thought was the first real online community that truly embodied the concept, for me at least. I meant no harm, and thought I was expressing gratitude.

Someone else didn’t see it that way. About midway through the day I ran across a tweet from the person in question that seemed rather out of tone for them. It struck me as odd, but I didn’t make the connection at the time. Then, later that afternoon, I received this DM:

“I’m really glad you were inspired. But next time, try writing about something you asked permission to reference first. Thanks. Bye.“

My first reaction was, aw shit, I said something to piss them off. I didn’t know what it was I’d said, but I’ve been pissing people off long enough that I’ve learned that I don’t really have to put a lot of effort into it. I was driving at the time, so I wasn’t able to respond right away. As soon as could, though, I dm’d this person back, apologized, told them I’d pull the post.

Twitter auto-responded with: “This person does not follow you. Send ‘follow this person’ to request.“

So, the first unfollow by someone whom I admire, because of something I had said, and suddenly it was 1994 again, that same gut punch without warning. Perhaps it would have been different had they just quietly unfollowed, as people do all the time. It’s why I don’t see the need for services like Qwitter: if someone isn’t liking the show, they can just slip out, no need for drama. But a parting shot like that, followed up with an unfollow almost seems calculated to ratchet up the drama. I’m not saying this was this person’s intent, but, in lieu of any other way for me to find out, I can’t prove otherwise. The point I want to make is this: If I had been given the opportunity to rectify the issue, I would have tried. I was not, so I couldn’t.

I felt bad. I felt really bad. When I got home, I deleted the post. I cut and pasted a copy for myself to review later to try to determine what I had said that was just so bad. I posted an apology and dm’d one other person with a connection to this story to explain what had happened.

I met my wife at the park to share a quiet moment. We had a smoke and talked about the day. Finally she asked what was bothering me. I related the whole story to her as she listened quietly. Finally she said “I don’t know if this is your problem.”

She was right, of course, though it took me several hours to come around to the same conclusion. After we got home, I sat and thought, gnawing on my own liver for hours. Those who know me well—and anyone who’s struggled this far into this post—knows that I over think and obsess about things to the point of distraction. I briefly considered deleting my Twitter account, hell, I thought for awhile about taking down my blog, all five years worth, because nobody listening is one thing, but making people angry? What would be the point?

The Boy went to bed that night in tears for something that no amount of questioning could tease out. This is not uncommon for him and the only thing to do is to lay there in the dark and try to provide some sort of comfort. As I lay with him, I reviewed the whole incident in my mind, trying to unravel the knot and see what I had done that was so wrong.

My inspiration for what I had written came from a blog post written by the person in question that described the experience of having a bad day and feeling like being back in high school again. It was brief and, without context, cryptic but written in what one of my former writing instructors would have described as “a strong hand.” I thought it a good, solid piece of prose and, reading it again, I still do.

My first two years of high school were a living hell that can be tidily summarized by looking through the yearbook for my sophomore year. In it, there’s a picture of four of my tormentors standing in a hallway. To paraphrase the caption: Bully A, Bully B, Bully C and Bully D have Wood trapped in a locker. It was my only “picture” in the book.

I think I know a bit about high school trauma and angst.

As I replayed these fun memories, there in the dark next to my weeping child, I finally asked myself, with some disgust, at what point in this whole story did I become a 13 year old girl, to be so twisted up about this? I mean, I’m 41, I’m married with children and a career and I’m all wadded up inside because I inadvertently pissed off another presumedly grown man. That’s when I started to move from feeling bad to feeling kind of angry. After The Boy fell asleep, I went back and read my copy of the original post, read the blog post that had started me on this path and came to the conclusion: this really isn’t my problem.

I didn’t claim to understand the writer’s circumstance, in fact, I feel I was rather specific that I didn’t. But here’s the thing: let’s say you carry a hod, day in and day out while I carry bags of mortar. I understand that, in that circumstance, I’m not qualified to comment on the inequities felt by hod carriers and it would presumptuous of me to try. But bags of mortar are also heavy so I think I can comment on what it feels like to carry a burden, even if my burden is different from yours.

So I thought back to the dm, and the point that I had not asked to reference the original post in my comment. This is true, I did not. This is the part where I have to bite my tongue a bit to keep from saying what I am really motivated to say, but I do wish I could ask the person in question this: have you actually been on the Internet? Because that’s kind of the whole point of this thing. The http protocol was specifically created to make it easy to link documents and facilitate easy references between them. If your post was so deeply and personally felt, what exactly are you doing putting on the Internet, of all places? Are you seriously not aware that any number of people could have done what I did without you being aware of it at all?

I read through this person’s blog yet again and found no request for privacy or pre-approval and nothing forbidding linking, any of which I would have honored had I known about them previously. I didn’t quote this person, so there was no logical reason to expect attribution should be given. In summary, I am flat baffled by this person’s offense at being referenced when they never gave indication that they wouldn’t want to be. This is the second point on which I want to be clear: If I had known I was doing something that you did know want me to do, I would not have. I had no indication of that prior and in regards to linking vs. not linking, without prior notice, linking is the default, at least on the Internet I know. Or am I to believe that you explicitly request permission prior to linking anything on your blog?

Friend, you have baggage. I also have baggage. We all do. I’ll help you carry your baggage if I can and if you want me to, but I am not obligated to carry it. If you don’t want me to see and comment on what you’re carrying around in that baggage, my suggestion is that you don’t leave it laying open where anyone can peer inside.

Blogging is a lot of things: it can be news, opinion, commentary, any number of things, but for many of us, myself and, I can only assume, the person to whom I’ve been referring, blogging is a place to put the words that we have inside us, to let them before they can hurt us. Sometimes, in doing that, we hurt others, intentionally or otherwise. That was never my intent.

If you’ve borne with me this far, thank you. This isn’t really for anyone but me, the blog equivalent of that last word you always wish you’d thought of or had the chance to say. I’ve taken down my apology because, at this point, I don’t really feel I’m obligated to make one. I regret the hard feelings but it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to change that. I reposted my original post because I’m proud of it, despite the fallout, and I edited out the reference to the person in question, in deference to their feelings. I intend to follow that person again even though I expect them to block me. If this happens, it will be my loss, because despite what happened, I still think the person in question is damned funny and a good writer.

To the people who commented on my original post, I want to say thanks for your kind comments and I’m sorry that they were lost when I deleted it. To anyone who’s managed to struggle to the end of this long and overwrought bloviation, thank you as well.

I’m going to take a break for awhile partly to thicken my own skin up again, but also for other obligations. I’ll be back shortly to drop more f-bombs and dumb jokes and I look forward to seeing everyone when I do.

See you.

That’s what happened to me. I’ve had this domain and this blog for five years. FIVE years. I originally had the idea that It’d be an easy way to share interesting things that I found with my friends rather than emailing all of them. It wasn’t a bad idea, except for being about three years ahead of the curve and constantly having to explain what this “blog thingy” was.

I persevered, I linked, I opined and met a few nice people (some of them extremely so) but, in the end, I just… faded out. My friends asked me “You still doing your web page?” My daughter would tell me “You should blog that, you know. And you should be more personal, less linky.” I wanted to blog, but I just couldn’t think of anything to say. The opinions I had were already being blogged by persons more influential, more eloquent and more widely read than I was.

Yeah, I said it. Widely read. Because no one really ever starts a blog without thinking, somewhere in the back of their head “I’m going to BE somebody with this. People are going to listen to me and I’ll bask in the warmth of Internet stardom.” Everybody denies it and everybody is, to some extent or another, lying. Because eventually, 99% of us will realize nobody’s listening. And following hard on the heels of that realization is the thought “why am I wasting my time?” And the fading begins.

So I petered out. I always had an excuse: I’ve got to get dinner on. Working late. All these articles in my RSS reader unread. It was really more obvious but harder to admit: Nobody was listening and I was talking into the wind.

Then a funny thing happened. A couple of years ago, I heard about this next big thing: Twitter. This short internet messaging thingy. Kind of like SMS, but not really. Sorta like IM, but not exactly. Really almost a blog but, you know, tiny. I’d like to say that I signed up and the rest was unicorns and rainbows but… well…

I didn’t get it.

I mean, it didn’t make any sense at all. 140 characters to say anything meaningful? Are you kidding me? Who cares about that? And It didn’t look at it again for months, maybe a year. I couldn’t explain it to anyone so I couldn’t get anyone to use it and what was the point in having a tool to tell people what you were doing if no one was listening? It was blogfading, all over again.

Finally, with much grumbling, I got @ultranima to sign up (she was @flipgarrison in those days) and we spent our time sending goofy messages to each other. Then we got @crazygirl13 to create an account and, hey, that was kinda fun too! It was sorta like an SMS party line! Neat! I started seeing links to Twitter feeds on blogs I read and found out that Twitter was kind of a neat way to get news. Brief, immediate, to the point. I found out that some of the podcasters I listened to had Twitter feeds, so I followed them too and, boy, some of them were funny.

Now, I’d heard of Merlin Mann and tried to read his blog but let’s face it, personal productivity is a massive bag of snooze, no matter how you dress it up. But on Twitter, @hotdogsladies is this wry, slightly absurdist dark comic god with all the proper nerd flags toggled on. And he led me to others: @lonelysandwich and @scottsimpson, to name two. Suddenly this Twitter thing was starting to click for me. I still couldn’t explain it if you held a gun to my head but I knew I was starting to have fun.

Then one weekend, TJ (@tjaybee) and Flip (@ultranima) were watching The Wizard of Oz and I was idly browsing feeds in my newsreader and this snarky thought popped into my head, something to the effect of “The Wizard of Oz sure is great, but I can’t help but think that it’d be better if there were zombies.” Hardly G.B. Shaw, but it was just something that I found funny at the time.

And then the most amazing thing happened: I got an @reply from somebody I didn’t know!

@SarahWV replied, I don’t recall exactly what she said, but the effect was like lightening: an actual person was actually talking to me! I know, it sounds lame, but with an autistic child at home who gets every larger and more difficult to manage everyday, even little social contacts can mean a lot. @SarahWV is sweet and goofy and flirty and one of my favorite follows to this day. So I followed @SarahWV and through her I got to chat with @MtnLaurel and a small number of other really nice people.

And then I found out about Favrd. Oh. My. God.

Kids, Favrd is like the most addictive reality show you’ve ever seen, distilled to it’s purest and truest essence and it is good. Think of every major new Internet thing you can think of in the last ten years and then think about how long it took for the marketing types to come in and shit all over it. That, in a nutshell, was the driving impulse behind Favrd: Dean Allen put together a simple, no-frills showcase for all the very best that appears on Twitter, as chosen by Twitter users themselves. When a Twitter user registers with Favrd, it then starts paying attention to what that person likes, as indicated by their clicking a star to “favorite” a tweet. Simple, elegant, and thus far, impervious to gaming by webcocks.

And funny? Wow. The funniest shit you will read ANYWHERE on the internets, a virtual inexhaustible firehose of humor. From the moment I found Favrd, I knew I had to get on the Leaderboard. Finally, at last, this was the validation I was craving. I could do this! I would apply myself, people would see that I am someone whose opinion should bear some weight on this here Internet thingy.

As they say, on the Twitter: MASSIVE FAIL, AS USUALLY.

Well, not completely, but let’s just say Internet stardom continues to elude me. I did eventually make the Leaderboard and, while it was real thrill, it also had the feeling of “Oh great, now what?” attached to it. In the back of my head I heard this thought: “So, I just keep doing this? Coming up with new funny shit for stars?” It was only a very small voice and not that long ago, but still, it was there, this feeling that I had obsessed and stressed only to set myself up as an Internet trained seal act, and an extremely minor one at that. Clearly this was not creatively or emotionally sustainable.

And then it slowly dawned on me what it was that I’d really been looking for all this time. It wasn’t really fame, so much as it was a connection, a community.

It happened like this: A lovely lady in the UK started messaging me and we started talking about our kids. Some of you (maybe more than I know) know about The Boy and know that, while he’s not by any means a bad kid, he can be very trying. As he gets older, the reality of his situation becomes ever more stark. It is unlikely that he will ever be able to live without supervision. It is unlikely that he will ever hold a job that isn’t sheltered. I don’t know if he’ll ever get to be in love with someone and know what it is like to have that person love him in return. These things weigh on you.

This lady chatted with me about the challenges of raising her autistic child for several hours. The exhaustion, the frustration, the difficulty of maintaining a relationship, never getting to spend quality time with your partner because someone always has to be with the child. You start to develop separate social lives, in spite of being married. It’s very challenging and can leave you just bone-weary at times.

And you can’t talk about it.

Don’t get me wrong, you can talk about it, but no one, and I mean, no one, understands. They cluck and they nod and offer soothing pleasantries like “God never gives you anything you can’t handle,” or “I certainly couldn’t do what you do, you have such strength.” Look, I’m nothing special, folks, and it’s awkward and uncomfortable when people insist that I am just because life handed me The Boy fifteen years ago. So on the occasions when you can talk to someone who’s been there, it’s a relief. It’s not that you want answers or advice, but sometimes you just need to be able to lay down the burden for a little while.

So I got to do that and it was comforting. A nice change, to be able to complain and be understood without someone trying to fix what isn’t really broken. Because while I can’t speak for other parents, that’s my reality: it’s difficult but not broken. It just is what it is.

So this evening with some of these thoughts in mind, I followed a link to the blog owned by the lady in the UK to whom I had been speaking just to get a little better feel of her as a person. And I came across a small vignette between her and another person I follow that touched me.

What struck me was her response. Again, I don’t understand the whole story but I was struck by the emotion of the original post and her simple, heartfelt response. And that was when it started to feel like maybe there was something here, that maybe social networking really can be social and not just another way to exploit connections for a buck. I like that idea.

I don’t know. It’s 1:00 am and I’m tired so maybe I’m just being maudlin and maybe I’m not making much sense but I do know this: I’m writing something again, for the first time in a long, long, while. And it feels good.

Maybe that’s enough.

Reposted with edits to remove links and references—Wood.

The share-tag-repost trend just got a little bit more creative. I was tagged for this one via Twitter by @juliafish. Check out her album cover.

The meme goes as follows:

…………………………………………………………
Create your own band and debut album cover randomly

To Do This:

1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article that comes up is the name of your band.

2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 – The last four or five words of the very LAST quote on the page is the title of your first album.

3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days – The third picture in the top row, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4 – Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5 – Post it to your preferred online outlet with this text in the “caption” or “comment” and TAG the friends you want to join in.

Here’s mine: Kolia Litscher.

Sucky band name, but I dig the photo. I tag @flipgarrison, @ibshankin, @crazygirl13, @sarahwv, and @freakdad.

Now get to it, people.

Bad news: Dan Ackroyd is a total fucking wingbat.

To sum up: I no longer have any respect for Dan Ackroyd and I totally want a bottle.

The WordPress iPhone plugin has improved mightily since I last tried it. It looks as if I can do pretty much anything I could want, which is a heady thought. The only thing that could be better would be a native client so I could do this without a net connection. Ecto for iPhone would be perfect.

Which brings me to next month. I’m as big an Apple fanboy as you’re likely to find and I have to say, I am thoroughly sick of all the iPhone hype surrounding WWDC. As each day counts down, the thing gets ever more mythical in proportion such that I worry that whatever Steve actually demos (if he demos anything at all) will end up being a huge disappointment. “WHAT?! No nightvision? No wireless DVI? No HD content over Edge? This iPhone sucks!”

Me, all I really want are the App Store and 3G.