Why I Oughta...

The LA TIMES ponders what's hip and why? I think that we may know a thing or two about being hip...at least according to Carol Marin : Cross knows a lot about Metros and Retros. His district out in suburban Plainfield has plenty of both.  His staff includes some very young, hip guys who know the Internet like the back of their hand . They, too, like Topinka, are recruiting a farm team, but by borrowing a page from the book of one-time presidential hopeful Howard Dean. Go to JOINCROSS.com and you'll see what I mean. There, you can play the ''Take Back Illinois'' video game, a four-week contest moving electronic little people around a screen addressing issues like medical malpractice and education. The ultimate goal, of course, is to retake the Illinois House and Senate from the Democrats who now control it. Wait until the Holiday party invites go out to the office--then we're really going to show our 'hip chops'. I think that some of the weine

All right, now that all of that DraftDitka nonsense has been settled, we can get back into the groove over at in the JoinCross space. It was certainly a fun ride while it lasted. I never thought that it would have blown up so rapidly and reached so many people. This really tells me the power of the blogosphere. I kinda used this as a test case for myself. When I compiled the initial media list to blast out the press releases, I only used a handful of 'traditional' print journalists. The top dogs. You know? But what I also included was about 1,000 blog writers. Everyone that I could find, I included in our media list. That's really how this whole thing blew up. I have been talking to reporters the past few days and have been telling them this same story. They tell me how they read blogs and how they (the blogs) have a way of keeping stories going, creating stories, and pointing out stories that the "mainstream" or traditional press misses. Let this be a lesso

Am I the only nerd who gets a big grin on his face when he hears "End of the Line" by the Traveling Wilbury's during the commercial for "The Terminal" with Tom Hanks. For those of you guys who don't know about the Wilbury's, I would check them out. Volume One is amazing and Volume Three ain't bad either. Some people call "Full Moon Fever" by Tom Petty Volume Two. They're such a power. Put on Side Two of Volume One and it is pure heaven. These guys were such giants solo, but put together, they're amazing. I was never a big Jeff Lynn guy.... you know.... Don't bring me dooooowwwwnnnn, Brrrrruce. Don't bring me dooooowwwwnnnn, Brrrrruce. The ELO stuff never did it for me, but I became a beliver when those 90's Beatles stuff came out. You know, "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love". Listen to those, and then put on a Wilbury's record, and you can tell that Jeff really held his own in the TW s

Archpundit responds to my call for the environment to stop being a R v. D issue . Caution. This is not a Joincross like post where we talk about bands, or what we ate, or have pictures of Willaim Ligue Jr... Rather this is wonk talk. And *good* wonk talk at that.

We're got some stuff up on this guy's blog now, too. As described by One Man, he is a 'smart guy'. I've been reading his blog for a couple of weeks. He talks a lot about technology and how it evolves, helps, and hurts business/commerce. He was also very heavily involved in the Blog for America of Dr. Howard Dean. (Which we all know was very successful....) Check out his blog. He has some interesting things to say. Oh...I forgot to tell you. He lives right up Route 59 in Naperville. Which is nice. Rhodes....out.

You guys know that I am a Rod guy by default. I mean when you're surrounded by Rod guys all day you tend to wear some rose colored glasses. Some people tend to take him to task ( Mr. Miller and Arch ) I am looking in your direction. (Not to mention that pretty funny opinion piece in the Tribune by Rick Pierson.) Anyway....I have to give those guys a little credit for something. Someone over there is at least a little with it if they can do this.... I was watching the Channel 9 news last night and I saw a commercial for Illinois Tourism. Nothing spectacular about the commercial, except the music. That's right, this guy talking about music? Go figure, huh? When the topic of tunes comes up on some dates, that is probably about when the girl tunes out and chalks me up for being a turd. Anyway, on this commercial was "War on War" by Wilco . How cool is that? I know, I know. Commercialism and selling out. Blah Blah Blah. This isnt really commercialism. This is about pro

I've been slobbering all over the Arch Pundit lately... Well, we here at the joincross blog have decided to put our money where our mouths have been. We decided to take the plunge and advertise with him. I may not always agree with everything he says, but it certainly is interesting. Now, for all of you consiracy theorists out there... we didnt do it to get 'positive coverage'. I actually find him a interesting read. Some of the stuff is good, the federal dem stuff bores me to death. He has a pretty wide readership and they appear to be quite regular. He doesn't get a ton of 'comments' but neither do we and we get a ton of hits when we send out the emails. He is usually pretty good at keeping up with the news of the day. They are going to have him blog over at the DCCC @ Stake Blog . What a great idea. They claim that the GOP doesn't 'get it', but guess what....over here at CFI, we're not your father's GOP. We do get it and want to t