Why I Oughta...

But over here. Thanks for making the trip. Having this site up here instead of JoinCross will allow me a bit more flexibility. It will also allow me to put up stuff that didn't always 'make it' past the 'Standards & Practices People'... Now...I'm the 'Standards and Practices' People. As I get settled in to my new home, I want you guys to NOT forget about my old home . I'll still be posting over there, but it won't be as regular. Shortly I'll get to the whole story as to why this all happened. It's quite a good yarn...

I've only lived downstate during my 4 years at UIUC , so I don't know too much about rural life. I do know that at least 2 guys on our staff who happen to be related* have gotten into a bit of a pickle with having a few too many pops and then driving. In the Missouri legislature, at least on  one member  is going to side with my guys. Missouri Transportation Committee Chairman Jon Dolan announced last week that it will be a top priority to pass tougher seat belt laws and open alcohol container laws. Sen. John Cauthorn, R-Mexico, said he's not happy to see those as priorities. "The rural community feels threatened by someone telling them what to do," Cauthorn said. I can see  Ron Stephens  get up and say something like that. Too funny..... Ummm...I think it's already against the law to Drink and Drive. How is this going to make the 'rural community' any different? *2 of the nicest guys in the world and my collegues, btw.

Are the critics heaping too much praise on Wilco? That's  Kevin 's  argument. Wilco has gone from a small band with a cultish following to a heavily hyped, critically loved behemoth. And rock critics are heaping praise -- a little more than is warranted -- on the band's latest album, A Ghost Is Born. They laud its mix of understatement and obstinacy, even while couching those accolades with qualifiers. Rolling Stone makes unsurprising comparisons to canonical figures such as Neil Young and the Band; it also calls Ghost "eerie." Spin labels it both "engagingly complex" and "willfully obscure"; The New York Times declares it "stunning" and "an evasive maneuver, intended to frustrate listeners." ...The media latched onto the story, and who could blame them? The David-and-Goliath angle made for great drama -- especially when, upon its release in 2002, Foxtrot became the band's most commercially successful album t

Patrick Daley, Mayor Daley's boy, is set to ship out for the Army after the first of the year. God Speed, Patrick.

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...I am working on getting credentialed for the GOP Convention in NYC. How cool would that be. I have been putting the heat on some of the folks around the office about the credentials and about a new powerbook... As David Dring says, "Keep asking until someone says 'no'."

As usual, I am running in about 15 different directions. I have 45 things in my head and I can't get one of them done. We had a special guest in today from Southern California to work on a project that we're going to be rolling out on September 20th. It should be really cool. You'll all hear a ton more about it. In the meantime, we have a ton of other stuff to work on. Thanks to Rick Klau's encouragement , we're really working hard to move the blog to a different space and to make it a bit better. We have a great vendor in 1871media, but we (read I) want to do some stuff that I'm not sure that they are capable of.... We'll see. Their guys have been great, but I think that we're overwhelming them a bit. In the mean time...we're working on a "TV" site. I'll let you guys go try to figure out what the url is. Hopefully by tomorrow we'll have more than a "landing" page over there and by Monday, we'll launch a litt