Why I Oughta...

Today, we took the wraps off of   stats for the Headline Animator   at FeedBurner. Very cool. There's more to be rolled out when it comes to the Animator, but I'll leave that to the official folks at FeedBurner. In the mean time, I'll be watching my stats on the little animated image that's below from our   Wedding Blog . Great work, guys.

Yesterday kicked off the Lenten Season for some of us, and in that spirit (and the spirit of trying to drop a few el-bees), I've decided to swear of "desserts" for the full 40 days. That means no cookies, cakes, etc for a while. Natalie thinks I'm doing it for the wrong reasons. I don't think there ever is a "wrong" reason. So...if you're with me, make sure I stick to this.

The notion of what's happening in the feed "marketplace" is interesting to lots of folks. The headlines this past week have all been about Google Reader   dominating   and other readers/aggregators receding. A while back it was that Bloglines was King of the Hill. Whatever grabs headlines on   TechMeme   is what a lot of bloggers will write about.   Today, FeedBurner   put out a piece that sizes up the Feed Market   and begins to introduce a new concept: Engagement. At the end of the day, subscriber numbers aren't that interesting to a publisher. They want, nay, NEED to know what's actually happening with their content and a way to measure their audience engagment whereever it is happening.   It's an exciting time at FeedBurner as things are getting rolled out fast, but we'll continue to come back to the concept of "engagement", as we think that's the most important metric not only to publishers, but also to advertisers.

On page 6 of today's Chicago Sun-Times, they used a quote from   this post about Chief Illiniwek . Pretty cool, but I'll wait until tomorrow to see if the stats make a jump.   I've watched a bunch of the videos and I'm still really saddened. Nat and I listened to it on the radio, but it's not the same as seeing it. My sister Vic sent me   the "official" footage from last night . It's good. I like these 2 videos better because you can hear the crowd going bananas. Look at all those flash bulbs.  

A Cherry Ghost, that is... Well, I'm pretty tired. Guess who stayed up until midnight and then walked over to Discount Records on LaGrange Road at midnight to buy "A Ghost is Born" by Wilco this morning.... (***points both thumbs at self***) "This Guy". That's right. My brother-in-law Marc (not Camp) gave me a copy of it a few months ago. I have discussions with Marc about basically four things. Music, Sports, Religion, and Howard Stern. Good stuff, right? But he knows my 'anti-rip' stance on MP3's and internet downloads... I am against them because I think you loose so much of the work of art. That concept of the 'album' is starting to get lost. I'm a wax guy, but that's beside the point. Even when we had casettes, there were some choices. "What leads off the second side?" "What ends the first?" Those questions are enough, but there's even more. Album art. Enough said. When you burn a copy you don...

I have some interesting news for everyone out there. Recently, I've been approached by some of the leading government figures to help assist in their web presence. After some deliberation and talking with Tom Cross and a few others, I've decided to participate. My participation will be limited as I'm just consulting, but I'm looking foward to getting something off the ground. Having worked on Illinois Scoop for a while and been involved in blogs in Illinois, I've agreed to take on  IowaScoop and lead the dialogue for Governor Rod Blagojevich in the early state of Iowa. I know you guys are saying 2 things: 1. he's going to lose in November, so why is he concerned about running for president? and 2. Why Rod? Why a democrat. Good questions. If there's a chance to do something as cool as this for a presidential candidate--any presidential candidate, I have to jump at it. Sure...Rod might not win. But with $15M in the bank, I know I won't have to worry...

The NFL voted to change their rules recently that limit the endzone celebrations that have been ramping up in the past few years.  Some folks think it's a great idea to curb this behavior because kids are starting to emulate these guys and have begun dancing and other things: Kids imitated Johnson after scoring touchdowns in sandlot football games. Years later, those kids' kids imitated the "Ickey Shuffle," created by Cincinnati Bengals fullback Ickey Woods, who shuffled all the way to the Super Bowl. And there was the California Quake by the Dallas Cowboys' Butch Johnson, before coach Tom Landry banned his players from celebrating scores.  Oh...the horrors! Kids are celebrating?  This is a stupid change and I think they've made a mistake.  These guys are entertainers and they should entertain us. (as a side note, I always enjoy the guys who just toss the ball to the referee and trot off to the sideline...) As a result of this new rule change, we ...