Happy Mommy Bloggy Day

For Mother's Day, I gave my mom a haircut. I know this sounds cheap but this is ALL she wanted, I swear (although I am also cheap!). That and I will trim the shrubbery tomorrow as well as saw down a fat ol'tree that is crowding the house. I know, I know, sounds awful, right?! Nothing says happy mother's day like activities with scissors, am I right here?! But again, this is what she wanted for mother's day! Our mom is one of those oddball beatniks who does not like flowers (she grows her own), chocolates (she does not eat sugar) or a Hallmark card (homemade is ok). This makes it tough because we want to celebrate her and show her how much we care but...how to do this? Every year it is a stretch and this year, haircuts and shrub trimming seemed the best solution. Oh, and berry pancakes never hurt...

Here is a video of Mom giving a tour of her gardens. In the span of two weeks everything grew and transformed entirely. It grows too fast to keep up with, gotta love this rain!


Speaking of cabaret's, check out this cool cabaret, The Yard Dogs, which took place in Santa Cruise, for extra fun, have a look at this fabulous karaoke Celine Dion song as interpreted by an Arnold impersonator/cable access tv show host. Again, these are a coupla reasons why I still love YouTube. Oh, and I posted a bunch of bits from the current episode of DBC25 here on YouTube. Highlights include Tanner's Gorey Tattoo and the Skel-fab Club, Aniston Chases Oscar, Eva and YouTube and Brangelina's Political Tiffs - bring on the nasty comments, yeehaw! No wait, I changed my mind, no more comments that make me want to cry if you please!

Oh and BIG NEWS, Britney Spears has finally admiteed to being preggers. I am glad I am not the only one to make fun of this little lovely. As I mentioned, the current May 15th New Yorker has an interesting article by John Cassidy entitled "Me Media." It is a good read predominently about Facebook with brief mentions of My Space, Friendster and YouTube. Oddly enough, right after I read this article, we flipped on the new SNL and the skit was ALL about My Space. It was a pretty funny skit implying that most of the people on My Space are old pedos pretending to be younger to get laid - hey, if you want to watch it, I am sure it will end up on YouTube in 10 minutes.

Here are some quotes from the New Yorker article:

"The eagerness to parade in public on the Internet still surprises many people...[Says Duncan Watts, a sociologist prof at Columbia] 'If I had to guess why sites like facebook are so poular, I would say it doesn't have anything to do with networking at all. It's voyeurism and exhibitionism. People like to express themselves, and they are curious about other people.'"

Hmm, I buy that. Here is an interesting article about the Blog World Hierarchy - something I know next to nothing about but find fascinating. Who knew that the Blogosphere is yet another popularity contest/beauty pagent complete with cliques and "In Crowds" as can be found in high schools, Hollywood and every other small pond with a limited amount of pie? But even if the game is "rigged" as some bloggers claim in this article, the Blogosphere, like the internet, seems too large and irrational to control completely. So as much as advertisers and big cheeses try to track the Blogosphere and manipulate it, it will slip through their fingers along with Princess Leia and the rest of the revolutionaries:

"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers. ... Star Wars: Episode V—The Empire Strikes Back (1980) ...

Here are some good quotes from the article and hey, the original Gawker Girl got serious hate mail too so I guess it is really quite cool to be despised!?:

When Shirky compiled his analysis of links, he saw that the smaller bloggers’ fears were perfectly correct: There is enormous inequity in the system. A very small number of blogs enjoy hundreds and hundreds of inbound links—the A-list, as it were. But almost all others have very few sites pointing to them...The A-list is teensy, the B-list is bigger, and the C-list is simply massive. In the blogosphere, the biggest audiences—and the advertising revenue they bring—go to a small, elite few. Most bloggers toil in total obscurity.


The power law is dominant because of a quirk of human behavior: When we are asked to decide among a dizzying array of options, we do not act like dispassionate decision-makers, weighing each option on its own merits. Movie producers pick stars who have already been employed by other producers. Investors give money to entrepreneurs who are already loaded with cash. Popularity breeds popularity.


“It’s not about moral failings or any sort of psychological thing. People aren’t lazy—they just base their decisions on what other people are doing,” Shirky says. “It’s just social physics. It’s like gravity, one of those forces.”


No one knows this better than Elizabeth Spiers, the original Gawker girl. She is arguably the most famous professional blogger, since she invented its dominant mode: a titillating post delivered with a snarky kicker, casual profanity, and genuine fan-girl enthusiasm—sonnets made of dirt. Yet no good deed goes unpunished; the player-hater e-mail she received during her tenure at the gossip site was astonishing. “I’d get these e-mails saying, ‘You’re a dirty slut who can’t get laid,’ ” she recalls. “How can I be dirty slut and not get laid?”