BlakeAtwood.com

I thought I’d written about this before, but our 1 year old half-lab, half great pyreness ‘puppy’ got into a bit of a mess a few weeks ago. Also, I found flickrSLiDR today, an easy way to embed Flickr slideshows into your website, as seen below. The story that goes along with the show is as follows:

The wife and I were inside, when a shattering noise from the backyard awoke us from our midday reverie. "There goes the chiminea," I said. As I was pulling my shoes on, the wife was outside yelling "GET THE CAMERA! GET THE CAMERA!" So I got the camera. (I’m trained well). Maybe if I had forecasting software, I could have seen this coming. Although, given the guy’s girth, it was a certain inevitability, although the way it happened was fairly unique. The poor pooch had laid down next to the chiminea, gotten his collar stuck to the stand, and, when he got up, took everything with him. The aftermath is seen below:

Created with Paul’s flickrSLiDR.

I just added Twitter Tools to my wordpress plugin arsenal. All of the short posts are as a result of that addition, as well as the "What I’m Doing" in the upper sidebar. Twitter allows SMS posts (140 characters or less) to your blog, your Twitter account, your phone, your Twitter friend’s phones, your IM app of choice, etc. You can also update your "tweets" via all of those previously mentioned routes as well. It’s an excessively nerdy way to stay in touch or to deliver life platitudes from the safety of your own home. Maybe you could think of it as Instant Messaging to no one and everyone at the same time, with an archive, for all the world to see, for all time, or at least as long as Twitter stays around. Speaking of, look how far-reaching this nascent experience has already become - Twittervision - and now Twittervision in 3D.

This place could get even more ridiculous when and if I get an iPhone. Updates every second! One word poems! Haikus composed over days! Links to Flickr pics taken with said hoped-for phone! Musings on nc waterfront property! Even more randomly placed ads! Excessive and impulsive use of multiple exclamation points!!!

Twitter is to blogging what that ADD kid was to your high school science class.

..in a real, honest-to-goodness, book no less: Religion and Technology in the 21st Century: Faith in the E-world. That link should take you to the page where I’m quoted while highlighting my name. The quote’s from an article I did way back in 2001 for Suite101, The Internet Church?.

This isn’t the first time this has happened. I posted to a message board around that time as well, and the post made it into Making Sense of Church.

Some day I won’t even have to write a book; I’ll just compile my greatest hits.

Brought to you by Outer Banks Carolina Designs Realty. For that time you’re in Carolina, looking for a rental place. Happens to me all the time.

Addictive much? Possibly, depending on your level of acceptable and anonymous voyeurism. Sounds worse than it is. Flickrvision presents realtime Flickr photos as they’re geotagged to Google maps. If that didn’t make sense, just see Flickrvision in action. Weddings, car crashes, feet, family photos, hangover cures, pets…you name it, you’ll most likely see it. When will we get to the point where there’s a site like Flickrvision, but for video, where you can zoom in on any city and see someone’s live broadcast? It’s coming. You know it is. How long watching Flickrvision until you recognize someone?

I’m more and more impressed with what people can mashup. Thank goodness for open APIs and an increasingly colloborative online community.

I almost forgot to mention Twittervision.  It’s just as enthralling. Although you’ll most likely just get updates on a person’s daily humdrum activities, sometimes words of wisdom, ancient koans, and thoughtful haiku are waiting to be read.

I’d heard of Meebo a few months ago, and, like most web services of interest, I sign up, only to use the service for a few weeks to try it out, and only to forego using it continually either for something a little different, or because it really doesn’t serve a need I have. Meebo was like that at the beginning. Essentially, it’s a web-based Instant Messenger that interfaces with a variety of other IM clients, like MSN, Google, Yahoo, etc. It is useful, but I’d gotten away from IM’ing, so I hadn’t used it much.

Enter Meebo Rooms. Meebo Rooms are easily embeddable, public or private, chat rooms. There’s a variety of public rooms to pick from, or you can just add an “I’m Awesome” chat room to your own site. As for me, I created one for my church website for visitors to ask questions. Of course, one of the staff members this morning created a role in the chat room, pretended to be a visitor interested in the church, and played me for awhile, but I eventually caught on, even though he did do a good job of covering his tracks. He’s forever lost the engraved pens I was going to get him for Christmas. Or receiving any Photoshop help. Or promotion of his events.

Here’s another link to a recent post of mine at BetaChurch: Nexo: Websites for Groups.

In short, Nexo is like Myspace, but for groups. You can make one for your family, your soccer team, your goat-herding squad, your Monday Night Heroes watchers, or your Thursday night The Office drones. It’s cool is what it is. And free (and ad-free until the fall at least). For more info, see the post at BetaChurch.

The ABC’s of a Church Website: D-F is now online. It’s the second part of a multi-part series of tips for church websites. It’s especially helpful if you’re using Wordpress as your CMS.

My review of El Charrito, a local Mexican restaurant, is now online at the Eating Fred, Texas blog. You should read it, if not for the witticisms ever inherent in my writing, then for the movie trailer that I link to towards the end of the piece.

For background, Fred, Texas is an actual place. The proprietor of the Eating Fred blog wrote a trilogy of fictional books using the place as his main setting. He decided to set up a blog about restaurants with a few caveats: you must like the food and the place must not be a chain. I’ll be doing a few more reviews in the coming months.

Sponsored by Disaster Kits. It’s everything you’d need if a bad situation became much worse.

There are two things I can’t stand. Cute spellings (like Krazy Krishtians) and Christians that give the name a bad rap. As a newly-converted watcher of The Daily Show, I was alerted to this clip last night (not for the faint of language). I found a longer version online, then I found the performer’s website. He’s written fairly extensively, and fairly well, about the whole episode.

In short, about 90 people walked out of Mike Daisey’s one man show because of his language. Although it was a high school group, they were in fact informed beforehand about the content. To make matters worse, one attendee poured water all over the performer’s notes. Even worse, when Mike questioned the group on their mass exodus, someone replied that they were “Christians.”

The followup post is very intriguing, and well worth reading for anyone, right or left, Christian or non, on what should actually be done to bridge an ever-widening cultural divide. I encourage you to read about the event and what Mike did afterwards. He tracked down the water-pourer and had a reasonable discussion with him. Mike’s last remarks are remarkable:

“And then I forgive him. He is very quiet–he is obviously shocked. And I tell him, ‘I want you to remember that a liberal atheist has forgiven you today. I don’t want you to ever forget that, as long as you live, do not forget what happened here. I don’t have God behind me, but I speak for myself, and I forgive you for myself, and for you. Never forget this.’”

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Editors have to see what most of us don’t. There may be a gem of a good idea hidden beneath a mountain of prose. Or, there may be mellifluous words that are all sound and no fury. Either way, it’s the editor’s job to point the errant writer to the path of writeousness. (Yes, I know. I can hear the groans from here). The Evil Editor (actual identity unknown) exists to help those that can’t help themselves. He or she serves up four options for your reading pleasure:

1. Face-Lifts: Query letters for possible books are submitted to the site, posted as-is, then edited and commented upon by the Evil Editor. Often hilarious, but also helpful
1. Guess the Plot: The EE offers the titles to queried works. Readers write 25 word possible plot summaries. Quite hilarious, and fun to try.
2. New Beginnings: Authors send the first 150 words of their book to the site. Readers add what they think might comes next.
3. The Next Line: Like New Beginnings, but it’s usually an excerpt with a lot of dialogue. Readers add the next few lines.
4. Q&A: Ask the EE a question. Hope for an answer. Pray for your self-confidence.

What’s nice about the site is its wit as well as its value. There’s a method to the madness here, and it will actually help you become a better writer. At the very least, it may give you some good ideas for the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.

[via the Wunderfool]

[with a nod to advertising pens]

It seems the internet is actually becoming a series of tubes. YouTube has spawned imitators, two of which I’d actually peruse: GodTube, the Christian answer to the godlessness that is YouTube (he said sarcastically, sort of…) and SupportTube, a plethora of how-to videos. It’s a good thing that the internet is not a series of hoses, otherwise we’d have YouHose, GodHose, and SupportHose.

Even though I might have already posted this video, it’s good enough, in my humble estimation of Christian-themed parodies, to embed once again.

Baby Got Book

And another good one, The Evangelism Linebacker

[Post brought to you by the ever popular accounts receivable conversion. Could be a band name? That must be when an accountant becomes a Christian?]