Swine flu 2.0.

With a recent outbreak of swine flu I started thinking about past flu epidemics, this lead me to search Wikipedia, my favorite source of information. There is a Wikipedia entry on swine flu which also tracks the cases around the world using Google Maps. Here is the link.

Central Park West.

George Washington Bridge.

Old bench.

I-80 West.

Cozy mall area.

Playing outside.

Happy Easter!

Strange fruit.

This is something I found at Walmart. These are strawberry-banana flavored peaches. It seems that peaches weren't flavorful enough by themselves and needed help from strawberries and bananas.

FlashChudder music.

You can find several FlashChudder recordings here. Give them a listen.

Have you seen these guitars?

A very talented local musician was recently robbed. His guitars were stolen. He plays with a band called FlashChudder. They play a combination of jazz and fusion. Their sound is simply amazing which makes this robbery even more tragic. Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated. Here is a link to a flier with detailed information.

Pi Day.

Trashy sign.

Since the weather was almost Springlike, we took Lili to a local park. Where I discovered a sign hanging above one of the trashcans. The sign read: "Please take trash to dumpster." I thought that was too much work and threw my trash into the trashcan below the sign.

My car.

This is what my car looks like after the accident. None of us were in it at the time, so we only have to deal with what insurance companies call property damage.

A little bit of everything.

I have been absent from this blog for a while. In fact, this is only my seventh post this month. My excuse for this is work or what I do at work which is sit in front of a computer doing a little bit of editing, instructional design, and writing.

After I get home, I am not particularly inspired to write anything meaningful to post here. So I end up sitting in front of the television watching whatever happens to be on that night or in front of the computer catching up on various sites I frequent.

So my life has been, for the most part, uneventful. That is until yesterday morning when a woman in a white Chrysler van on her way to the gym decided to crash into my parked car. The collision demolished my trunk and almost pushed my car into my neighbor's van.

Now I have to sit at home on Monday waiting for the claims adjuster to tell me that my car is junk. I hope that this will not be the case since it only has 141 thousand miles on it. It's a 1999 Acura and for a ten year-old Japanese car that kind of mileage is nothing.

In the commotion with the car, I almost missed the twentieth anniversary of my departure from the Soviet Union. I did call my Dad to remind him about it, but it was spoiled by telling him that my car, which used to be his, may now be scrap.

It is in times like these that I long to live some place with off street parking and public transportation. Now I have to start thinking about possibly getting a new car. Argh!

Why follow GCal on Twitter?

I have read many blog posts on the topic of using Twitter to increase your productivity. One thing that all these posts had in common was that they directed the reader to follow GCal, or Google Calendar, on Twitter. This would allow you to send direct messages to GCal in order to update your Google Calendar.

This is extremely redundant since most Twitter posts and direct messages are made from cell phones. And GCal already has a mobile option. You can activate it by clicking the Mobile Set-Up tab in the calendar settings.

The number is 48368 which spells GVent. When you send text messages to GVent, a new event is added to your calendar and you receive a verification text message from GVent.

And if you post on Twitter from your computer, there is no need to follow GCal because you can easily open Google Calendar in a separate window or tab. So the answer to the question "why follow GCal on Twitter?" is why would you.

Who's on Twitter?

Twitter has been getting bigger and more popular lately. It seems that anyone who's anyone, which means pretty much everyone, is on Twitter.

This now includes celebrities. There are Wil Wheaton and MC Hammer, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Shaquille O'Neal and Greg Grunberg.

The only problem with following these people, if they are who their mini bios claim to be, is that they don't follow everybody who follows them. Following somebody who follows you is a matter of politeness.

I guess once you achieve success, politeness becomes an unnecessary concept. This is sad since it is so easy to be polite to people online.

Nirvana day.

Today is a Buddhist holiday known as Nirvana day. It is the celebration of Buddha achieving Nirvana after the death of his physical body. So here is a little lithium to help you achieve Nirvana.

Plastic ruler?

At first glance it would appear that you are looking at a plastic ruler. But after taking a closer look you discover that there are four of them. And then it dawns on you that actually they are made of wood. At this point words fail you as they did me.

Eagles Mere links.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Eagles Mere. And this is the village's own website.

Eagles Mere toboggan slide.

Today we took Lili to Eagles Mere to ride on the Eagles Mere toboggan slide. The worst part of the whole experience was standing in line which took about two and a half hours. That could have been a lot worse if the temperature wasn't above freezing.

To ease the mindless standing around, a local civic organization provided some snacks at a very low price. However, to get these you had to stand in another, much shorter, line. The price of the toboggan rentals wasn't bad either. $15 got you a small toboggan which sits six people. For $20 you can ride with seven of your friends or have some room for your stuff.

I have to admit that I had some trepidation about riding down an ice slide onto a frozen lake. These had more to do with the hill and the speed of the toboggan than the possibility of the ice breaking under us. Some part of my mind figured out that if the unusually high temperature made the ice unsafe to ride on, the people running the slide would have closed it down. But this did not become readily obvious to the rest of my mind which was too busy being gripped by irrational fear.

After the initial ride my fears were replaced with exhilaration which eventually gave way to exhaustion as we dragged the toboggan back up the hill. The whole experience was quite pleasant and despite the long lines was a better use of our time than sitting at home watching the pregame show would have been.

Everybody, including Lili who always denies that she had any fun, enjoyed themselves emmensly. Eagles Mere is a nice little village made up of a large number of summer homes and quaint shops with helpful shopkeepers. If you get a chance to visit Eagles Mere, you won't be disapointed by it.

Integrated testing.

This week at work we have been going through a process called integrated testing. Another, more popular, term for this is shakedown cruise. Various subject matter experts are testing the content they developed trying to see what works and what doesn't.

Testing is always a part of any instructional design process, but this is being done before the instruction has been developed. This is a great idea because with 600 or so individual scripts, which will eventually be turned into training materials by a team of instructional designers that includes me, testing the training and the scripts at the same time would be a nightmare.

My part in all of this is getting the scripts together by business process. As with other parts of the shakedown cruise this also got better as we went along. The initial script pull did not go smoothly. One major reason for that is people do not follow naming conventions.

Even though all the scripts are stored in one place, manually searching through hundreds of them is pretty tedious if the search function does not return any results. It gets even worse if people tell you that the script is there and it turns out that a single misplaced digit kept you from finding it.

Tomorrow we will conclude the first week of integrated testing. The first cycle of testing won't be done for another week or so, but I am very curious to see the results. I especially can't wait to see how the training materials turn out, but that's another post entirely.

My very social networking.

I have been a very slow adapter of social networking. While everybody else was jumping on the MySpace band wagon, I was quite content to remain ignorant of the whole thing. Eventually, when it seemed that I was the one person in the universe who didn't have a MySpace, I joined the fray. At first I was very excited to be able to reconnect with the people I haven't seen for years, but eventually the novelty wore off and I started to long for newer and greener pastures.

This is when I discovered Lined-In. I thought that it was good idea to join Linked-In since I aspired to be a professional. But a professional what? I haven't quite settled on wanted to be, but I figured that it would look better if I had something more to show for cyber life than this blog and MySpace. I threw myself into Linked-In with all the zeal I could muster, but since my accomplishments were few and far between I let it lapse feeling embarrassed.

Then I, while avoiding doing any work around the house, read about Twitter on Wil Wheaton's blog. At first I was afraid, I was patriefied. I thought that I would not have enough exciting things to post. I was struggling with finding interesting and inteligent content for my blog so I was quite sure that Twitter was wasted on me. Eventually, I stuck my toe in the water which was followed by my foot and then the entire body. I even went as far as to live blog the VP debate on Twitter.

But this whole time I resisted charging the remaining fortress of social networking, Facebook. My life was busy enough just keeping up with the three social networking sites I had going. And, like Bill Henderson on the HBO show Big Love, I didn't think I needed a fourth. But then suddenly something changed last night. And I found myself signing up for Facebook and discovering that almost everybody on my email contacts list was on Facebook. Now I am writing on people's walls and looking through their friend lists attempting to find old classmates whom I haven't seen in ten years.

So I wrote all that to say: Help! Please, stop me before I join another social network!

I love my Yahoo email.

I recently opened my Yahoo email account to find the following email in my inbox.

Hello,

My name is Veronica I saw your profile and get interested in you. I will like to have a good relationship with you. I am down to earth, and I like natural things. My way of life is simple and ideal.

I am an outgoing person, and a very romantic woman who loves Romantic Challenges. True love never dies for it is lust that fades away. Love bonds for a lifetime but lust just pushes away. If true love, kindly reply me through my personal email address.

I Cherish You.
Veronica

This brought two questions to mind: 1)where did she find my profile and 2)did she ever read my blog which is riddled with stories about my wife and daughter. After reading this I have to say I prefer to get the Nigerian scam letters. At least then I know it's complete crap.

Dodgy story from Joe Torre.

Joe Torre, former Yankees' manager, wrote a book about his years with the Bronx Bombers. In this book he bashes both third baseman Alex "Most Overpaid Player Ever" Rodriguez and general manager Brian "Show Me The Money" Cashman. Since this is a memoir, it is extremely difficult to determine whether this is the truth or the consequence of Torre being fired two years ago. I haven't read the book yet, but I might have to get a copy next time I visit my favorite bookstore.

Hail to the chief.

We have a new President. This is significant because a new President brings with him a new beginning and a new hope for the future. It is even more significant now when the economy is perched perilously on the edge of a cliff.

And this President brings with him a new chapter in American history. He is not only the first African-American President, he is also the first first generation American to become President.

As an immigrant father of an American born child this fills me with pride in my country and knowledge that I live in an America where my daughter can be anything she wants. Even if, at two years old, she just wants to sit on my lap playing with a spoon as I write this.

There is no guarantee that Barack Obama will solve all the problems that the country faces and it is impossible to say that any one person can. But history has been made and there is no turning back now. We live in a new America.

Make a wish.

I have always wondered if there is a Make-A-Wish Foundation for adults. After all, the terminally ill adults are just as deserving of special treatment as their younger counter parts. I am happy to say that my question has been answered. There is an organization called Dream Foundation that, with the help of corporate donors, helps dying adults fulfill their dreams.

Snow and lights.

The Mets or Domino's?

I always thought of the Mets as the younger, quite often clueless member of the New York baseball family. I know that it is very hard to compete with the Yankees, especially with their 26 World Series titles and the legendary players who have worn pinstripes over the years, but the Mets seem to keep trying to go in the opposite direction.

They seem to be building a history of sheer stupidity. I guess you can say it started in the beginning, ever since the Mets were founded they have been using the NY logo that used to belong to the NY Giants. I am in favor of recycling, but a team, especially a team that plays in NYC, needs its own identity.

Now comes the latest chapter in the long line of Mets' blunders. Since this season is the inaugural season for the new Mets stadium, they, of course, designed a sleeve patch for the players' uniforms. The problem is that this patch looks like a horrible facsimile of the Domino's logo. See for yourself.

Joe the complete idiot.

The guy who became famous as Joe The Plumber during the 2008 presidential campaign, despite not being named Joe or a licensed plumber, and was eventually offered a job as a war correspondent, despite not being a trained journalist, just shot himself in the foot with his mouth.

Blogging Kazakh style.

Karim Masimov, the Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, ordered his ministers to start blogging on the government site. He decided that this would be the best way for the people of Kazakhstan to get in touch with the government. His own blog received 152 comments after posting a welcome message. A large number of these were, of course, complaints.

I thought this was worse mentioning because this is a story about a fomer Soviet republic embracing Web 2.0. Considering how few governments have embraced Web 2.0 in the so-called developed world, this is a huge technological leap forward into the 21st Century. And this is a place that was a bit of a backwater in the not-so-good, old Soviet days. Before this, its major technological claim to fame was Baykonur, the Russian space launch facility.

Snow.

It is snowing outside and the world is once again filled with magic. This is the kind of magic that you don't get during any other season.

Even though Spring brings rebirth, Summer brings moments of perfect stillness when you can watch hot air rising from the road, and Fall brings amazing multicolored beauty, none of them can compare to a snowy day.

On a snowy day the world seems to slow down to a crawl, not just because the cars move slower, but because the infinite sky becomes smaller and you are no longer insignificant by comparison.

So, as the song says, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. Let the world stand still and the time stand still with it. A perfect Winter stillness, covered in snow.

Timely quote.

In a Time magazine essay titled "Eight Years Later," Michael Kinsley wrote what I think sums up the Bush presidency pretty accurately:

Sept. 11 is the excuse for many of the Bush Administration's failures and disappointments. It is also the basis for the one great claim made on George W. Bush's behalf: At least he has protected us from terrorism. In the seven years since that day, there has not been another foreign-terrorist attack on the American homeland. The trouble is that there were no foreign-terrorist attacks on the American homeland in the seven years before 9/11 either.

If you wish to read the rest of this essay, it was published in the current issue dated January 12th, 2009. I suggest that you check it out before Bush leaves office and joins the ranks of thousands of Americans who no longer have jobs.

Spreading happiness.

I don't know whether to laugh, cry, or applaud. An 18-year old hacker broke into Twitter by chipping away at a popular poster's password. The person whose account he hacked turned out to be a member of the Twitter support staff thus giving this hacker access to the entire Twitterdom. Note to self: come up with harder passwords.

Burris blocked by Senate.

Roland Burris was turned away at the door of the Senate today. This took place in the wake of his predecessor being elected the first Black President of the United States. The problem with Burris isn't Burris himself, the problem is Blagojevich or rather his being investigated for corruption.

A corrupt state governor isn't a new idea in American politics. Seats have been bought and sold since before this country broke away from England. Some times corruption remained hidden from the prying eyes of History, but it has been running, like the Gulf-stream, through the ocean of politics. John F. Kennedy, arguably the greatest 20th Century President, would not have been elected if it were not for the help of his father's friends from the Mafia.

But, like his assassination, this fact is now a part of American history which has many interesting chapters. The Burris situation, however, it is not one of the brighter chapters. He was turned away from the seat that was previously occupied by Barack Obama. He wasn't elected to replace Obama, he was simply appointed to hold the seat until the next election.

The question that lingers in the air is: was he appointed based on merit or based on money. This is something only he and Blagojevich can answer and neither of them is talking. But, despite Blagojevich's corruption investigation, Burris did not deserve to be turned away at the door like an unwanted guest. The Senate should have notified him that they have no intention of letting him into the building to take Obama's old seat.

After all, the only Black member of the Senate being blocked from entering the Senate looks really bad in the wake of Obama's election. It looks like we are taking two steps back after taking a step forward.

New year, new direction.

This post should have been posted before Eric's guest post, but as the saying goes the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. So here is an update on the future plans for the Ignorant Immigrant.

I have been thinking about opening up this blog to other people to post on topics they have had an experience with. This is not because I do not have the desire or the time to write something myself, but because I want to offer my readers, in the word of Monty Python, something completely different.

Currently I am negotiating with a couple of people to write guest posts. I hope that these will prove as interesting and insightful as I think they will. So stay tuned for future developments.

Internet and the printed word.

Eric's guest post got me thinking if there are any publications that are safe in the Internet age. The answer to that question is books and magazines.

Books, despite being available in a digital format, are still an experience. In order to really appreciate a book you have to go to a bookstore, pick it up, and hold it in your hands. There is a feeling you get from holding a new book in your hands.

I am not quite sure how to describe this feeling, but I think it might be akin to first love and borders on the sublime. To me it is one of the reasons I keep going to my local Barnes and Noble, or any other bookstore, over and over.

Centuries ago books belonged to the nobility since they were expensive to reproduce and only the nobility and the clergy knew how to read. Then Gutenberg invented the printing press and the literacy revolution began.

Now there are more books on more topics than you have time to read, but the value of books has not diminished along with their cost. Books are as important today as they were in medieval times when monks painstakingly reproduced them by hand.

Magazines have more in common with newspaper than with books. Their message, however, is less time sensitive. A newspaper that was printed yesterday is old news, but a magazine that came out last week still makes for a good read.

Another reason magazines are superior to newspapers lies in their publication frequency. Since magazines are published less often, the magazine writers have more time to work on their stories. This results in better researched and better written articles.

Unlike newspapers, magazines have built-in content for their websites. Magazines can put their past issues online, providing their readers with a centralized archive which might not be available otherwise.

Books and magazines can exist in both printed and digital format. This, however, does not diminish them in any way. The experience of opening a book or of getting the new issue of a magazine in the mail can not be duplicated in the digital world.

So, books and magazines are safe in the Internet age because they offer something that can not be easily replaced by online publications.

Internet: Newspaper's nemesis and hero.

This is a guest post on the topic of newspapers and the Internet. This is a topic that the author, Eric Pehowic, and I have discussed in the past. Since Eric is a professional journalist, I thought that his take on this will be interesting. Enjoy.

When Stan Yann asked me to write about the Internet and the newspaper business, I jumped at the chance. But to explore the topic fully would take far more words than anyone wants to read in one sitting, so I'll try to paint with a broad stroke.

The Internet is the ultimate enigma for newspapers: At the same time its enemy and its savior.

Daily newspapers struggle to keep readers who are logged on all day and get a constant news feed, if they want it. A recent study found that the only demographic that still relies on newspapers for most of their news are 50-years old or older. A Pew report, released on Dec. 23, 2008, says that for the first time, "Internet has surpassed all other media except television for national and international news."

And while newsmen and newswomen should hate the Internet for taking away the readers, the online realm is our only future. The most frustrating aspect, and the one that shook me to the core when I realized it a few months ago, is how untimely the printed medium is.

Even more startling, reporters and editors seem completely comfortable continuing to work in this way.

Let's talk untimely:

• Half of the stories run in newspapers are not news anymore: A big story at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday is played out by the time readers get it Wednesday morning.
• Newspapers are not for breaking news. TV, Internet and radio are much better at getting the latest news out first. Even if there was a publication hourly, the paper is still potentially 58 minutes behind any breaking story. Despite using recycled newsprint and ink, the gas, ink and paper wasted daily already makes newspapers very ungreen, let alone what it would take for multiple publications per day.

Now, this is not to say newspapers, news sources, have no place in this world. Newspapers will always be here in some way. Hopefully there is an evolution into a newsmachine that uses the Internet for up-to-the-second news, and the paper for more in-depth and investigative local stories.

There are many questions that need to be answered and tough decisions that need to be made before any of this takes place. But it can work, and newspapers cannot be afraid to try.

Eric Pehowic is the assistant managing editor of The Danville News. A news and sports journalist since 1997, he writes about fantasy football online at www.chinstrapninjas.com and about video games and other wastes of time at blogs.sloppypotatoes.com.

New Year's Day.

This is a great song by one of my favorite bands. The title just begged to be posted.

Auld Lang Syne.

Happy New Year! May you have everything you wish and more. And don't forget a leap second was added to the clocks tonight at midnight UTC.

Berwick sunset.

Eternal youth.

Everybody wants to look better and younger than they actually are. This is very easy to accomplish through the use of technology. The right photo angle, slight use of PhotoShop and you can transform your ordinary, everyday self into a Greek god or goddess. Then you upload your improved self to your computer and send it into cyberspace.

After all, as a New Yorker cartoon once proclaimed, on the Internet nobody can tell you're a dog. However, this becomes a problem when cyber pals decide to meet in real life. Unlike one of my favorite movies, You've Got Mail, these meeting don't always go well. This story from Jim Connolly's blog is about one such encounter.

White Christmas.

I'll Be Home for Christmas.

I am the first one to admit that I don't like country music, but occasionally a songs comes along and changes my mind. This Rascal Flatts version of I'll Be Home for Christmas is one of those songs. I heard it on the radio the other day and was blown away.

Santa's journey.

As the sun sets over North America millions of children prepare for Santa's arrival. For years NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has been tracking his progress around the world. This year they created a mashup which combines their tracking data with Google Maps. So sit back and watch Santa as he circumnavigates the globe. Merry Christmas!

Run, run, Rudolph.

This is Brian Setzer's version of Chuck Berry's contribution to Christmas music.

Hanukkah song.

I missed the first day of Hanukkah, but since it's a holiday that lasts a week I can still post this video. Enjoy.

Broken ladder.

First snow.

I went out on the porch, to retrieve the Christmas tree my wife and I were finally going to put up before Santa arrives, and was greeted by my favorite form of precipitation - snow. Since most people think of me as Russian, I like to tell them that my fellow countrymen invented Winter. This may not be true, but it sure felt that way when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, I would go to bed on November 3oth in anticipation of the wonderful sight that would be outside when I woke up the next morning. Back then you could count on the snow because the snow would not disappoint. This was before the so-called global warming sent the climate into a tail spin resulting in cold Winters completely devoid of snow. Winters that remind you of the inside of a walk-in freezer.

I am not sure how accurate these thirty-year-old memories are, but I know that back then snow made me happy. And now remembering that happiness and childlike wonder at the sight of first snow on the ground makes me proud that my ancestors invented Winter.

Santa Baby.

This is a song that celebrates the consumerism of Christmas. It has been covered by a lot of different singers. This is the Kylie Minogue version.

Do they know it's Christmas?

This is the original Band Aid which spawned several other songs for charitable causes including "We Are The World." Enjoy.

Blue Christmas.

This another one of my favorite Christmas songs. There have been many versions, but it's very hard to top Elvis. Enjoy.

Little Drummer Boy.

This is another great Christmas song. After thirty years, it should be considered a classic. David Bowie and Bing Crosby is a very odd paring, but it worked really well.

I am Santa Claus.

This is a holiday classic, or at least it should be.

Season's greetings.

I have been busy lately because I have started a new job. After being mostly unemployed for most of the year, it feels really good to go somewhere and do something. This is only a contract position, but it's work and it's work in my chosen field. This is going to be a great experience for me, so please forgive me if I don't post as much as I used to. There are topics I still want to write about and hopefully I will get to them before I forget what they are.

Holiday reflection.

How to use Twitter.

This video made by Sam Harrelson demonstrates how to use Twitter. Enjoy.

Setting up a Twitter account.

This video by Jack Bastide guides you through setting up an account on Twitter. Enjoy.

Holiday love.

It's officially Christmas season. This time of year you start making lists of people to whom you're going to send a Christmas card. Sometimes, if you won't see the person for the holidays, you might even get them a small, insignificant present. The amount you might spend on this gift could be as small as $5. After all, in today's economy who can afford more than that?

But there is a better way to spend that $5. You can put it to a good use and sponsor a 1lbs. package to send to our troops in Iraq of Afghanistan. Or you can even put a box at your work place an collect Christmas cards for the troops. Every little bit helps. Especially this time of year, when the troops stationed overseas need a pick-me-up more than ever.

This card and package drive is called Holiday Love Campaign and is the brain child of eMail Our Military (eMOM), a Miami based non-profit organization. Check out their blog, for more information about Holiday Love Campaign.

Black Friday tragedy.

After the turkey has been consumed and the football games watched, people all around the country prepare for a tradition almost as sacred as the Thanksgiving festivities. This tradition is the early Friday morning shopping for special bargains that retailers only offer on this day.

This kick off of the Christmas shopping season is called Black Friday. And today it lived up to its name. A crowed at a Long Island Wal-mart trampled a 34-year-old store employee along with a 28-year-old pregnant woman. The store employee later died and the woman is in the hospital for observation.

What happened was a tragedy, but not an unexpected one. Several years in a row reports of somebody being trampled nearly to death at a Wal-mart store would appear on Black Friday. One cause for this is the low quantities of the Black Friday merchandise the retailers have in stores. This creates a sense of urgency which then causes otherwise rational human beings to stampede like cattle killing people in the process.

This is consumerism at its worst. And that makes me sad because it cheapens Christmas. Maybe it's time people started to think about the gifts they are going to give instead of just buying things because they are on sale at 5 AM.

Macy's Rick Roll.

In case you weren't watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade, you missed getting Rick Roll'd by Macy's. But here is a video of it for your after dinner viewing pleasure. Enjoy.

Helpful hints.

While making the stuffing my wife discovered that we do not have any sage. Sage is an herb that was mentioned in the Simon and Garfunkel song "Scarborough Fair" and therefore must be important. Luckily for us, I was able to find this herb substitute chart and save the day, or at least the feast. I thought you might find it useful as well.

Happy Thanksgiving.

News not on paper.

A post on the 10,000 Words blog titled 6 Newspaper Sections Rendered Obsolete By The Web raises a very interesting question. Has the Internet age made newspapers unnecessary? To answer that question let's first look at the history of the news business itself.

I am not going to delve into the age before newspapers because information back then was quite unreliable and got from place to place at the pace of a comatose tortoise. Unless something happened at the next town, it might be weeks or even months before you heard the news. And by then it might already be too late to do anything.

Eventually this situation was rectified by the invention of the printing press. This, in turn, lead to newspapers which covered various events and got these reports out to people somewhat quickly. However, these same newspapers still took a while to get from city to city. So, if you did not reside in a metropolitan area, by the time you read the paper it was already ancient. Also, not all the news made it into the paper.

Fast forward a little bit and telegraph along with railroads arrived on the scene. Now the distances that were impossible to traverse quickly no longer seemed so impossible and did not stand in the way of the news. A reporter, who was able to roam freely, could cover a story and then send it, using the "wireless," to his editor. And after the newspaper was printed it could be delivered to the readers by rail. So, if you did not reside in a metropolitan area, by the time you read the paper it was no longer ancient, merely old.

The next technological development that altered the news business was the invention of the radio. This was a huge step forward because it lead to stories being covered in real time by reporters right on the scene. An infamous example of this is the Hindenburg crash at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in 1937. But, despite the invention of live coverage, the newspaper business continued at the same pace as before.

This brings us to the invention of television which gave us the ability to see the story instead of just hearing about it while a reporter commentated the events as they happened. Another byproduct of television was the nightly news, a recap of the day's news that was broadcast several hours before newspapers could even hit the stands. Despite these developments the newspaper business continued, at a lesser pace perhaps, but it continued nonetheless.

The televised news lead to the birth of the twenty four hour news channels and now you could see the world in action. The reporters were scattered around the globe covering it like a blanket and bringing stories from all over right into your living room. And yet the newspapers remained in business. Somehow, with all the news that was fit to be shown live, there was still room for articles, columns, and photo spreads. Somehow the people who had the news piped into their living room still wanted to read the newspaper.

And now we are in the age of the Internet which gave rise to blogs allowing ordinary people to publish their own take on the news instead of being force fed the thoughts and opinions of the pundits, columnists, and talk show hosts. These so-called Citizen Journalists are now giving the newspapers a run for their money because as a solo reporter/publisher a blogger can cover the story and then put it on the Web without first getting it approved, or even turned down, by an editor.

Newspapers also face huge competition from blogs and bloggers because they have not embraced the Internet the way they ought to in order to stay competitive in this instant age. Majority of newspapers simply have a website on which they display an electronic version of their printed copy without embracing all the wonderful things a newspaper can do on the web.

One thing that a newspaper can do to enhance its site is to have staff blogs hosted on it. This will draw people to the site and provide content other than the already outdated stories. Another is to create a discussion board for the readers so people can comment on the news and post their opinions. This can even replace letters to the editor which would free up space for more advertising.

There are a lot more ways a newspaper can embrace the Web and thereby provide something other than a paperless version of itself, but the important point here is that in the Web 2.0 age newspapers need to evolve beyond the stagnant state they have been in since they have been invented. Sure there have been technological improvements which made the newspapers better and faster, but now they are at a point were, if major changes are not made, they could become obsolete.

I will survive.

Being a child of the Seventies I am a little partial to Disco and I Will Survive is on a short list of my favorite songs from that era . After hearing it on the radio today I decided to track down the original video. So here it is for your enjoyment.

Blog overload.

This Time magazine article asks an interesting quest: "How many blogs does the world need?" It says that this election was the first presidential election dominated by the Internet. It also says that there are too many blogs for a person to read. I would like to respond to that by saying: "Welcome to Web 2.0!" The days of content being provided by the select few are gone. Now even an ignorant immigrant like myself can offer his opinion to the world via his own site.

It wasn't too long ago that the same Time magazine declared us, the people who create online content, person of the year. So why such a sudden change? Did we all of a sudden fall out of favor with the publishers of Time?

I have no idea why Time's opinion of bloggers suddenly changed, but I think that there is room for everybody out here on the World Wide Web. Not every blog out there is dedicated to politics or sports or technology. There are bloggers who have a large readership and some that don't, but regardless of whether of the number of readers their message is still important.

I would not consider myself a blogger with a large following, but I would like to think that what I have to say is worth reading. The content I provide is usually well thought out and thoroughly edited. But I guess unless you work for Time magazine you should not have a blog. Oh, wait! Time just fired a whole bunch of their reporters. So, it seems, it's a good thing that I don't work for Time.

Digital void.

I frequently find myself getting sucked in to what I like to call the digital void. I sit down in front of my computer with the intent of checking my email and possibly looking at job postings, but then something happens and I find myself going from tab to tab of my Firefox browser looking at different sites. I read blogs, I follow the links people post on Twitter (and the link those links lead to), I read news briefs on Yahoo, and I attempt to form a picture of what is happening in the world.

This, of course, takes time. Sometimes, it takes a lot of time. Quite frequently this is the time I should dedicate to more noble pursuits like beating back the army of dirty dishes in the sink, making a heroic last stand (for the millionth time) against the invading hoard of my daughter's toys, or climbing Mount Laundry in search of its clean, white peak.

Instead I sit in front of my computer pondering my web based navel. I know that I need to be more productive and more organized. And lately I have been doing much better at this task, but, like with everything else in life, there is still plenty of room for improvement. So I intend to work on this problem with all the dedication I can muster. But I wonder if it's too early to start on my New Year's resolutions.

Manmade machine.

This is an Indian commercial for a pain relief ointment. It was pointed out to me by my grad school friend Aman Tyagi. It illustrates the perils of 21st Century life. Enjoy.

Monty Python on YouTube.

Monty Python's Flying Circus has always been my all time favorite English show. The sheer brilliance of the Monty Python humor, or should I say humour, has always provided me with hours of entertainment and unforgettable memories.

But as much as I love their shows, I love their movies even more. Life of Brian is by far my favorite because it makes fun of all the things Judeo-Christianity holds most scared. The gentlemen behind Monty Python have not made a movie in years, but now they bring snippets of their shows and movies to YouTube.

Yes, now there is a Monty Python YouTube channel. Please watch the following announcement.

M-I-C-K-E-Y.

Today is the Mickey's 80th birthday. 80 is a significant age, even if you happen to be imaginary. Happy birthday, Mickey!

Twitter for business.

Twitter is a Web 2.0 site/service/social network which utilizes text massaging to connect people and ideas. Its uses are rapidly evolving beyond the boundaries of basic social networking sites such as MySpace.

Personally I use it to keep up with breaking news which are delivered to my cell phone by CNN via Twitter. Also Twitter is great for first person accounts of various natural disasters such as the current California forest fires. When a story breaks, you can always find somebody on Twitter who is right in the middle of it

Now, it seems, the idea of using Twitter for business is sprouting wings. A YouTube search for this topic resulted in 945 results. Here is one of these videos. It was made by O'Reilly Media and it's called Twitter for Business.

Holiday blues.

Let me premise this post by saying that I love Christmas. I love the songs and the trees and the festive atmosphere. I love A Christmas Carrol and shopping for presents while imagining their recipients' surprise. I love the merriment that surrounds Christmas and the joy it brings. I love that people are a little nicer to each other at Christmas time. I love that "Home For The Holidays" mentions Pennsylvania and pumpkin pie in the same verse.

But, having said all that, I also have to say that Christmas can be ruined by being overdone. Here is a perfect example. Yesterday, Lili and I went to a local supermarket in order to restock our rather depleted grocery supplies. The first thing we saw when we entered this warehouse of food was a display of poinsettias. Later, we went to the little cooler that usually contains Turkey Hill iced tea of different varieties in half gallon jugs only to find that it was filled to the brim with eggnog.

On a recent visit to Wal-mart we were bombarded by Christmas music while being surrounded by wreathes, bows, and ornaments. I am not a strong person, I am not able to let this Christmas overkill not bother me. It drives me crazy that all these companies which are only out to make a dime, since making a buck in this economy would be a miracle, are ruining a holiday that has been a favorite of mine since before my daughter was born on Christmas day in 2006.

So, to all of the people who have already put up their Christmas decorations, I say Bah Humbug! Christmas season does not start until Black Friday. Until then I will be figuring out what we're doing for Thanksgiving.

Immigrant song.

I heard this today on the radio and thought I would share it with you. It seemed very appropriate considering the name of this blog and the title of the song.

Veterans Day.

Today is Veterans Day. As it is my tradition I called the two veterans I know and wished them a happy Veterans Day. We talked for a bit and both thanked me for calling them. I didn't think that I needed to be thanked for doing something as small as making a phone call, but they felt that my remembering them today deserved their gratitude. In my opinion what I did wasn't very special, but I enjoyed their acknowledgment of my efforts to properly celebrate this holiday.

Gulf sunset.

On the last day of our trip to Florida we went to Ft. Myers Beach, where we sat on our beach towel and ate hot dogs surrounded by seagulls. Eventually the Sun set and we left the beach and returned to the hotel to pack, but not before I took this picture.

Unwelcome door.

Bridge at sunset.

This the view from Heitman House in Ft. Myers, FL where my friend Andy's wedding reception took place. We missed the reception site the first time and ended up driving across this bridge with Carl, Andy's brother and best man, in tow. I always wanted to drive across one of these Florida bridges and now I have.

Lego people.

Blue gate.

The small sign on the gate reads "Cast Members Only." However, there is a large gap to the right of the gate, rendering the gate completely useless.

Giant laptop.

Everything in Disney World is bigger, even the computers.

New ideas.

This blog has been without a specific focus pretty much since its inception. Now I am thinking that maybe I should write about something specific. The problem is I don't exactly know what to write about. So any ideas you might have would be greatly appreciated. You can either leave a comment following this post or email me at the email address listed in the About Me section.

Fall river.

Jack O'Lantern 2.

Jack O'Lantern.

Pumpkins.

My local Dunkin Donuts always decorates for Halloween.

Halloween.

It's 1 am on October 31st and I am writing this as the television set behind me plays Ace of Cakes. Yes, folks, instead of Count Dracula, or Frankenstein's Monster, or even, my favorite horror character, Freddy Kruger scaring me out of my wits in the wee hours, I hear the cheerful voice of Chef Duff Goldman.

I have my wife, who loves the Food Network, to thank for this. But I have to admit that it is fun to watch people cook dishes you have no desire or ambition to even attempt. Although, maybe watching Ace of Cakes is a better idea than watching a horror movie. Since watching one late at night is similar to eating right before bed because both will give you nightmares. And who wants to have nightmares on Halloween. :-)

But since it is Halloween, this post should include something related to this wonderful holiday. So, here is a little Monster Mash for all you ghouls. :-)

I am not Joe The Plumber.

There is a McCain ad I keep seeing on TV that bothers me a bit. This ad plagiarizes the Microsoft "I am a PC" commercial which in turn parodies Apple's now famous PC vs Mac commercials. It starts with a clip of Barack Obama talking to Joe The Plumber and telling him that he wants to "spread the wealth." Then it shows person after person saying the phrase "I am Joe The Plumber" into the camera. I tried, quite unsuccessfully, to find the McCain ad on YouTube, but I did find the Microsoft one. Enjoy.

Sick.

I haven't posted in a while. That's because I've been sick. And when you're sick, it's hard to think or to blog. It is also hard to think of ideas to blog about which results in complete lack of new posts. Heck, I haven't even kept up with Twitter as much as I normally do. If you expected to find pearls of wisdom on this blog, and instead were greeted by an absence of new posts, now you know the reason.

Worthless.

This is a print by Laura Gilbert which she will be distributing for free during her exhibition at the Grady Alexis Gallery in NYC starting October 24th. If you get a chance check it out. For more information you can go here.

Maverick he ain't.

This story is from the October 4th issue of the New York Times, but I just got my hands on it recently. A descendant of the original Maverick is enraged by McCain being referred to as a maverick.

Bad news, good news.

The bad news is that the stock market took another plunge as Dow dropped below 10,000. On the other hand, the oil price is now below $90 per barrel which means that the gas prices will go down. It seem that every cloud does have a silver lining.

Bad news in Massachusetts.

This story out of Massachusetts is a bad omen. It seems that the number of homeless families there has increased dramatically in the wake of the economic downturn. There are so many homeless families that the state is forced to put them in motels because the shelters are filled to capacity.

As a somebody who is looking for a full-time job, I can relate to what these people are going through. I am worried that the economy will take another nose dive and the $700 billion bailout package will not be sufficient. But I also hope things will turn around soon. We'll see.

Autumn at Knoebels.

You're no one if you're not on Twitter.

Cubs '08.

When this season started I was rooting for the Chicago Cubs because this year marks one hundredth anniversary of the Cubs' last World Series win. If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a New York Yankees fan, but I couldn't resist rooting for the underdog.

And it's hard to find a bigger underdog in all of sports than the Cubs. Compared to the winless century, the Red Sux 86 year winless streak is nothing to write home about. And now it might be 101 years before the Cubs win another World Series, making this the longest slump in the history of sports.

On the other hand, the LA Dodgers who eliminated the Cubs were led this season by Joe Torre. His old team, the Yankees, didn't even get into the postseason which it has done repeatedly with Torre at the helm. I wonder if Steinbrenner will replace the current manager after such a dismal performance this season. Also, with all the controversy surrounding baseball lately, I am looking forward to next year for more sports and less soap opera. Let's see what happens.

VP debate SNL style.

I didn't watch SNL last night because it stopped amusing me years ago. But this hilarious take on the VP debate is one of the few SNL gems I have seen lately and it's definitely worth watching.

VP debate.

As soon as the curtain went down on debate between Joe Biden and Sarah Palin people started arguing about who won. Myriads of pundits and political strategist gave their opinions and analysis to reporters on countless channels. Billions of bloggers wrote play by play and quote by quote responces to each answer and gester.

But in the end, no matter what was said about what was said, only the voters themselves should decided who won this debate. Because in a month, when you stand in that voting booth getting ready to put your $0.02 down on a presidential candidate, all the pundits and analysts won't matter. You won't even remember what was said and by whom.

If you want to know what I thought, I will tell you. I thought that Palin did a good job keeping afloat. She didn't answer any questions to my, or my wife's, satisfaction. She insulted every beer drinking American by calling them "Joe Sixpack" and that folksy "you betcha" just made her sounds like Tina Fey doing a really bad impersonation of a Canadian on Saturday Night Live.

She also refered to herslf as a "hockey mom" which is a wonderful thing to have on your resume when you are running for PTA president at your kids' school, but it doesn't even come close to cutting the mustard where being Vice President is consurned. If McCain is elected President, this woman is going to represent the US throughout the world on official state visits. This idea is scarry considering her only foreign diplomatic experience is beign the governor of a state that has a border with Russia.

If I were to use the same logic, I should be the Secretary of State in McCain's cabinet simply based on the fact that I was born, and spent half of my life, in Russia. And if that is not enough, I should be Secretary of State because I could actually find Israel on a map.

I could tell you who I thought was the clear winner, but I wouldn't want to influence anybody or start an arguement. But what I am going to tell you is that with a month left until the election you need, no you must, pick a candidate and soon.

Mad debate.

Andy Borowitz, a comedian who wrote McCain Replaces Palin with Startled Deer story I previously wrote about, has done it again. It seems that Palin's answers in tonight's debate were brought to you by Mad Libs.

Palin's debate prep.

Here is last night's Top Ten list from the Letterman show. I find it to be sad, but true.

Debate coverage.

Live from St. Louis, it's Thursday Night. Enjoy.