Nintendo Wii Rocks!

I'll spare the sorry it's been so long, been busy, the economy, the politics, the locusts, whatever stuff. My lack of blogging's not even news anymore. I do still remember how to do it though.

The Nintendo Wii has got to be the best video game system ever. At least that's what you'd have to think from this video. Too lazy to embed, but here's the YouTube link.

Do you agree?

A while back, we were discussing something with the Mizz and we asked him, "Do you agree?" He got a hurt look on his face and responded with, "No, I'm not a gree." So of course, Franny and I take every opportunity to ask him again, while agreeing that we are indeed grees. This does not please him.

However, tonight things changed. I asked him if he was a gree and got a resounding, "YES!" He then proceeded with, "It's 80 grees out! That's a lotta grees!"

I know, I know, I know. My kid said something cute. Probably way cuter than anything any other kid has ever said ever. Franny thought I should share it. I suppose it should say something that I haven't blogged in a month, and this is what I choose to go with. Maybe I'll be a functional member of society again someday, but apparently not yet. For now, I'm just a gree.

How smart do I write?

So, as of the previous post, I am apparently writing at a Junior High level according to the Blog Readability Test. I have to admit that I'm feeling a little inadequate after learning that fact. I mean, I wasn't exactly an English major, but c'mon.

I'm not actually sure how this reading level is determined. The website doesn't say what it takes into consideration, but I'm assuming there's stuff about sentence length and complexity, and probably some keywords it looks for. Maybe even something about proper grammar and spelling. Who knows?

Something else I just considered... Is it desirable to be at the Genius end or the Elementary School end? I've plugged some friends into the site and they span the whole range, even though they all seem like smart people. The site gives no clue whether a higher education rating means that you are smarter and it shows in your writing, or that you write things in such a complex way that people need more education just to figure out what you mean. I guess I should be happy in the middle of the pack. Satisfyingly mediocre.

The Bleeding Edge of Web 2.0

Scarborough Research (as if I've ever heard of them before) has just released a paper regarding the prevalence of blogging in various cities in the US. I'm proud to say that Portland came in second, as that somehow must make me a better person. Apparently, 14% of Portlanders are bloggers, behind only Austin, TX, at 15%. The national average was 8%. The cities above 10% are:

Austin, TX, 15%
Portland, OR, 14%
San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA, 13%
Seattle/Tacoma, WA, 13%
Honolulu, HI, 12%
San Diego, CA, 12%
Dallas/Fort Worth, TX, 11%
Columbus, OH, 11%
Nashville, TN, 11%
Colorado Springs/Pueblo, CO, 11%
Washington, D.C., 11%
Atlanta, GA,10%
New York, NY, 10%

When you round to the nearest percent, there are a lot of ties. The press release is located here. It has a lot of guesswork as to the reasons for these rankings, but get real, the only reason any of you are going to click is to find out where your own city is on the list. (The complete list is on page 3 of the link.) Someone on the radio this afternoon guessed that our reason was Portland's weather forcing us to find some way to amuse ourselves indoors. You can't drink beer and coffee all the time, although both are certainly compatible with blogging.

The only problem I see with the research is that, to Scarborough, you are a blogger if you have "read or contributed to a blog in the last 30 days" (my emphasis). By that logic, I am also a reporter, a novelist, a chef, an actor, a rock star, a magazine editor, and a hard core rapper. You should feel lucky that you heard of me just as I was on the verge of making the big time.

(Careful, Dave. That's two posts in two days about blogging. You're running the risk of becoming a caricature of yourself. Or at least becoming an insufferable Blogger-with-a-capital-B.)

Cool new blogger feature

Blogger just introduced something that I stumbled on yesterday. If you comment on a blog hosted on Blogger (like mine for instance) and you send the comment while signed in with a Google account, you can opt to have further comments to that post emailed to you. This seems like a very cool way to turn a single random comment into a conversation.

I personally have a habit of reading a post, leaving a comment, and then forgetting about it completely. Sometimes it would be nice to get a response to a comment or to see what other people have to say, and then have the chance to add something else. I used to have to remember to check back again, which happened far too rarely. There is WAY too much information flowing in my DSL line to remember everything that was interesting.

You've always (for a long time anyway) been able to subscribe to an RSS feed for the post, but I have gobs of feeds already, and that's just another thing to remember to check. Now I can get it stuck in my face by Google, but more importantly, only if I want to.

You have to have a Google account to use this feature, but last I checked, they're still giving them away for free. (Note: you don't have to be using gmail. They will send it to whatever email you give them when you register for an account.)

I'm blogging about blogging. How full of myself am I?