The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century

Joey deVilla's Personal Blog

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The 2005 Bloggies Nominees

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date January 26, 2005
No Comments on The 2005 Bloggies Nominees

Graphic: 'Muy Muy Rapido Tuesday' icon.

The Bloggies site

is still down from having served more than its monthly allotment (the

page shows the dreaded “509 – Bandwidth Limit Exceeded” error). Luckily

for those who want to know who got nominated, Firda Beka of Weblog

Wannabe (a nominee in the “Best Asian weblog” and “Lifetime

Acheivement” categories) has replicated the list of nominees. If you

were interested in voting in the Bloggies but had no idea who the

candidates were, here’s her list, slightly rearranged to emphasize the

category in which this blog appears.

Note that for the first time, two Blogware-based blogs are among the

represented: this blog for “Best Canadian Weblog”, and Tom Reynolds’ Random Acts of Reality for “Best Tagline” (“Trying to kill as few people as possible”) and as the subject of Random Reality Bites, a Guardian article nominated for “Best Article or Essay About Weblogs”. Well done, Tom!

Best Canadian Weblog

The Adventures of Accordion Guy in the 21st Century (vote for it!)

Bacon and Eh’s

ChromeWaves.net

Best Meme

A replicating idea that spread about weblogs.

Podcasting

The Grey Album

Is My Blog Burning?

Best Article or Essay About Weblogs

New Kids on the Blog

Random Reality Bites

Blogs, Bandwidth, and Banjos: Tightly Knit Bonds in Weblogging

Warning: Blogs Can Be Infectious

Best Web Application for Weblogs

Something that helps you publish, make comments, anything that has to do with developing a weblog.

Best Australian or New Zealand Weblog

What’s New, Pussycat?

Best Asian Weblog

Weblogs from Asia, not including the Middle East.

Best African or Middle Eastern Weblog

360 Degrees of Sky

A Family in Baghdad

Benn Loxo du Tàccu

Best European Weblog

My Boyfriend Is a Twat

Chocolate and Zucchini

Near Near Future

Best British or Irish Weblog

Weblogs from the United Kingdom and Ireland.

GreenFairyDotCom

London Underground Tube Blog

Best Latin American Weblog

Overcaffeinated

Best American Weblog

Weblogs from the United States.

Go Fug Yourself

Tequila Mockingbird

Best Tagline of a Weblog

Pesky’Apostrophe: “Always better than an unexpected period”

Scaryduck: “Not scary, not a duck”

The Gospel According to Rhys: “Chronologically inept since 2060”

Dooce: “Not your average clenched-cheek sprint to the bathroom”

Random Acts of Reality: “Trying to kill as few people as possible…”

Best Photography of a Weblog

Photoblogs and other weblogs that regularly feature photography.

Satan’s Laundromat

The Snowsuit Effort

Daily Dose of Imagery

Best Non-Weblog Content of a Weblog Site

Many sites contain more that just a weblog. This is for those pages with something extra.

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog

Best Food Weblog

The Food Section

Cooking for Engineers

Best Entertainment Weblog

Largehearted Boy

Whatevs (Dot Org)

Best Weblog About Politics

Best Web Development Weblog

Weblogs completely about Web design and development.

456 Berea Street

Best Computers or Technology Weblog

Weblogs about computers and/or technology, other than Web design.

Daring Fireball

Near Near Future

Best Topical Weblog

Weblogs with a definite topic other than the ones in the categories above.

The Policeman’s Blog

London Underground Tube Blog

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog

Best GLBT Weblog

Webloggers in the gay/lesbian/bisexual/ transgendered community.

How to Learn Swedish in 1000 Difficult Lessons

Hot Toddy’s Toaster Oven

Most Humorous Weblog

Go Fug Yourself

Best Writing of a Weblog

Weblogs with great writing, from personal journaling to professional journalism.

Tequila Mockingbird

Best Group Weblog

Weblogs written by an exclusive group.

Go Fug Yourself

A Fistful of Euros

Best Community Weblog

Weblogs where everyone is invited to post.

Overheard in New York

Best-Designed Weblog

Jason Santa Maria

Best-Kept-Secret Weblog

The best underrepresented weblogs.

Manhattan Transfer

Mixed Media Watch

Susan Mernit’s Blog

Teaching the Indie Kids to Dance Again

He Looks Like…

Best New Weblog

Weblogs that began during the year 2004.

Petite Anglaise

He Looks Like…

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog

Lifetime Achievement

Webloggers who have been blogging at least since January 1, 2001.

Weblog of the Year

This is it: the category for the best weblog overall.

This Fish Needs a Bicycle

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami Blog

Perhaps You Can Help

Graphic: 'Muy Muy Rapido Tuesday' icon.

Eldon has a question and I’ve been unable to answer it. I thought this

might be a good time to tap the collective intelligence of the internet

and post it here:

Do you know the term for when you become suddenly aware of something and start seeing it everywhere?

For example: “I had never heard of this band, XYZ. Today I read about them in the paper, and then my

friends told me about them. Then I saw a poster for them…”

Another example: “I’d never heard of the book ABC, but today everywhere I went I saw it for sale and

people seemed ot have it”

Yet another example: “I only recently heard the word ‘blog’ for the

first time, but I’ve heard it in so many conversations this week.”

He’s looking for the term that describes this phenomenon: learning

about something and then suddenly seeing instances of it everywhere. I

vaguely remember hearing that there was such a word. Any ideas?

Disturbing Bill Gates Photo Remix

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date January 19, 2005
1 Comment on Disturbing Bill Gates Photo Remix

Today’s a busy day, so I’m going just going to hit you with a photo that I’ve been holding in reserve for such an event.

It’s nice to have a boss who actually encourages you to blog and doesn’t mind your Photoshopping him into photos every now and again…

Stories About Roy Orbison Being Wrapped Up in Cling Film

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date January 18, 2005
3 Comments on Stories About Roy Orbison Being Wrapped Up in Cling Film

(Or, as we North Americans like to say, “Saran Wrap”.)

You have to like a site that starts with this line:

“Hello, and welcome to my homepage. My name is Ulrich Haarbürste and I like to write stories

about Roy Orbison being wrapped up in cling-film.”

"Why Write?"

In IndieGameDev, I link to a question that someone asked a number of interatcive fiction (a.k.a. “text adventure game”) writers: “Why write?”.

Although it was posed to people making a specific type of computer

game, the question is applicable to anyone in a creative field. It’s a

worthwhile read.

The "Mom Mac"

On The Farm, I point to a

number of articles in which the writer refers to buying a Mac Mini for

one’s mom, dad or other relatives. It’s an interesting meme.

NPR’s "Fresh Air" Interview with Eric "Fast Food Nation" Schlosser (Part 3 of the "Hamburgers" Series)

Post author By Joey deVilla
Post date January 15, 2005
No Comments on NPR’s "Fresh Air" Interview with Eric "Fast Food Nation" Schlosser (Part 3 of the "Hamburgers" Series)

Here’s the last of my “Hamburgers” media posts. It’s the NPR Fresh Air

interview with Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. (Yeah, this

interview’s old, but it’s still good.)

My quickie notes taken while listening to the interview:

The flavour industry: an offshoot of the fragrance industry, and how it became a big player in fast food
The Chicken McNugget and how it changed the food industry
Meatpacking — once one of the highest-paid industrial jobs in the US. Now it has
become one of the lowest-paid, in spite of being one of the most

dangerous
Fast food industry wages:

The lowest of any industry.
Fast food is the largest
minimum-wage-paying industry in the US
Companies in the industry decided that it was better to have a large
poorly-paid poorly-trained workforce than a small well-paid

well-trained workforce.
It doesn’t have to be this way; Schlosser cites In-N-Out burger as the standout case, with an
$8/hr starting wage, managers who get paid an $80K salary and full health and dental coverage for their employees.
Growth of the industry parallels the decline of minimum wage (in real terms) in the US.
Fast food companies are biggest opponents to any
rise in the minimum wage

Meat and disease:

The changes that the fast food industry have made to the meatpacking industry have made it “the
perfect vehicle for Food-borne illnesses”. It used to be that your

burger came from the meat of perhaps one or two cows — now a butger

can come from a large number of cows, which means that one sick cow can

contaminate the meat across the country.
After the Jack in the Box outbreaks, the FF companies have worked hard to prevent contamination in meat
Meat at Jack in the Box and McDonalds is the most tested; however this is done at the expense of the meat at your grocery

McDonalds operates more playgrounds than any other private entity
in

the US. A lot of communities have local governments who are unwilling

or unable to spend money building playgrounds; in those places,

McDonald’s is the only alternative. The problem: McDonald’s marketing

— they’re targeting kids and selling htem unhealthy food. The rise of

childhood obesity parallels rise of fast food industry.
Fast food places are good targets for robbery — far better than
places like 7-11, which have implemented practices to keepas much money

as possible in a safe which employees cannot open. The average take

from a 7-11 robbery is $37; you can make thousands if you rob a fast

food place at the right time. Half of fast food robberies are inside jobs.
Schlosser “tried to write something that wasn’t black and white”.
Most people

in the fast food industry aren’t bad people but business people; give

them business reasons to change their practices and they’ll do it.
Schlosser on fast food: “Most of it tastes pretty good”
He says that in the book, he didn’t talk much of fast food’s
influences on the landscape of the industry. The McDonald’s model —

the mass reproduction of a specific retail environment — has inspired

other retailers : The Gap, Sunglass Hut, Banana

Republic. The outskirts of one American community is pretty

indistinguishable from

another
One of the most surreal moments in researching the book: at Las
Vegas at a fast food convention. Mikhail Gorbachev was a keynote

speaker. At his keynote, he praised McDonald’s entry into Russia and

asked the fast food executives to invest in Russia. Schlosser says he

was reminded of the old Roman practice of brining leaders of countries

they conquered and putting them on display at circuses.
Schlosser: “If I were king of the world, I would really try to
internalize the costs that they’re imposing left and right on society.”

The interview is in two parts: