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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Readership capture

Readership capture

by DougJ|  August 12, 20114:13 pm| 45 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Readership Capture

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I haven’t done a reader’s blog feature in a while so here goes:

  • If I had no loot: The Commander Guy finds a Galtian in the London riots.
  • Only the echoes of my mind: Brilliant at Breakfast also gets a Joe Buck vibe from Rick Perry.
  • No dark star: Zandar is correct, this headline writes itself.

And a reader video — this time, a short film — from reader A.

What’s going on in your blog or editing room?

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Previous Post: « All right, all you smart lawyers
Next Post: Song of the week »

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  1. 1.

    Scott

    August 12, 2011 at 4:26 pm

    Mostly just comics reviews at my place, though I was fairly happy with a couple recent reviews in particular…

  2. 2.

    srv

    August 12, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    More Battledrum! Smash up some blogs.

    And where’s the post on how everyone assumed the rioters in the UK were all lazy welfare queens?

    http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/08/11/ukriots.accused/index.html?iref=allsearch

  3. 3.

    jake the snake

    August 12, 2011 at 4:36 pm

    Which one is Nehemiah Scudder, Perry or Bachmann?

  4. 4.

    Swellsman

    August 12, 2011 at 4:42 pm

    How The Tea Party is Killing Michael Bay

  5. 5.

    jacy

    August 12, 2011 at 4:42 pm

    I talked about how writers can use Twitter better. (Because I have finally been dragged kicking and screaming onto the Twitter.)

    Also for you bookish types: the first two novels in my mystery series are now live on Amazon. (Also for Nook and PC, with Kindle for PC).

    I would have another book out this week, but I spend too much time reading Balloon Juice.

  6. 6.

    cleek

    August 12, 2011 at 4:44 pm

    same old nothing.

  7. 7.

    Suffern ACE

    August 12, 2011 at 4:46 pm

    @srv: Yep. Perhaps quite a few people from other neighborhoods were coming in and messing up the joint.

  8. 8.

    Southern Beale

    August 12, 2011 at 4:52 pm

    This isn’t from my blog but someone on Twitter dug into the memory hole and posted The Daily Beast’s political predictions for 2010 which, in hindsight, are hilarious.

  9. 9.

    fhtagn

    August 12, 2011 at 4:53 pm

    Checking out Rick Perry’s views, which are, predictably, in Dixie-doozy-land:

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/12/rick-perry-newsweek-interview-transcript.html

    Whether it’s Social Security, whether it’s Medicaid, whether it’s Medicare. You’ve got $115 trillion worth of unfunded liability in those three. They’re bankrupt. They’re a Ponzi scheme….I think we should have a legitimate, honest, national discussion about Washington’s continuing to spend money we don’t have on programs that we don’t need.

    Earlier this year you told Newsweek that “when the history books are written, I think George W. Bush will go down as … an incredibly good president.”
    I still think that.

  10. 10.

    Violet

    August 12, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    @srv:
    Interesting article. Doesn’t surprise me. The 43 year old organic chef was a little bit of a eyebrow-raiser, though.

    Other than that, I can’t seem to get anything done. The 102 degree weather might be part of it. Dog days of August, for sure. I don’t think it’s ever going to rain again unless it’s a hurricane. I’m trying to make myself go to the gym, but it’s tough to get motivated. At least it’s cool there.

  11. 11.

    Swellsman

    August 12, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    How The Tea Party is Killing Michael Bay.

  12. 12.

    Violet

    August 12, 2011 at 4:57 pm

    @Southern Beale:
    Bwahahahaha! I think they didn’t get a single one right. I guess the Dodd one was a tiny bit right because he chose not to run for his seat again since he’d probably lose. But still. Too funny.

  13. 13.

    goblue72

    August 12, 2011 at 5:01 pm

    haven’t updated in 3 weeks or so, but have a huge backlog of half-finished drink recipe posts. most recent post is mid-July – the ingredients are a pain, but its totally worth it:

    http://barmancometh.wordpress.com/

  14. 14.

    Suffern ACE

    August 12, 2011 at 5:03 pm

    @Violet: Palin kind of got a talk show. Or was that 2009. Although it does say something about our political analysts that they can more acurately predict something like that than other more important things. Perhaps they spend too much time on trivial things and so the muscles involved in predicting trival things are overly developed.

  15. 15.

    gbear

    August 12, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    Ditto cleek.

    Just wasted the whole week discovering that my body & mind think that Buspar is vile, evil, horrible stuff. Stopped taking it yesterday and I’m still reeling. I accomplished about 6 hours worth of work this week and finally just gave up and called in sick today. Ugh.

  16. 16.

    goblue72

    August 12, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    Odd – posted twice but nothing happened. Tried including a link to no effect.

    I have a total backlog of half-finished posts, but my last recipe from mid-July is kick-ass. Ingredients are a pain, but the drink is worth it. Just click on my name.

  17. 17.

    Nancyboy

    August 12, 2011 at 5:04 pm

    @Violet: “Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina will lose their bids for California’s top offices” also turned out to be right.

  18. 18.

    Suffern ACE

    August 12, 2011 at 5:10 pm

    @Nancyboy: Yep. But .200 still gets you sent to the minors unless you have other skills, which our opinionators rarely have.

  19. 19.

    brutishandshort (formerly known as blogbytom)

    August 12, 2011 at 5:12 pm

    Not a whole hell of a lot. But we’re shorthanded this week.

  20. 20.

    reflectionephemeral

    August 12, 2011 at 5:23 pm

    We’re cruising along at about ten posts a day at our place, Poison Your Mind.

    Biggest hit lately was a post from a little while back showing the context, causes, and future projections of the federal debt, in the form of a bunch of charts.

    I was also pleased with myself for the deep-cut allusion in a post the other day, “Thoroughly Postmodern Media,” but no one except me seems to have been too amused.

  21. 21.

    jank_w

    August 12, 2011 at 5:24 pm

    What a nice surprise to visit and to see something I shot here one of my daily reads… thanks Doug for putting up the short. Here’s the shot list from the second day (city scenes/chase), maybe give readers an idea of how a noob like me approached a fairly complicated sequence. http://goo.gl/I1Brg

    Anyway had some real fun making it, and definitely hope everyone enjoys.

  22. 22.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 12, 2011 at 5:25 pm

    I just spent the week at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, and putting aside politics (mostly) and putting on my theatre scholar’s cap, I reviewed the plays I saw: The Homecoming by Harold Pinter, The Merry Wives of Windsor by Shakespeare, and The Misanthrope by Moliere. I also had the good fortune to get copies of my play Can’t Live Without You go on sale at two of the best bookstores in Stratford: Callan Books and Fanfare Books.

    We — as in I and my parents — had an interesting experience clearing Customs at the Ambassador Bridge. Mom bought an antique rug from Afghanistan and we had a ten-minute wait while the officer confirmed that the ban on importing stuff from Afghanistan was lifted in 2002. (He checked the ICE website to find out.) He smiled politely and let us into Detroit.

  23. 23.

    Alwhite

    August 12, 2011 at 5:28 pm

    met with the radiologist today. Apparently the neck is the worst place to have radiation therapy. After two weeks the skin inside starts to slough off and the throat becomes very sore. The tongue swells & taste goes to hell. A week or two later the pain becomes so bad that about 50% get a feeding tube as they can’t eat – and the treatments are only half done. It takes a month or more after they are done before things start back to normal.

    I doubt I will be posting much – somehow my give a shit meter got broken.

  24. 24.

    Mustang Bobby

    August 12, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    @Alwhite: Best wishes, Alwhite.

  25. 25.

    Ol' Dirty DougJ

    August 12, 2011 at 5:31 pm

    @Alwhite:

    met with the radiologist today. Apparently the neck is the worst place to have radiation therapy. After two weeks the skin inside starts to slough off and the throat becomes very sore. The tongue swells & taste goes to hell. A week or two later the pain becomes so bad that about 50% get a feeding tube as they can’t eat – and the treatments are only half done. It takes a month or more after they are done before things start back to normal.

    Good luck! That sounds awful.

  26. 26.

    cleek

    August 12, 2011 at 5:36 pm

    @Alwhite:
    whew. best wishes.

    i have a friend who just got done with radiation a couple weeks ago (on his upper chest), and he had the same problem. luckily, it seems to heal up quickly, once you’re done. hang in there.

  27. 27.

    JPL

    August 12, 2011 at 5:36 pm

    @Alwhite: OH..I am so sorry and all I can do is hope that you are among the 50 percent who doesn’t need a feeding tube. That sucks.

  28. 28.

    Dee Loralei

    August 12, 2011 at 5:38 pm

    @Alwhite: Thoughts and prayers. Take care of yourself. And all the best.

  29. 29.

    reflectionephemeral

    August 12, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    @Alwhite: Goodness gracious. Hang in there, Alwhite. Best of luck with everything in the next few weeks.

  30. 30.

    Jason T.

    August 12, 2011 at 5:40 pm

    What’s going on in your blog or editing room?

    De-industrialization, antique ravioli forms, local politics, churches being demolished, water rate hikes … in other words, the usual!

  31. 31.

    Jason T.

    August 12, 2011 at 5:42 pm

    @Alwhite: A good friend had a similar experience. The treatments, thank dog, eventually end. He found that listening to his favorite music made them slightly more palatable, as did artificial saliva drops. He wound up writing a list of “what to do” for other patients that I can send to you if you like … email me at j togyer at gmail.

    Take care and hang in there!

  32. 32.

    Ruckus

    August 12, 2011 at 5:43 pm

    @Alwhite:

    Good luck.

    Don’t read the rest of this unless you have a dark, sick, warped sense of life/humor

    Sometimes the cure seems to be worse than the disease, until you remember the crappy ride till you get to what the end result of the disease is. Then not so bad.

  33. 33.

    Amir Khalid

    August 12, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    @fhtagn:
    Rick Perry’s performance in the interview is facepalm-worthy. He can’t get his story straight. He gets called on his inconsistencies more than once — over Reagan, over George W., over Congress’ authority to legislate healthcare reform for the country. At one point, unable to think of an answer, he just clams up. He comes off as a student who hasn’t done his homework.

    This man is the latest to be touted as the likely Republican nominee for President. I can already see him getting his clock cleaned by Obama in the TV debate. And then being declared the winner by Mark Halperin because he didn’t come off as an arrogant know-it-all. But this interview only shows that his party still hasn’t found a candidate who can beat Obama on merit.

  34. 34.

    JPL

    August 12, 2011 at 5:51 pm

    @Alwhite: If you want to blog and just bitch, I hope you know we are here. I don’t think the front pagers will mind you going off topic.. blog friends are the best…btw..

  35. 35.

    jacy

    August 12, 2011 at 5:54 pm

    @Alwhite:

    Yikes. Best wishes for a speedy recovery and hopes that things go better than expected.

  36. 36.

    Amir Khalid

    August 12, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    @Alwhite:
    Is there anyone (spouse, SO, family, close friend) who’ll be with you and help you bear the burden of recovery? I do hope so. Make sure you get that to-do list from Jason T. Do take care, and get well again soon.

  37. 37.

    j low

    August 12, 2011 at 6:18 pm

    I recently gave a try at writing an old fashioned protest song ala Woodie Guthrie. I think it came out partly right.

    http://youtu.be/nlv6deYZSiw

  38. 38.

    srv

    August 12, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    @Alwhite: Stay strong and get well!

  39. 39.

    Dee Loralei

    August 12, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    @jank_w: I enjoyed your short.

    @j low: Song made me giggle and hum along.

  40. 40.

    Ben Cisco (mobile)

    August 12, 2011 at 7:26 pm

    Haven’t done much, still new to the blogging bit. Mostly post links to things that catch my eye or videos that say what I’m thinking. Want to dive in and post some stuff on the nonsense going on.

  41. 41.

    Michael Bersin

    August 12, 2011 at 8:02 pm

    I’m working on a transcript of Rep. Vicky Hartzler’s (r) August 10th town hall in Warrensburg, Missouri. There was significant pushback against the teabagger agenda from those in attendance. Having attended and covered four of Sen. Claire McCaskill’s health care town halls in Missouri in 2009 in which the level of derangement among teabaggers in attendance was a 7 on a scale from 1 to 10 where 1 is sitting quietly with a Stepford smile and 10 is emptying an AK-47 into the audience I was surprised that the significant number of non-teabaggers in attendance managed a 2 or 3 in intensity.

    The really interesting part was listening to a self identified “independent” chastise those who were vocally challenging the right wingnut talking points of Missouri’s version of Michele Bachmann for being rude.

    Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): town halls in Clinton and Warrensburg

    Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): town hall in Warrensburg, part 1

    Rep. Vicky Hartzler (r): town hall in Warrensburg, part 2

    Thirty minutes down and another thirty minutes to go…

  42. 42.

    Jo Hunt

    August 12, 2011 at 9:47 pm

    Hey, I’m a regular reader, mostly a lurker, but I co-own a video production company based in Nashville and we do a wide range of cool videos and series – here’s a little promo video we just put together (it makes no literal sense but it may make you smile)

    http://www.vimeo.com/26815736

  43. 43.

    Alwhite

    August 12, 2011 at 10:35 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    Yes thanks, wife & kids, brothers & sisters. But having been through a previous medical trial (I fractured my pelvis a few years back)I have to say that the support group can sometimes be a drag too. Heres a tip on that score: sometimes you can’t do anything to make the person feel better, its not your fault & trying harder may not be the answer. But then, maybe thats just me; when I’m sick I prefer to be left alone.

  44. 44.

    Steeplejack

    August 13, 2011 at 12:02 am

    @Alwhite:

    That sucks. You will be in my thoughts.

  45. 45.

    Paul

    August 13, 2011 at 4:43 am

    Here is some commentary on a moronic (is there any other kind) Victor David Hanson article

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