802 Online

What the warm weather means to my friend Jeff, the gay gun nut:

It's finally Spring here in Vermont. While most folks' thoughts turn towards the opposite sex, mine turn towards guns (I'm a little weird that way...). The local range I belong to has just opened for the season. I finally have a weekend off. And, astoundingly, I actually have a little spending money; about $500. I have not bought a gun in two years and damn-it, this Saturday I'm gonna' walk into some gun store and walk out with one...

Here's a story I wrote about him last fall for Out In The Mountains.

Just got this email from Jessamyn, tech teacher and librarian blogger from Bethel:

Hey there -- I just noticed that the Randolph Herald now has RSS feeds for their news.

See the link on the lower left side. Amazing. I may be wrong, but I think
they'e only the second newspaper in VT to do this.

I just double-checked, and it looks like neither the Freep or the RH/TA have RSS. I could have sworn the RH/TA had it. So looks like the The County Courier is the only one that I know of.

Anybody know of others?

FYI — my blog has a feed, and I write for 7D, so that kinda counts. We're working on getting feeds for our other features.

Combining two features in one!

Here again in the dank cave Radio Bean Coffeehouse on a sunny Friday afternoon. I'm intrigued by this podcasting thing. For those still in the dark, here's an explanation from Montpelier-based web consultant Michael Martine. Here again with Bill Simmon, Greg Giordano, Matt G. Paradise, and Jesse Krembs.

But enough about podcasting. You can read more about this show, Friday Coffeeblogging here. Incidentally, I took the picture on that website.

Let me tell you, instead, about the glorious free wi-fi connection at Radio Bean. Owner Lee Anderson says people use it all the time. "Usually, during the day, you see two, three, four, five people in here working on their laptops," he says. "There's not many people at night, probably because of the music." Anderson says they used to have ethernet jacks for customers to plug into, but they got rid of them. "They were kind of a pain," he says.

Now he splits the cost of the wi-fi network with his upstairs neighbor. Customers can use it for free, but they're invited to drop a few bucks in the donation jar on the counter. "It never quite covers it," he says, "but it helps."

The mustachoed rebel entrepreneur says it's mostly professional types who use the service. He uses it on his desktop upstairs, but doesn't have a computer to drag with him to coffeeshops. "I always wonder what the hell everybody's doing," he says. "How much time can you spend online? It baffles me."

Photo: L-R Lee Anderson, Greg Giordano, Bill Simmon, Jesse Krembs, Matt G. Paradise.

You don't usually go to a yarn shop to meet bloggers — unless you're going to a book signing by a knitter/blogger, like Stephanie "Yarn Harlot" Pearl-McPhee. Then you can expect to spot at least a few.

Pearl-McPhee stopped by Kaleidoscope Yarns in Essex Junction today to sign copies of At Knits End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much. Williston knitter/blogger Margot Schips bought five copies. St. Albans knitter/blogger Norma Miller already has at least one.

The two cyber scribes already knew each other, though they didn't realize it at first. "Hi, I'm Norma," said Miller. "I'm Margot," said Schips. Then the light-bulbs went off. "Oh! You're Now Norma Knits!, Hi!" "Oh," said Miller. "Margot!" They hugged.

"This is what happens when bloggers meet," quipped Pearl-McPhee. "It's like, someone walks up and says 'Hi, I'm Bruce Wayne,' and then he says, 'oh, and I'm also —" Miller interrupted. "Superman!" she said. "Batman," corrected Pearl-McPhee. "She knows her bloggers, just not her cartoon guys."

Pearl-McPhee, who lives in Toronto, said her blog has undoubtedly driven her book sales. She's sold 80,000 copies so far — "that's enough for like, a revolution, or a cult," she noted. She said she sold 60,000 of those copies before the book tour even started, just by announcing the book on her blog. Pearl-McPhee will be staying at Miller's house tonight — they're friends; they met through blogging — and the two will be having a big blog-a-thon with a New York knitter/blogger who's also staying with them.

Blog-less bystander Helen Soule, who just came because she likes to knit, was intrigued by this offline manifestation of online community. "I feel like I'm getting a glimpse of this underworld I've never seen," she said. Soule conceeds that she'll probably start a blog before long. "I feel like it's one of those inevitable things that will happen at some point," she said.

I actually have more to write, but I have to take a break to attend the Tropical Fish Breeders meeting at the Burlington VFW. Never a dull moment for me.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the coverage in the Burlington Free Press. It's a nice article, but no picture online, and none of their links work, except for the one that lets you email the writer, Victoria Welch.

Picture, L-R: Norma Miller, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Margot Schips

Got an email the other day from Michael Martine, a Montpelier-based web designer and self-described "internet evangelist." I added him to the Vermont blogroll, and thought I'd share some of his thoughts, since they pretty much mirror my own. I'm sure he won't object to the publicity.

"I feel that blogs and their attendant technologies, like RSS and especially podcasting, are strong matches with the Vermont character," he writes, "they're more human, down-to-earth and conversational (like a farmer's market). Plus [they display] a healthy DIY ethic. Many activists have lamented the consolidation of media, including the difficulties of small radio stations. Blogs and podcasting really take a lot of strife out of that struggle because traditional media outlets are no longer needed at all."

I disagree with that last statement about traditional media not being needed — I think there's still value in "old media," at least until "new media" starts hiring skilled reporters to provide reliable news coverage — but I think these new technologies can provide healthy competition for newspapers that have become stodgy and complacent (cough...Burlington Free Press...cough). In other words, a lively, dynamic local blogosphere is good for all of us.

FYI, Martine's written a good blogging primer for folks who are still scratching their heads, wondering what the heck this blogging thing's all about. It's geared toward business owners, but it's useful for others as well.

Look which Vermont bloggers pop up as the first Google search result for pathetic star wars dweebs need to get a life.

Those are just some of the contributors to Arianna Huffington's new celeb/j-blog/citizen journalism site, which launched today. In the mission statement, up in the corner of the page, Huffington addresses readers: "Welcome to the Huffington Post, which, as our motto says, has been delivering news and opinion since, well, a few hours ago." There's also a blog attached to the site, which includes commentary from Russell Simmons, Max Blumenthal, and Jonah Paretti.

Ok, so the celebs are the big draw, right? But I'm more interested in Paretti. He's a clever and provacative troublemaker, associated with Eyebeam, which I think is a nonprofit think tank. Its website says it "engages in cultural dialogue at the intersection of the arts and the sciences."

You might recognize Paretti from that anti-sweatshop Nike campaign a few years back. Nike had this campaign where they were going to let you order your shoes with your name printed on them, and Paretti asked to have the word "sweatshop" printed on them. I saw a live exchange between him and this spokesman from Nike on the Today show. It was brilliant! I've been a fan ever since.

Paretti is also involved with Contagious Media, which produced Fundrace.org, an extremely helpful database that tracks political contributions by street address, The Rejection Line, which you just have to check out for yourselves, and this hilarious satirical site about a fictional white couple and their many black friends.

In short, this Huffington project should be very interesting. It's the first large-scale celebrity-run offensive against traditional media, so it's sure to attract a lot of attention. Which means a lot more people are going to start learning about blogs.

Bad news for the info-obsessed. "Endless messaging rots brain worse than pot, study finds". So says a story in Wednesday's SF Chronicle, also on BBC News UK. Researchers call this email addiction "info-mania." Thanks to Beginner's Mind for the link.

The woman responsible for The 8th Nerve has moved to Milton. I got hooked on her blog when she revealed that she shared my Alias DVD addiction. Here's her second post about life in her new home town, 20 minutes from Burlington. It's called Redneck Radar. But she means that in a good way.

Morgan Brown from Norsehorse's Home Turf wrote Tuesday about the new Rutland Herald/Times Argus online features. He links to a national list of j-blogs, and encourages the RH/TA to add a group blog to their site.

As you probably know, the RH/TA already has a Statehouse blogger, Darren Hall of Hall Monitor. But you can't post comments directly on his blog. You can, however, post in forums that they've enabled. I don't see many people on the forums, though. Anybody used them yet? What do you think? I think it's a step in the right direction, but still a little clunky. Ernesto Burden, their new media manager, is likely looking for your input. We've thought about putting them up at 7D, but I think we're leaning more towards enabling comments on the stories themselves.

This is part of a larger discussion about how newspapers in Vermont are integrating online features into their operations. Seems like the RH/TA has taken the lead, in terms of the large dailies, at least as far as interactivity is concerned. My favorite VT newspaper site, though (sorry Seven Days!) belongs to The County Courier up in Franklin County. They've got RSS feeds and comments enabled on all of their stories. Kinda unexpected for a small weekly in a tight-knit, rural part of the state.