Jun
23
Only in F-L-A: I see stupid people
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Florida Police End Dirty ‘Grills’ Dentistry
Clerk Urinates in Soda
Jun
21
Onward
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At 6/21/2006 6:54 AM, joey marchy said…Wow, thanks for this great analysis of the article in yesterday’s Times-Union. Sure some things were off and I feel bad that this article pissed a lot of the long-term Jacksonville bloggers off.
I plan to link to this evaluation in a post today.
At 6/21/2006 1:03 PM, joey marchy said…
I have started an official list of Jacksonville bloggers. Can you help spread the word? This will be a great way to organize us all for a blogging meet up!
http://www.urbanjacksonville.info/2006/06/21/tu-blog-article-dust-up/
You just did. Sounds like a good idea.
————
Should have a trip report in a day or two covering our visit to the Jax Zoo.
Jun
20
Jacksonville.com: Bloggers in Duval proclaim their role
Filed Under Uncategorized | 3 Comments
*Note: If you’re interested in Jacksonville Blogs, visit the link to the original article. They list several from a variety of niches.
From The Florida Times-Union:
June 20, 2006
Bloggers in Duval proclaim their roleBy CHARLIE PATTON
The Times-UnionJoey Marchy says he was a member of the school newspaper staff during his years at Stanton College Preparatory School.
But Marchy, Class of ‘95, doesn’t remember ever writing a story. He just liked to hang out in the newspaper office.
When he went to the University of North Florida, Marchy studied information systems. He makes his living as a computer programmer for nGen Works, a Web development firm in Jacksonville.
In his spare time, he practices an emerging form of journalism called blogging.
But Marchy, 28, doesn’t call himself a journalist.
“I don’t fact-check,” he said. “I don’t get credentials.”
A blog, short for weblog, is an online dated journal listing periodic essays, often on a specific topic that usually provides links to other news sources.
Marchy, who launched his blog, “Urban Jacksonville,” last June, got pretty fired up about the role bloggers now play in the dissemination of news when, in early April, he posted his “Urban Manifesto:”
“This city needs to wake up and realize that WE ARE THE NEW MEDIA,” he wrote. “WE the bloggers of Jacksonville, WE the people who post comments on message boards and more so, we members of this community have a right to expose what is going on behind the curtain. I am talking about all of us, the citizens of this community. We have a right to report, publish and comment on any story that is news to us.”
I visited Urban Jacksonville to read this comment in context because, frankly, it came across as immodest at a minimum, delusional at it’s worst. My wife said, “Wow, he sure sounds arrogant!” My kneejerk reaction was that if you need to “wake up” a city to make them aware of you, then you’re NOT the new media. In the context of the actual post, however, Marchy was defending the right of a citizen, who happened to be a message board poster, to contact contact public officials listed in public records and ask questions. I won’t bother with re-hashing the original issue. Regardless, taking the comment out of context probably did a disservice to Marchy. I, for one, was immediately turned off, and I’m probably as serious or moreso that Marchy about my blogs. I can only imagine what the uninformed reader will think. Anyway, get over and read it in context.
Tsk, tsk, Mr. Reporter.
I won’t bother analyzing the rest of the article. It was generally a positive article about the little man staking out a place to make his voice heard on any number of subjects. There were a couple of statements made with no supporting facts (”What blogs can do is have influence. People are paying attention to Marchy’s Urban Jacksonville…” Um, okay - which people? How were they influenced? - Not saying this is inaccurate, but to make a declaration without pointing to examples isn’t great journalism. Of course, what do I know, I’m a blogger and not bound by facts or reality. 
)… but we won’t go there.
Oops. Too late.
Anyway, that’s it for the article. Moving on to this:…
Even though Stephen Dare contends Metro Jacksonville is a blog, it does not allow readers to comment and participate in the conversation taking place on the website. This fact alone, prevents it from being classified as a blog. Enable comments, you have a blog.
Jeff Price’s blogTower of C, while it has the characteristics of a blog, it is actually a podcast. The only content is weekly audio post…
Now, THIS is arrogant. I’ve noticed that bloggers that begin to build audiences for themselves start taking blogging WAY too seriously. It’s usually somewhere between the 6th and 12th month of the blog.
Enabling comments makes you a blog? Some of the most widely read blogs in my other blogrolls disabled comments. For people like these, I imagine they tired of the “voices” all the time. I’ve disabled my comments on one of my other blogs once or twice also - the problem with blogging in a niche where the readers have disposable income and a willingness to gamble with it brings out the spammers in waves and some don’t care about comment moderation - there’s money to be made.
I’ve checked out metrojax.com, and there are certainly arguments to be made that would hold more water than “enable comments”. There’s ALOT going at that site. However, right there on the front page are a number of photographs and text entries listed in reverse chronological order. Updated more frequently than some blogs I follow.
As for “Tower of C”… I see a site with textual event listings and podcasts. Information of interest to the author, maybe to an audience, distributed and presented in reverse chronological fashion. Looks like a blog. Is it the audio? So, pictures are ok, but audio isn’t…
I don’t think it’s ever a good idea for bloggers to start eating their young with ‘that’s not a blog’ declarations. No two people are going to have the same opinion about what a blog is or isn’t, nor about the quality of good blogs versus bad blogs. Blogs come in many shapes and sizes, and the variety is as great as the number of individuals and organizations that use them. Seems to me I read something very similar somewhere:
My favorite quote from the article comes from Nick Strate of Ricotta Park. He says:
What’s so interesting about it right now is that you can really shape the form. There are not really standards, not really rules.
And this is so true and why blogging in Jacksonville is so exciting.
Ahem.
Finally, I find it odd when people link to wiki definitions to make a point, without going a step further (”… it is actually a podcast.”). How about this wiki definition:
A weblog, which is usually shortened to blog, is a website where regular entries are made (such as in a journal or diary) and presented in reverse chronological order. Blogs often offer commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. Most blogs are primarily textual although many focus on photographs, videos or audio…
Although blogs are typically a text medium, there are also non-text versions such as audioblogs (sometimes known as podcasts), photoblogs and videoblogs (aka vlogs).
Or this one:
Audioblogging is a variant on the blogging trend of online self-publishing, using audio to reach the audience instead of text used by traditional blogs. Audioblogs have similar form as blogs, using post-based entries cataloged by time and date. There is usually a title and brief description, but the bulk of content is in the linked audio file. Usually audioblogs are MP3 format, but occasionally in Ogg Vorbis, AAC, or Macromedia Flash formats.
Jun
20
Restaurant Review: Amici’s in St. Augustine
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Time for another restaurant review.
My wife and I had the opportunity to go out - on a Saturday night - without kids - for an actual dinner date. Wonders never cease!
We made the drive to St. Augustine to try Amici’s Italian Restaurant. For 7:00 pm on a Saturday night, we were surprised they were able to seat us right away. This is either a very good sign or a very bad sign.
There were several large parties in our section due to Father’s Day celebrations. Our server was nowhere to be found, and we had to wait almost 15 minutes before anyone acknowledged us. When she arrived, my wife actually said something along the lines of, “Oh, we were just about to leave.” Very unlike her, she’s usually telling me to say something.
The server apologized profusely, took our order, and hustled off to get drinks and salads. She brought them back right away, and her timing and attentiveness was fine for the rest of the evening. The caesar salad was excellent - fresh, leafy romaine, with a dressing that tasted great, without drowning the lettuce.
I enjoyed the Lasagna, while my wife had Chicken Sorrentino. The red sauce on the lasagna was tasty, and the portion was plentiful. My wife loved the chicken, but could only finish half. Dessert was a cannoli and tiramisu. I’ve had better cannoli’s, and the tiramisu was good but could have used a little more… something. I don’t know what, but it was fine nonetheless. Just didn’t blow us away the way the entree did.
Regardless, I can heartily recommend Amici’s.
Jun
16
From the “There ought to be a law” file: Just say to no to droopy drawers
From the “We’ll just get the taxpayers to handle it” file: You need $145,000 more than we do
Jun
15
From: Florida Cracker: Red Touch Yellow, Kill A Fellow
Jun
15
As a novice and amateur when it comes to writing book reviews, I expect I am going to make some mistakes. Case in point: While reading Deadman’s Bluff, James Swain’s continuation of the story begun in Deadman’s Poker, I got so caught up in the story that I did not stop periodically and take notes about what I liked or didn’t like about the story.
Quick read? Oh yeah.
So, going back to re-visit the story is not THAT big of a deal.
The basic plot remains the same: the fictional World Poker Showdown is in the process of being won by cheaters, and Tony Valentine is on the case. The Vegas story arc picks up in the latter stages of the tournament with the blind nephew of an Atlantic City mob boss cheating to build a massive lead going into the final days. The method used to cheat begins to become more apparent, and Gerry goes to Atlantic City to trace the leads back to a friend, murdered in the earlier book. While there, Gerry gets involved in busting a blackjack-cheating ring run by the same mob boss. Tony continues to apply pressure to the tournament cheater, and between the two of them the action brings the story to a very satisfying conclusion.
Along the way, Swain continues to entertain and inform us through comic-relief Rufus Steele, an old-time hustler modeled after Amarillo Slim. Rufus continues to build a massive bankroll through a series of scams and hustles and gets paid off every time despite angle-shooting that pushes the ethical edge. These sequences are great training for inventive bar bets.
You will have to read Deadman’s Poker before you read Deadman’s Bluff; the two books cannot be read separately or out of order. But both books represent a great continuation in the Tony Valentine series.
More "Book Reviews" Posts
- Book Review: Deadman’s Poker by James Swain
- Book Review: Deadman’s Bluff by James Swain
Jun
13
Only in F-L-A: Bandit Tales
Filed Under Humor, Only in FLA | Leave a Comment
Miami police apprehend bank robber who fled in cab
but…
The Band-Aid Bandit Lives On!!! Viva el Bandito!!!
Visit my other blogs: My Weight-Loss Blog & My Poker Blog
Jun
10
Hurricane Information
Filed Under Storms | Leave a Comment
I used to maintain a blog for hurricane tracking. Honestly, I hated it. I felt ‘obliged’ to keep up with it during storms. When this year’s first storm hit, all I could think about was “not again…”.
I set it up originally because I was tired of hunting for information every time there was a storm, so I wanted to aggregate all of my links and information into one place. As more sites add RSS feed, though, I’ve been tracking information through my bloglines account. As I started cutting-and-pasting things into blog posts for the hurricane blog, I said to myself, “Self, you’re stupid.”
So, I deleted it.
If anyone reading this needs information, here’s an RSS feed for the National Hurricane Center:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index-at.xml
Use it to subscribe in your favorite RSS reader. I use bloglines.
As I come across more feeds, I’ll post them here. But, I’m not going to be keeping up with storm information, nor littering the sidebars with linkrolls to weather sites. I just don’t have the interest in maintaining and keeping up with it all anymore, and I like for blogging to be a hobby I love, not a chore to which I am obligated.
Visit my other blogs: My Weight-Loss Blog & My Poker Blog
Jun
8
Judge Orders ‘Rock-Paper-Scissors’ To Settle Dispute
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WFTV.com - News - Judge Orders ‘Rock-Paper-Scissors’ To Settle Dispute
Only in Florida…!
