Public Access TV Stuff

Apparently our city manager, Tom Barwin, decided to look for greener pastures after only one year in Oak Park. He interviewed in Boulder, CO for the city manager position there. He ended up not being chosen for the position, although he did come in second place. Everything I've read and seen about Barwin has impressed me, so I'm happy that he's staying for a little while longer at least.

While reading up on this story, I found it interesting that Boulder, CO public access tv is available live on-line (www.boulderchannel8.com). I'm not sure how much work it would take to put Oak Park TV on-line, but it seems like something worthwhile to do.

Rogaine Song

We were driving home from our favorite place when Kelly pointed out the Rogaine song that came on the radio. Now, I almost always have NPR on the radio when I drive, so it was only because Kelly was in the car with me that we were listening to music instead. For the first time, I heard almost the entire length of the song (I've heard short snippets before), and I immediately found the lyrics quirky and captivating.

I probably spent the next few hours at home surfing the web finding out all about the singer, Ingrid Michaelson. Her rise from obscurity is really amazing and epitomizes the way that the internet is changing all aspects of our life. She starts out with a myspace site and ends up with her music on Grey's Anatomy and one of the top downloads on iTunes.

More Blogginess

I've always been a gloom and doom kind of person. I remember being unable to sleep at night in the early eighties (during high school) worried about the Federal deficit. I suppose I prefer to be pleasantly surprised when my predictions of disaster fail to come true than painfully disappointed. Thus, I'm morbidly fascinated by the current economic crisis as well as the more long-term crisis of peak oil. Two blogs I've discovered recently help me get my doom and disaster fix. Calculated Risk is a finance and economics blog which these days is documenting the horros of the housing collapse, as well as the foolishness which led to the collapse. The Oil Drum blog discusses energy and the future of energy (ie Peak Oil). To complete the trifecta, I probably should find a blog dedicated to global warming.

White Stuff

While on the subject of ethnic parodies, I stumbled across this website. Its freakin' hilarious. I know people who pretty much fit these criteria perfectly. I find myself liking 25 of the current 86 items listed. That makes me 29% white. I suspect I may be more white than Kelly.

Don't get around much anymore

Its cold outside, we've got a baby, and truthfully, the desire to go out has decreased. For all these reasons I find myself staying in all the time these days. I guess that means I have no excuse for not blogging :) Kelly has done an admirable job keeping the baby blog up to date, but I can't muster up the same determination. Part of that is laziness, and part of it is the desire to maintain some degree of privacy (not that anyone is reading this!)

These days I do much of my traveling online, while lying on our surprisingly comfortable, but cheap, couch. I've discovered Facebook, and while I don't use it like the teens do, Ive found it to be a nice, useful application for keeping in touch with friends we don't see very often (which is pretty much everyone.)

Other must check sites:
www.dailykos.com
www.talkingpointsmemo.com
www.washingtonmonthly.com
www.atrios.blogspot.com
www.andrewsullivan.com
www.macsurfer.com
www.slashdot.org
www.chicagotribune.com
www.wjinc.com
www.city-data.com

I read alot of other sites, but these are my must check ones. I find myself using my iPhone alot when stuck in line somewhere. Roughly speaking, these sites can be categorized as political, tech, news (local), and urban issues which pretty much summarizes my interests these days.