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One Swell Foop: Content, context, comment, connections and comic reliefpresents...
Blog, Blog, Blog...
a much-too-inside weblog for webloggers
 
All questions, complaints, suggestions, compliments or expressions of apathy are being accepted at oneswellfoop@mail.com
 
LEFT BRAIN
 
SITE ATLAS
ø Home and Deranged

Blog Archive
ø 10/99, the innocent webyear

Backdoor Archive
ø the experiment
ø the hack

Foop Disclosure:
ø The FYSAQ
ø 8 by 10 Glossary
The Disclaimery (soon)
My-ography (later)

OXY2K, the Official Unauthorized Oxymoron List of the Millenium (under construction)

Murphy's Law Library (in development)

Private Portal
ø foopnews from moreover
ø Search Me!

 
The Foop has...
Epinions

ø NEW: Food Is A Four-Letter Word

ø The Truth About Minneapolis

ø NBC: The "Law & Order" Network

ø Eagles May Soar, But Weasels Never Get Sucked Into Jet Engines

ø BUT SERIOUSLY: The President's Analyst Knows Too Much

Want to get paid for your epinion? Click here.
 
   
Monday, November 29, 1999
Things continue to go crazy in the Weblog Nation, so I've been laying back for a while. I've got a site redesign in the works which will change everything AGAIN. I'm finally ready to post my Oxymoron List, the OXY2K (current count: 2245, but I'm going to edit some out), right after the Day Without Weblogs - I may allow it to take over the front page for a couple days, depending on how ready the redesign is. And just because you know I'm participating in the DW2, doesn't mean there'll be nothing to see here on Wednesday... it just means it'll be annoyingly serious. Also, I have decided to actively campaign for a position on the Bloat Top 10, so stay tuned for some silliness there.
Thanks to Rog the unobutt-of-many-jokes, for his more-than-kind words about my ongoing attempts at creativity here in FoopTown, even if it was in the context of ragging on the Cam-plainer. His anti-camrant is consistant with my definition of Advantium Oven writing: not flaming, but cooking with light, so more power to him, and remember, when you visit his site, DON'T FEED THE ANIMALS!!!.
Monday, November 22, 1999
The Beebo Top 50 finally prompted me to make a change in my link list. Dropped a few I really don't refer to ever; sorted out my favorites into a Neighbors category (but there are a couple more I may upgrade from the vague acquaintences category). All the to-do about blog lists, from the Beebo rankings to the The Bloat 10, and the battle between Winer and Sabren over update lists (and I'm still throwing out false positives for updates and will continue to do so as long as I allow the Pod People to embed ads on me). And the only time Robot Wiseguy ever linked to the Foop was about me noting the epinions IDs of bloggers. I had been thinking of adding more sub-script-like codes; if I'd started earlier, I'd have noted all the bloggers who praised Iron Giant with an ig. But I gave up that whole thing when I got bogged down noting posters to the egroups board with weg. Is one requirement to be a weblogger a diagnosed case of obsessive-compulsive disorder??? Well, right now my to-do list is as follows: (1) play pop-culture catch-up and see The Matrix on video (no, haven't seen it... what? it's a prerequisite for doing a weblog? that's why I call myself "resident alien of the weblog nation", thank you Quentin Crisp). (2) move furniture including the desk my McGuyver 5000 computer is in (should result in at least 3-days system downtime). (3) finish putting together the OXY2K oxymoron list for posting (before the clever title becomes totally dated). (4) redesign whole site to debut right after the Day Without Weblogs. If I made a promise like that to Mrs. Foop, she'd "Yeah, right" me right off the planet. Stay tuned.
Is nobody going to join in on my Webloggers Adopt an Ex-Celebrity campaign? Just asking. Blogger makes it too easy to post things like this.
I just realized that the last paragraph of my "but seriously folks" review of The President's Analyst on epinions is ONE humongous run-on sentence! (And I could have easily added the last sentence of the previous paragraph to it without any noticable change in shaggy-dogged-ness)
And I also just realized that I first heard the word "humongous" when a radio ad for a waterbed store coined the word and made it part of their repetitive copy ("in the humongous blue building") until long after anyone cared. But they did succeed in getting it into the lexicon. My radio mentor did the same thing with the word "whippo", but it never got as humongous as "humongous". That's why I hope I can get some traction with the 8 by 10 Glossary, but I wish I had a better title.
Wednesday, November 17, 1999
Just a quick note to admit, yes, I changed my mind again and moved the formerly-"Right Brain" material formerly-"OneTwo" page back to a seperate page. I'm testing out (can ya guess) Blogger to maintain it, because I desperately need something to speed up the posting process, especially when I, like the last few days, had OTHER THINGS TO WRITE! (That's a combination of words I did NOT expect to type during the first two months of the Foop).
November 16, 1999
Note to Giles the Linkwatcher: The Tripod-embedded ads seem to be triggering the appearance that the Foop has bene updated when it hasn't. I'm not the only one this is happening to, but I just want it made known - I'm not doing it on purpose. Forcing myself to the top of the update list? I haven't sunk that low... yet.


November 16, 1999
Out of this World
The day I always dreaded has come... I have incurred the Rath of Cam. He took special offense to my "fake hack", especially the part which notes his site, among others, as better hacking targets than mine. I admit I crossed the line with that, and removed the line right after he objected. (As I said before, I admire/fear him because he's like an Advantium oven: he doesn't flame, he cooks you with light) But as for the whole issue of "high-profile hackers", I feel he takes it too seriously; he feels I don't take it seriously enough, and so has dropped me from his list of 'blogs.
Of course, that now makes me free to do other things that would offend the Unhappy Cam-per. Maybe a fake alert for a virus with a REALLY cute name, like "I KISS YOU!!!!". (No, that's already been done.) Maybe I can campaign openly for a place on the Bloat Top Ten. Hey, I can be boring, pretentious and incoherent... if I try. Or, maybe I'll just pick up on Cam's own idea last month to create a "Parody Portal", add web hoaxes to it, and call it SCAMWORLD. (I'm never gonna get back on that list).
On the other hand, the "hack" did get linked by YahooLife's Net Buzz. Now, I know a lot of 'bloggers won't consider that an even trade, but I believe in dancin' with the one what brought you, and I was surfing to Steve Knopper the Buzz Boy's page before I ever discovered "real" 'blogs. In fact, I might not have discovered the Weblog Nation if not for his referencing The Obscure Storyteller and The Robot Wiseguy. So, thanks again to the new Steverino. Now, how about linking my Minneapolis epinion?


November 11, 1999
Uh oh, the Laker has found me out. I'm spending so much time with my foot in my mouth I may never need toenail clippers again...
So, here's what I MEANT to say about the Laddy in the Lake: When I first discovered your blog, it was hard for me to read - some of the colors of lettering on the dark blue background didn't work - and it took a couple weeks before it got a lot better, and it is! My criticism was in the PAST tense, and I only noticed the change because I kept coming back for the content, in spite of the trouble reading.
Now, as for your comments about the Foop, you were so ON-target, I felt my nose light up! I confess, you nailed my "style" right on its little rub-on letter-head.
The last time I had total design control over anything was a newsletter in the days of rub-on lettering. I fell madly and sinfully in love with Bookman Bold Italic with its alternate characters with "swash", especially the "W" and "Y", which gave a custom look to the plain title for "Wendell's Weakly". I'm still addicted to Bookman, as the main logo shows, as well as the default font for the center column, Bookman Old Style, which comes with Microsoft Office, of all things.
My patchwork quilt style is an example of "form follows dys-function", because of the anal-retentive everything-in-a-table format trying to hold in my Groucho-Marxist-anarchist writing style with different colors for different elements, and as for the color choices... (did you say Whole Earth Catalogs?) if it weren't for browser-safe colors, the Foop would be totally earthtones (and why are most of the browser-safes so UN-earthtone?)
But if you think my site looks arful now, a week ago I mysteriously got an extra copy of the Pod People from the Planet Lycos newsletter, and realized that a Tripe-site I had opened two years ago to learn HTML, made a garish home page with non-links to pages I never made, and then abandoned... IT LIVES!!!
Go ahead... laugh at it... but you have to admit, I've gotten better!

One other note: until I started shooting off my cybermouth here, I had not gotten any critique of my site design from anybody, publicly or privately, positive or negative, and I get the feeling I'm not alone. Maybe if I say something else outrageous, it'll open up some discussion... Hmmmmm...


November 8, 1999
WOWSERS!
In the technological arms race among "metabloggers" to provide the most definitive resource to webloggers and their hardcore followers, Linkwatcher has leapfrogged to the head of the class. First, he starts checking other blogs for changes and generates an update list in his left column, then he sets up a multi-blog search engine, now he's refined the update list to show the hour he found the update. (Funny thing, though, I last updated at 2AM PST, but he didn't find my udate until 10:30AM EST/7:30AM PST... I'll test him now by adding this at 10:15AM PST/1:15PM EST) And now, check his 11/3 listing for a plan for a "micropayment/patronage scheme for funding weblogs". Let's think about that one. The Egroup has been talking about weblog aggregation schemes, but we may wake up one morning and discover this mad coder has gone and done it! Let's just hope he doesn't turn into another Emperor Gates when he conquers the Weblog Nation.


November 8, 1999
Open E-Mail to the Meddler
All I meant to say was I believe you ARE the Molly Ivins of Weblogging. I even was inspired to find a Molly Ivens book at BookCloseOuts.com to highlight; yes, it's an affiliate deal, and I have anguished over some of my crass dot-commercialism, and I'm going to explain myself to the purists like you and the Lookie-Loo in a post to the Egroup. (By the way, they've got ONE copy left of Molly's Good Times Ahead audiobook for $3.99. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
I wanted to thank you as I have others who've put appreciative words into cyberprint for me. I am semi-ashamed that, in spite of checking your blog daily, I missed your first mention of the Foop until a week later (another example of the pants problem I mentioned in the 11/5 entry), but then, you DID misspell it (FWOOP?!?) (You also misspelled a link to WimVig once that changed the domain name from gooddeed.net to goodDEAD.net, LMSpleenO) But, hay, my speling's not prefect ether.
And I was within a few keystrokes of responding to your plaintive plea for support against the EmperorCam leaving you off his linklist, about to tell the whole cyberworld your blog does NOT suck, when I looked, saw your new blue & purple background, felt my eyes AND ears ache, and thought, "well, maybe it does..." But let me congratulate you on a strong recovery, making that high-risk, high-eyestrain color scheme readable in about 3 days (It took LochNess Effect two weeks to get readable with just navyblue). I still don't know why Camomillionaire doesn't link to you, except maybe you should do something about that META tag that says "GENERATOR: Microsoft FrontPage 4.0".
And before you think I'm making you look like you're dumb enough to marry Bill Clinton, let me re-emphasize that your wit, attitude and smarts put the MedFly on MY short list of blogs to read EVERYDAY too (which is the ONLY reason I'm not on your notification list).
BTW, when they're through matching bloggers to dead-tree writers, I thoroughly expect to be the Dave Barry of webloggers, and I am NOT making that up.


November 5, 1999
I may not have been Slashdotted, but I have been Jorn-botted
Three days too sick to even sit up in front of my McGuyver 5000 and when I finally do, I find unprecedented activity at the FoopSite, and soon discover the reason: I got a one-liner in Robot Wisdom, and to what do I owe this honor? I dropquote:
Links to many webloggers' epinions pages (Foop)
So, of course, ten minutes later I'm checking the Foop's e-mail and read a note sent by Anita-Anita, thanking me for listing her and reminding me courteously that I had not included her epinions membership. A message sent TWO DAYS EARLIER.
I know it's hard to keep up with the web, but I've been caught with my pants down so often since starting this blog, I'm wondering whether I should bother pulling them back up!
Now, I can finally tell A-neato that I've had as many pageviews since I epinionated her listing as I had before.
You just never know what, among all the elements that you throw into a website, is going to get you noticed. And I do have serious doubts how many Robot Wiseguy readers who come to my site for the linklist, will connect with the rest of my content and keep coming back. I've gotten a lot of useful information about sample-and-retention rates, and a lot of other relevent subjects by lurking the Weblog Authors Egroup, to which the Anitoid, Lord of the Lake Effect, The Molly Ivins of Weblogs (I believe!), Robo-Jorn of course, and a host of others have contributed enough food-for-thought to make me a fat-head. I plan to join the dis-cussin' as soon as I get my nerve (and maybe my pants) up.


October 29, 1999...
The working title for this page is "Blog, blog, blog...", although I might consider LeadEthel's suggestion and use One Fell Soup. After all, the book's out of print... still, that cybersquatting bill has me worried. I can almost imagine Roy Blount, Jr. sending the Feds after me (but then, I can imagine almost anything).
Did I mention that I OWN a copy of that book? I can still remember...
SONG TO OYSTERS
I like to eat an uncooked oyster.
Nothing's slicker, nothing's moister...
...I prefer my oyster fried.
Then I'm sure my oyster died
Note to myself: Find some Ogden Nash links before EthelMertz does...
BTW, Ethelred, I appreciate being mentioned in the same paragraph with Roy Blount and Frank DeFord.


October 27, 1999
Well, my supersecret plan to get other blogs to link to me by playing with their names is beginning to work... I just hope rog of unobserved utterances knows I was only kidding about "the unobutt-head" and doesn't send over Norb to feed me to the animals...


October 27, 1999
I would just like to officially announce that I am giving up my campaign to be named Best New Blog of October 1999, and throwing my support behind the obvious best of the new crop: Steven Baum's Ethel the Blog. Ethel's got a lot more than "dogs playing poker" or even the embassy bombing story going for it. From probability theory to Peter Cook to vintage bicycles, from steganography to Avram Davidson to hurricane prediction to Lionel Fanthorpe, his "Strange Lit" is always fascinating, and his science is clearly written and understandable.
He's already put the Foop on HIS blog list (I am flattered). All this AND a Google search box with the old GOOD logo. Classy. He is I.M. Weasel to my I.R. Buffoon, and I honor him and envy him. And I encourage him to complete his list of the Top 100 Top 100 Lists (a definite "wish I thought of that" project).


October 24, 1999
The spiders are starting to catch up with One Swell Foop! I may not have my listing in Yahoo! yet, but then, they've only got 24 blogs on thier list, while Open Directory has 95.
However, if you search Yahoo for one swell foop, or simply foop, (and I don't know why anyone WOULD), the Fooplog is NUMBER ONE!
The evil aliens at Planet Lycos also recognized my pre-eminance among swell foops.
And then there's AEIWI (thanx Cam-a-rooooon, nominee for the Awful URL Award (it's actually an awkward acronym for "An Experiment In Web Indexing", which seems to have successfully data mined all my keywords.

I gotta tell you, researching those Blair Witch parodies really fried my brain in ways I didn't even know my brain could fry!


October 22, 1999
Thanks for all the words of support for the Fooplog and The Truth About Minneapolis.
Rated "very useful" by the unobutt-head and 'Becca Blood and MISTER Barrett aka the Watcher aka Cam's Clone and many others... (But then again, is Usefulness the correct way to judge writing like this?)
Before leaving on vacation, The OutLandIsh Brad (who'd use any excuse to take a day off) linked to both the Foop and the epinion.
And Chuq, aka LookaMan aka Gumboslawski highlighted my Foopage and gave me credit for being a lot more subversive than I really am... I mean, I don't mind it here on Tripod. At least, not as much as twernt - the blog with the name so weird I can't figure out a way to play with it, who called the Minnepinion a "bit of comedy gold".
I was actually quite anxious about posting it until PeterHimself aka the epinions epoobah wrote: I'm surprised people aren't messing with the form of Epinions more.
And now, I-Never-Metascene-I-Didn't-Like (where I found the secret to controlling the Pod People) wrote: I want parody epinions and I want them now. When somebody sets up an epinion account strictly for the purpose of satire, I'll know that the company has attained some measure of cultural significance.


October 8, 1999
It's Cam's World Wide Web, we all just live in it.
I am fortunate that one of the first "weblogs" I stumbled onto was Cameron Barrett's CamWorld. Unfortunately, I did so about a week before he announced his temporary semi-retirement from the daily blog. I thought I had just caught the tail end of something special, fleeting, and nearly extinct.
Wrong again, Witless, the weblog movement is alive and well, and Cam's place as a leader in it is secure. (He even cloned himself to ensure us his continued presence) He got me thinking about clean, usable design and thinking twice before I included in this site anything TOO cute. And, frankly, I live in absolute terror of his judgement of my efforts, not because he is some demonic flame-thrower... quite the contrary. His weapon is a clear, calm, reasoned logic that seems almost impossible to argue against, no matter what MY opinion may be. I always thought his Rants were much too reasoned to fit the title, and I've rarely seen any writer change his mind so gracefully as he did before and after the '98 election. He even survived a few minutes of fame as a poster boy for the 1st Amendment but handled it with more class than most of us would've. He even turned down Oprah! Cam is a class act, but I still have nightmares that he'll call my table structure the worst in the history of web design.
   
RIGHT BRAIN
 
Other Weblogs, Newslogs and Journals I enjoy, respect, am influenced by, impressed with, or in debt to...
 ep - epinions member
 bl - blog list (BOLD PRINT means the Foop's on it!)
V.I.B.s (Very Important 'Bloggers)
ø CamWorld ep bl
ø EatonWeb
ø kottke ep
ø Memepool
ø PeterMe ep
ø Robot Wisdom ep
ø Scripting News

Web Neighbors
ø Anita's LOL & Book of Days ep
ø BradLands ep bl
ø Ethel the Blog bl
ø Lake Effect bl
ø Looka! ep bl
ø Medley ep bl
ø Metascene ep bl
ø Mr.Barrett ep bl & EduWatch
ø Pop Culture Junk Mail
ø unobserved utterances ep bl
ø Whatever
ø Whim & Vinegar & The Other Side

New Slogs (newslogs)
ø Anythink
ø Cursor
ø Julienne bl
ø World New York

Others As Time Permits
ø Absolute Piffle ep
ø Anil Dash ep
ø Bad Hair Days
ø Bifurcated Rivets ep
ø Bird on a Wire
ø boy and his basement
ø Bump ep
ø Cardhouse
ø Evhead ep
ø FactoVision ep bl
ø Flutterby
ø GeneHack ep bl
ø Health & Hacks bl
ø JJG ep bl
ø Kestrel's Nest
ø Larkfarm
ø Lileks' Bleat
ø Linkwatcher's Metalog
ø MoreLikeThis
ø My Dog Wants to Be on the Radio bl
ø Rebecca's Pocket ep
ø Screenshot
ø StuffedDog ep
ø twernt
ø Vacuum ep bl
ø Windowseat & TV Log
 
Blog Resources
ø Blogger
ø Beebo's Top 50
ø Bird's Blog Map
ø The Bloat 10
ø Eatonweb's Blog Portal
ø Linkwatcher Update Watch & Blogsearch
ø Robot Wisdom's FAQ
ø Weblog Authors Egroup
 
Big-Time Web Media
ø Ain't It Cool News
ø Drudge Report
ø Drudge Retort
ø MediaGossip
ø Motley Fool
ø Obscure Store
ø Salon
ø Slashdot
ø Wired News
ø YahooLife's Net Buzz
ø ZDNet's Anchor Desk
 
Web-Based Humor
ø Bob's Fridge
ø The Brunching Shuttlecocks
ø Centre for the Easily Amused
ø Hecklers Online
ø Joke Wallpaper
ø Landover Baptist
ø Mr. Monologue
ø The Onion
ø Suck
ø The Top Five
ø Wit City
 
Radio Links
Commercial Radio- L.A.
ø L.A. Radio
ø Radio Digest

Public Radio-
ø serious NPR
ø This American Life
ø Garrison Keillor's Prairie Homepage
ø Harry Shearer
ø Wha'dya Know
ø Cartalk
ø KCRW Santa Monica
ø KPCC Pasadena
ø KCSN Northridge
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