The Mark Dykeman Web Niche

Greetings. If you’re reading this post, you are probably a regular Broadcasting Brain reader and you may be wondering why this post is in a different location. The answer is that my hosting company is doing some kind of critical maintenance to the server that hosts Broadcasting Brain, making it unavailable for 24 – 48 hours. Since they have no back-up or emergency access to my blog, I’m writing you from this blog.

Note: this should only be a temporary thing!

This is the original Uncanny Broadcasting Brain Blog, renamed as The Mark Dykeman Web Niche. It still has a bunch of older posts that don’t exist anywhere else online, but it’s much less focused than my other stuff. I don’t use this blog very often anymore, as you may notice.

Whee.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a few thoughts with you today in a more informal style than usual.

• Congratulations to Obama/Biden on winning the US Presidency and Vice Presidency, respectively. Although I live in Canada, I watched this election with great interest. With all due respect to McCain/Palin, I would not have been very happy if they had won. I saw this election as a chance for the American people to vote for change and I’m very happy that a majority of them did. If nothing else, it’s time for changes in the thinking and actions that have mired the US in some very nasty situations. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot of pain ahead, but I feel that Obama and Biden represent a highly visible statement that things need to (and hopefully will) change. I’ve read enough about politics and history to suggest to me that change never happens quickly enough (or way too fast in times of emergency) and that our heroes often disappoint us. However, it’s early, early times yet. Maybe this time will be different? There always has to be some hope, right?
• Heroes, one of the TV shows that helps make the wait for Battlestar Galactica and Lost bearable, is in trouble. Two of the show’s producers/writers, including veteran comic book writer Jeph Loeb, were axed over the weekend. I can understand why, if they’re really to blame, because the show has become a convoluted, horrible mess of characters, powers, plot lines, and alternate futures. Too much of… almost everything. I fear that it won’t last past the end of season 3. Simplify, simplify, simplify and focus on good stories and good characterization. Please?
• Pepsi changed its logo and packaging, as many of you know. As long as they didn’t change what was inside the can or bottle, or the price, then the rest is immaterial to me.
• The four main social media services that I use are: Google Reader, Twitter, StumbleUpon, and FriendFeed. I use some GTalk/GMail, Facebook, Netvibes, Delicious, plus a few other minor services on an infrequent basis. Almost everything else has fallen by the wayside. I don’t try out very many new services anymore. How about you? Do you focus your social media activity on a handful of services?
• I bought some comic books for the first time in months. They cost between $3.00 and $4.00 each. Sheesh. What kid (or adult) can manage to buy more than 3 – 4 of these per month? OK, there are a number of people that do but, man, that money really adds up.
• Oh, and for the record, I liked Iron Man better than The Dark Knight.

Thanks for stopping by and for your continued support.