Two excuses: school started, and I got married.

And, despite my inability to keep this website rocking, I have continued to help the internets grow, albeit modestly.

Here, in my opinion, is the most noteworthy addition:

I produced that as part of the multimedia reporting class I took in August. I also took a few decent pics for that class. I've posted one of them on this site, but you can find a few more here.

And, if weddings are your thing, I've also contributed, albeit modestly, to our wed-site, which we plan to keep active at least as long as we're disciplined enough to keep taking a picture a day.

I have nothing to write about.

Nothing except nothing.

But what is nothing? A blank brain? Silence? No more memories?

But what's all this stuff in my head? These facts that keep flowing through my mind?

The fact that this paper is white, that this pen is blue, that this ink is black.

And that's weird. A blue pen is supposed to have blue ink.

I've been tricked, and I didn't even realize it.

Amazing how much fun stuff I've come across while making our latest mix of the month. Bummer how much of it I've had to cut from the mix. And sad to think how much I'll forget about and never listen to again.

This song will not fall into that "sad" group. Because blog posts are forever (or for-a-while, anyway).

World's Smallest Violin by Paleo

(download)

Click here to download:

World's Smallest Violin.mp3 (4.88 MB)

World's Smallest Violin is track 2 on A View of the Sky.

A celebration of calm...

Clipped illegally from The New Yorker's Cartoon Bank.

I bet The New Yorker would sell more mugs and tee shirts (and magazine subscriptions) if they posted all their cartoons to a blog (like this one) and made it easy for people to embed and share and attribute. Just sayin.

He grew up a fan, but he doesn't feel right, as a professional journalist, wanting the Phillies to win.

I'm a little bit shocked. And sad. And jealous that I don't get paid to write about the Phillies every day.

So I poked around the internets a bit, kicked the tires on a couple of other Phils blogs (something I've never done before, which surprises me), and subscribed to Beerleaguer.

It'll be fun to compare.

It's subtle, but they're there.

And, in the name of radical transparency (and maybe also for the love of all language and metaphor), they'll stay.

Until we find out that they've made someone feel uncomfortable.

And then we'll take them down. Because no joke should ever get in the way of being nice.

Maybe I'm extra special partial to this because I've fallen in love faster with Raul Ibanez than any other baseball player, and it's a little unsettling to see him react so angrily to what I consider to be an understandably suspicious, imperfectly presented, but ultimately harmless blog post, but maybe my rapture runs deeper. Maybe the debate really does provide a totally fascinating angle from which to look at press and rumor and the evolution of information flow...

Good for ESPN for hosting the discussion. Good for Jerod the blogger for participating with cool and humility. And good for Raul for offering stool samples if requested. Radical transparency, baby.

I don't know anything about this new Michael Phelps scandal except...
 
(A) I saw a headline that read:
 
If Barack Obama Can Admit to Smoking Pot, Why Can't Michael Phelps?
 
And (B) I was invited to join a Facebook group called:

Michael Phelps smokes POT which makes him cool. Fuck the British Tabloids.

So I clearly have no real reason to comment, but, since blogging is blogging, I will:

If Michael Phelps has, at any time during his high stakes swimming career, won a big race while stoned, then I have a whole new level of respect for his swimming skillz.

Note: One sentence post? One sentence post. Not the most traditional (grammatically legal) capitalization or spacing scheme, but I think it works. Party.

The Carrot Project Blog, as of a couple of hours ago, is happening.

And that means I'll be reorganizing a bit.  Thoughts about The Carrot Project there. Intermittently coherent rambling from a rookie social entrepreneur on A More Perfect Market.  Music and rumors about Himalayan dams on Radical Transparency.  Observations that fit into 140 characters on Twitter. 

Or something like that.  We'll see.

I've been coughing.  I've been in New York.  I've been happily slammed by the flood of relatives rushing in for winter vacation.  I've been inarticulately raving in my head about profit as an illusion.  I've been asked where I'd fit into a world in which all businesses already operate sustainably.  I've been listening to Cake.

And I've been keeping up an email correspondence that just revealed this link.

If you didn't catch it the first time, click again; watch closely; and read quickly.