TV AND MY ONE INTERNET ADDICTION. I feel pretty much in control most of the time while I'm on the net, spending my time in a productive fashion, learning, growing, and becoming a better human being. But there's one site on which I am vulnerable, weak-willed, where I stay much longer than I should. Stumble Video. I can't help it. The discovery, the entertainment, the ability to absorb a ton of video information in such a short time, it's remarkable. In consideration of the Stumble Video Effect, this Steve Rubel "Glimpse of Democratized TV" piece makes me think that our television viewing habits are going to change much more radically in the next few years than we might anticipate.
THE TEMPLATE MONSTER'S GOT A GOOD THING GOING. I've been thinking about site templates a lot lately, maybe with the new Community Server 2007 theming engine soon ready to hit the streets. A client asked me recently to make his CS site look like one of the portal themes at TemplateMonster.com, so I spent some time looking at their templates. Lots of great ideas there. And $50 to $60 bucks for a template is a good deal. Of course, with the Web Developer add-ons for IE and Firefox, you don't really need template packages like these to duplicate a theme. ScottW also compiled a list of free web templates. Still, I hope TemplateMonster.com lives long and prospers.
PASSION SHOULD BE A VISIBLE MANIFESTATION. I don't know, but when someone talks about being passionate about something, then they should show it in some visible fashion to others. And if you're not passionate about what you do, you lose. I'm sure there are people who are passionate about Microsoft Products, but I don't remember the last time I saw much visible passion in the Microsoft Domain. Maybe it's because it takes so long for something new to come out of Redmond, all of the passion has long since died for anyone involved with the product. This photo of top execs at the Windows Vista release posted by Seth Godin pretty much tells the tale. Pretty pathetic, actually.
WOMEN IN SPACESUITS MAKES ME FEEL GOOD. We can't geek all of the time. Sometimes we need to get away to find our happy place. Women in Spacesuits does that for me, a website dedicated to the portrayal of women in spacesuits in film and television since the 1950's. Thanks to Tom McMahon for the link, whose blog I read every single day.