Ryan Jerz :: Reno Blogger, Reno Blog

Reactionary Hurl: You can't force cool and interesting

Man it’s like a smorgasbord of new features here at mrjerz.org. First, I decide to make short book reviews a kind of section by itself, and now this, the reactionary hurl becomes a part of the growing repertoire. Blogs are largely considered a reactionary medium in the world of journalism, and it’s pretty tough to argue that. I see blogs that thrive on lists of reactions to news articles that were produced in the other media. It can be their bread and butter, in fact, so I decided it would only be prudent for me to start something like this myself.

I won’t pretend what I’m doing with this feature is original, thoughtful, or all that important, but I will admit I’m doing it because:

1. Lists are good readin’
2. Linkbait, duh
3. Hell, you don’t really have to think much about anything you read, just say something smartass and you’re good

Also, just to convolute the situation even more, I don’t read nearly the amount of news paper sites as other people do. I enjoy actually reading the reactions of bloggers, though, however useless they might be. So the stuff I put in my reactionary posts will actually consist largely of reactions to reactions, and often they’ll even be the third or fourth generation of reactions. This ought to get fun.

• Asafa Powell broke the world 100-meter record. Powell thinks he can still run faster, and I don’t doubt it. Show me a clean sprinter and I’ll show you a guy who wouldn’t break ten seconds, ever. (USA Today)
• Apparently there is disparity in the political leanings of blogs. And some doofuses in the Republican Party want to get their crew to step it up and compete. Except they’re missing the point. Blogs are largely popular because people just like them, not because of some formula. Talk radio is dying among the connected and smart. Also, “get it?” They just don’t get it. (Huffington Post)
  • Not to be all that big of a dig at Eric Odom, but what’s with starting a podcast now? Blathering on and on about something in a linear way is so tired. Dude, I quit doing my podcast over a year ago. Oh, and since you told me to do so, good luck. (The great EO)
• The University of Nevada is about to induct five athletes into the Hall of Fame. A few notes about that. I’ve met Mike Schellin a few times and I am friends with his son. The guy is world-class. Couldn’t have happened to someone better. Alex Van Dyke was a treat to watch, and a fantastic football player. Kamy Keshmiri freaking tested positive for steroids and was banned from international competition. Whose bright idea was it to induct that guy? Also, did the paper just print the press release? What’s with not even mentioning that the guy was disgraced? (RGJ)
• Winnemucca Ranch is still an enormous issue for the city and the region. I have yet to hear someone tell me why this is a good idea outside of the tax dollars that will come in, and it seems like those tax dollars will be heavily offset by the exemptions given to the development. And including a development so far away that the access road they’ll build out of it actually meets 395 in California within city limits looks like a blatant grab at the cash to me. That should be it’s own town out there. (RGJ)
• How the hell did this get on the DailySource.org feed? I wonder. (Sports Illustrated)
• Now that I officially care about these things, this situation really does suck. Developing an email that looks decent is virtually impossible because email clients vary so widely on what they’ll allow in the HTML that they render. Google Mail is by far the worst culprit here. (Campaign Monitor)
• Finally, Ken Burns. While I’m positive his new documentary “War” is going to be all the adjectives usually used to describe Burns by people who can stomach them, I have to wonder if the 15 hour series couldn’t have been a little more manageable, like, say, 3 hours—you know, a regular time for a long doc—if the dude would Just. Freaking. Pan. At. A. Normal. Speed! (Huffington Post)

OK, this is really the “finally” part. I started another site under just my name that I use as a more personal place…for family and all that. It’s less interesting to people who don’t care about Wii Bowling. That site also serves as the total testing ground for my learning Drupal, which I’ve become a big fan of. Anyway, if you care to follow this section/category/whatever you want to call it, you can probably do so over there because I’ve put a “My shared links” thingy from my Google Reader in the sidebar there. I’ll probably add one here, eventually, but I really like how the sidebar looks right now and don’t want it to get to unweildy.

tags: 100 meter, blog parity, dailysource.org, email standards, ken burns, reactionary hurl, winnemucca ranch
posted by Ryan Jerz on 09/10/2007

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