Blog Convention/My Pretension/A Cyber Dimension

I refuse (cannot try) to rhyme this because the word “blog” has many limitations. Live blogging a blogging convention seems very meta to me – Philip Seymour Hoffman, where are you?!

8:11 PM – Tom Duvall just shouted into a microphone, said tonight was the greatest night in Michigan sports history and introduced Mark Brewer… who then proceeded to still talk about sports. Is game a synonym for blog? Now we’re discussing Derek Dobbies. I like his tie.

8:12 – Conservatives don’t like Obama. Obama likes blogs. Therefore, conservatives don’t like blogs. Also, we like the stimulus package, so the stimulus package likes blogs and blogs are stimulating (but not for conservatives) and Obama is a great package. SO blog for money and Obama but not conservatives (because they don’t want to be stimulated.)

8:13 – UPDATE, ALERT, there will be a Governor’s race in 2010. A whole lotta bloggers for John Cherry.

8:15 – people smoke marijuana… people who are politicians.

8:16 – Bloggers are the best! They are better than the mainstream media! They are sticking it to Republicans in Grand Rapids! PS – here is Marcy Wheeler!

8:17 – Wheeler got her PhD at Michigan and therefore is da bomb. She straight chilled in the Libby trial and clacks mad keys for automotive issues and, more recently, the AIG scandal.

8:18 – Q: Where did the need for blogs come from? A: the internet. (but plus smarter stuff, too.)

8:19 – in the good old days, Pubbies could harnass the media (like the talkey talk box!) but now, with the evolution of the interwebs, we’ve usurped their power. Apparently bloggers are allegedly feisty than Rush Limbaugh… this is probably not the case. IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS, PARTISAN SKEWS WAS GOOD AND KIND. (Or, at least wildly accepted.) Partisan journalism cranks out da vote.

8:21 – traditional journalism began to slide slide slide down the quality train with its own commercialization (NBC and the Shinehart Wig Company needs to sell missiles and therefore probably doesn’t want to make war look as bad as it actually is… that an they don’t want fat people to stop buying the Tracy Jordan Meat Machine.)

8:22 – blogs breed delicious verbosity. I need to jump on this train since I like nothing more than, not the sound of my own voice, but the sound of my own fingers dusting across a greasy keyboard to the tune of whatever the hell I think is completely correct.

8:23 – are there really two sides to a story? Nah, not really all the time, but we could probs make one up. Sometimes we don’t get to say things are the truth even though they really are – it’s a hard knock life, for blogs, it’s a hard knock life for blogs, nobody cares if we get plugged even if you sit alone all day in the MUG it’s a hard knock life.

8:25 – newspapers have five levels of fact checking – grains, meat, dairy, fruit and vegetables. Wait, maybe that’s something else.

8:26 – fact checking = $$$$$$ Da truth hurtz, babi. I am a 6’7 basketball player who has a PhD in Biomechanics. IT WILL COST YOU $130.34 TO PROVE ME WRONG.

8:27 – Back in the day, she probably only had 2 readers on Sundays, but the context was always on hand and she could augment and supplement and make great tales of political revelry that could not be achieved through an editor/reporter level.

8:29 – remember when we were going to toss our President because of a blow job? Everyone else didn’t really care, just the crazies driving the media. The next President blew a bunch of money on Iraq.

8:30 – Bloggers are their own incestuous community, too (hello, www.umichdems.com/blog) but they aren’t as slippery as the ones in DC who all tell one another what to say and how to say it and where to say it and why to say it and who to say it to and aps9fyg8rhuidfg.

8:31 – Wheeler is the 137th blogger ID on Daily Kos. She is kickin’ it old school. Soon she’ll be blogging on Pluto. Does that make sense?

8:32 – 2006, blogs become “normalized” – do we need to unpack that statement? Is twitter the new blogging? Blogs are the old paper. Paper is the old planes.

8:33 – racism sucks… even when it’s secret. Shhh But, blogs are cootie free!

8:34 – Jenny G got to ride the blog train through the summer before all the hardcore crazies jumped on her campaign. Ozzy Osbourne would be proud.

8:35 – Talking Points Memo explodes the Attorney General scandal! Wheeler’s live blog became the AP thread for the Libby trial. That is insane. I’m sure AP uses us as a resource, though. Right…? AP as in Advanced Placement – that is what were talking about, right? RIGHT?! I’m quitting.

8:36 – BLOGGERS ARE MORE THOROUGH, HAHAHAHAHHAHAHHA, SUCK IT EVERYONE ELSE!!!!!!!!!! PS – 2008, Nate Silver seals the face of blogs as cherubic. I don’t really know what that metaphor means, but since I am blogging I am being thorough. Nobody ever said anything about being articulate. Or sensical.

8:37 – Bloggers picked Obama, duh, that’s why he won… well, not quite. A lot of Bloggers liked Edwards… and then remained neutral. So, facebook is still the most powerful thing in the world. FACEBOOK FOR MSA PRESIDENT.

8:40 – unlike many political blogs, Fire Dog Lake did not see a huge post-election tail off because they picked up relevant story lines that didn’t just expel the title OBAMA… advertisements still drew in, so the print journalism crisis is not only a result of the recession. It is also a result of the sustainability movement – a waste of paper (wan wan)

8:41 – “He uses Twitter? He must be smart!” – Republicans. Karl Rove has a twitter? I’m leaving. Apparently some backwards politicians started twittering first and then began blogs… baby steps, baby steps. These are the same people who think the world is 3,000 years old, so maybe there is hope for progress there as well. “Twitter is the gateway drug for politicians.” I thought it was cocaine?

8:44 – Blogging works really well with campaign schedules – just like a considerate girlfriend or boyfriend. Also, blogs will never forget when it’s your birthday, because they are a part of a computer.

8:45 – Bloggers keep congresspeople in line. They give the sass and legislators check their ass.

8:46 – RIP AP (AC/DC 123). They are boring and old and irrelevant. Goodbye, everyone. Stop charging money and maybe you’ll get more people to care. Local newspapers are also falling, but since blogs have solid followings that are connecting people in the present tense, it is easier for them to remain fluid, like a flowing, cyber river.

8:48 – Cable news is lapping up bloggers because they have the ability to give national news a really concise local plug because they are in the moment and on the field whether or not they’ve been publicly established.

8:49 – LET THE PANEL BEGIN! G. Davis is going to moderate because he runs Gov. and Lt. Gov’s blogs like a wild blog hog.

8:50 – Haha, blog joke. “We aren’t tech people.” It’s funny, because you are. Rainbow Mittens, West Michigan Rising and Fire Dog Lake, welcome to the no spin zone. And by that I mean the Vanderburg room in the league.

8:51 – Yogi Berra joke – “national blogs are too crowded, nobody goes there anymore.” I giggled. He just made a very alliterate fish metaphor that was pretty lyrical – and that is why blogs are blatantly bombastic. There’s no metaphor there. Sorry.

8:52 – Some states still didn’t have statewide blogs into 2007 – and some of them still can’t sell alcohol on Sundays, so maybe this isn’t surprising.

8:54 – G. Davis just plugged Jenny G’s blog… so now it’s my turn. COUGH COUGH

8:55 – What is the typical day in the life of a blogger? Wheeler says her days change from day to day… on this particular day she posted, noted, posted, chatted on the phone about some posts, and had an interview with a congressman. I guess that’s almost as cool as working at U-Go’s, going to an awful class, and then skipping another. Oh wait, not at all, she is clearly fantastic.

8: 56 – sometimes she just reads documents. Sometimes she chats on the phone – she even gets to be on conference calls! She even made a pajamas joke, because most of us wanted to hear that bloggers don’t wear pants.

8:57 – Stormy told us that he’s addicted to Daily Kos and that most people actually have full time jobs… word up, dude. He lives a normal life and blogs when he has time, Wheeler’s life is atypical, but that’s why it’s dang great because most people have the capacity to do this – as evidenced by the fact that we perpetuate our own blog so quickly. Seriously.

8:58 – He blogs best when ANGRY. Fair enough, man, nothing better than a fiery clicking of fingers with purpose.

9:00 – the best kinds of blogs have focus – this is probably why my attempt at Raccoons for Justice in Guatemalan Bubble Gum Factories didn’t go over so well.

9:01 – M. WHEELER GOT TO SIT NEXT TO THE LOVELY DEBORAH ON A PLANE.

9:02 – Not everybody gets to take vacations with their congressman’s wife though… so a lot of sources still come from local papers. And NETWORKING!!!!!! FACEBOOK IS A SOCIAL NETWORKING TOOL!!!!!!! Also, I will give everyone my phone number… you know, for networking.

9:05 – West Michigan Rising is opening the Pandora’s box of blog secrets – shh, nothing leaves the room! League of trust!

9:06 – Stormy just told me to register on bloggingformichigan.com… so I did.

9:08 – Taunt your readers to they spit back at you! YOU GUYS ARE SO STUPID AND UGLY. (readers)

9:09 – I believe we are comparing the French Salons to blogs. That’s cool, because I wear powdered wigs and corset when I do this, anyway.

9:10 – DON’T JUST READ, forget everything you learned on Reading Rainbow. “Come on into the coffee house and grab a cup.” Will do. Seriously, is there coffee somewhere? Anyway. It is true that when you begin a dialogue with another person you sort of have to actually be able to legitimately defend what you’re trying to say.

AHHHHH MY COMPUTER IS FLICKERING, THE FUTURE OF BLOGGING IS NO LONGER IN MY HANDS, AND WITH THIS I LEAVE YOU.