Free Martha: This is absurd. Overturn the woman’s conviction. Apologize. And leave her alone.

Rochester, Minn. - the new home of hip: According to this story via Minnesota Public Radio, “Erik Westra and three friends had an idea. They wanted to create a magazine they would want to read.” (I guess this is unlike those who have the idea of wanting to create a magazine they wouldn’t want to read. Actually, this is not so unusual, as I once blogged a magazine launched by Marty Wombacher who was so fed up with the magazine industry that he launched a magazine called Marty’s Magazine that was written and marketed only to himself.) Where was I? Oh, yes. Erik Westra. So, after a year a half and $5,000, Erik and his friends have started Ladies and Gentlemen (which has a clever URL, www.lagmag.com). The magazine has no advertising and only small independent record stores and bookstores can carry it, and it is packaged with a vinyl record. Sounds like something Marty and I might like.

Zoom: If you use Safari, this hack will help speed up things. At least it has for me. (However, it won’t help much when trying to access the slow server on which this weblog is hosted.)

This just in: Bill Gates describes to Jeff Bezos, Michael Dell, Carly Fiorina, Barry Diller and other top business executives how blogs work and suggests that they can be used as a tool for businesses to communicate with customers. (I can’t help noting the similarity of Gates’ profundity with that of my Hammock Publishing colleague, John Lavey, who is forever coming up with wild predictions related to the notion that in the future, computers will play an important role in our lives.)

Follow-up posts:

Rather than my drivel, Jeff Jarvis actually provides insightful commentary on what Gates is telegraphing to the world.)

Joi Ito asks MS blogger, Scoble: “Scoble, can you give us the inside skinny? Is this going to turn into a Google-Atom vs. Microsoft-RSS war as the article insinuates?”

Then, just like that, Scoble answers with his “personal opinions” of what this is all about.

Another rexblog friend, Steve Rubel, says what he thinks this means.

And for today’s final word on this topic, Doc says this is what the speech sounds like to him: … blah blah networking blah blah storage blah blah tablets, blah blah RFID, blah blah templates, blah blah RSS, blah blah spam, blah blah MSDN… Huh? wtf? Rewind….

Blog to work day: In observance of Bike to Work Friday, this weblog rode his wife’s bike (mine’s to, well, special) to work today. Actually, I’ve wanted to bike to work for a long time, but it’s hard to when you drop off someone at school (along with a back pack and lacrosse equipment). However, I read somewhere that today was Bike to Work Day (which, by my unscientific research this morning, is not observed in Nashville), so I decided to use the occasion to conduct an experiment to discover the answers to these two questions: 1. Can I bike to work as quickly as I drive? (answer: yes, easily); and 2. Can I bike to work without breaking a sweat? (answer: not unless it’s 20 degrees cooler than it is in Nashivlle today).

While I did not blog my biking commute in real-time, if I had, it would have gone something like this:

Where did I put the pump? When is the last time she rode this? I really should use my Trek 5200, but I promised everyone at work I wouldn’t embarass them by wearing anything made of spandex. Okay, here we go. Why is this seat so low? This helmet sucks. (No, wait, I think I have it on backwards.) If I were on my bike, I would be going twice as fast down this hill. Damn cement truck. What? Do you you think it’s okay to pull out in front of a bike just because you’re driving a BMW? Suckers, sit in that line waiting for the red light. I’m running that red light to get even with that guy back there who pulled out in front of me. Damn, I hate this hill: the hill that I never notice when I’m in a car. This hill that blew my chances of not sweating like a pig. I wonder if pigs really sweat. Okay. How come I’m the only person biking to work? Oh, wait. There’s a biker. But he’s definitely not heading to work.

Okay, here’s the tricky part. I’ve got to cross this interstate and mingle with real traffic. Okay. Okay. Damn you. Stop blowing your horn. I have a right to this gutter space. Okay. You want to blow your horn at me. Then I’m going to pull into the middle of your lane and go slowly. I can’t hear you. Blow away. LA-LA-LA-LA. I can’t hear you. Okay. Enough of that fun. I’m here.

That wasn’t so bad. I wonder who can give me a ride home. I wonder when “Ride Your Bike Home From Work Day” is.

(Update: At the request of one of this weblog’s five readers, here is additional information: I live 3.61 miles from work and it took me approximately 14 minutes to get to work at a very slow pace.)

(Update #2: Someone just e-mailed me to remind me that I have blogged about my biking skills before. I had been trying to forget.)

And the award for whiner of the year goes to: CBS MarketWatch’s Jon Friedman (via investors.com) attended the National Magazine Awards and has some complaints about how they are organized.

Quote:

The American Society of Magazine Editors should overhaul its annual awards. Specifically, ASME’s prestigious “General Excellence” citations are out of whack….
Now, ASME’s categories depend on a publication’s sheer size. It pits in one bracket those publications which have in common circulations of 2 million, or 1 million to 2 million in the next-biggest one, and so forth. Instead, ASME should use subject areas as the key variable.

I’d like to see the creation of such categories as, say, Best Political Magazine, Best Business Magazine, Best Regional Magazine, Best Entertainment Magazine, Best Sports Magazine, Best Literary Magazine…

Friedman apparently also thinks another way they could improve the Ellies is by seating him at a better table. Up next: Friedman reviews the food preparation and critiques the award design of Alexander Calder.