Travel advisory:
Frankly, I have no idea what type of web access I’ll have during the
day on Thursday, so I may be blogging…or not. I’m glad I could clear
that up.

Meme meme: This post is my attempt to start a meme about the MemeWatch section PaidContent.org is starting to track new concepts and ideas which develop around weblogs related to digital content.

On procrastination: Dave Eggers in a Salon interview:

(via: Virginia Postrel)

What rock have I been hiding under? I’ve purchased their products for years and use them daily (continuously?) and even blogged last year that one of their products, the iTrip, is an essential device. But I had to learn from, of all places, a story in today’s Tennessean, that Griffin Technology is a Nashville company. The device I use to listen to podcasts blogcasts is a Nashville product — get outta here. Were it not for my Apple-free speech movement, I could devote a couple hundred more words to how I use their products. Oh, wait. In short item I wrote in the current issue of My Business Magazine, I discuss how a Griffin iTalk (and some other stuff) can be used for good old-fashioned dictation.

(Thanks for the heads up from my
friend David Ewing, who is quoted in the story regarding a Griffin
product I recommended to him.)

SXSW “get over yourself” suggestions: David Nunez has some suggestions
for those attending the SXSW interactive festival this weekend. I guess
I won’t be wearing one of those smiley faces on my badge (after he
posted his guide, the SXSW folks told him they frown on smiley faces),
but please, if you’re there and you don’t see me, please look for Dave
and give him a hug.

(via: Taylor McKnight, who, if he’s checking his trackbacks, I’d like to e-mail me so I can talk with him in Austin.)

Non-white guy bloggers: Call me insensitive, but I didn’t know that white guys didn’t link to non-white-guys.
So, in an effort to atone for the my prior link-sins and those of my
brethren, I’d like to join in the meme (or, should I say, the “feme”)
of the day, Ten New Voices (which I heard about from Susan and which was started by Halley, who, while she is not a “guy,” is definitely an expert on alpha males.) [Update: After doing this, I discovered Halley's original post and discovered I didn't follow the rules.
I listed nine women, instead of five, and didn't include three
non-Americans. I guess that's what I mean when I tell my kids to read
the instructions first. What can I say? I'm just a white-guy blogger,
stuck in my ways.]

So, here is my contribution to Ten New Voices, and, well, I
took these directly from the blogroll that appears on the left column
of every page of the rexblog, so I guess they’re not technically “new”
voices. But, they don’t belong to white guys, so I guess I’m in the
spirit of things.

I decided to start with some Nashville non-white-guy bloggers:

Saucy Librarian:
I mean, well, if ever there was ever a superstar non-white-guy
Nashville blogger waiting to be discovered by a national audience,
Saucy Librarian is my nomination. (She just needs to post more often.)

Busy Mom:
Is already way beyond being a “new” voice as she’s got something most
bloggers crave: an audience. I’ll admit, I don’t know exactly what she
blogs about, but I think it has something to do with being a busy mom.

karmadgeon:
There are these two 14-year-olds I know who think she’s awesome because
she’s the first blogger other than me to discover their blog.

Map Girl: Who maintains the blog Nashville Confidential, “true untold stories from Music City.”

Linda Dblu:
Who is a real-life friend of mine who caught a typo on another blog I’m
associated with. It had something to do with leaving an “r” out of the
word “T-shirt” if you know what I mean.

Pink Kitty: It’s hard to call someone a “new” voice when instapundit already refers to her as “Empress Kitty.”

BB’s Blog:
Another real-life friend of mine who is an aspiring songwriter. If
you’re ever planning a trip to Nashville, she’s got a great list of
local song-writer-friendly venues and local artists. Best part of her
blog is keeping up with where she’s performing. Every artist should
blog like this.

Okay, I’ve just noticed I’m already
at seven and haven’t left Nashville yet, so, please, add other
non-white-guy Nashville bloggers to the comments of this post. Here are
some of the many non-white-guy bloggers I depend on to keep me informed
on what the heck is going on in the world:

Tara Calashan: While she’s not a “new voice,” Tara falls into the “non-white-guy-category.” She’s the research guru who blogs at ResearchBuzz when not writing books.

Ramon Ray: It’s hard calling Ramon a blogger and SmallBizTechnology.com
a weblog since Ramon has been posting a steady stream of daily news
there since way before “blogging” existed as we now know it. Like Rafat Ali,
Ramon is not a “new voice” or a blogger but is a reporter/entrepreneur
who uses a blogging platform and approach to do what he does. He also
pioneered “custom publishing” blogging (although he’s never called it
that) and lots of other things that too few people noticed.

Shawn Lea: I thought of Shawn because a couple of months ago, she invited me to a virtual dinner party she was having,
and, well, being from the South and all, I felt it proper to include
her in this party. Besides, she’s got a great “new voice” from
somewhere that’s not east or west coast (Jackson, Miss.) and blogs
about everything…and nothing.

I’m stopping
there because it’s ten. However, please add others to the comments and
add links to other people who are doing this.

I must be a carrier:  While I’m not sick, it seems everyone around me has recently suffered from, or is currently suffering from, the flu.

Is Yahoo cool
again? Is it just me? Like everyone in the early days of
the past decade, I used
Yahoo for everything — the old centralized portal way. And then, well,
for reasons I can’t recall but I think had to do with them becoming
bloated and trying to be all things to all people and wanting to take
over my life, I rebelled against their attempts to use personalization
strategies and decided that I would be, well, a person rather than a
victim of
personalization.

Anyway, it started with Google offering an anti-yahoo means of search.
And then, okay, fast forward through a bunch of stuff, and the next
thing I knew, I had gone five years without even thinking about Yahoo.
And then I looked around and Google had started taking over my life the
way Yahoo had a long time ago. (Not Google’s fault, they simply keep
developing incredible stuff.)

And then, low and behold, Yahoo started hitting my radar screen with
new
stuff like jumping on RSS early on. And while I can’t document these
things, I just started hearing about Yahoo more.

And even though it still smacks of trying to be all things to all
people, Yahoo is doing things again that make sense to me.

And besides, they are one of the few companies with the scale and clout
(and, uh, who aren’t, uh, Microsoft) to provide a viable alternative
(translation: competition is good) to
Apple (in
music downloads) and Google (in
creating a syndicated
advertising alternative to AdSense). And as Google and Apple
are currently on the list of my personal lovemarks
I’m starting to hate, I’m hoping that it’s not just me and that it’s
really Yahoo being cool again.

(via, I think, something I saw
at PaidContent.org)