When I first signed on to MyBlogLog.com, there was a guy named Eric (far left) who friended me immediately. I de-friended him because I thought he was like Colonel Sanders or that Tom guy at MySpace — more an avatar-mascot than a real person. However, a real guy named Eric Marcoullier emailed me and assured me he was real and so I re-friended him. But recently, Eric disappeared and was replaced by some other avatar-dude (near left) claiming to be Eric. The first Eric seemed a more friendly friend. The new Eric seems more pensive — like he’s really not sure he wants to be my friend, but he has to because he now works for Yahoo!

From the Portland Oregonian breaking news blog: The Oregonian staff today won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news reporting for its coverage of a family’s disappearance in the southern Oregon woods and their father’s desperate attempt to save them. Journalism’s top honor recognizes the newsroom’s print and online reporting on the ordeal of (CNET editor) James Kim’s family, which exposed extensive problems with the search.

Note: The Pulitzer committee last year modified the rules so that online reporting could be considered in determining an award. Last year, online reporting was included in the citation for the Pulitzer awarded to The New Orleans Times-Picayune for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

I just learned of the tragic news about the shooting deaths at Virginia Tech this morning. Makes anything else I would be blogging about seem less than trivial. My thoughts and prayers are with those affected by this tragedy.

I don’t have time to read it, much less blog about it, so any Portfolio reviewing will have to wait until tonight. However, after years of seeing Apple bloggers break apart new products, I had an urge to rip apart the advertiser preview package of Portfolio magazine that arrived this morning. As I may want to sell it on eBay one day, I decided, rather, to merely take some photos of the promotional materials and post them on Flickr.