• Singer Dan Fogelberg dies | CNN.com
  I’m not sure I can call myself a fan of Dan Fogelberg, but I do know this: His music is definitely a part of my life’s soundtrack. May he rest in peace.
  (tags: appreciation)
• Google offering a nifty chart generator | ResearchBuzz
  Quote - Google is offering a new API to dynamically generate charts in PNG files, and it’s easy to use.
  (tags: google tools charts)
• Introducing VRM | Notes from a Doc Searls presentation
  Quote - Markets are all three things – transaction, conversations, and relationships.
  (tags: vrm docsearls cluetrain)

I agree with Matt Wilson of the Nashville City Paper who believes the Tennessee Titans need a fight song. It’s crazy that an NFL team whose home-town is Music City USA has no fight song. When they were the Houston Oilers, they had one — the same one the Miami Dolphins have, except for the obvious substitution of names. Here’s that blast from the Franchise history’s past. (Warning: Listening to either the Dolphins or Oilers songs can cause irreparable damage to some part of your brain.)

While I’m not that familiar with many NFL fight songs, I’m a fairly astute player of “name that tune” when it involves college fight songs. However, there is one NFL fight song that I do know and love: The Redskins Fight Song. It has somewhat of a sordid past as some of its earlier versions flunked political correctness tests on multi-levels. For example, in addition to the obvious native-American issues, the line “fight for old D.C.,” used to be “fight for old Dixie” — back when the Redskins were the only NFL team below-the-Mason-Dixon Line.

When I lived in Washington in the early 1980s, I was a big Redskins fan (how could I not be when they played in two Superbowls — and won one — while I lived there?). I’ve long-since transferred my NFL fanaticism to the Titans, but I still get all fired up when I hear Hail to the Redskins. Now that’s a fight song, complete with a spot for a good, screaming: Rah! Rah! Rah!.

For the record, there has been a “team song” for the Titans/Oilers franchise since it moved to Tennessee. Before the team’s name was changed to the Titans, Ronnie Dunn (of Brooks & Dunn) co-wrote and recorded a team song that was distributed to fans on a CD. I can’t remember anything about it other than it was really bad. (Sidenote: Proof once again: You can find anything on eBay.)

Here’s a way to save lots of time during the next month. Ignore all articles you see that predict what will be announced at Macworld on January 15. My post from September 5, 2006 is all you’ll need. The specifications (smaller, faster, cooler) for stuff always improve, but the fundamentals change slowly. For the record, if Apple does, indeed, announce an ultra-sub-compact-portable-light-weight-nano-Macbook, I will declare Rumor #3 fulfilled if it has a touchscreen.

Side observation: As much as I like the touchscreen on the iPhone, I’m now questioning whether a keyboard-less device is capable of becoming my primary travel-device. Using the Kindle has caused me to decide a device without a real keyboard can never replace a laptop. I want to talk back when I’m reading — and I need a real keyboard — not a virtual one, or, those toy keys on the Kindle.

Apparently, today is the tenth anniversary of the date on which the words web and log were first joined. I noticed this yesterday when the traffic to my history of blogging founding myths post from July spiked up. Apparently, several people liked my suggestion that everyone should write their own history of blogging.

Side observation: The way in which these anniversaries related to blogging keep rolling out reminds me of the 200th Anniversary of the Lewis & Clark Expedition that spread over three years.

From my vantage point as an uninterested (except as a viewer of Lost) observer of the current Writers Guild strike, I’ve wondered if the concept of “union” or “stike” can even hold up in an industry that’s all about independent businesses and self-employed individuals collaborating briefly on a project and then moving on to another project with other independent businesses and other self-employed individuals.

In other words, we’re not talking about a steel mill or auto plant — or even a professional sports league benefitting from government sanctioned monopoly protection. We’re talking about, to a large degree, an industry where even the most steady job with a company, say, staff writer on a network TV show, is guaranteed to end in a few years (but most likely, months) and you’re already working on your next gig.

I understand that, in this context, the use of the word “guild” is more appropriate than “union,” but still, is this a workable model today?

The LA Times reports that groups of striking writers are developing Web start-ups. I suppose it’s obvious to everyone with even a modicum of smarts to observe that Will Ferrill’s Funny or Die is not only benefiting from the strike, it’s a launch pad for a wide array of ideas.

I don’t “follow” the entertainment industry, so I’m sure there are many savvy folks wrtiting about the business aspects of what’s taking place. However, I think an extended strike will be especially interesting to those of us who have always believed “user-generated content” was an incredibly inaccurate term to use when describing what individuals, rather than large corporations, do when they use the web to distribute their creations. In this case, the “users” are far from amateur.

This will be stuff worth watching. And frankly, the longer the strike endures, the more interesting it will be to watch.