There's A Nap For That...........

Play on words? Maybe. Geez I don't even own an I Phone....well, yeah I have an I Pod Classic that has more memory than my desktop computer currently attached to my fingertips, but I have resisted the I Phone to this point. I can only handle so much "screen time", without needing to feel sand between my toes, and a wave slapping me in the face, or seeing snowflakes sticking to the hair of the girl, or my kids. I don't think there is an app for any of that. Just browsing the ISmash Phone - iphone tips, tricks, hacks & cracks site I must admit, is an impressive visit, and there are an awful lot of worthwhile apps out there that certainly are helpful, but man!.......talk about a time eater. That is basically what I am seeing with folks literally just having those devices like super glued to their hands, with only their thumbs free and their flailing wildly. I predict a whole new type of arthritis, and repetitive stress syndrome medical field evolving from "smart phones". I am good with a phone that remembers a few phone numbers, takes messages, shows me who's calling, and calls in my pizza order at CiCi's, takes an emergency photo once in a while, and holds my eclectic music collection (my I Pod is for my audio books), I am fine.
When I think about trying to use my phone for a GPS, heart monitor, game console, twitter twatter, internet browser, and on and on......all I can say is.........

there's a nap for that.......

Walking The Plank.......

Yes, I am aware what I am inviting for furthur by posting the last blog here as well, but this is my first priority as a place to write and share. I suppose I will find out where I stand over there, huh? I always enjoyed posting and commenting over there, but it was allowed to devolve into a hatefest/dorkfest, and I railed against that and it cost me. I still disapprove of the direction the Advocate has gone, and I would like to see some changes in both the print an online versions, but I think my days of engaging a few of the goofballs that blog and comment there, are finished. I will hope for some changes, and lobby for them when I have an audience, but my days of head butting with them are over. Nothing to be gained from that, but incurring more petty and aggravating management censorship, which is counter-productive. If they ban "further", I will just assume that to be the result of a personal grudge and a death sentence on their part, and let it go. If not, I'll dabble on the hometown site from time to time, and try to bite my tongue when the urge to throw spears tugs at me. Besides, I always have this site to organize protests, rant, and piss and moan, free of meddling moderation, should I be so inclined.

Reminders Of Our Mortality

This weekend, on consecutive mornings, I was given a reminder of all of our mortality, as I read in The Advocate Obituaries of the passing of two different people who had impacted my life, and who were close to the ages of my own parents. One of them was the school vice-principal at my high school. While he was feared as a disciplinarian by some kids....(most notably, those lacking discipline), the truth is, he was a dedicated and effective educator, the kind that most any of us would probably, whether we want to admit it or not, would like our own children to benefit from having guide them through high school. Rest in peace Mr. Moore. The other was a man that as a 12 year old, I was around as a friend of his son, one of my classmates. I remember his love of music, hunting, fishing, and most anything outdoors. I remember sitting around his house, listening to his boys and him play guitars and fiddles - probably the first place I ever heard one of my all time favorite songs, "The Orange Blossom Special". I remember that he was a pretty good boat builder, and even built a canoe for the Water Safari one year. Can't recall whether it was ever used, but his buddy Butch actually won the race a year or two afterward. I remember his arrowhead collection, and how he actually learned or taught himself, using only flint and a deer antler, to make dead replica native American type arrowheads.

I must say though that he was a local lawman, with a real hatred of hippies, longhairs, and anybody that fell into that category, which in my teen and later years, put me on the opposite side of the fence from him. Needless to say, he will also be remembered, as a person who made the lives of a few young people quite miserable at every opportunity he had, and that for many years, I had a horrible grudge and resentment for some of the indignities, that I and others suffered at his hand.

I had to tell you that, to tell you this. Given the choice of remembering an ill tempered, and unjust, misguided redneck, (not at all unlike the one that raised me), or a good father, who was eager to share his love of music and the outdoors with his sons and their friends, well I just chose remembering the former as opposed to the latter. I will on occasion, run into his oldest son at breakfast, and shake hands and exchange howdys, and I must say that despite the fact that he and I grew up worlds apart, from what I have heard and read of him, he turned out to be quite an outdoors expert and pioneer sort and a good man. I am sure his dad would be quite proud of him. Rest in peace Jack. I appreciate the things you showed and taught me as a boy, and as far as the grief and crap you heaped upon me as a rebel teen....that is all forgiven. I do wish though that I had had a chance to show up at your bedside with my thinning ponytail and grey beard, and have been able to tell you that in person.

As I said, these serve as a couple of things to remind me of my own mortality, and that I need to make a few things right with those in my life. I am reminded weekly of that as well, when I go home to see my folks. Dad is sneaking up on 90, and is frail, but getting by. Mom on the other hand, though years younger, is as likely to recognize me when I walk through the door, as her brother, her dad, or the bus driver who's come to take her to school as she is to see her oldest son walk in the door. Life is cruel sometimes, and sometimes, I think it all should be played in reverse.........

I Think I'm Going to Hurl

The Victoria Advocate received two top honors and two others in the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association annual contest.

The Advocate was the only newspaper of its size to win two first places in the contest, earning recognition for best use of multimedia and best local story.

The judges praised the newspaper's multimedia work on its "Fatal Funnel" series, describing it as "an unending, unfolding, emotion-charged international story."

I think that Cobler should have sandpaper glued to his palm. That might at least make him slow down and consider the pain and chafing before he publishes this crap........
It does NOT sell papers.

Newspapers - The Struggle To Survive.......

Despite all of the ragging I have done on my hometown newspaper, the Advocate of late, and despite how I intend to keep voicing my displeasure with the direction it going under present management, until I see a positive change in the quality of their product.......I do not envy the owners' task of trying to make it both a more credible, reputable publication, or to keep the ledger printed in black ink each month. Despite the recent layoffs in the newsroom at the New York Times, and the constant number of newspaper closings and bankruptcy filings by other old dailies, I still am not hearing death throes from newspapers in general. What I am seeing and hearing though, is that the time for them to stop the bleeding and streamline their operations to a point that remains both profitable AND credible, is running out.

Print news is still a bargain, but signs are there that they are circling the wagons. While the papers in newsracks are still sold on the honor system, that is trusting that you'll deposit the correct change and take out only what you paid for, look at the shrinking size of the daily paper. I mean, you could walk into the corner Valero, and pull out five Advocates and fold them under your arm, hand Mustafa 50 cents, and he'd be none the wiser. Apparently, newspapers are starting to tighten their belts - up here at least. Wasn't long ago that you could drop in at 4am and there would be a pile of yesterday's papers waiting to be sold or recycled. I rolled in tonight from Austin at 7:00, and immediately stopped at the corner Shell for a Chronicle.....nada....no mas. Same thing happened twice more, before I was content just to go home and read it online, and browse thru my Austin Statesman from this morning, and my Marble Falls weekly Highlander.

As much as I wish I could come up with a solution for printed news, I guess I'll just be content to sit back and hope they figure out an answer. I do find it ironic, that with Google being my source for neighborhood pizza joint phone numbers, that on my way out of my apartment to the truck, and on the front stoop of each establishment I went to looking for a newspaper, I found myself tripping over those damned yellow bags of six inch thick Yellow Pages with..........a gazillion PRINTED phone numbers. Looks like the frickin' phone company is even slower to get the message than the Daily Planet, eh Lois and Clark? I haven't had a land line for two years, and I have had enough phone books delivered to my door to burn and keep warm for both winters........go figure.

Huh? Are We Saving Space Now - Or Pending Further Research

I swear, this is the whole story as viewed online this morning. Call me jaded, but I am accustomed to just a wee bit more of a work-up on a story like this.

The Victoria Advocate - My Perspective After The "Town Hall"

Dummy, You're Supposed To Put The Potato In The Front! was the original title I chose for this one.......duh......
Don't ask......just call it an attention getter title. This is really likely going to be a long rambling dissertation of my opinion of The Victoria Advocate's state of ship. Fair warning for those who are looking for a risque' post or a dirty joke.

I suppose I should start by saying that I am quite thrilled with our little(but growing)renegade bunch over here on Blogger. As much as I miss the original blogs, and disapproved of the new anyone can blog format, I am proud and honored to be part of a group like Edith Ann, The Grey-Beard Loon, Sugar Magnolia, and The Truth Ferret. I now have met them all, and having put faces and names with their words, has convinced me that they are all accomplished writers and dedicated to putting out entertaining and informative work that an honest measure of thought and EDITING has gone into, before it gets published. What a concept.
If not for having read The Advocate print edition, back when is was a respectable and well laid out and edited (carefully, and for correctness edited)feature articles and daily online blogs by The Grey-Beard Loon, I likely would still be walking around with a pocket full of ideas and "notes to self" on scraps of paper, cocktail napkins, and such, having yet to figure out what to do do with them........as it stands, before the Advocate pulled the plug on my blog, I was nearing six hundred or so stories/blogs of my own under my belt, with a lot of nice comments, and attaboys, and a few dissenting or outright in my face disagreeing comments. What finally got to me, was the new "editor's" tinkering with the blogs and forums to the point that it opened them to any bozo that could write down and remember a password, whether they could spell, make a sentence, or for that matter were required to at the very least, submit something that indicated a minor degree of literacy on their part. Yup, I think he just said "Myspace!, now there's a good model, let's go with that". If you are a reader of any length of time, you fall into one of two categories: either you are proud of your "wall" and your ability to write essentially unnoticed(unless you dare to disagree with Advocate policy), whatever comes to mind, no matter how illiterate or grade schoolish or angry in tone it is, or you are one of us scratching your head, and wondering WTF? How did it get to this point.........?

I went along with the changes, even after my pal the "loon" was squeezed out, both of his feature article writer job with the print edition, and then unceremoniously, had his blog pulled(in the days before Herr Cobler instituted his banishment ritual). I pissed and moaned, likely setting in motion, the events that finally got me banned from participating in the Advocate "experience". So for those of you who attended last night's "town hall" or caught the print story of it, please, when you read the part where Mr. Cobler says "we welcome your online participation"........take those words with a grain of salt. The truth is, he welcomes bullshit accolades from various "associations of fellow dying print news folk", and anything remotely resembling praise from "readers". If however, you see fit to criticize his "editing" or anything or anyone of the kids that he micromanages as "editor", and if you do it long enough, your unpaid writing career with the Vicad will be sent to "sleep with the fishes".

I know good people who work for the Advocate, who are happy to have the job they do. To the credit of those whose function and output falls under the scrutiny of myself and others here who have issues with your work, please listen to us, and at least consider what we are saying or suggesting. Know that if we take exception with your product, that there is a guy there who should as editor, be pointing out your errors, and encouraging you to do better, rather than just saying "we are human - we make mistakes" and giving lip service to the public, and blowing smoke in the eyes of the owners, rather than doing what an editor is supposed to and crack his whip and demand accuracy. Mr. Cobler needs a "The buck stops here" plaque on his wall, and he needs to take it to heart.

The Advocate on a daily basis(both print and online), is rife with misspellings, errors, sensationalist headlines, and half baked stories, written by folks who never left their chair on Constitution St., but rather depended on word of mouth phone calls, e-mails, and Twitter accounts of what actually happened. Can I prove this? NO, but if you don't believe it, just follow a few online versions of various "news" stories, and watch as they are updated and corrected repeatedly until they are somewhat accurate, then die or are replaced by the next story. It all boils down to final editing, and accountability for the product that hits the streets. From where I sit, it does not look like a good product, or at least anywhere near for the last three years, like the paper I have read since 1959.

Am I going to quit reading it? What do you think? Of course not. It is my hometown paper, and the one that lands in many of my dear friend's and family's driveway daily. I was fortunate enough to have some of my thoughts and words published there for a time. But being banned from participating is not going to stop me from using The Advocate as my source for hometown news.

All of that said, I will say that being banned by the Advocate, was something I asked for and fully expected. I took exception to the angry, illiterate hateful rants of a particular blogger commenter, that I personally feel was responsible for wrecking the integrity and atmosphere of the blogs and online forums. Before he showed up with his gibberish and hideous butchering of the English language, my posts and comments were by and large, pretty benign and boring and corny. I took exception to this angry person's bullshit and when he pissed in the pool, I was content to go into a kamikaze dive at him and do my best to help get him off the site, knowing well and good that it would cost me my place in line. So be it - he's gone. From what I see of late, it is still a free for all, albeit a much lighter hearted and civil one.

As far as the product that comes out of the Advocate daily, I along with many others, will just have to be content to try to make our voices heard, and hope for the best I guess.