watching expired appliances align

smart probably isn't the right word

Remember those years during high school when you were a member of the school’s quiz bowl team (or maybe, like me, it was the Battle of the Brains team)? And then you went to college (or, before college but while live on the air, you failed to answer "aperture" to a question about video cameras when you were the guy everyone thought of as the next big time Hollywood filmmaker) and you realized you weren’t nearly as smart as you thought you were? And after college, instead of reading the new Stephen Hawking book, you opted for a daily intake of Page Six? You thought you’d never best your friends in a game of Trivial Pursuit again. Heck, you never thought you’d find yourself playing Trivial Pursuit again (except when you got really, really baked and wondered what it would be like to connect a dozen boards together and have a massive game of Trivial Pursuit that involved all the different versions from the past two decades).

I’m here to inform you that it’s okay to play Trivial Pursuit again. This year Santa Claus brought me the recently released Trivial Pursuit DVD Pop Culture Boardgame. I played against my family twice after Christmas and it was a blast. Everything I’ve been studying for the past ten years of my life has lead up to this point. All those "Questions for the Movie Answer Man" I consumed in my mid-twenties, all those shows I’ve recorded on my DVR during the last four months and all that money spent on the Entertainment Weekly subscriptions will come into play as I kick the asses of my friends in a serious game or two of Trivial Pursuit tonight. Let the trash talking begin!

1/2 way

as usual, i'm posting a link to an interesting web article (daniel handler interviewing jack black) before i've finished reading it. so far i've read a lot of talk about weddings. it's posted as exclusive online content from "the believer." i think it's online because it may not have been good enough to actually print in the magazine. of course, it's ideal pre-holiday reading when you're at work and there aren't a million things you need to do in the office.

local links and commentary

Last week I realized that I want to know more about the town where I grew up than just what I read in the headlines of The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, VA’s local paper. What I want to be able to view online is a blog like Gothamist, Gawker or blogging.la that covers the city and adds a bit of flavored commentary (okay, okay "snark"). I scoured Google typing in terms like: Fredericksburg, blog, weblog, Stafford, Spotsylvania, blogspot, and even livejournal. I couldn’t find much at all. I certainly didn’t come across any current blogs that looked at life in Fredericksburg or even a certain aspect of life in the area. I was pretty disappointed.

While reading the local paper today, I came across an article entitled Web Site Targets Beck (Bill Beck, Fredericksburg’s mayor). While Fred Bugle is not quite the site I was looking for last week (and I’m a bit frustrated that it didn’t come up in any of my searches) it seems like the kind of thing a good sized Virginia town needs. I’m not saying I agree with the articles published on the web site, although I did get a good laugh at the front page’s 469-word disclaimer. Actually, the only article I’ve read so far is about two baseball fields that have been vacant for at least the past year or two due to problems with the soil. The new site adds to the conversation and I like that.

Not only does Fredericksburg have a local newspaper with a regularly updated web site (I can even have the articles downloaded to my Palm handheld!), there’s also a local monthly paper called Front Porch Fredericksburg that publishes online. With the new City Council critiquing (lampooning?) Fred Bugle thrown into the mix there is a perfect niche waiting to be filled by a blog critiquing and commenting on all three sites. And I want more. I want a Fredericksburg blog that also covers the arts and culture scene. It should also include photoblog content.

This is where I get a little ahead of myself. I dream too much of being able to spend an afternoon reading about various cities not from their daily papers: but, from locally produced web sites that include commentary and links from a number of different sources. J.D. Lasica, Sr. Editor for Online Journalism Review, has a number of thorough articles on the subject of "participatory journalism."

I imagine in the mid-to-late nineties a lot of cities and towns created websites that listed contact phone numbers and other ‘welcome to our town’ features. It’s now time to revisit those sites, updating and modernizing them. A brief search lead me to a few blogs (The Dover (NH) Post, St. Louis Bloggers, and lawrence(ks).com blogs) produced in other cities that seem to do a good job heading in the direction of what I want from the Fredericksburg, VA internet community.

Perhaps a web site like this already exists for the town where I grew up and I just can’t find it? If you know of one, send me an e-mail (marc (at) balgavy (dot) com). I’m anxious to read what’s out there.

cultural landscape

architect james kunstler examines the cultural landscape with his eyesore of the month. i'm anxious to devour the archives before turning to tonight's poker game. but read lightly - he can get deliciously mean (for example, check out his september review of a typical suburban house). (link via boingboing)

ease into sleep

jimmy kimmel live has been extended for another season!

i recorded last night's first half of battlestar galactica. this is the sort of thing i have to resort to when the prime time shows i watch are in reruns!

also, i was sad when the pretty boy was picked on last night's conclusion of "average joe."

the rebuild

due to technical difficulties, "watching expired appliances align" is being rebuilt. the old look and most of the old archives will be available shortly. you haven't missed anything, really.

new posts to my dvr blog should resume this week. last week was a pretty bad tv week, so i don't think much was missed there, either.