Jason Clarke

Here we are again- it’s time for this week’s NFL Pool wrap-up and preview.

Last week: 9-7

Summary: I did well, but still lost this week. Overall yearly standings should be in next week- but I think I’m in great shape!

Season to date: 121-107 - Good for 53%

My for this week are below in BOLD. Leave yours in the comments!

NYG at WAS - Was
PIT at CIN - Cin
Det at Dal - Dal
NE at Ten - NE
Jax at KC - Jax
Stl at Min - Stl
Car at NO - NO
Oak at NYJ - NYJ
Sea at TB - Sea
Cle at Hou - Hou
SF at Den - Den
Mia at Ind - Ind
Atl at Phi - Phi
Ari at SD - SD
Buf at Bal - Bal
GB at Chi - Chi (32)

Last year, I named my “2005 Blogs of the Year“, and without even reaching it’s second anniversary, I’ve changed the format of this award. Instead of limiting its scope to blogs, I’m expanding this list to include all types of citizen’s media sites- from blogs to podcasts to video blogs to anything that might be similar to any of those. So here we go…

5. Bloggingheads.tv - Robert Wright, Mickey Kaus & Friends -AND- HotAir - Michelle Malkin / These two unique political video blogs are strange bedfellows for a tie on my list. While Bloggingheads is long, talky, and akin to eavesdropping on policy wonks in the hallways of a political conference, HotAir shines because it is short, sharp, and decidedly in the personality of its host, acerbic political blogger Michelle Malkin. Though they’re different, they’re both my picks for best political videoblogs out there.

4. Rocketboom - Andrew Barron, Joanne Colan (partial), Amanda Congdon (partial) / The intelligence quotient of NPR, the snark of The Daily Show- Rocketboom is an acquired taste that I find occasionally fascinating, occasionally annoying, but always interesting and, without a doubt, the gold standard for video blogs in terms of production value and an overall unique voice.

3. TV Squad - Contributors / From show episodes to industry news to rumors and innuendo, TV Squad is the only, essential, indispensable site for anybody who cares about the TV industry or loves to watch. Updated frequently, but never too much, they’re fun yet blissfully unsnarky.

2. Instapundit - Glenn Reynolds -AND- The Glenn and Helen Show - Glenn Reynolds & Dr. Helen Smith / Yet again, the most prolific, and bereft, thinker on the web is #2 on my list. The best blog of all time is now complimented nicely by the addition of an excellent podcast, The Glenn and Helen Show. Reynolds and his wife, Dr. Helen Smith, are a relaxed, witty duo behind the microphones, and their A-list guests and wide range of timely topics are some of my favorite

1. Maine Web Report - Lance Dutson / Yes, Lance is my friend and co-host on Maine Impact, our podcast on Maine issues. But those things have nothing to do with my decision to name Lance’s Maine Web Report my citizen’s media site of the year. Beginning with his pointed, relentless coverage of Maine’s Department of Tourism back in the early winter, through the travails of the lawsuit filed against him, and continuing on through his freedom of access requests and reports, as well as his coverage of a myriad of other issues affecting the people of Maine, Lance put the bite back into Maine media and showed by example truly how deeply the explosion of citizen’s media can effect the status quo.

• Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox)
  (tags: toread webdesign)

Following up on last year’s post, here are my picks for top 5 websites, tools, and/or services of 2006:

5. Dreamhost - I switched to this highly regarded web host in February, and haven’t looked back since, despite a series of public troubles during the summer. But if the measure of a company is how it deals with customers during adversity, Dreamhost rose to the challenge and then some with is transparent and extremely honest chronicling of its own troubles via its status blog. Combine that with insane bandwidth, disk space, immensely handy one-click installs, and a set of power features that can’t be matched, Dreamhost is the ideal backbone for anybody working on the web.

4. Google Docs & Spreadsheets - If I could find a suitable online PowerPoint solution, I would uninstall Microsoft Office in a heartbeat thanks primarily to Google’s excellent Docs & Spreadsheet solution. While the product needs to improve its import and formatting tools, you can’t beat the convenience and ease of a centralized, tag-based repository for your documents. A shout-out to Writely, the word processing tool purchased by Google and adapted into Docs & Spreadsheets.

3. Google Calendar -AND- 30Boxes - Yep, it’s another Google tool on the list. Although I started out a devout Yahoo! user this year, I had to break away after experiencing 30Boxes excellent, game-changing calendar solution. And while I loved 30Boxes and their commitment to RSS and an open web, I ultimately made the switch to Google Calendar. It’s not the product that 30Boxes cal is, but I expect the product to improve in some great ways in 2007.

2. YouTube - What else can you say about YouTube, other than the fact that it helped to usher in the video evolution, made embedded video the standard, further encouraged the open, sharing nature of the web, and played nice with both corporate producers and independent voices? It’s a nostalgia factory, a citizen’s media platform, and a distribution model, and then some, and although many other video sharing sites are out there, YouTube’s cultural influence makes it the clear leader of the pack, and an easy #2.

1. Mozilla Firefox 2.0 - #2 on my list last year has risen to #1 with the release of its version 2.0. Firefox 2 adds some excellent features- notably a spell check and tighter RSS integration- and with the advent of the Web 0S thanks to Google and others, maintains its significant role at the very center of the human side of the web.

• Maine Sports Report
  (tags: activetopic atideas)

I watched 17 19 20 21 movies that were released in 2006. Here’s the list of films I saw, ranked in order from least to most favorite:

UPDATE: I’ve seen 2 4 more films released in 2006 since I first wrote this post. I’ve integrated them into the list.

I DIDN’T LIKE THESE:
21. You Me and Dupree
20. Pirates Of the Carribean 2: Dead Man’s Chest
19. The DaVinci Code
———-
THE PACK:
18. The Departed
17. Accepted
16. Grandma’s Boy
15. The Lake House
14. Little Miss Sunshine
13. Mission Impossible III
12. The Break-Up
11. Scoop
10. Miami Vice
9. Cars
8. Click
7. Nacho Libre
6. Clerks III
5. Looking for Kitty
———-
I REALLY LIKED THESE:
4. Inside Man
3. Thank You For Smoking
2. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

MY FAVORITE MOVIE OF 2006:
1. Casino Royale

My friend David Hardy has just released a documentary film he’s been working on for many years. It’s called In Search of the Second Amendment, and it’s an exploration of the history and true meaning of our right to keep and bear arms.

The movie is $24.95 to own, but Hardy is not promoting a closed distribution circuit- rather, he’s encouraging people to show the film on local TV, hold screenings and talks with it, and generally share it license free, at least through March 2007. He’s also made the film’s trailer available on YouTube. You can watch it right here:

Merry Christmas to you and yours, wherever you are!

Here we are again- it’s time for this week’s NFL Pool wrap-up and preview.

Last week: 8-7

Summary: Staying strong…just waiting for an update on overall standings to see how I’m doing.

Season to date: 112-100 - Good for 53%

My for this week are below. Leave yours in the comments!

Min
KC
Atl
Buf
Cle
Chi
StL
NO
Bal
NE
Ind
SF
Den
SD
Dal
NYJ

• Upscale broadcaster Plum ripe for expansion - Yahoo! News
  Plum, a small company
  that is building TV networks in some of the country’s richest
  neighborhoods, said Thursday that it has raised $20 million in
  a financing round that included entertainers and former top
  entertainment executives.
  (tags: media news toread)