New blog site

Peeps:
If there are any of you still out there reading this blog, I migrated it over to Wordpress. The site offers better ease of use for me and a new look, too. Please visit and update your bookmarks and feeds accordingly.

On sekin thauwt

You know, I may come back to thisaheer blog thingy. The dang new Facebook layout is givin' me fits. You'd think they'd stop a-changin' it evry dang week, but they jus cain't. I guess they cain't hep themselves.

Why this blog is dying

The reason is Facebook and Twitter. Ever since I got on Facebook, I've been neglecting this blog, which anyone can see from the once-a-month posts. I'm not sure I'll be reviving it any time soon.
Facebook and Twitter suit my kind of running off-the-cuff commentary on the world. They also can be updated instantly from anywhere thanks to my phone.
Of course, this blog can too, which leads me to ponder why I love updating through FB and not my blog. And the only conclusion I can muster is this: Facebook is a captive audience. I know that my friends who log on regularly are seeing my updates. This poor blog, at its zenith, was read by about 10 visitors a day.
Blogging takes a bit of effort, some reflection upon events and thoughts before posting. I don't know why this is so, because you could just post two unedited lines of text like Twitter. But blogs seem to encourage more expounding. Facebook and Twitter just flatter that childish self-absorbtion - look at me, look at me! - and require minimal investment of thought and time. Which is not to say that I don't spend inordinate amounts of time on both platforms...
Speaking of which, if you want to follow my tweets, I am tayne_gheel on Twitter. Before you follow, a warning. I post incessantly.

I write the songs that make only a tiny part of the world sing

In the pantheon of stupid ideas Rockford has come up with to justify itself to the rest of the world, I think I've found the greatest achievement. But first let's take a moment to remember a couple of the best...
There is the timeless Symbol welcoming drivers - and warding off evil spirits - along Illinois 251. I've always thought the giant red sculpture looks like a cross between a garish Christmas present bow and a medieval weapon.
There's my personal favorite, a tourism bureau advertising blitz from the 1990s. The tagline was "Rockford: A different kind of greatness." Huh?
But this one is the best by far. Apparently, the 'ole Chamber of Commerce once took it upon themselves to put together a collection of amateur songwriters' ditties on Rockford. Pure awful. Among the lyrics: "Catch a smile on the Whitman Street bridge."
Please, please, please visit this link and listen. I just can't do it justice here.

Relentless march of Progress

In keeping with our dedication to providing the best infrastructure and state-of-the-art equipment here at the Partially Caffeinated Institute, our facilities management team recently invested in a new caffeine production system.
This brings the total number of coffee-manufacturing platforms at the Institute to five, although some of our methods have fallen into disfavor due to inefficiency. We have also abandoned the old burner warming system because, well, it results in charred brews.
So far the new thermal repository has been a significant technical advancement over previous methods.

The truth about law school

So all my finals are over. Worst time ever. To all my readers who want to know what my life has been like in law school, I think this video sums it up better than I could:

Tribune falters

The Tribune Company went bankrupt before my former employer, GateHouse Media. Who knew? But it can't be long now...
The great part about the Trib company is that the $8.2 billion deal to take it private was financed in large part through a loan against the employee's pension plans. Of course, the employees had no say in this and now the equity that their pension leveraged in the company is worthless. Of course, that douchebag Zell will get a shot at recouping the $500 million he put in, while the employees won't. Ah, capitalism...