Hardly the Last Word

Where I’ve Been Online Post-Facebook
by Mike Morell
I don’t know why this little post amused me so, but it does make me remember the broad range of online adventures I’m officially a part of.? I know I haven’t been treating many of them at all very well in the last couple months, but the ‘Net has [...]

Sansa Connect 4GB
I got this little gem in the worst of circumstances: I had acquired for very little money its more expensive cousin, the Sansa View 8GB, and one day, the hold switch (which is built into the power switch, a rotten engineering choice) decided to stick in the locked position.? So I couldn’t turn [...]

CBC Radio Podcast: Ideas, August 31
I’m a big fan of David Simon, both for The Corner and The Wire and for his outspoken criticisms of the newspaper industry. ?I think he does well to push the demise of newspapers backwards beyond the rise of CraigsList and towards the business practices of the papers themselves. ?This [...]

First I should give some permissions:

If I’ve made fun of Twitter in your presence, you can comment and make fun of me now.
If I’ve made fun of you for using Twitter, you can comment and make fun of me now.
If the title of the post is just too hard to resist, go ahead and comment.
If [...]

I try never to call myself technically savvy, computer-literate, or other such things–the moment I do, somebody’s going to ask me to install, update, or fix something that’s beyond my scope.? Nonetheless, I do take some joy in those moments when I get electronic widgets to work in ways that they weren’t working before.? So [...]

Last week I had the pleasure of meeting up with Robert, who often ended up on the same side as mine when the forums at theooze.com got to brawling.? (No, he still hasn’t started writing that blog.) He had been in Atlanta for a conference, so after I dropped Micah off at school for the [...]

GodBlogCon has undergone a name change so that it doesn’t sound so much like a Star Trek convention.? Their new name is the Christian Web Convention, and they’re still doing their thing at Biola University, home of the Scriptorium Daily blog and Middlebrow podcast.
If anyone with some excess wealth wants to sponsor my airfare to [...]

There’s no good way to choose between the impiety of refusing to be a “fan” of Jesus, the Bible, prayer, and forgiveness on one hand; and the impiety of trivializing them by becoming their “fans” on the other.

While I’m out of town, I figured I’d give you readers some food for thought, and here’s the question of the day: is Christian preaching primarily the transmission of content that happens to involve rhetorical performance, or is it primarily performance that might or might not have content?
Behold:

Jess, if you’re reading, I know it’s too [...]

I just love this video. ?My brother Ryan sent me a link to one of StSanders’s dubbed-over guitar-solo clips a while ago, and I think this Clapton send-up is my favorite. ?In case you’re as slow as some of the comment-writers over at YouTube, this isn’t really Clapton, just a well-timed and awful-sounding noodling session [...]

The New Media Frontier: Blogging, Vlogging, and Podcasting for Christ
I realize, now that I’ve read this book, that it’s possible to expect to be surprised, and when I read this book, I was surprised precisely where I expected.? The book itself is a compilation of essays, grouped thematically into a section exploring the new media [...]

As I’ve written here before, I had a three-and-a-half-year run contributing on the threaded discussion boards at theooze.com, and I do not regret those years.? During that span I was able to make a (relatively) smooth transition from the seminary life to the life of a college English teacher, and the ooze gave me a [...]

Well, it was a busy week in several ways.? As you’ve read here, I’ve been teaching like crazy, and beyond that, my Ubuntu 8.10 disk came in the mail, so I installed it on the new laptop, and I’ve never had a faster computer. Between the dropping cost of PC’s and the solid programming in [...]

I’m not going to make the mistake this time of trying to switch mid-stream.? When this site meets my expectations, I’ll import Hardly the Last Word and make this my only blog.? Until then, the wordpress.com site will remain my blog.

On my brother’s advice, I went ahead and registered the domain http://www.nathangilmour.com a while ago, and in the intervening time I’ve been putting together a new professional page.? So take a gander if you will, and if you have suggestions for the banner, do give them–I’m no graphic designer, and this fourth iteration of the [...]

I read about this project in WIRED magazine with some enthusiasm; after all, I’ve been using gmail since early in the “gmail invites” days, play on Google Earch with abandon, use Google’s security package until AVG improved on it, and organize all of my Micah pics on Picasa (and upload them through Picasa’s web albums).? [...]

Well, my mostly-neglected Fantasy Football team failed to make the real playoffs.? I suppose it’s not entirely bad to be seeded well in the consolation playoffs.
Perhaps next season I’ll have a bit more time to fiddle with such things.

Those of you using wordpress.com are likely asking a similar question.? (I know, I know.? I’m one of the few who says stuff like that out loud.)? Apparently the new wordpress software is up and running, and the interface is very, very different now.? This is going to take a while to adjust…

To those of you who listen to podcasts I strongly recommend that you try out “The History of Rome” by Mike Duncan.? Duncan, who took a break for a while starting this summer, is back to producing his brief, clear, and interesting podcasts, and with a move to typepad for hosting, he now offers all [...]

I know it’s only going to irk me sore.
The Ooze Forums
On one hand, I do appreciate that occasionally, when I indulge, I see nice things said about Andrew (Windblown) and myself.? On the other, I more often run into threads that remind me why I got out of there in the first place.? The list [...]