My friend has been trying to offload the domain blogfighting.com and I think it would be perfect for drama like what follows. As I try to warn in most drama cases, skip if this isn’t your cup of java.

Not sure if this skirmish between Chris Pirillo and his fiancee Ponzi is fake or real but as a reader it’s making me a bit uneasy. It seems somewhat real. The situation is making me question whether or not blogs are the best place to air out personal relationship differences. They sound like a married couple already bickering through their blogs. Is this just pre-marital jitters, or is this a new type of blogging way to get free relationship counseling from the internet at large?

What makes me think this might be engineered and fake? Check out the screenshot above to the right. That’s classic Chris Pirillo. He’s making fun of Strawberry Shortcake. He’s clearly not serious .. well, not completely serious. I’m sure he dislikes Strawberry Shortcake, but is he making fun of something his fiancee likes? This is coming from the guy who rented out space on his chest so I doubt he’s that serious about anything shared online, but he confuses me sometimes with his sardonic wit. Obviously, I’m not alone.

But reading Ponzi’s post makes me think she is seriously hurt:

It feels belittling to me for him to laugh or say things like “That’s not even a good job, it looks like ass.” We’ve been over this time and time again. He says all “geeks” feel like this when they are helping people who are close to them with computer questions. Yet, it still doesn’t make me confident to hear him laugh at my ignorance.

Why does this stuff make me a bit uncomfortable? Because it’s none of my business. I feel like I’m being voyeuristic reading and now I’m making it worse by blogging about it. If these two are going to be exhibitionists then why not just put a 24 hour webcam in their bedroom? Heck, they could probably make it member’s only and make some $$ in the process.

Then again maybe this is very relevant since these are their personal blogs. People should be able to blog about whatever floats their boat. Still I wonder if it would be helpful for readers to be able to understand if these posts are real or fake?

What do you think, is this real or fake? Should readers care at all? Once it’s published to the masses, it’s no longer private and personal, even if it is slotted in a personal blog. I do like when bloggers share personal things, as written about here before several times, because it shares a side of their humanity and makes their blogs more unique. However, I don’t like when I can’t tell whether something is a joke on us (the readers), a joke on them or not a joke at all.

These are the tags Ponzi used for her post: email, smartass, clarity, blogging, understanding, teaching, sensitivity, questions, geek, contextual.

Chris used these tags to describe one of his rebuttal posts: fiancee, friendship, sweetheart, cupcake, girlfriend, marriage, companionship, love, lover.

None of these tags suggest humor or satire to me. If these two started going at it in a restaurant I’d be one compelled to tell them to keep it down so the rest of us can enjoy our meal in peace.

Fake? Real?

Update 9:42am PST: My friend with blogfighting.com alerted me that Chris Pirillo is now blocking links from this site to his, see screenshot below (I changed his link above, and we’ll see how long it takes him to block that one too). Ponzi still isn’t blocking the link from here to there, so maybe she still loves Hmm.

Guess this means I won’t be getting an invite to their wedding.

Prison isn’t a place for fun and games, nor should it be in my opinion, but somebody in Oregon came up with a plan to incentify convicts with good behavior by giving them videogames.

digg story:

Prison isn’t all fun and games, but a new program in Oregon finds that some games actually produce better prisoners. A recent incentive program allows inmates to purchase a US$35 game console after 18 months without disciplinary problems, and to play their choice of 50 preloaded games.

Is it just me here or shouldn’t prisoners be fearful of going to prison? Shouldn’t it be a place where nobody wants to go, not some country club or arcade?

Cigarette smoking, or at least sales of cigarattes, are on the decline in the US. In fact, last year was the lowest sales since 1951:

The National Association of Attorneys General, relying on Treasury Department data, reported Wednesday that 378 billion cigarettes were sold in the United States last year.

Of course 378 billion cigarettes in the United States alone is no small business. Reasons the article cites for this decline? Increased taxes and no smoking bans in public places.

I started and quit smoking as a teenager, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit not looking back. That nicotine is very, very addictive stuff. Thank goodness I was able to quit cold without resorting to patches or gum. None of this even touches on what smoking does to clothes and living quarters. We go out to the casino once in awhile and we have to wash our coats afterwards.

I’m not bashing smokers — heck, I was one of them once upon a time — I kind of feel for those who don’t want to or can’t quit. It’s an expensive, dirty habit that nobody but other smokers and some ex-smokers even want to be around. If my wife didn’t have asthma I could still see going back all these years later. That’s a bit eerie to admit. Readers thinking of starting smoking, if any exist of you exist? Don’t. I sure hope none of our kids pick up this habit.

The whole Big Tobacco thing could someday be a thing of the past. Probably not in my lifetime. There are at least 378 billions why not in the US alone.

Any smoker readers feeling pushed out into the rain?

I learned yesterday that Christopher Reeve’s wife, Dana, died of lung cancer on Monday.

Dana Reeve stayed by her husband who was paralyzed after being thrown from a horse. The man who played Superman vowed to walk again and I believed he would do just that, but unfortunately his number came up first. Sadly, the reaper knows no bounds, and a couple years later, Dana would be diagnosed with lung cancer. She too, strongly fought the illness and looked to be making a recovery.

But it was not meant to be.

Leon describes his reaction to Dana’s passing:

The news of her death left me in shock, because I never saw it coming. I know she was diagnosed with lung cancer, despite the fact that she didn’t smoke, but she seemed to be healing. She said the tumour was shrinking, and looked as happy and healthy as ever.

Dana and Christopher were married just three years before the horse accident. Though we all die and there are certainly sad tales every day to be told of love and loss, there is just something very ironic and sad about Superman and his Lois Lane dying in their 50’s (iher 40’s).

They are flying together again, I’m sure, far, far away from any Kryptonite.

A break from tech to talk about all this steroids crap going on in baseball. Next week our entire family will be down in Arizona and planning to catch at least one Mariners spring training game. Baseball is on my mind.

How fitting that a couple San Franciso writers/reporters penned a book to be published later this month that alleges not only that Barry Bonds was on steroids since 1998, but backs it up with a bunch of data. Still, as Jim Rome said this morning on his nationally syndicated radio show: “no smoking needle, so it is his word against their word.” I haven’t read the book but from the commentary making the rounds, Bonds is being slayed in the media.

A huge percentage of the sports media are treating this like it’s true. It’s sad for a player that was a gold glover for multiple years prior to this to be in this mess. Bonds has brought on some of the increased scrutiny with his cold, stoic demeanor with the press, but anybody who had set such incredible records would have a brighter light on them. People are curious how these records are broken. Who these people are, what they did to train, what they might be able to do to break them someday.

Records are destined to be broken someday, although there are a few ridiculous and impractical by today’s pitching standards records in baseball like Cy Young’s 500+ wins.

I’ve wrestled with this whole steroids thing in my head for a couple years now. It’s a huge problem in Major League Baseball. The league is trying to take steps to protect the integrity but the fact remains that the record books, particularly the homerun records, are at least somewhat tainted.

The question is how tainted?

Meanwhile, I think back to players like Pete Rose, banished for gambling on baseball in the late eighties. He lied about it to all of us for years and then cranked out a book to tell all and his admission was treated as too little too late. It’s too late for Rose to get into the Hall via the writers, his Hall fate will be determined by the existing Hall veterans committee, of which I’ve read one Hall of Famer being quoted as saying Pete would never get in by them.

So here we have active players who have admitted to juicing, allegations running rampant for extraordinary players like Barry Bonds, and Pete Rose being held out of the Hall because of gambling.

Players and managers can’t be gambling, but where does using steroids come in? Is this like scuffing up the ball or corking the bat or stealing signs? These latter items are prohibited and yet it still happens. Is juicing competitive advantage or a threat to the entire game?

I enjoyed the whole McGwire / Sosa homerun race. And it was magical watching Barry Bonds break McGwire’s homerun record. But in retrospect I’ve had to wonder if I was cheated?

At least with pro wrestling we know a lot of it is fake. I don’t want to see MLB turn into some kind of farce. It’s my second favorite professional sport next to the NFL. I’m torn on all of this.

I don’t have any answers on this one, so I’ll throw the whole mess into the comments area and hope some of you can help enlighten me on the situation and form a concrete position. I don’t think steroids should be allowed of course, I’m just wondering what MLB should do with the existing records situation. And do you believe that Bonds was juicing? I think he was, but I don’t know for sure. And if he was, prior to 98 he was still a hall of famer, so I’m not sure what any of this means for his ticket to the hall. And what about Pete Rose? Shouldn’t he be there if ‘roids guys get in?

- Vongo revisited [Hmm Vongo review] - currently having some trouble with “can’t find media errors” when trying to watch a movie a second or third time.

- spellcheck in comments has been fixed [site news]

- TiVO heart still beating, plans to let Verizon subscribers program their TiVo via Verizon’s Get It Now service. No prices will be announced, but Get It Now should have been called Get Billed Later. $5/month says moconews. Mike at Techdirt also wonders who will pay $5/month for the ability to program their TiVo via their phone? Answer: people who don’t stop and realize that they will be charged for this extra service (even with disclaimers). The fact that you can’t disable stuff like this on your phone is maddening (if you can disable this stuff, please tell me how in the comments). Yet another reason to dislike cell phone companies.

- Towards the end of February PRWeb adding some trackback functionality (thanks Toby). A debate over the value of press releases came up recent and I disagree with those who don’t see the value in them. They are still a professional way for smaller companies to get their word out about their product/service along with the big boys. Yeah, we might be buried somewhat, but it’s a place to announce new products/services and I don’t think blogging alone replaces press releases.

- JohnnyRS shares some Second Life building tips at VTOR. Handy stuff for those new to SL. Also, see the VTOR sidebar for information about how to link to in world locations from the web via the new SLurl service. This is our group blog about MMO sites which is now up to over 45 unique visitors a day and has made a whopping 19.3 cents. Nothing can stop us from world blog domination now.

- A lot of talk about GDrive, Google’s rumored next step in storing the world’s information, including what’s on our hard drives. I’m not the only one who is a little weirded out by any company having access to all our data. Not that there is anything salacious (ok, maybe a little bit) on my hard drive, I just don’t like the idea of any single company knowing all of the following: what I search for, what I save, where I visit (Google Toolbar with PR on), etc. I know the 1984 references are wayyy cliched among the tech rags but really, it’s getting kinda eerie. Agree/disagree?

- Hey hey hey, Bill Cosby’s not laughing today over parodies on some of his older material. I wonder about Kenan Thompson on SNL who plays Fat Albert. Did they get some special permission for his satire? If not, seems like hypocrisy to me.

Looking for more Hmm quickies?
When I get jammed up with lots to do and want to say a little about a lot, Hmm quickies come in handy. This week is very hectic with our plans to head down to spring training this coming weekend (week before vacation and week after vacation always crazy).

Instead of these quickies I could hammer out a bunch of really small posts and have done that a few times. And posts like these throw off the contextual ad programs, but it’s kind of fun to see what ads they try and put next to these posts. Maybe that will make us all go hmm?

To find the past 21 installments, just do a Hmm search for “quickies.”

I don’t care for hard cookies. Conversely, soft cookies with a big glass of milk will get me almost every time.

Our kids will usually devour the cookies before I can get to them, but my newest favorite cookies are shown above: Chips Ahoy Soft Baked Chunky chocolate chip. These cookies are loaded with chunks of milk chocolate and quite tasty.

What are your favorite store bought (not grandma’s secret recipe) soft chocolate chip cookies?

On a clear day, we can see Mount Rainier in the distance.

How is the view near your business and/or home? Any readers with oceanfront property? We are talking about heading over to the ocean for our annual family vacation in July. It’s a two hour drive or so west to the ocean from here.

And, of course, every small town wouldn’t be complete without a tavern/lounge/bar (also pictured). Why is that, anyway?

Checking out Time’s photo essay of the Googleplex is enough to make any geek drool. Google’s famous 20% rule for employees where they can spend 20% of their time working on their own pet projects but did you know about some of the other amenities in the ‘plex?

- Two swim in place pools with lifeguards on duty
- 24 hour onsite hardware technicians to fix computer ills
- workspace customization and flexibility with lava lamps and other gadgets and gizmos
- idea board for out of this world ideas like Google spaceships
- shoot pool or let the kids play while snacking away in stylish employee lounges
- get your haircut at the ‘plex
- play volleyball outside
- three free gourmet meals per day
- professional massages
- dogs are allowed in the ‘plex, but sorry Garfield, cats are out

It’s a wonder anybody ever leaves the Googleplex which isn’t an accidental side effect. If the going should ever get tough for Google (it will someday), maybe they can sell out part of the space for timeshare. I’m sure some guests would love to spend time there.

If I was ever going to be an employee anywhere again, I’d certainly look strongly at amenities like these. What other places have nice bennies like this?

Today I decided to — finally — sign up for MySpace. I’m only like number 57 million plus and change, so I’m way late to this party.

I’ve been reading about this site for quite some time, both good and bad stories (but lately more bad than good) and decided that from a parental perspective learning about this site was way overdue. For other parents reading, hopefully my overview will be helpful in getting you up to speed, but first an important question.

Are your kids on MySpace?

Only one of our three children is heavily into the computer, our oldest teenager. The other two spend most of their online time playing Xbox Live.

Every time I see what our oldest is up to it seems it is the game Runescape and Instant Messaging. I decided to ask him if he’d ever heard of MySpace and if he had a site there. Questions went something like this:

“Have you ever heard of MySpace?”
“Have you registered for a page there?”
“Have you put any personal information on there?”
“Do you know that putting any personally identifiable information on the web, unless you are a business and an adult is considered a bad idea?”

Turns out our oldest, Jowl, did have an old MySpace account. He said he barely used it, so asked him to send me a link to it so I could see what he put up there. Not much, he said. Seems like he didn’t have a whole lot of interest in the site.

Talkin’ bout MySpace Generation
I looked back through the history of this blog to see what I’ve written about MySpace to date. Not much there. Definitely I seemed prejudiced because I didn’t have much interest in a site with personal pages heavily populated by teens. According to the stats in this Yahoo story:

The MySpace network has nearly 50 percent of the market share of all U.S. Web community sites — 10 times more than any single rival site, including Yahoo, Facebook, Craigslist and LiveJournal, according to Hitwise.

Onto the registration process for MySpace.

STEP 1. Standard fare: email, first and last name, country, gender, date of birth, agree to terms (checkbox) and hard to read CAPTCHA to keep bots at bay.
STEP 2. Upload photo. My ugly mug is everywhere, so no problem adding here as well. Here’s the text warning in red verbatim:

Photos may not contain nudity, violent or offensive material, or copyrighted images. If you violate these terms your account will be deleted.

STEP 3. Invite some friends. I sent an invite to Jowl so we could be connected but when I tried to submit the form I kept getting server errors. They must have been working on things, I’d come back to this later.
STEP 4. I went back to the front of the site and noticed a lot of the settings were grayed out in my Edit Profile section. I looked for a confirmation email and it hadn’t arrived yet. My guess is this becomes editable field once the email is confirmed. When I returned to the home page I saw a page like this:

From here I was able to see my MySpace URL and MySpace Blog, as well as add further items to the profile. Man, there is a ton of advertising on this site. Will teens really put up with this much ad flak just to get a free personal page, blog and hang out virtually with friends? I wonder how many are running GreaseMonkey to combat the MySpace ad saturation?

Also, how many teens could take advantage of offers like tax preparation (see banner in screenshot above for TaxAct)? Also offers to stay at hotels, buy Qwest broadband, etc. If teens are the primary market of this site are they expecting these teens to run to their parents and say: hey, go with Qwest, I see them all the time on MySpace? I tried a different computer that wasn’t logged in and was seeing many of the same ads, so the ads didn’t seem to be age-targeted. Nor did they seem to be very region targeted either.

When I tried to edit my profile to change my status to ‘married’ instead of ’single’ I received a message: Server Too Busy.

My son’s MySpace turned out to be less updated than mine. No MySpace worries in our household, it seems. Have you checked over the MySpace situation in your household? What do you like/dislike about this site?