If you’re coming here from FFF, welcome and poke around! I’ve been swamped at work so the posts have been thin lately but will be picking up again soon. And to my loyal reader, thanks for sticking around!*

*Assuming I have at least one reader.

I’ve played sports most of my life: soccer, baseball, football, cross-country and track, lacrosse. Some I was good at, some not so good but I always had fun. When I got into the real world, sports were something I watched on TV. I can remember the twinge of sadness when watching Jaret Wright start a World Series Game 7 and I was the same age as him. That was the moment I realized that I would never play professional baseball. Fast forward a few years and the company I work for had a softball team. I still had all my equipment here in New York. I would go to the cages for fun with friends and could still put the bat on the ball. I missed playing a sport. I was in. And boy, was I hooked.

That first year, I was the new guy, and unsurprisingly out of shape. I pulled a quad in the first game and sat out for a few games. But I still went. Didn’t miss a single game. We weren’t great but we played, we drank, and we had fun. I obsessed about run differentials and hitting to the opposite field. I checked out the league website every day to see where we were in the standings and to see how the teams we were playing the next week did. After the games, when the bus took us to the bar, I’d stay out late and have drunken discussions about how to change the lineup or how we should be recruiting more girls.* I made some really good friends and when it ended, I couldn’t wait until next year. So I didn’t. Some of us decided to play in a fall league. That one was less serious, more about hanging out while playing than necessarily going all out for the win. I thought of it as keeping loose in the off-season.

The next year was much like the previous. We were good and improved to a winning record, just missing the playoffs. My obsession grew and I stepped up my trips to the cages with a few other die-hard players. Mind you, this is all starting in February for a season that didn’t start until May. It was kind of crazy but at least I wasn’t alone in my efforts. And they paid off: I started off on a tear, hitting somewhere around .500 over seven games and I recieved the honor of being elected by my teammates to the All-Star team. But the best feeling was when we made the playoffs. I finally missed my first game in three seasons and it was our first playoff win. I can’t even recall now what the reason was. I’m guessing it was a wedding or something that took me out of town and believe me, it hurt. I came back and we had two games of the double-elimination round on the same day. Unfortunately, we lost them both but we were happy to get there. Fall softball (with slightly more seriousness than the previous fall) filled the void and kept me going until next year.

Due to construction on the fields, last year and this year were shortened seasons. Instead of games every week, it was every other week. No All-Star game, no double-elimination and four less teams made the playoffs. Last year, we improved again but were unlucky in the post-season. Top that off with the fall league selling out and that was a recipe for a long winter. The preseason saw us practicing harder than we had in any other season. I could tell in the first practices that we had a real shot this year. The rookies were looking good and people were playing together, like the teams I had been a part of when I was younger. We started strong with three wins right out of the gate. We had a fantastic game with a walk-off game winning run that may have been the best game of all five of my seasons. Sadly, one of our coaches, who had been the center of it all, went off on sabbatical and missed out on the end of the season. We finished as the seventh seed out of the eight teams that made the playoffs, which meant we would be playing the second seed, a team that had only lost two games all year. We demolished them with a mercy rule** win. We were riding high and looking forward to our next opponent. Which leads me to last night.

We came in better prepared and more motivated than ever. I barely slept the night before and all day at my desk, I couldn’t concentrate because I just wanted to get out on the field. The whole bus ride to the game, I was talking with a good friend of mine, one that I made through playing, another one of the obsessed. I told him I was so excited and that I had a really good feeling. The team we were playing had the most league championships and most playoff appearances. This wasn’t going to be a cakewalk but we had a shot. If you’ve gotten this far but didn’t notice the title, you can probably guess how it ended. We plain didn’t show up. Not the team that we had been all year. Not the team that had gotten us this far. We put up a good effort and there were flashes of that team: a couple of great defensive, one of our girls hitting a bomb of a home run. In the end, we lined up, told the other team “good game”, and it was over.

There’s not going to be fall softball this year. The league sold out again. So the winter will be another one of planning and keeping loose. I’ll probably hit the cages a few times. Maybe start throwing the ball around early and recruit harder around the office. But I have to say this: it was a great season. We have a lot to be proud of and we’re going to improve again next year. If you’re reading this and you played with me, this year or any year: thanks for everything. Thanks for showing up, for giving it your all, for drinking like a champ on the field or at the bar, for putting up with my cornering you in the elevator and asking “Are you playing tonight?” and not always being able to hide my disappointment when the answer was no. Thanks for letting me play with you. And I’ll see you at the cages in a few weeks. In the end, next season isn’t that far away.

* Our league is co-ed and to keep things balanced, the rules stipulate that you have to have to have a minimum of three girls in the line up. That will give you an automatic out at the end of the batting order and a guy has to play catcher. So you really want four girls there.

** For those of you not familiar, go here. In our league, it’s a 15-run lead after five complete innings. There was some discussion on the field about the rule but luckily, we keep a copy of the league rules on hand for just such an occasion.

First, it’s been an up-and-down time for President Obama. The latest flare ups revolve around health care, the economy, and whether or not he’s a participant in a 48-year long conspiracy to subjugate the electoral process and impose a Stalinist dictatorship on these United States. That last one doesn’t require much thought really so we’ll leave it behind, except to say read this to see how all three of the above could plausibly tie together. The economy is showing signs of not getting worse as fast as it had been. The stimulus has been taking effect slowly but surely and there’s some light at the end of that tunnel, even if it ends next year. The biggie right now is health care reform.

Now, I can understand how some people with vested interests in the status quo (your insurers, your pharmacuetical companies, your lobbyists) can have issues with how the Obama administration is going about changing how health care money is doled out. I can even understand when progressives say that the proposals out there don’t go far enough and that it should be a single-payer system or bust. The thing I just don’t understand is how many of those would benefit are the loudest ones saying “Don’t do anything with my health care!”. People who are either afraid of the government doing anything for them (unless it’s defending our borders or, you know, actually providing them health care). People who are (in most cases) simply repeating talking points or just looking to disrupt the proceedings where there should be open debate. In my opinion, reform is necessary and single-payer systems make a lot of sense but I’m always willing to listen to the other side. But when the other side spends all its time shouting down reasoned arguments and spreading lies*, they’re giving up a lot of credibility.

OK, on to more personal matters of health care. I’ve taken up running (not quite at a regular schedule but enough to say I “run”). Luckily I convinced my wife to join me in this quest so at the very least, I’m not lonely while I’m doing it. I’ve also started a diet (again it’s only day one). It’s called the Shangri-La Diet and I’d been kicking around the idea of it for a while. And by “kicking it around”, I mean “reading about the diet on a few blogs letting the book sit on a counter for a year and finally opening it this past Saturday”. It seems strange but hopefully, having something to report on will get me posting again.

A few other random thoughts to close this out:

• I’m trying to be more organized. I picked up this notebook from Muji. I think I like the idea of a cool notebook more than actually noting things. Any suggestions on how to get that changed around?
• I broke down and reinstalled PokerStars on my computer. I don’t play for real money since it’s just inconvenient enough to get money on there but I’ve been spending my time playing the 8-game mix with decent results. Just trying to round out my game. I’m playing in a home game in a couple of days so hopefully, there will be something to report.
• I went to the eye doctor for the first time in 11 years today. It was just like I remembered: dimly lit and involved sticking things in my eye, which I still don’t like. But the drops he gave me should help and he was a nice guy so maybe I’ll go back. Especially since he employed the scare tactic of telling me about someone who nearly lost an eye because they didn’t go to the eye doctor on a regular basis. Sometimes I am, in fact, a eight-year old.

OK, my wife has pointed out this has gone on for a while. I’ll wrap it up and say that there will be more to come and soon!

* I’m totally going to steal the idea of using a dialogue as a blog post

• Got my temporary crown installed put in crowned. The story behind this is last week, I was having a apple for breakfast and I felt/heard a “pop” at the back of mouth as I bit down. So off I went to the dentist who told me I had cracked my tooth and that I would need a crown. But she couldn’t do it that day because the whole thing was going to take two hours. Tuesday was the big day and it went about as good as oral surgery could go. By the time I got home, I was so exhausted, sitting down in front of the computer was not in the cards.
• Wednesday was a fantastic 13-hour workday where I spent eight of those hours in front of my computer reading through, editing, and reassigning issues and bugs for the project I’m working on at work. Needless to say, getting away from the computer was a necessity for my sanity’s sake
• Thursday was poker night. Not my game but a friend’s game. It’s a dealer’s choice, $1/2 fixed limit game with a $40 buy-in and a good group of guys. I was not playing well and knew it at a few points. But I managed to eke out a profit of exactly one dollar. Mainly due to two hands of razz: one where I made a wheel against two opponents that went all the way to showdown and another where (if I recall correctly) I made a 76 against an 86. Next Thursday is poker at my place and I’ll try to pay closer attention and give a detailed report.
• Friday was fantastic. A birthday dinner at one of the best steakhouses I’ve ever been to: Keens Steakhouse. It’s decorated with clay pipes all over the ceiling, as it used to be a pipe club for the celebrities of the early 20th century. They’re known for their mutton chops but I opted for the surf ‘n’ turf. We started with whiskey. Well, I had whiskey, some had bourbon, some had rye, and some had whisky. Then came the oysters, which led to a call of bullshit on my oyster taste. I dissed West Coast oysters to a foodie from Portland, Ore. and he chastised me. So we ended up ordering a dozen, half East Coast, half West. After eating, I stood and yea, still stand, by my original assumption. Two bottles of red (I think a Cab and a Haut-Medoc; the Haut-Medoc was very good), a rare filet mignon, lobster, and a grappa for dessert. A cigar between bars and another whiskey to close out a fantastic night. I think it was best I wasn’t writing anything when I got home.

Which leads to today. I was supposed to start it off playing softball but the previous nights activities led to me sleeping through the alarm and mild headache. Dreams of accomplishing things slipped away as I vegged out. I’m off again for a continuation of the birthday celebrations in a bit. I’ll be back to some substantive writing in a bit. Just need to catch up with the rest of the world…

Whether the Internet will ever support general-interest journalism at a level comparable to newspapers, it would be foolish to predict. The reality is that resources for journalism are now disappearing from the old media faster than new media can develop them. The financial crisis of the press may thereby compound the media’s crisis of legitimacy. Already under ferocious attack from both left and right for a multitude of sins, real and imagined, the press is going to find its job even more difficult to do under economic duress. And as it retrenches in the face of financial pressures, [director of Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, Tom] Rosenstiel says, “More of American life will occur in shadows. We won’t know what we won’t know.”

Paul Starr’s point is that without local journalism, the lesser Blagos of the world will run rampant. Throw in that the formerly two-paper towns will be losing one side of the story, and you start to get the picture: the views that people will be exposed to will be narrower and less in-depth.

Enter the hero of our story: the Internet! Yes, one of the things that brought about the all of the above will actually save the day. Besides, as one of my friends mentioned, those guys weren’t doing a very good job anyway. There are always standouts, but most of the time, local newspapers (due to declining ad revenues—we’ll get those momentarily) were laying off Starr’s venerable reporters and serving as reprint services for the wire services like AP and Reuters. The variety of views online will replace those reporters and keep our public officials honest. Well, almost. Much of what it found online is just aggregation of and commentating on existing sources, including those being “driven out of business” by the situation at hand! Are we caught in some sort of vicious circle?

Well, there are some innovators out there. There are places like ProPublica, trying to do unbiased reporting as a non-profit. Think PBS or, better yet, NPR but as an online-only newspaper. “ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest,” reads their About Us page. Their funding right now comes from the Sandler Foundation. There are questions about the possibilities of bias but from what I’ve read, I don’t see it but it is worth noting. Much like the one-paper town only getting half the story, it can’t be ignored.

Another story (in fact, the one that inspired me to finally get all these thoughts organized) is that of GlobalPost. They’re starting from the premise that ad-supported news sites (there’s that advertising thing again — I promise we’ll get there) can essentially be loss leaders. In yesterday’s NY Times, there’s was a borderline hagiography of the idea that it would be possible to *gasp* make money in the news business on the internet! It’s by harnessing the latest trend in media—communities and user-generated content— and making it feel more like being part of the club. By signing up for their Passport service (currently $199 or $50 for students), you not only get exclusive content but you actually get to help shape the content. The Passport “allows you to join [them] in the editor’s chair. As an active member in an elite community, you’re invited to present story ideas on topics you think matter, stories that you want to read and share with your Passport colleagues.” It seems great on paper but here’s the key grafs from the Times piece that puts the lie to their plans:

Only a couple of dozen people have signed up for Passport, said Philip Balboni, GlobalPost’s other founder and the president and chief executive. The site is depending on marketing partnerships to generate subscriptions, some discounted, and hopes to have more than 2,000 by year’s end.

Two months in, the Boston-based company says demand for the free site — the mainstay of the business — is ahead of expectations. It has logged 250,000 unique users who have visited at least once, compared with the 90,000 Mr. Balboni had hoped for by now, and 1.1 million page views, more than half from returning visitors.

I give them points for coming up with something new but most users are used to free content. The Internet is littered with the bits and bytes of failed attempts at subscription-only content: TimesSelect, Salon Premium (which still exists but loses money and can be gotten around by viewing an interstitial ad). Eric Clemons writes very clearly about this in the fantastic article Why Advertising is Failing on the Internet. This is something that’s near and dear to my heart since this is how I’m making my living. He’s spot on in that people don’t want, need, or trust advertising. People like Clemons have some good ideas. The ideas of social search, a hybrid of a search engine and your social network, and contextual mobile advertising, which is really only limited by mobile technology but could be a big growth opportunity, are the ones that make sense to me.

I’ll admit, I’m don’t know where all this is going to end. I do know I get my news from a variety of sources online, both “traditional” and “new” media. I don’t think that print newspapers are going away. They’ll probably continue to consolidate or just plain go out of business. I think new publications like ProPublica and GlobalPost are going to be great. They’ll probably fail too and be replaced by those who will learn from their mistakes. Clay Shirky said it best:

For the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases. Many of these models will rely on amateurs as researchers and writers. Many of these models will rely on sponsorship or grants or endowments instead of revenues. Many of these models will rely on excitable 14 year olds distributing the results. Many of these models will fail. No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need.

Coming Soon: The Kindle, the ebook, and print – living in harmony

Bloggers have the right to stay anonymous. We’re continuing our battle to protect and preserve your constitutional right to anonymous speech online, including providing a guide to help you with strategies for keeping your identity private when you blog.
- Electronic Frontier Foundation > Bloggers’ Rights

When I first started thinking about blogging, one of the first questions I asked myself was whether or not to do so anonymously. Well, I probably didn’t word it like that. I’m paranoid by nature and generally shy. So it was probably more like, “Do I really want people to tie me to whatever ramblings I put on the internet?” And now that I’ve actually posted something, I still don’t have the answer.

The odds are that if you’re reading this, you know me since, at this point, I’m doing my own advertising. (“Hey! Read my blog!”) So talking about anonymity might seem a bit silly. But it’s actually a pretty serious subject. The quote opening this post was one of the first places I went when I was doing my research. I knew I’d be blogging about my work at some point and I wanted to see what I was getting myself into. I’d heard the Washingtonienne saga and while I’m not comparing my possibly upcoming blog post on effective internet marketing to the details of the sex lives of Congresspeople, people can and do get into trouble for blogging.

So how much is safe to reveal? I kept the bio on this site relatively short. But do I give up some air of respectability by not revealing who I am? Being anonymous does give me a shield to hide behind. I like that. If you take a look at my blogroll over there, about half of those are anonymous (or at least started anonymously). And one of the main reasons inspiring me to do this is that I’ve enjoyed what I’ve read from these blogs for a long time.

In the end, I guess it won’t matter that much. I’ll stick with my faux pseudonym and just reveal what I want as I go along. And if I ever spout some opinion that makes you, the reader, want to know more about me, call me out. Just don’t be surprised if I keep it on the down low when I get back to you.

I originally planned to jump right in to posting but I’m on a deadline as several people will be at a bar shortly to drink to my continued existence. So I’ll just use this to list an outline of what I think the first few Things that I’ll be posting about in short order*:

• To blog anonymously or not – does it matter?
• My wife got me a Wii for my birthday. (Yeah, she’s that awesome.) But I don’t know that much about the system or games available. I’ll be looking for recommendations.
• I’ve got a poker game on Thursday. Come back for the bad beats, stay for the misguided strategy!
• Is Twitter all it’s cracked up to be? How about microblogging in general?

So welcome to My Mind. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

* All declarative statements are subject to change at the whim of the Blog Overlord