At some point or another, we all ask ourselves, “I wonder what it’d be like to be in front of a camera?”    Only a few of us are dumb enough to try it out.

SO!   I give you my very first “vlog” (video blog).    May the snickering commence.

For those of you reading this via reader, you may want to load this up into a web browser, or simply click on the following link to go directly to the YouTube video:

Asshat on Camera

Announcing: The First Annual Blog-Off for Babies!

We’re having a Blog-Off and you’re invited to participate!   This contest will involve writing a blog post on your own blog, then reading and voting on the posts made by the other people participating.   At the end of the contest, the blog with the most points wins!     Prize money is awarded to the 1st and 2nd place winners!

The other half will go as a donation in the winners’ names to the March of Dimes, a non-profit charity geared towards helping prevent birth defects, miscarriages, premature babies, and problem births by giving mothers resources and education to make healthy, happy babies.    I’m desperately glad that my own son is healthy and doing well, but I know there are parents not so lucky, so I think this is a worthy cause.

THE DETAILS:

Cost:   $10 per blog participating.    This can be sent to me via any known means.   PayPal is easiest, but you can use whatever you like.    I do not accept beads.

Writing/Voting Cycle: You get your subject on Sunday.   Your post is due to be published on your blog by Tuesday evening.   You then have Wednesday to Saturday to read and vote on your top 3 entries and submit those to me.    I’m not going to be a stickler on times because we’ll have some foreigners and different time zones, etc.

Subjects to Write About: To be determined — once I know who is participating, I’ll ask for suggestions and then choose the best and most appropriate ones.

Prizes:  1st place gets 40% of the pot, 2nd place gets 10% of the pot, and 50% of the pot goes to charity.    Not huge amounts, and I’d ask for $20 from everyone, but…we’ll try this first.    $10 anyone can afford.

Penalties:   This is pretty simple — if you don’t post, you don’t get to vote that week and nobody can vote for you.     If you are unable to make a deadline, contact me…I’m not going to be a hardass if you have a real reason for slipping a date around.    That being said, don’t be slack if you don’t have to be.

Round 1: Topic on July 5th, Post due July 7th, Vote due July 11th.

Round 2: Topic on July 12th, Post due July 14th, Vote due July 18th.

Round 3: Topic on July 19th, Post due July 21, Vote due July 25th.

Round 4: Topic on July 26th, Post due July 28th, Vote due August 1st.

Winner Declared: August 2nd

HOW TO ENTER:

Paying your $10 donation secures your entry into this contest, so get that taken care of and then you’ll be signed up and ready to go.    Below is a PayPal button for your convenience.    If you need my mailing address, let me know by leaving a comment on this post.

Any questions, ask!    If you’ve done a blog-off before, why not jump in again?    And if you’ve never done one, they’re TONS of fun, and provide good inspiration to writing entries, so come along for the ride!     Let’s do some writing and save some babies!

Today my Twitter On Paper arrived!   For those of you who don’t know about this project, a guy named Sam Potts in Brooklyn, NY, decided that he would allow people to request that he write down, on paper, any Tweet he had previously made and mail it to the requesting person, free of charge.   He has just finished the project, capped at 1,000 hand-written and mailed Tweets, and I am now possessing one of them because I requested one before he finished — this is so cool!

So, here’s the envelope as it arrived.    Note that Sam has some incredibly good handwriting:

Opening the envelope, I find two sheets of paper, one with a greeting from Sam on it, the other with my Tweet-on-Paper:

The greeting sheet reads, “Thank you for participating in Twitter on Paper.   You’re always welcome to send something* back, if you like, no obligation!    Sam Potts, Somestreet, Brooklyn, NY 11215   *of equal or lesser value, of course!”

I will definitely be sending something back to Sam, but I have to think of something really creative and good.   I want to thank him for trying something pretty novel and curious and footing the entire bill for it.

My Tweet-on-Paper:

It reads:   “Ok no kidding people — when you get your ToP, do not blog about it.   Do not spread the word in any way.  This thing is already out of hand.” and it is stamped, “Jun 8 2009“.

The rules of Twitter-on-Paper stated that requestors had to specify a tweet that Sam had made himself, because he is the only owner of his own Tweets and the only one that has the legal copyright to distribute them as he wishes.   I picked the above Tweet because it’s kinda ironic — he’s Tweeting about the very thing that I requested.    A local black hole ought to open up near here any moment…

I think I’ll go and find a suitable frame for this little piece of Internet culture — after all, who knows in 5 years where Twitter and so forth will be?

A huge thanks to Sam Potts and his curiously fun little project — I love my Twitter on Paper!