There’s lots of stuff going on that I’d like to write about tonight, but I really should be working on tomorrow’s lesson plan for that class I’ll be teaching at 826. I’m thinking of giving each one of them, at the end of class, the opportunity to post something… anything… on my site. I guess that might be risky, as I don’t know them, but I figure that it’ll be interesting. Hopefully, at least one will have hated the class and say so… Another thing I’m considering is having everyone make a tiny zine, once I’m done presenting the overview on self-publishing and regaling them with my fascinating stories about blogging. (“Some nights, I blog in my living room, on the couch. Some nights, I prefer to blog at the kitchen table, as it’s closer to the bathroom and the kitchen. Sometimes I stay in my work clothes. Sometimes I change into my tattered blogging leotard. Sometimes I eat pretzels. Sometimes I eat cheese…”) But, before I go, I wanted to pass a few things along. Most importantly, I just learned that Santa Claus reads this site and regularly leaves comments here. Or, at least the guy who will be playing Santa and taking calls tomorrow evening on Community Access Television has been known to. So, do you think you can guess which of our regulars it is? (It’ll be on from 6:00 to 8:00 tomorrow night, on channel 17.) And I hesitate to do this, as I don’t want any of you to call him, but the dial-in number is 794-6155. (Maybe I can call during a break in my class. I think it might really impress my students if I could just whip out my cell phone and dial-up Santa.) Anyway, if you’ve never seen the show before, it’s pretty cool. Kids just call in and ramble about all the stuff that they want, and Santa does his best to avoid getting locked down to anything in particular. Oh, and I also wanted to mention that yesterday Ann Arbor was mentioned at length during the News Hour on PBS. It was an extremely positive piece, aside from the gratuitous shots of Detroit ruin porn. And you can check it out by following that last link. The piece, which is mostly about entrepreneurship, features our friends at Zingerman’s prominently… And I wanted to let you know that Ypsi has officially kicked off its search for a new DDA Director. You can find the job posting here. And, speaking of Ypsi DDA Directors, I’d like to take this opportunity to congratulate Brian Vosburg – the last man to hold the job – on landing a new development position with the Detroit Housing Commission… Oh, and in unrelated pandemic news, I just now heard that H1N1 vaccinations would be available to residents of Washtenaw County this Friday. If you’re interested, though, you’ll need to get a wristband tomorrow at the EMU Convocation Center either between 10:00 AM and noon, or between 5:00 to 7:00 PM…. I’m sure I’m missing stuff, but I guess that’s enough for tonight… Good night, my invisible friends. I’ll see you tomorrow.
That Wednesday post that everyone will be talking about on Thursday at the water cooler
This entry was posted in Ann Arbor, History, Other, Ypsilanti and tagged 826, Ann Arbor Community Access Television, blogging, Brian Vosburg, calling Santa on TV, classes taught by Mark, flu, H1N1, News Hour, pandemic, PBS, posts where the title is a joke, ruin porn, Santa Claus, tattered blogging leotard, vaccinations, where I sit when I blog, wristbands, Ypsilanti DDA, Zingerman's. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.
20 Comments
Gotta love the phrase “Detroit ruin porn.” I’ll be sure to casually drop that into conversation and have everyone think I’m witty as soon as I possibly can.
I’d like to take credit, but I didn’t coin the term, Josh. I read it somewhere, and, like you, liked it.
I also wanted to add that, while I think it would be wrong to call us Santa and ask him about the comments that he’s left here, I do think it would be perfectly acceptable to call up, and, in a child’s voice, ask for a Mark Maynard puppet.
It probably also fits here that Representative Pam Byrnes plans to announce her intention to run for State Senate here in Ypsi on Sunday, December 13 at 2:30pm in front of the Freighthouse.
I don’t intend to call and ask as children will be watching but I am curious as to whether Santa manscapes.
I wish the PBS piece had focused on some of our local non-I-phone application companies. Those student companies are cool, but they aren’t likely to employ a lot of people.
PS- The inclusion of the A2Geeks sticker was cool.
If I were ambitious, I’d get a lot of flu wristbands today. Then, tonight, I’d leave a bunch of comments here and at AnnArbor.com about the deadliness of H1N1. Then, tomorrow, I’d sell the wristbands for a healthy profit. I’m not ambitious though, so I’ll probably just stay home, where it’s warm.
And who would want to be the Ypsi DDA Director? I know things have changed, with the melding of the two previous DDAs, but I can’t imagine it’ll be all that much more functional with all the various factions going after each other.
Santa, if you do read this site, could you please tell us who in Ypsi is on your Naughty List? If I’m already on it, there’s no sense in trying to stay good these next two weeks.
Sorry to use this as an open thread without having been asked to do so, but I thought that people might like today’s letter from the Center for American Progress on Climategate.
Will Santa do things that you tell him to, like Subservient Chicken used to?
Stephen R, thanks very much for that CAP piece, which fits the post pretty well, considering the North Pole aspect . . .
(I hate that the MSM so willingly adopts the derogatory language–Climategate, Obamacare . . . Glad CAP used “scare” quotation marks to indicate the idiocy.)
This post made me laugh – I think you really should go on and on about all the different and exciting ways in which you blog. You know… weed out the people who aren’t serious about it ;)
Good luck tonight at 826!
You should just sit in a chair, inside a big glass box, and blog, and they can watch you, like you’re in a zoo, and taken notes.
Yes, good luck, Mark! I hope you do pull out your phone and dial up Santa, I do!
I know that Santa! He has certainly used some vulgarities around here! Quite shocking.
The blogging leotard does not exist until we see evidence of it.
And may whatever gods may have mercy upon my poor soul do so for me asking for that evidence.
So, did anyone watch Santa? I was at the 826 thing, which I think went pretty well, by the way.
And, yes, Thomas, the blogging leotard does exist. It’s actually more of a unitard, though.
Kim
“Santa, if you do read this site, could you please tell us who in Ypsi is on your Naughty List? If I’m already on it, there’s no sense in trying to stay good these next two weeks.”
Oh, you are on the naughty list, all right. Just for asking if you are on it. So there.
We should all send lumps of coal to Tiger Woods!
There will be a rebroadcast of CTN’s Santa Live on Christmas Day:
http://www.a2gov.org/news/Documents/2009_News_Releases/CTN_Santa_Live.pdf
I’m just sayin’