Seven Days Blogs: 802 Online

Vermont blogger meetup

Hey, that blogger meetup on April 21st was really fun. I know, it was more than a week ago now, which is truly an eternity in blogtime. But I took all these pictures and I need to post them.

We had a pretty good turnout. I think Bill and Emily listed everybody who showed up (that's Bill and Tanner from Highgate, on the left). I counted bloggers from the following sites:

Candleblog
Vermont Daily Briefing
The Carpetbagger Report
The Le Duo
Green Mountain Daily
Stan Cynedom
Highgate
Stuck in Vermont
What I saw today
What's the Point?
Diabologue
Salient 
Blog for America
Central Cortex
Say What?
S.R. Wild
Cabin Fever

and Gahlord from Thoughtfaucet.

I've heard that Philip Baruth is planning to do another Bloggers BBQ this summer. I'll post about that as it approaches.

Thanks, everybody, for stopping by to hang out.
(This last photo shows Sherry from Democracy for America's Blog for America, chatting up Steve of the Carpetbagger Report and his wife Eve, along with Neil Jensen from What's the Point?)

New Seven Days Blogs

We just launched two new blogs at Seven Days this week.

Omnivore is food writer Suzanne Podhaizer's new blog. Suzanne has been scheming about this site for months, but we held off on launching it until she was done working on the print version of Seven Nights, our restaurant and bar guide, which comes out next month. Suzanne's first few posts include a "stylish" crepe recipe, and an explanation of her cryptic bio photo.

Yo, Hackie! is the online extension of cabbie Jernigan Pontiac's Hackie column. In his first few posts, Jernigan writes about some racist and homophobic passengers, and about his obsession with the Gilmore Girls. Hmmm.

There's another new blog coming soon. More on that next week.

Does web 2.0 suck?

A top 10 list of why web 2.0 isn't all it's cracked up to be, from Charlie, a non-Vermonter, at a blog called, This is going to be BIG!. 

An interesting conversation, particularly #9:

A lot of powerful people don't participate.  How many VC's out there fund widget companies without having a blog or a MySpace profile?  Any Sony bloggers out there?  What about brand managers that want to do Second Life campaigns without ever having been inside.  How about my elected representatives?  They get out there and kiss babies during election time, but how many blogging elected officials are there?  (And not watered down campaign blogs... actual blogs written by the actual people.)  We could do great things if we weren't so segregated into a small group of people punch drunk on Kool Aid and a great deal of people who've never even heard of Kool Aid. 

Just wanted to put this idea out there to encourage discussion.

The Weekly Post

This week it's from Selene Colburn's blog Word Blur. Selene is a dancer — and also a librarian, hence the title of her blog. In the post I picked, she describes a dream of inadequacy. From Whippet good:

Last night I had a dream that I was performing street theater in some unknown town that hosted an MFA performance program. A bunch of students were watching. I was invited to give a lecture/demonstration at their school.  When I showed up in the corriders of the Art Building a girl who recongnized me from the street came up to greet me.

"You're performance was..."  I prepared myself for the accolades.  "Three-quarters bullshit."

"It was a whippet of snip-snobbery," she concluded.

You can read more on her blog, or on the Letters to the Editors page of this week's Seven Days.

I like this post because Selene is actually a fantastic dancer. I'm not a dance fan, but I loved her performance Devotional Clusters; she did that at the Flynn Mainstage a few years back. Selene is working on a new piece, The History of the Future, and she's still looking for volunteers to participate. You don't have to be a dancer to take part. Rehearsals are on Sunday afternoons. Check it out.

Iraq vet story

I'm such a bad blogger, I know. I haven't even posted about the meet-up on Saturday. And I feel badly about that. I do.

But I've been totally consumed by writing this week's Seven Days cover story, Peace Talks. It's basically an interview with Drew Cameron, Matt Howard and Adrienne Kinne, three Vermont Iraq War vets who oppose the war. I saw them at a reading at the Green Door Studio on Saturday, and then talked with them at length on Sunday.

I don't typically promote my own stories on my blog, but this one's an exception. I spent pretty much the whole weekend immersed in it, and I'm having a hard time getting it out of my head. But I guess that's the way it should be. After all, there is a war going on. And my tax dollars are paying for it.

In addition to the story in the paper, I've also uploaded four audio excerpts from our interview to the 7D website. And thanks to Deb Ellis, I was also able to link to some video footage from the reading. Take a few minutes and check it out. Leave your comments about it on this post if you like. Sorry we're not yet able to offer commenting directly on our stories on the 7D site.

Kudos to Andy Duback for the photos.

New blogs & meetup

I've been busy this week training a bunch of new 7D bloggers. We're launching three new blogs in the next few weeks. I'll let you know when they're up.

Don't forget about the Vermont blogger meet-up this weekend, Saturday at Radio Bean, 1-6 p.m.

I'll be leaving a little early to see Ariel Gore, of Hip Mama fame, and China Martens of Future Generation: The Zine-Book for Subculture Parents, Kids, Friends and Others. They're reading at the Peace and Justice Center at 5:30 p.m. with Annie Downey, author of Hot and Bothered. Wouldn't want to miss it!

Weekly Post

This week's Vermont blog post of the week comes from Barton blogger meeyauw. It expresses a sentiment I'm sure many of us were feeling earlier this week:

I really can't take anymore. I still have a 10 foot drift blocking a window and snow up to five feet deep behind the house. I got to the barn before this week's snow only because it was so crusted that I could walk over it. Now I can't get to the barn again and the cats can't get out there either....

I have stopped crying and now I am trying to re-think myself into winter: movies, cooking, reading, blogging. It isn't working well. I am going to try denial tomorrow.

Read more at meeyauw, or on the Letters to the Editor page of this week's Seven Days.

And if you're a Vermont blogger, come join us at the Vermont Blogger Meet-up at Radio Bean on Saturday.

Vermont YouTubes of the Day

Vermont has been hit by yet another snowstorm, and thanks to the profusion of video cameras and the miracle of YouTube, we can view snow-themed video clips from all across the state.

These aren't quite as exciting as the Valentine's Day Blizzard vids , but they're interesting:

"Vermont"

"snow"

"Eve jumps off the deck into a pile of snow"

And of course the pets...

"Heidi in Snow in Backyard"

"Nina Totenberg plays in the snow"

Monday Morning Photos

I walked part-way to work this morning and came across this enigmatic display in City Hall Park. I think it's a remnant of Saturday's Step It Up rally. The little signs all talk about energy, and chemicals and the economics of conservation.

I snapped a couple close-ups:

Also took a couple shots at Saturday's rally in the ECHO center parking lot:

Vermont Blogger Meetup

Bill Simmon at Candleblog announced this a few weeks ago, and I keep forgetting to post it.

Vermont Blogger Meetup
Saturday, April 21, 1-6 p.m. at Radio Bean.

It's just a get-together; there's no format and no agenda, although we'll probably talk about the controversial Bloggers Code of Conduct, among other things.

Radio Bean has coffee, beer and wi-fi. What more could you want?

Who's coming (besides me and Bill)?

Needless to say, bloggers of all stripes are welcome. This is a non-political gathering (as much as that's possible).