Coolerversary

What with our job hunts, health concerns, ennui about the dying newspaper business and the stolen attention of Michelle's new journo-training blog, Print to Online, it's been awhile since we've given more than a passing glance at M&M. Both of our readers have pointed this out. It's too bad too, since there is actually stuff to talk about here sometimes. I vow to be a more regular visitor to this site.

For now though, I just want to send a quick shout out to my friend Jason Bellamy over at The Cooler, my favorite film site, which this week celebrated its one-year anniversary.

In his birthday post the other day Jason gave me a smidge of credit for encouraging him to launch The Cooler. That's nice of him, but having read his ink-on-paper film criticism I thought Jason and blogging were a no-brainer combo. As I said in a comment over there I'm not surprised he has turned out to be such a good blogger, but really The Cooler is better than I thought it would be. In addition to regularly and insightfully reviewing new releases -- check out his takes on "Revolutionary Road" and "The Wrestler," two recent 4-glioma flicks on my scale -- Jason has found interesting ways to develop and engage an audience. He discusses filmmaking with other critics, invites readers to debate and help solve mysteries like "Where's Chigurgh?" and, during down periods at the multiplex, recommends DVD rentals in an ongoing feature called "Queue it Up."

All great stuff. Along with The Night Note -- updated almost as sparingly these days as M&M -- it's one of the few personal blogs on my must-read list.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to check it out. Congratulations, Cooler!

Another M&M milestone

Don't look now, but we've jumped into the top 1 million blogs as tracked by Technorati. Number 966,270, to be exact. Now, 1 million isn't all that impressive, you may say. But it took a long time to get here. And it's not bad considering we have only the same seven readers coming back to visit.

I think what may have put us into the six figures was this recent link from WordCount/by Michelle Vranizan Rafter, a blog about freelance writing. She included M&M in a post about using an avatar or illustration to promote yourself. As Rafter says,

Michele Nicolosi, assistant managing editor at Seattle PI.com maintains a personal Website called M&M for herself and her S.O. Mark. The Simpsons-esque characters totally works because Michele really looks like that!

Leaving aside the spelling thing and the fact that we don't use M&M to promote ourselves as freelancers ... True that. She really does!

What genius created that picture anyway?

Angry Journalist

This site is hilarious: AngryJournalist.com


Here's a snippet, to tantilize you:

"Angry Journalist #593:


1. I don’t like that news managers think we should all live and breathe news when we walk out the door. Fuck you, assholes.

1.5 In my free time I’m going to participate in any political event I care about. I don’t give a shit about ‘how people view our credibility as journalists.’ Way to fight illogical attacks on journalism with illogical defenses. I thought you people were supposed to be smart.

2. I can’t stand graphic designers that somehow don’t know how to convert inches to pixels. IT’S RIGHT THERE IN PHOTOSHOP YOU MORON.

3. I don’t like seeing young journalists scoff at the Internet. I never knew there were Luddites under 30 until I started working in the news business. I hate you people.

4. I don’t like watching editors, publishers, GMs, and PDs do the same crap over and over again despite declines in readers, listeners and viewers.

4.5 I don’t like when they think jumping on the Britney bandwagon will save them. It’s a short term band-aid AT BEST.

5. I can’t stand reporters that complain when asked to write tighter, shorter stories. Look, nobody wants to read more than 30 inches of bullshit about anything printed in a daily paper. Ever. People have children and friends and lives. Because you don’t have these things doesn’t mean your readers should suffer.

6. I hate hate hate when people insist on their dumb fucking ideas. Maybe you tards should just take no for an answer once in a while, eh? I know what I’m doing. The Internet isn’t for fucking quizzes and photo captions and god damned spinning graphics. How would you like it if I came to your desk and asked you to write in pig latin because it’s cute or use comic fucking sans or invert the colors on your photo BECAUSE IT WOULD BE REALLY COOL?

6.5 Asking me questions is fine. I’m not a dick and I’m willing to give you feedback. But every time you act like I’m personally attacking you when I tell you I have other things to spend my time on, I want to repeatedly smash my face into a wall. Until I die. In front of you.

7. No I won’t help you set your desktop background. And no I don’t have a God complex, you’re just a lazy moron who refuses to learn anything new. Google it.

8. If you want me to build your personal Web site, you’re going to pay me at least $40/hr depending on the scope of the project. That’s the going freelance rate. Think that’s high? Maybe you shouldn’t have gone into journalism.

8.5 I don’t care about your personal Web site.

9. I sometimes use unnecessary jargon because I know it confuses you and it is the highlight of my day. It’s also a good tactic to keep you from making me do really stupid things on your Web sites. I tell all my friends about it.

10. I really didn’t need to be in that hour long meeting that only contained 15 minutes of Web discussion. Seriously, just call me into the conference room when you get that part of the agenda."