Disorderly Content

I refer to her role as Maria, the not terribly successful nun in The Sound of Music. "When God closes a door," she was heard to say, "somewhere he opens a window." And so it is. Just recently I was lamenting the shocking lack of updates at Tiki Bar TV, the most wonderful video podcast that is most wonderful largely because of the drunk (or at least drunk-appearing) antics of Lala, hostess extraordinaire. And which hasn't had a new episode since 2005, which explains my lamentations. But just today I discovered a possible replacement in my heart. French Maid TV has well developed young things in costumes and with outrageous French accents, providing their technical expertise to an enthralled audience. True, there's only one episode out there yet. And true, that episode's six weeks old. But still, edification is where you find it. And how.

Update 02/02: Looks like I reacted.... well, uh... prematurely. No sooner did I complain about French Maid TV's lack of content, then a new episode arrived. This one covers the serious topic of CPR. Although with all the pillow fighting, one might get the impression they don't expect to be taken entirely seriously...

From Drawn!, a favorite website covering all things graphical, comes a whole 'nother area of art for which I wish I had the talent and the patience: knitwear. But not normal knitware, the kind my mom made for something like sixty years. No, this is sick and twisted knitwear, almost Pythonesque in its violation of one of the few remaining unsullied arts. Which I imagine is the point: to boldly go where no man of taste has gone before.

Update 01/31: Drawn! has corrected their story, and so must I. The crocheted (not knit) horrors were the work of Patricia Waller, who features them on her website. I've removed the link from my original post; we certainly don't want to give the content thief any more visitors.

We're gonna party like it's 1999! Okay, maybe not. But I could only think of the great dotcom bubble when I read an email I received a few minutes ago, offering to buy my website. It all sounded nice; I could remain involved if I wished, letting them handle administration and marketing. Or, presumably, I could take the money and run.

It's not a hard choice, really. If I gave up this site, what would I waste all my spare time, energy and creativity on? And how much is a bunch of mostly decade-old content worth in today's market? Besides, I have a funny feeling it's all some sort of scam, with payment more likely in the form of equity than in cold, hard cash. A quick look at the sender's firm's website makes it sound nebulously new economy-ish. And, as a firm believer in the adage that you can't cheat an honest man, I'm happy to continue believing that I qualify.

What with all those theater tickets, I spent a lot of time last week going in and out of the Times Square subway station. And right by the shuttle that runs to Grand Central, all the support posts were decorated with ads for Heather Graham's new series, Emily's Reasons Why Not. But as the title of this post says, I guess we'll never know what her reasons are. Because word is ABC cancelled the show after one episode. Which isn't a record; I've heard Turn On was cancelled during its first commercial break. But it's still pretty shocking. Makes you wonder what the next few episodes look like. Unlike Heather, they must not be very pretty.

Four plays in a week is a pretty good score. But there are a few others I'd like to have seen, including a couple of titular (no, that's not dirty) ones that got away. The first of those was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, based on the movie based on the Ian Fleming children's story. I walked by the theater and was saddened to read a note on the door: the last performance was around Christmas. So why, I wondered, was the marquee all lit up? Here's a case where literally the lights were on but nobody was home.

The second was called Souvenir and starred Judy Kaye, who replaced Madeline Kahn when I saw On The Twentieth Century many, many years ago. I saw a mention of it in one of those magazines they leave in hotel rooms; apparently it was about a would-be diva named Florence Foster Jenkins, who entertained (if that's the word) audiences in the 40s with her operatic performances. It's not clear that she was in on the joke, which apparently made for an entertaining two-person play. Sadly, not entertaining enough; Souvenir closed two weeks before I arrived after only seventy performances in its last location.

Sigh. Can't help regretting the ones I didn't get to. At least the ones I saw were awfully good.

So I'm minding my own business, see, sitting in my hotel room and listening to a product competition talk on my laptop. And an email comes in from my brother. It's short and to the point: Are you okay? Your father's been trying to reach you. I email a reply and call my parents. Pop's in a panic; he left me a message on Saturday and another one yesterday. He tried calling my cell, but had an old number. (I've had my current number for just over three years. And I know he's called me on it. But never mind that.) So he started calling relatives on the east coast, none of whom had my number but a couple of whom agreed to email me. And then he reached my brother. But you know that part.

So now we're busy putting out the little fires of panic. Which is better than if there'd been a real reason to panic. And I have to remind myself that I'm dealing with old people. And that even though I'd given him my current number, and even though I'd told him about my New York trip, it's still kind of my fault he got worried. Guess that means checking my messages at home every day or two, even though no one ever calls. No one else, anyway.

Tonight was the fourth and last play of this trip, following a rather good and rather expensive sushi dinner in a restaurant so dark, I had to hold my candle near the menu to read it. The play was The Lion King, which has been justly praised over the years for director Julie Taymor's stylistically brilliant and innovative design. This was the first time I'd seen it, which includes the movie, which I'd somehow missed.

And didn't miss, if you know what I mean. I have to say that I was impressed but not remotely thrilled by the play; as impressed as I was, I was never moved or amused or particularly drawn in. As impressive as it was, it was empty spectacle, no more meaningful than dinner at Medieval Times. Of the four musicals I saw this trip, I'd rank it dead last. Then again, I loved the other three.

Oh, and it didn't help that I was just three seats away from the world's most annoying theater patron. First, she and her woman friend arrived ten minutes late, making half a dozen of us get up so they could inch their way to their seats. I should be understanding, I suppose. Anybody can miss the curtain. After all, it's not like the time is PRINTED ON THE TICKETS! And then midway through act one I suddenly started hearing a conversation that wasn't coming from the stage. Yep, it's our late friend. (If only.)

Intermission arrived. And with a minute to go and the warning bells signalling everyone to get back to their seats, she suddenly decides to head... somewhere. The facilities, I imagine. But there were the six of us, getting out of her way. And knowing we'd be going through it again after the second act was well underway.

You think I'm done, don't you? Ha! Broadway theaters have rules about taking pictures: don't do it. It's posted, it's in the Playbill and it's announced before the play starts. There were a surprising number of folks violating this rule before things got going, or perhaps less surprising for a Disney production. I assume regular theatergoers know better. Still, the folks in charge weren't stopping anyone. And I have to laugh at people using the teeny little flash on their cameras in such a huge space. But never mind.

Anyway, about twenty minutes before the end I start noticing these flashes going off. There are strobes in the show, but these weren't coming from the right place. And they weren't synchronized to the action. Yep, it was Ms. Annoying again. And the ushers came by, flashing their torches at her. But she kept at it until they made it obvious that they were not at all pleased. Personally, I think calling the cops wouldn't have been out of line.

Thanks for reading my rant. I feel just so much better.

What if Meg Ryan weren't Meg Ryan?

I've always thought Sleepless in Seattle was both overrated and just a little bit disturbing. We're supposed to see this sweet and magical romantic comedy. But how much of that depends on our being presold on the characters based on the actors who played them? Think: if Meg Ryan were, say, Glenn Close, suddenly Sleepless in Seattle would be a stalker movie. And I guess I'm not the only one who thinks so; my friend Kevin sent me a pointer to a recut trailer that would make just about any guy sleepless. Yeah, it's a lot like the trailers I posted about back in October. But different. And funny. And creepy. And different.

High expectations are always dangerous. And from the moment I first heard that Eric Idle was turning Holy Grail into a Broadway show I wanted to see it. Now that moment had arrived, and I wondered if I was going to be disappointed, if the real thing could be half as good as my imagination.

To be sure, I'm my own worst enemy in such situations. As with Avenue Q and Mamma Mia, I'd listened to the cast album for Spamalot a few times already. So I knew, or thought I knew, what Mr. Idle had done with his source material. I was expecting an ironic, break-through-the-fourth-wall sort of retelling of the movie, with a bunch of strange and sometimes funny material that I wasn't sure would fit. Which shows what I know.

I don't want to say anything to give away the surprises in the show, in case you get the chance to see it. What I will say is that the cast is hammy (or should that be Spammy?) in the best theatrical tradition, that I wish I could have seen Tim Curry as King Arthur, although the new guy was most excellent, and that I probably annoyed all kinds of people in the subway as I whistled Always Look On The Bright Side of Life most of the way back to my hotel. Which I know was from Life of Brian, not Holy Grail. But if Mr. Idle can fudge, so can I.

Today wasn't all ABBA and Brazilian barbecue, I'll have you know. I also paid a visit to the Museum of Modern Art. Which I may have been to once before, back when I was a schoolboy and went where they made me go. This time it was my idea. Okay, I lie. It was actually Elke's idea; she was the one two told me about the Pixar exhibit and how I just had to go. So I did. She frightens me.

The Pixar exhibit consisted of conceptual art, some maquettes (3D models that are then scanned in and manipulated digitally), a movie that took hand-drawn art and added animation to it and the coolest zoetrope I've ever seen. A zoetrope is a model that you spin and then apply a strobe light to get a realistic looking animation. This one was incredibly detailed, with Toy Story characters playing leapfrog, waving, parachuting and probably some other stuff I can't remember. And there was a wall-sized mural of all sorts of fish from Finding Nemo. Interestingly, they were named after characters from The Dukes of Hazzard, Gilligan's Island, Starsky & Hutch and other examples of entertainment. If that's the right word.

The rest of the museum is pretty interesting as well. I particularly like the industrial exhibits, although the photographic galleries didn't do much for me. I much prefer the one at the Mumm winery in Napa. They also have better bubbly than MoMA. But I suspect you knew that.

After an enjoyable early dinner at a Brazilian place in the Theater District, I was off to the Winter Garden. Last time I was there was a lot of years ago; a friend from Dallas and I were there to see Cats. Yes, Cats. A memory that stays with me, no matter how much I drink. But I digress.

Tonight I was there to relive the 70s, as if the first time wasn't bad enough. The play was Mamma Mia, a collection of ABBA hits strung together with a plot about a wedding and some question about the bride's parentage. And I use the phrase "strung together" advisedly; there's less material to this plot than in the average knit bikini. Which I knew going in. In fact, I'd listened to the London cast album a few times and even blogged about it. My point being that I knew it was cheesy and full of holes, which I suppose would make it emmenthaler. And when it began, I had a bad feeling that I was gonna regret my choice of entertainment.

But a funny thing happened, oh, around the third number. I stopped noticing the shaky plot and let the singing and the staging and yes, even the acting take over. And I have to say that I enjoyed myself immensely, even if I did have a few cringy moments before the last curtain. Suffice it to say that if you will admit, if only to yourself, a fondness for ABBA, you'll likely enjoy the energy and the fun of Mamma Mia. Although personally I think Spandex, platform shoes and glitter should be reserved for the young. And maybe not even for them.

At last week's sales meeting, long days of sessions were followed by long nights of dining, drinking and getting to know each other better. Which is all well and good, but was getting in the way of my other interests. Like theater, which is one of the benefits of being in New York. So needless to say, having my weekend and the evenings of the upcoming week to myself I began to make plans.

This morning, bright and (relatively) early, I was on line at the box office where Monty Python's Spamalot is playing. I'd made the list of my target plays, and I figured Spamalot might be the toughest one to get a good seat. There was a pretty long line ahead of me at 9:30, waiting in the cold and wind for, as I found out, standing room for today's performances. That didn't interest me; cheap as they may be, there's no way I can stand for two straight hours and not hate life. So when the box office opened at 10, I was the only one to go to the Advanced Sales counter. And I scored a center position Orchestra seat for Tuesday night, which suited me fine.

Next stop was a block up, where Avenue Q is playing. Managed row F, just three seats from the aisle for that very night! After that I walked up to the Winter Garden and scored a ticket for Mamma Mia for tomorrow (Sunday) night. Last stop was The Lion King, where I got a good seat for Wednesday night. Took less than an hour and more than $400, but mission accomplished!

As I type this, I've just returned from seeing Avenue Q. And I have to say that it was one of the most enjoyable evenings I've had at the theater in recent memory. Try to imagine Rent crossed with Sesame Street, complete with puppet sex. No, don't even try; you'll only hurt yourself. But go! If your sense of humor is anything like mine (and what a sad statement that would be!), you'll thank me.

Update 01/30: A friend sends along a video that combines an Avenue Q song with World of Warcraft visuals. The audio isn't safe for work, just so you know. But it's pretty clever, even if it's no Red vs. Blue. But then, what is?

Travel as much as I have and you'll develop techniques to keep from forgetting all those little details that keep you going. I have a second set of essentials in my bag: toiletries, phone charger, various cables and other items that would be easy and annoying to leave behind.

I've been in New York this past week at the annual sales meeting for my new employer. And I thought I had things under control, until I arrived and realized I had no way to charge my iPod. It seems I'd forgotten that the little Firewire cable I keep with me for such purposes presupposes that I have a computer with a Firewire connector, i.e. a Mac. But for the first time in about two years I'm dealing with a Windows box. And Windows boxes don't have 6 pin Firewire connectors.

Today the sales meeting ended. So I moved from my midtown hotel to one further downtown, in preparation for a week of training at our offices near Soho. (They're really Noho, but nobody uses that term.) I figured I'd make a stop somewhere this weekend and buy the missing piece. But that turns out not to be a problem. Arriving at my trendy hotel, I was pleased to learn that, in addition to free wireless, they have a clock radio with an iPod connection. So as I type, my iPod's getting its juice rejuiced. How very civilized!

Today my friend Carol and I went up to San Francisco to catch a pre-Broadway performance of Lestat, a musical based on the vampire novels of Anne Rice, with music by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Mr. John, I must tell you: you are no Andrew Lloyd Webber. Your music all sounds the same, and none of it was appropriate to a tale of the undead in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. I predict a short life for this musical in New York, assuming of course that it makes it that far. After all, The Mambo Kings died on the road. And Lennon didn't do much better, even though I thought it had a lot more promise.

I'm now imagining a Buffy musical with songs by Lloyd Webber. No, to be accurate, I was already imagining such a thing while Lestat was still going on.

Every time I drive over Donner Pass on my way to Reno, I think about the Donner Party that gave it its name. This wasn't a party in the balloons and cake and presence sense of the word, as I imagine you well know. But now it turns out that it may not have been the "feast of human flesh" I'd always heard about. According to an article in the Independent, new forensic evidence from one of the Donner Party's camps shows no evidence of cannibalism at all. It may be just another example of the press taking a sensational but unsubstantiated story and running with it. Bad enough to discover that Alfred Packer was wrongly convicted, although the nice tunes from the South Park boys' Cannibal: The Musical eases the pain of that. But even the Donner Party would rather starve than eat their own? What is this world coming to?

I was out last night with some good friends from my SGI days. Lawra's a Texan¹ these days, so we only get to visit when she escapes back to California for a taste of civilization. Anyway, I got home around 10:30 and went immediately to check email and various web interests. And couldn't get anywhere. No mail, only a few websites, and everything dog slow. I tried the usual: power cycling the DSL modem, disconnecting and reconnecting with my router, power cycling the router. It was weird; some things worked, but most just hung and eventually timed out.

Good thing one of my neighbors leaves his or her wireless unprotected. An unscrupulous individual might deal with his net.withdrawal symptoms by stealing a little bandwidth. But of course that would be wrong, even if it helps him get through the night. And the morning, since the problem was still there eight hours later.

And suddenly now it's not. All's well; mail and RSS feeds and all the other blessings of the cornucopia of webly goodness are mine once again. And I have that unknown neighbor to thank for getting me through the rough times. Or at least I would, if I were so crass and dishonorable as to steal bandwidth for an unwitting benefactor. Or a witting one, for that matter.

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1. It's only the fact that she doesn't read this blog that gives me the courage to call her that.

I heard an interesting interview on the NPR show Fresh Air a few days ago. The interviewee was Bart Ehrman, a biblical scholar who was talking about his latest book. Misquoting Jesus is about how the books of the New Testament as they exist today are not the words of the original authors, how the copyists of the first centuries of Christianity made changes either through mangling or by design. It's a fascinating story of the early church, as well as later efforts of scholarship and detection. And it's one that can't help but have serious implications for those who believe in these works. Including Professor Ehrman, who begins his tale by examining his own Born Again-ness and his realization that it was based in part of a house of cards. For if his bible is the word of God, and those words have long been lost, what authority does that give the words that God didn't inspire?

As a non-Christian, I can only stand on the sidelines of such a debate; it's not my faith that is at issue. But as a student of history and, perhaps, of humanity, I find such matters as fascinating as they are ultimately frustrating.

No, not Dizzyland, at least not this week. I speak of MacWorld San Francisco, and the chance to see the latest Apple and Apple-inspired toys. I had to drop my car off for its regular maintenance this morning, so I took the opportunity to head up to the city to drool over the goodies. Had a nice chat with the friendly folks at iStockphoto, enablers of my latest fixation hobby. Then over to the Nikon booth to get hands-on with the D200 I plan to purchase very, very soon. And of course the Apple booth, where the new Intel-based iMacs and laptops were tough to get near. Took some patience and some elbowing before I got to play. And now I'm thinking that both my Macs are kind of long in the tooth and ready for replacement. Good thing I have a friend at Apple who'll let me use her employee discount.

It's not all Macs these days, though. Plenty of iPod stuff too; I'm tempted to get a Nano just so I can have one of those Spongebob Squarepants skins. Or maybe a Homer Simpson head; somehow rubbing his scalp to change the volume seems wrong. Irresistable. But wrong.

I was gonna save this one for Sweeps Week, but it needs to be shared. This may just be the greatest web site ever. Except for this one, of course.

Update 01/12: Much as I hate to admit being duped, it turns out the preceding is not real. No, not the Chuck Norris facts; those are as accurate as ever. But the content was stolen from the Random Chuck Norris Fact website. There's also a Vin Diesel version, which isn't as interesting. At least to me, since I've never seen any of his movies and don't expect to. (Yes, that means I've seen some Chuck Norris movies. But not since Code of Silence, which I thought was about Maxwell Smart.)

My brand new job delivered a brand new laptop, which I've been busy configuring. It's a Dell Latitude running Windows XP of some kind. The hardware's okay, the usual compromise between size/weight and capabilities. I'd love more screen real estate, although if the battery life is as advertised, that's a big win over my PowerBook. But usability? That's another story.

I needed to send a fax, so I had to find, fill out and print a fax cover sheet. So I plugged my USB cable into the HP printer they left me and then into the laptop. It noticed the newly plugged-in device, identified it as an HP Deskjet 5100 and brought up the wizard (can you imagine how cool that must have sounded in the Microsoft marketing meetings? The Wizard!!!). Which offered to go looking for a driver. Which it didn't find. So I had to go dig out the CD and try again. And after about three minutes of futzing around, it actually let me print my fax page.

I mention all this because I'd gone through the same exercise with my PowerBook last Tuesday. With one small difference: I plugged in the cable and Mac OS X recognized and configured the printer before I had a chance to tell it anything. It was both effortless and instantaneous. Windows, alas, is still neither.

A week into my new job, I received a little care package from the folks at headquarters. Inside was a laptop, which I suppose will prove useful, and an American Express card. So I called the 800 number to activate the card. And was asked for the card number, which isn't a problem. And the last four digits of my Social Security number, which is also not a problem. And the last four digits of my business phone number. Now, that might be a problem, seeing as how I don't know that number yet. And the automated system doesn't take to long pauses terribly well.

Fortunately, the customer service rep it forwarded me to didn't need that information. So I guess the card is ready for use. Although personally I'd rather keep using that American Airlines MasterCard. Miles, you know...

I've just been reading a couple of the funniest websites. And I'd be happy to tell you all about them, if I hadn't agreed to participate in the first annual Blogger Sweeps Week. You haven't heard about the faBSW? Not surprising, really, since we sort of invented the whole thing at our South Bay Blogger !Meetup last week. Anyway, it means I'm saving the good stuff for the first week in February. So if everything you read here between now and then is kind of lame, that's why. It's not because I don't have anything interesting to say. Nope, not that at all.

One of my many rituals is to catch Roger Ebert's biweekly Answer Man column when it is posted to his website every other Sunday morning. It makes for interesting and entertaining reading. I often follow it up with some of his other columns. Today his Editor's Notes caught my eye. The column was entitled 2005's 10 Best Conservative Movies. And I was amused to see that Mr. Ebert, no more conservative than I, has a great deal of fun questioning the conservative virtues of the films on conservative commentator Don Feder's list. One has to admire the corkscrew logic involved in seeing what you want to see in the entertainments under discussion.

Regular readers know about my fannish devotion both to Farscape and to the Jossverse. (To translate for the less fixated, the former is a television program that once graced the Sci Fi Channel and is now available in syndication at your finer local stations; the latter refers to the oeuvre of one Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel and most recently Firefly and its movie sequel, Serentiy.) There's quite a good overlap between the two fan bases, actually, with folks who appreciate the irreverence, the depth and the rollercoasterish nature of one seeing the same desirable mix in the other. So it should come as no surprise that one of my Scaper friends passed on a rather good parody of The Ballad of Jayne from Firefly. Said friend included the lyrics to The Ballad of Joss. But even better, he pointed me at Bedlam Bards, the Celtic duo responsible for this bit of filksinging (no, that's not a typo). They too are Joss fans. And they're at work on a whole album of Browncoat-related material. Which, if they can get it on the iTunes store, will let me revisit them for my other blog. Which is what they used to call synergy in the dotcom era.

From a column by Molly Ivins entitled Six Degrees of Osama bin Laden:

[President Bush:] "I can say that if somebody from al-Qaida's calling you, we'd like to know why. In the meantime, this program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I. This is a limited I repeat, limited. And it's limited to calls from outside the United States, to calls within the United States."

So then the White House had to go back and explain that, well, no, actually, the National Security Agency's domestic spying program is not limited to calls from outside the United States, or to calls from people known or even suspected of being with al-Qaida.

Which reminds me of a favorite joke:

What's the difference between a computer salesman and a car salesman?
A car salesman knows he's lying.

Or, if you prefer, a car salesman probably knows how to drive.

One downside of being at liberty (a gentle euphemism for "unemployed") is that holidays lose much of their appeal. You don't get time off. And worse, instead of enjoying the freedom of shopping or touring when everybody else is trapped inside, you get to fight with desperate crowds of people wherever you go. But that's not what made these particular holidays stressful or why I'm glad we're past the Nonsectarian Winter Holiday Season^TM. No, I'm glad to get back into some of the happier aspects of my routine.

Like our twice monthly South Bay Blogger gatherings. (Which used to be Meetups... or is that Meetsup? But that's another digression.) Things were quieter in November, as several of the regulars were tied up with NaNoWriMo. And in December there are always schedule conflicts with holiday events. So it was nice to show up at Barefoot Coffee Roasters last night and see the usual gang. And to chat about both the significant and the irrelevant for a few hours.

It was the usual mixed bag of conversational topics. Elke mentioned in passing that she'd disabled the RSS feed on her blog, which explained why I thought she'd given up blogging for Lent. (Lent isn't in December? Well, you know what I mean.) So now I have to check her blog manually every so often, which is terribly inconsiderate on her part. Okay, not really, not on the scale of the Bush Administration's ability to be inconsiderate. But still.

Newish blogger David made only his second visit to the group. He's a recent arrival from Nebraska, enjoying I hope his first Silicon Valley winter. He's all excited about how his AdSense revenues are climbing, and talked about how adding a donation button to his blog may have caused people to start clicking on his ads as a way of rewarding him without actually having to put up any cash. An interesting theory. Not that I'd ever suggest that anyone click through on an ad unless you were really, truly interested in the product being advertised. Or at least curious to see what's at the other end. Or both, I suppose.

I should mention that Rich, Antwon and Ealasaid were also there and in their usual good form. Wait, I guess I just did. Oh, and Antwon had the idea that we should do a blogging sweeps week, just like the networks. We settled on the first week of February, which means you can expect a series of Very Special Episodes of our blogs, as we save the non-crappy stories for then. Or not; we'll see how it goes.

Oh, what did I talk about? What didn't I talk about? Topic one was my brand new job, and the strangeness of being the only person in a local office and waiting for somebody to tell me something about anything. I should enjoy the quiet, though. I have a feeling it won't last.

I don't know when I had the revelation that I shouldn't automatically accept what I read, or that although I can trust what I see and hear, I can't trust their interpretation. But I have to assume that the next generation will have that particular revelation sooner, thanks to the prevalence of blogs and "gotcha" journalism. Or maybe they won't see it as a revelation in the first place. Maybe finding out about Santa and the Tooth Fairy will help younger generations avoid a blanket belief in the written word.

I mention all this because of an article on JOHO The Blog that dissects press coverage of a Wikipedia kerfuffle from a few weeks ago. The original story was about a bogus entry that claimed that a respected journalist had a role in the JFK assassination. In the end the culprit was found and confessed, the entry was removed and some small policy changes were enacted for Wikipedia contributors. But the press coverage was of the "Emperor has no clothes!" variety, identifying major flaws in Wikipedia's processes and even in its concept. It's as if the mainstream press wanted to put up a sign that says, "See? You can't trust these guys either!"

On JOHO, David Weinberger points out how the press got the story wrong, and why those mistakes matter. Because although the truth is buried in their coverage, the conclusions they present are at variance with that truth. And I have to wonder how many times the press misinterprets events so badly, whether the record is ever corrected, and how many people go on believing the original version.

Thanks to Boing Boing for making me take a second look at this one.

When is a blonde joke not a blonde joke?