Don Ho, an entertainer who defined popular perceptions of Hawaiian music in the 1960s and held fast to that image as a peerless Waikiki nightclub attraction, died April 14th in Honolulu. He was 76.
Kurt Vonnegut, whose dark comic talent and urgent moral vision in novels like “Slaughterhouse-Five,†“Cat’s Cradle†and “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater†caught the temper of his times and the imagination of a generation, died April 11th in Manhattan. He was 84 and had homes in Manhattan and in Sagaponack on Long Island.
I’m sitting here in Houston, Texas next to a little lake at a resort having spent the last few days being bombarded by information about technology advancement and the ideas and goals behind consolidation in the IT world. All that talk got me to thinking about the current state of e53.org and to be honest it’s pretty sad. I think that my attempt to move us to a new publishing system put a huge damper on the participation of members which is a most unfortunate thing, however, not completely unexpected.
Change is always a risk and sometimes when technical guys like myself implements a change for one reason I don’t always see the reasons that will ultimately affect the end user, the members, the people who really make e53.org interesting. So, one of the biggest things that has had an effect on my way of thinking in the last few days is the idea of making huge advancements with a smaller footprint. This seems to be the best way to achieve the objectives that I have in mind which are simplistic management and quality end user experience.
So what is it that e53.org is really meant to be? I have billed it over the years as a place for the (my) group of friends to expel their thoughts. It has been, over the last few years, been built as a community with blogs for each different member on which they would post articles and had the opportunity to customize the look and feel. It has always been a bit of a challenge to get folks to be extremely consistent with updates which is completely understandable as everyone is obviously very busy and posting to some internet blog isn’t, and for the most part, shouldn’t be the first thing on your mind. But even with that lack of true consistency there was enough to keep it interesting. The other thing was the whole “customize your own site” option/feature. The huge problem with that option was that it is a support nightmare. I honestly do not have time to customize every blog on e53 no matter how much I would like to.
So, the two main problems with e53.org right now are a lack of consistency and painful management. What about the folks who haven’t rejoined after the new system was installed? Good question and the answer to that is… painful management. Those who haven’t rejoined are the less technical folks and again I did not have time to assist them.
I started by talking about Consolidation and Advancement and I’m sure people reading this are wondering where I am going. I believe that e53.org, in its current state, is a flawed design. Billing ourselves as a “blog community” is somewhat of a misstatement as a “community” should really consist of a group of people working towards a common goal. So what’s with all the separate blogs? Consolidation. I believe that we need to have one blog one e53.org. This is a community for the e53 group to have group conversations, plan events, and discuss things in a public forum.
I’ll end with a question: What do YOU think?
David Allen Coe w/ Travis Houston
Saturday, June, 2 2007 @ The Longbranch
Cost = $25
 as reported by Brandon
ATTENTION! ATTENTION! People of Earth!
TheQuoteList.com is officially out of BETA!
Enjoy the complete disregard for political correctness and the mildly fresh new look.
Just in case anyone really gives a hoot.. here are the nearby dates for “free” Ozzfest this year:
Aug. 06 - UMB Bank Pavilion, St. Louis, MO
Aug. 10 - First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre, Tinley Park, IL
Aug. 12 - Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, WI
These dates all come hot on the heels of the “e53: Immortal in NYC” trip in July so unless some amazing booking happens…I’ll just stay home.
Tributes pour in for John Inman
Tributes are pouring in for John Inman, most famous for the BBC comedy Are You Being Served?, who has died aged 71.
Inman, who passed away in a London hospital, made his name in the 1970s show as Mr Humphries and coined the catchphrase “I’m free!”
His former co-star Wendy Richard said he was “the funniest and most inventive actor” she had ever worked with.
The Preston-born actor had been suffering from a hepatitis A infection for a number of years.
The infection, usually caused by eating contaminated food, forced him to cancel the opening of a pantomime in London in December 2004.
“He will always be remembered for making us laugh,” said Richard.
“He will be greatly missed not just by his friends, who loved him dearly, but also by his legion of fans on both sides of the Atlantic,” she added.
The former EastEnders actress visited him on Tuesday and said she had found it “upsetting” to see him look so “frail”.
300 comes out on Friday. Everyone should go. I call for a Dinner/Movie night. I’ll find out the movie times. Leave a comment if you want to go.
EDIT: Movie times- 11:50am 1:00 2:30 3:40 5:10 6:20 7:50 9:00 10:30 11:40
Super Celebrity Smile of the Day
…coming soon.. the Smile of the Day Blog!Â
In all of it’s randomness, SMOTD is back!
