In case you hadn't heard by now, ESPN personality and baseball writer extraordinaire Peter Gammons has had a brain aneurysm, and is currently resting at a Boston hospital after surgery. While he is, of course, a Red Sox fan, he's always someone I pay attention to as he is clearly so very well connected that he knows what is going on with regard to the trade deadline and the "insider" stuff that the rest of us love to read.

Additionally, ESPN has set up a spot on its site for people to share their Peter Gammons stories - you can do so here.

Get well soon, Peter!

Something I haven't seen blogged or discussed that much but is very, very cool is that ESPN has allowed for free use of its ESPN 360 product for free at this address through July 19. You know you want it.

My photoset on Flickr can be found here, if you're interested.

Lots of good discussion going on in the "making money" session that seems to always show up at BloggerCon events. The point that keeps coming up over and over again, that your "personal brand" is where things come from. I can't agree enough. I wouldn't have ever reached a point where I was asked to write at Weblogs, Inc., or have my job working on new media tools and strategies at MWW Group.

Chris Pirillo made some big points as he walked in the door during the session about how he got things rolling for Lockergnome and all the other things that he does.

We got into talking about advertising networks a bit, and some sites such as Nashville is Talking and Mothership BBQ and how the communities they're about are into them.

Things are moving right along on Saturday morning here at BloggerCon IV in San Francisco, with a slightly smaller crowd (a) it's Saturday and b) it's 8 something in the morning) than on Friday. But folks are rolling in the room bit by bit, and we're talking about some examples where people should be "filled in" on the various industry "mysteries" that exist, whether they be software or code, billing codes at the hospital, etc.

I'd have to agree with Chris Thilk, who commented in the IRC that it's only useful to have these details if you're interested in having them. So just like a lot of things related to blogging, it's all about access - not necessarily the content in question.

If you're looking for me, I'll be liveblogging BloggerCon IV in San Francisco over at my work blog, Open The Dialogue, with my partner in crime, Chris Thilk. See ya there!

Out in San Francisco for BloggerCon IV. Sorry so slacking lately, lots of great things going on, hope to be back up to speed soon, got lots to share.

If you're in town for this, hit me up via email or IM, or catch up with me at the event Friday and Saturday, should be awesome. Ciao!

A few years ago, before it was as easy as it is today to manage multiple domain names and such through hosts such as GoDaddy and others, I managed to let one domain slip through my renewal-ready fingers when I missed a renewal notice, and as luck would have it, by the time I got all caught up with what actually happened, another company had nabbed it and turned it into a domain forward to, well, an "adult content" site, let's just say. Normally, this wouldn't be such a horrible thing if it was a random domain of some strange compound words, but this one happened to be tombiro.com. Let's just say I wasn't so happy about that.

Within about a year or so, the firm that had landed my name seemed to be done using it, and most of the "accidental" visitors it had gotten through people who were looking for me had gone elsewhere as I had started up a new site under one domain or another. Somewhere along the lines, the name ended up in another person's hands, also someone in Europe, and I had been sitting on backorder to grab the name should it expire, but no such luck.

A few weeks ago, however, I got it in my head that I was going to see what this individual wanted for the name, and sent an email asking what he'd like in return for the delivery of the domain, and I was surprised to receive a response not only in a few hours, but one stating that he completely understood, and would turn over the domain to me at no charge. Who'd have thunk it? In this day and age, when we're all enjoying some of the positives that come with the "Web 2.0" mentality, as it were, it's still surprising to see someone who has a chance for financial gain to do something nice. And at the end of the day, this becomes my "pay it forward" moment, so I'll definitely be on the lookout for how I can help out whoever is next in line for needing something worked out.

So, a word of advice - there's a reason your hosts and domain servicing companies offer you so many ways to get in touch with your account - because it's typically hard to fix any of your mistakes. Thankfully for me, this hadn't happened with anything too valuable.

This morning, I rec'd an email from my pal Jon Selikoff, saying "Maybe he can get The Police back together now?"

Of course, looking at this on my BlackBerry, it was a bit out of context not seeing the image that was attached.

What a guy. Check out the original article here.

Okay, so I'm a pretty big fan of HBO's Sopranos, so much so that I've been lucky enough to have it as part of my beat at TV Squad. Last night's finale, which I didn't have too much of an issue with, isn't resonating so well with most of the commenters over there, and the morning watercooler talk echoes the same. The latest commenter at TV Squad even suggested that this would go down as "the worst of the series" so far. That might or might not be true. But what I do know is that HBO's Big Love is probably going to sell more DVDs this year, based on the buzz it is receiving. Just a thought.

If you've got show review comments, drop by TVSQ for those - leave your theories on Big Love and its future success here if you've got 'em.

For those of you into mixed martial arts (or MMA, as it's called), you might be familiar with the story of Ryan Bennett, MMAWeekly founder and announcer for the sport, who died just two days ago at age 35. Ryan's brother, Randall, is one of the writers at Weblogs, Inc., where I write on a few different blogs. Randall is most notably known for his work at DV Guru and working on the Engadget podcasts. He's one of the writers on the Weblogs, Inc. team that I've been lucky enough to meet, and we got to speak for a bit a few months ago at a party given by another WIN blogger. He's been super helpful with a lot of the video questions that I've had offline, and has had the knack to actually be able to explain things properly over IM, which seems to be how I get most of my work and home-work done these days, anyway.

In any case, the reason I'm posting this here is to try and help out Ryan's family, as his wife is believed to be coming out of surgery okay, and his children, who were also in the car when the accident occurred, can use any help that their friends and family can provide. A benefit fund has been set up, and you can make a donation to it by clicking through to this article at MMA Weekly - it's at the bottom of the page. My thoughts and wishes go out to Randall and his extended family in this tough time, and I hope for the best for all of them.

Thanks for the soapbox time, everyone.

Let's just take into considering that, in the last year or so, two of the more curious and yet strangely popular (or at least buzzing) programs on television have been Curling during the Winter Olympics - and the Scripps spelling bee. Sure, as John Eggerton at BCBeat sez, "you know it is summer when..." but you gotta admit it's amusing, for some reason, to tune in and watch kids spelling words on television. My favorite part of the promos was when watching ESPN in days prior, they were like "coming up Thursday on ESPNHD" - because you know, seeing inside the nostrils of some kid would really be necessary as s/he writhed over "onychophagia" sounds like a good idea, right?