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.

So it's totally unrelated to the world of media, but I'm happy to announce that tonight (or last night, as it were), my mom was announced as the winner of the mayoral race of my hometown of Matawan, New Jersey. In a town where I think there has been a Republican mayor for about 46 years, and has never elected a woman (though the currently serving mayor, Bea Duffy, is a woman) to hold the position, that's a pretty big deal. Congrats, mom!

I've gotta say that I'm so psyched for hockey season starting up. I'm in a fantasy league for what seems to be the first time in years, and we're ready to roll. HDNet is going to run 50-something games on its network, in staggeringly cool high definition, to add to the fun. What beats having your baseball team in the playoffs, NFL Sunday Ticket, your favorite driver second in the NASCAR Nextel Cup points standings (Ryan Newman), and the puck just about ready to start dropping?

I'd been hearing for the last day (maybe longer, who can keep track at this point) that there were some problems with users who didn't use Internet Explorer 6 or weren't running Windows-based machines were having some problems filing a claim in FEMA's "Disaster Aid" Website, but passed it off as a problem here or there by a few people who might have just had difficulties in certain situations. Then, this morning, I read about it yet again over at TechnoFlak, so I thought I'd check it out.

Sure enough, if you use Firefox the system doesn't work for you, and it tells you so. [Screenshot here] While I definitely don't have the same fiery retort to this as some who are choosing to make political charges here, I do think that if anyone needs to be considerate of technical issues that "divide" Americans, it might be the government. Plus, there are many a library (like my own in Bloomfield, NJ) that use Firefox as a browser - it's the only choice on the *nix-based machines. Think about it - many of the people who might be filing claims may not have the ability to go get new software or find another computer to log into - although calling in on the telephone to register might be a solid idea, I can't say how much of a delay might be involved in trying to do so, as I'm obviously not going to call on the line and hold up the service from someone else who might need help.

And this doesn't even begin to scrape any potential issues with Section 508, which includes any accessibility needs for persons with disabilities. [Thanks, Jason!]

I can't be the first person to stop by Ticketmaster.com looking for access to the New Orleans Saints vs. New York Giants game that has been moved to Giants Stadium on September 19, right? I don't know about you, but I think it's kind of embarrassing that they still have the tickets available for the original date of September 18, in the Superdome, considering the gravity of the situation in New Orleans. Now perhaps the huge amount of events listed on Ticketmaster's site make these things feasible to be left in - but I most certainly should not be able to go all the way through the purchase process, and was able to select very good tickets for $90.00.

After reading this alert over at Lost Remote that the National Weather Service had put out last Sunday, prior to Katrina's slamming of Louisiana and other points surrounding it, I have to say that the jokes about the weather being completely off base for daily forecasts will probably be left alone for a while. Additionally, this is just another point against all of the involved agencies, local or otherwise, who didn't realize the magnitude of what was happening, or at least what could happen.

Last night, I spent a bit more time watching television news than I usually do, primarily because I've already read about what is being discussed before it hits the airwaves. But something made me flip the set from college football to MSNBC, where I watched a bit of Rita Cosby and moved over to catch some of Bill O'Reilly. Part of it was to see what developments had been made, if any, in the Southeast U.S., where the rescue (let's not even discuss "cleanup" at this point) has been semi-stalled, or so it seems.

Part of me thinks that the reason it looks so bad is that the opportunity to actually get in and help people is in so small a scale right now that 99% of what is going on is bad, while maybe 1% of activities are good. Part of me thinks that we have a serious problem here, and that we weren't prepared at all to handle a disaster of this scale on our own land. And after reading K. Paul's comments this morning about Anderson Cooper and the efforts of other journalists on the ground, I felt I had to comment on this.

While watching O'Reilly, I caught a segment where he was talking with Shepard Smith, who was on the ground in New Orleans. O'Reilly was saying that New Orleans would absolutely be rebuilt, don't worry, yada yada, and Smith said something along the lines "I'm not so sure about that..." The host seemed unfazed by Smith's comments, and Smith followed up with "You're not here, you don't see what is happening." And that got me thinking - are we actually in a place where the destruction and subsequent rescue missions are going to do more than just leave us with a swath of land that might not be the best place for our people to live, but that the people who live in the area will have such a bad taste in their mouth for what they went through that divides in this country will get wider than they are? I'm not just talking about North vs. South, or white vs. black, but philosophical and political positions - they're all involved here.

I don't think I ever believed I would see the day when there was a man laying on an interstate highway, covered with some clothes and a blanket, left there dead. For days. On television. But it's here, and it's not - television, in that made-for-TV disaster movie sense. On top of that, I think there are many an American who is sitting in their house, thinking that they could spend their long weekend trying to help out somewhere in the South, but they realize that they don't necessarily have the money to gas up the car or truck and go, and make it back. It's like a perfect storm that dissipates, but the waves and the undertow keep you from going back in the water.

[update] More on Cooper's statements here at FishbowlDC and TVNewser.

CyberJournalist has a link to a slideshow of images from the Katrina cleanup at MSNBC that is simply staggering in nature. See it here.

Jeff Jarvis' "Give" post title pretty much sums it all up, and he's got a few links to places where donations can be made that will directly support those affected by Hurricane Katrina.

If you can help, one of those spots will surely be the place for you to do so.

Snagged this from Roxanne, thought it would be a good idea after reading this post from Pegasus News. Feel free to snag it yourself and use it on your own site.

It's always a good thing to keep your resume updated regularly, I find. So I'll probably be in good shape when I dust off the old thing this week and get on the job hunt. Unfortunately, my position was one of those eliminated at my former employer, so off we go. This all happened on good terms, and was purely a future workload expectation / financial situation. But, needless to say, I'm since unemployed with a bit of severance and an eager-to-move-on attitude.

Obviously I'll be blogging it up here and over at AdJab, TVSquad, and Cinematical as much as possible in between job hunting, interviewing, and the like. I'm not sure which direction I'm looking to go in, career-wise, but definitely need to replace all or most of my previous salary. So I'll put out the word here that if anyone is aware of a gig that they think I'd be interested or qualified in, then please drop a line via email or the comments - that'd be much appreciated.

The short and sweet is that I'm experienced as a marketing manager, with experience in PR, corporate communications, advertising, media buying, budget management, among other creative abilities. Additionally, I also have experience working as a financial analyst, accounting clerk, and probably about twelve other things that I won't list here. Oh, and I've been known to write a bit, too.

Thanks for sitting through my personal discussion here, now back to your regularly scheduled TMD.

Yeah, yeah, I know, I didn't post on a weekday. Been busy with this and that, and haven't had time to post in the last day or so. That day, however, has been a busy one - and, as a reward for my slackerness, you all get to read my exciting list of things I'd like to see. Do what you want with it - heck, do nothing with it. It's here either way.

• For say, like, a whole week, can we get Wonkette - the site, not Ana Marie Cox - to be just Ana Marie for once? No offense Greg Beato, but Ms. Cox makes me feel much happier. Just a thought.


• Just got in from seeing Episode III, and while I definitely enjoyed it, I'd like someone to tell me why the bulk of reviews it has garnered are more positive than anything, with hardly a critical comment aimed at the film. It was good - but it wasn't that good.


• I'd like two more wins for the Yankees over the Mets this weekend.


• I'd like for once, that someone would really stand up to the status quo and say something that might happen to offend someone who has stature in the blogosphere - and not on a personal level - as in, I hate, no despise, no - can't stand - the term 'podcasting'. The 'pod' part just has to go - don't give Apple that much credit (and believe me, I love my iPod to death). The fact of the matter is, people have been recording and distributing audio content online for a long, long time. The fact that it's now a lot more easy to create homebrewed, professional sounding stuff is great - I'm not trashing that as a fact - but it's the distribution method that's important, the ability to add it to the RSS feeds as enclosures so that software like iPodder and others can read it and, in turn, drop it into your audio software. Because to be honest, it's not really that hard for me to just drop an mp3 on my site and get people to listen to it - all they have to do is open up iTunes or whatever software they have set up to play audio, import the file, end of story. It's like blogging - the content isn't what is new and exciting, it's the ability for each and every one of us to publish whatever, whenever, combined with an ability for those who want to subscribe to take part in a push/pull through RSS. Additionally, ubiquity of broadband arrived at just the right time.


• Sorry for that last one, been building up a while.


• I'd love to see more blog events like the one that I got to be a part of on Thursday evening in Montclair, New Jersey. Not for nothing, but when the overflow discussion after an event lasts almost as long as the event itself, something positive came about. Props to Serge the Concierge, Debbie Galant from Baristanet, Salim Ismail from PubSub, Dean Landsman from Deanland, and Stephen Baker from BusinessWeek for sharing all of their insights, and thanks to all who attended, whether you knew what a blog was before you got there or not.

The New York Times recently published a visually stunning audio/video package about the current situation in Phuket, Sri Lanka and The Maldives. The piece shows how resorts are looking these days and some of rebuilding that has taken place since a tsunami hit the area a few months ago. It was produced by Alice DuBois, with Seth Mydans, Amelia Gentleman and Jon Bowermaster providing audio commentary.