A Day Late, A Johnny Dollar Short

I would've posted earlier, but I got caught up listening to some old time radio shows provided by Troy Holaday over at Gwangi's Radio Review. Great stuff, check it our yourself!

Anyway, back to what I meant to post about before I started listening to Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar — photos of the snow at school when we came back on Wednesday.

But first, two videos I took with my digital camera — me being pelted with snowballs at school, and me being pelted with snowballs at home. Both peltings probably brought on by the fact that I a) had a camera and b) was tossing them myself. Fortunately, the snow on Wednesday was still mostly snow. Now it's mostly ice, and regular announcements from the principals on Thursday and Friday reminded us of the dangers of throwing iceballs — that we could get suspended and start our spring break early! Yipee!


Snowballs fly as buses arrive. Let's hope this video is too blurry to incriminate anyone. Cameraman Burch gets hit in the leg. Click to view video.


A little snowball fight with my dad. Snowballs are a bit easier to see this time. Click to view video.

Gmail Goes Public

New! Get Gmail - Google's free email service with 1 GB of space.
- Seen on Google.com Homepage

Now, lucky visitors to Google's homepage may see the above message.

According to Marissa Mayer, Google's director of consumer Web products they have started offering Gmail accounts to a randomly selected sample on Google. She also said that it's a natural step to leverage the wider user base of Google.com to grow Gmail.

She allegedly confirmed that about one in 20 Google.com visitors are getting the Gmail account offer and based on the success of this one-in-20 scope, the company would be ramping it up over the next couple of weeks.
- Google Offers Gmail on Site (Techtree.com)

By the way, even though you can email me at martin@martinburch.com, the email from that account is forwarded to a gmail account. I love the great spam filtering provided by gmail.

Repetitive Clicking Injury

The button in question.

People have found my blog by clicking on that "next blog" button, so I though I'd see what cool stuff I could find. I had already found carpe verbum, as you know.

Tom West is "a Business grad from the UK now living in the US." He's "working for a specialist travel company based in downtown Boston." He's arrived in Boston, I'm looking forward to hearing "what I wish I could say to Americans but don't think I can't get away with" from Tom.

Alan blogs Being Myself from Davao, Philippines. Cool enough to be worth a read (half of the blogs I saw couldn't even use complete sentences) and random enough not to be easily describable. Kind of like my blog, I'd like to think.

From the looks of it, Still In Japan is a beautiful photoblog by two lovely women. repetition and detail are the name of the game. What will their cameras see next?

Mike, the blogger behind Mindspiel writes "I like to think of myself as an amateur philosopher." Stretch your mind with a break from the dull and boring.

Yet to be filled, Prophecy holds promise, but not text. Check back later.

Pics from Fitzlandia: Mr. Fitz's life in a blog in photos.

White Stuff

Really heavy snow.


Snow blows around my house.


Snow boots.


Slippery!


Beautiful snowy New Mexico scene.


Tulips are buried here.


A full table.


Chilies in the snow.


Twelve inches on a 15 inch ruler. One foot of snow.


Winter wonderland.


Mystery mound.


Flash! Icicle after dark.

School's Out

Well we got no class
And we got no principles (principals)
— Alice Cooper, School's Out (for Summer)

Santa Fe Public Schools
Santa Fe County
Closed
Submitted at: 6:28 AM MST on Tuesday, Mar 15
— Action7 Weather Closings/Delays

We're dealing with a "winter blast" right now, says KRQE 13. Seems winter isn't quite ready to leave yet, our local paper reports.

Freezing Frame

These photos were all taken by me after I got home from school today. You can view more over at my photo album pages

Brain Freeze

Light Snow
28°F
Wind: E at 16 mph
Humidity: 78%

School was delayed two hours today, creating a headache for the school administration today as they seem to have forgotten that they did create a delay schedule earlier in the year. Consequently, they have created a new schedule on the fly that appears to have no more intelligence behind it than a common housefly.

I'm typing this as I'm supposed to be in second period class. However, since my second period class is on the south campus, it'll take me 15 minutes to get there and 15 minutes to get back. By then, it'll be time for third period, so I think I'll just stay here in the library.

Mr. M screws up

No more comments on this blog, folks. I only want to hear from friends, and if you're my friend, you have my email already.
— Mr. M. Brooklyn, New York (A First-Year Teacher's Online Journal)

It's one thing to simply realize that allowing comments would not be a good idea (like on Googleblog) but killing comment posting on personal blogs sends a terrible message to readers. That message is "I don't want to hear what you have to say." To which my response is "If you don't want to hear what I have to say, I don't want to hear what you have to say."

It is especially ironic that a teacher would disable commenting — does he run his classes the same way? If I were in his class, I'd certantly stop listening to what he had to say if he never listened to what I had to say.

Of course, there isn't any way to "approve" the comments before they get posted when using Blogger, so people could post personal details about you, etc. Comment review is is a feature blogger should think about, right after they get a decent spell checker.

So, I'm deleting my bookmarks and I'll never read Mr. M's journal again. Hopefully, everyone else will do the same, and he'll end up talking to himself — exactly what he deserves for shutting out the feedback of the community.

A Good Day in Bloggerville

The (understandably anonymous) blogger behind Things I hate about my Flatmate announced that he was moving out on March 9. Finally, no more bitching and moaning about his flatmate!

I really hate blogs that whine, so I must be the only one out there to visit the blog and say "Happy day for you; happy day for me!"