I was sitting in room with about 20 college students and asked them how many of them read blogs. The general reaction was along the line of “isn’t that cute, the old guy thinks we still read blogs.” Sort of a bemused head shaking. They were well aware of blogs, they just don’t ever read them.

I know that if you expand this group out to about 100 college-aged-people, you get maybe 2 or 3 who are HUGE fans of two or three (or ten) blogs and are avid readers, but the rest don’t bother.

They spend all day on Facebook, almost literally.

Nobody IMs anymore. They text. (er… txt…)

They rarely use e-mail, except for work in which case it’s a necessary evil.

People still watch TV…

…and play a ton of video games.

So, blogs, which are my business, have become mainstream, and have captured the attention of big media, but are losing the attention of the emerging generation. What’s next?

This last Saturday, SNL ran a hilarious opener skit spoofing Joe Biden who (say what you will about Palin) I believe to be the best material to come along for political humorists since… Dubya himself. The skit was Biden rambling inanely with various prophecies about the future. I’ve been in a bit of a cave the last two weeks but I knew this was too funny to be made up, had to come from somewhere. Here’s the skit.

I decided to look up a few sources about the speech referenced here. Whooooaaaa, whoa whoa. Did anyone read this or listen to it?

Here’s what he said…

“And here’s the point I want to make. Mark my words. Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”

Umm…

“Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy. And he’s gonna have to make some really tough - I don’t know what the decision’s gonna be, but I promise you it will occur. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it’s gonna happen. I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate. And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you, not financially to help him, we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right. Because all these decisions, all these decisions, once they’re made if they work, then they weren’t viewed as a crisis. If they don’t work, it’s viewed as you didn’t make the right decision…”

Uhhh…

“We don’t need anybody denying us, this is gonna be tough. There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go ‘whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don’t know about that decision.’ Because if you think the decision is sound when they’re made, which I believe you will when they’re made, they’re not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they’re popular, they’re probably not sound.”

Wow. (My main thought about that last sentence was that Obama’s current platform is pretty darn popular right now… and McCain’s isn’t.)

Translation:

A major crisis going to happen. A world power is going to test us, and we’re going to respond in a way that…

Now I can go one of two ways with this.

1. That makes us look an awful lot like republicans.
2. Make us look like maaaybe WE might be the bad guy after all.

Either way, the real change we are going to see with Obama in office is not one of sudden peace, prosperity and hand-holding happiness.

Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said… The real change you will see with Obama is his stance on how to deal with foreign issues. When he really realizes that politics is, in fact, the art of the possible, as he so often says. And Eden, Utopia, Camelot, Shangri-la, call it what you will, is IMpossible in this world.

Will McCain do much better? Doubtful. My hope with McCain is actually that not much changes. History shows that the less the government interferes, the better. The sweeping changes we need in Washington are not simply an administrative change. We need to close down many many many departments, programs, bureaus. End many government jobs. Free up people’s money to invest in the market. Give people with a lot of money the freedom and ability to pump it into the economy (rather than stealing it from them to give to various programs to “help” the… less… able… to… buy stuff… you know, like, cell phones… (did you know you can get cell phones with Wellfare??))

Enter Coda Clips. Find and install (with a click!) a bunch of really handy code clips! should make development pretty speedy.

If you’re lucky enough to be able to work at home, don’t make it just a little mini office away from the office. Life’s too short to replicate the creativity and soul-sucking office environment in your own home. Work in your PJ’s, work odd hours, play music at high-volume, have a movie on while you work—do anything just to remind yourself that by being at home your life is a little less like Dilbert everyday.

Otherwise what’s the point?

Great post Mike.

Born yesterday (October 12) at 3:45pm.

Vital stats:

• 9lbs 13oz
• 22 inches long
• head circumference: 15 inches (I’ve been told by several women that this is an important stat… ;-) )

They say she’s a large baby but she seems perfect to me. Happy and Healthy. Mom is doing well also.

We’ll have copious amounts of pics available on flickr for those who are interested.

Katharyn is derived from the greek “katharos” meaning “pure”. The “yn” spelling comes from my dramatic flair ;-). We’re calling her Kate. I’m pretty sure I will be calling her Katie within days, which Nancy isn’t a fan of because that’s the name of her parents’ cat. I say “bah”. Katie is a cute name.

Once again I am proud father. I now have two beautiful daughters. Elena and Kate. They are going to be quite the pair.

Brilliant, amazing, the best yet. Mark did a stellar job on the TUAW redesign. My two designers keep one-upping each other in brilliance ever since they were hired on a little over a year ago. It’s full speed ahead. Can’t wait to keep informing you of our upcoming re-launches.

More info on the redesign and a ton of feedback already at the redesign post on TUAW.

Christian Warren posted about it on TUAW. Ahhh TUAW, not only do I like working on you, I like reading you.

Last month I posted about a design I had lingering around that I wanted to make into a real live site someday. A few weeks later, I canceled my WoW account. A few days later, I had the site prototyped and Wordpress theme built. I’ve been waiting for a chance to write some permanent page content and an introductory post ever since.

Along with the redesign comes some restructuring of the content and theme. I have changed the way the archives work in hopes of longer-term intelligibility and I will likely be broadening the topics covered here in from simply Web design related matters, though that will continue to comprise the bulk of the posts for the time being. I am conceiving of this site as more a personality site now, combining my various “worlds”, music, religion, spirituality, theology, social networking, design, the Web (in general) and anything else that strikes my fancy or is important. I promise it won’t be too great a diversion from the current theme (for now).

As with everything I’ve ever done on this site and my other personal sites, this will likely remain under construction for a long time, so apologies for the mess. This new design will give me greater freedom to expand and evolve in a coherent fashion.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

Congratulations to all my friends over at Crowd Fusion on the launch of Obsessable. The site is gorgeous (and it has great content already).

Covering the wide world of personal technology, Obsessable is up against some large competition, but I think the site has all the right ingredients for success: great content, great writers, a good tech crew, a great platform, beautiful design and IA. Now all you need is a gianormous marketing engine.

Look out CNET!!!

Congratulations Brian, Judith, Craig, Steve, Kyle, Barb, Evan, Randall, and everyone I forgot and or don’t know!!

…we must look further than the guidelines if we are to create websites which are accessible to users with disabilities and the assistive technologies they rely on.