Sorry. Didn’t mean for this to get off to a false start. Was kept offline (but not off Twitter) by a lousy Internet service coupled with a bout of summer flu that forced me up at 4am each morning like a ghoul. At least I got some semi-decent photos.
Right off the back of that I was squirreled away in a command bunker for two days for a very productive round of team talks. Between throwing my router across the room, coughing up lungmeat and drinking coffee while squinting at Excel spreadsheets I simply haven’t had the time to get back here.
Until now.
Lots to catch up on then…
Here’s something from Webjam that I think a lot of people will get a kick out of. It’s a one step creation tool for creating a content heavy website from scratch. Simply add any topic you like into the field below and click the Adopt! button:
It’s a handy tool for aggregating content from across the Internet, but I think there’s a lot more potential here than simply creating a fanpage (although it does that wonderfully).
One of the things I had to research recently was Spaghetti Westerns. I already know more than a little bit about the genre (I was lucky enough to do a crazy M.A. that covered some really unusual bases), but was a little out of touch with what was going on out there right now. I used the Webjam tool to create this page. Now I’m not going to build a blog around this subject (but I could if I was that way inclined by simply dropping a blog module onto the page as easily as I could pipe Morricone music through it) but as a research hub I’m finding it particularly useful. One of the feeds for example pointed me towards this unpublished book by Alex Cox that I’m having a lot of fun with.
Now most of you will already have blogs, but we all know someone who likes the idea of a real website, but hasn’t got the time (and sometimes chops) to put it together. The nice thing about Webjam is that it’s increasingly making the creation process simpler and easier.
Even someone with an already noteable web presence (be it on Wordpress, Blogger, Movable Type, Flickr, Twitter or whatever) could use the platform to beef up their content. The interesting thing is that this is only a starting point for Webjam. Often compared to Pageflakes and the like it would be easy to gain some buzz around this feature alone, but the team are a lot more interested in using simple page creation to create real communities.
There’s a full version of the tool on the Webjam homepage and be sure to check out the video… you may recognise the voice.
Somewhere I have a video copy of The Split.
I recorded it off the TV maybe ten years ago so rather than try to dig it out I’m looking for a digital copy. It amazes me the crap you can get on DVD - often in several flavours - while the really good stuff is stranded way down the long tail waiting for someone like me to give it a home.
I usually have a list of around ten movies a month that simply aren’t available that I need.
Now ‘need’ is an interesting word. Sometimes of course I’m just being greedy and it would simply be nice to have a copy of something like A Man Called Sledge with James Garner playing against type (that one I found pretty quickly). A lot of the time though this is work related. There’s a very good chance that The Split will be nothing more than a footnote in the book that Rob and I are working on, but I can’t with good conscience even write a footnote without refamiliarising myself with the movie.
Plus who’d give up a chance to watch Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine, Gene Hackman, Jack Klugman, Donald Sutherland, James Whitmore and Warren Oates fall out over a heist.
Danny Ocean 2.0 wishes he had such a crew.
So for whatever reason The Split is unavailable to me. But one way or another I’ll have it in a few weeks because someone will have a decent copy and that copy will be out there in the wild.
And digging this stuff up means you find treasure buried right along side. Another heist movie called Three-way Split with Robert Vaughn wasn’t on my radar until this morning.
No idea if I’ve seen that one, but the tagline is hard to resist:
Three “Sex-O-Pathic” Killers Attempt the Most Daring Heist of Their Sordid Careers…Sharing the Danger…The Money…And the Women…In a…”Three-Way Split”
Yesterday I got to spend the afternoon on a gastro tour of Borough Market:
This seems somehow appropriate.
My name is Mike Atherton and this is a new blog in an old place. Thanks for dropping by.
I need somewhere to blog ‘work’ related stuff and seeing as this page has always been the entry point for anyone who finds themselves with one of my Moo cards in their pocket it seems like a good place to dig in.
Longtime readers: I have no plans right now to close down VMII. Thankfully my work is far from dull and dry and I’m in the lucky position to allow my interests to drive the jobs I pick. The plan is to keep Sizemore just as readable as the old bucket of bolts next door.
New readers: In case you were wondering, I’m a full time freelance writer/editor/tech-evangelist who also has time for a little consulting. I’ve been blogging regularly since 2002. I’ve been published in magazines, worked on academic books (I have a Masters Degree in Literature), been a film correspondent, a web editor and also co-wrote an eclectic guide book to London. I’ve also been a guest blogger and reviewer on numerous websites and played an advisory role on others.
Right now I’m working with Webjam and Trusted Places on a Web 2.0 kick. Fun stuff! I’m also working on two new books, a return to non-fiction with a movie theme (co-written with this guy) and something a little more messed-up concerning a stone monkey and a journey West. Rob and I are also launching a new blog that will be a little different from anything we’ve ever done before. Exciting times.
All of this and more will get touched on here (with a little room for crossover with VMII).
Most importantly this won’t be just about me (hell, Sizemore isn’t even my name) because in my line of work I get to meet interesting people on a daily basis.
So if you’re here because of a Moo card that I gave you at a meet-up, there’s a good chance that this is where I’ll talk about you…
This is new.
You are probably looking for old.
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