Possumblog

It WAS quite interesting!

First of all, a big thank you to the Internet Professionals Society of Alabama for inviting me to participate today, and for feeding me lunch. Big turkey sandwich, with CHEESE and a cookie and fruit salad and a wilted dill pickle spear. (The wilted pickle spear is not a shot at them--just a statement of fact.)

Thankfully for me, there was only ONE person there who could blow my cover--the wife of one of my coworkers. I can't tell you exactly who she's married to, otherwise when she comes to visit (as she promised she would--Hi Lisa!) she might take offense at my characterizations of him as someone less than comfortable with computers. I swore her to secrecy to not tell her husband, either, because then--as we said to each other simultaneously--"He would tell EVERYbody."

I was also gratified to meet frequent commentor Stan the Gummint Man, who came out to hear what there was to hear. Stan looks nothing like I pictured. I sorta had him pegged in the Jim Smith/Nate McCord mold, but he looks much more like automotive writer and raconteur David E. Davis, Jr.

AS FOR THE PANEL ITSELF, it was also good to meet Matt, who looks much younger than I thought, and Dimitri, whom I've never read before and who has an odd accent.

I don't think he's from around here. Maybe from Montgomery or Slapout or someplace.

And then there was Miss Ashley, who is a lawyer and mother of three in real life, and highly distracting in a female sort of way. Although I confess I am being much too familiar, in that we've only just been formally introduced, but I simply must say, "Rrrowll."

Finally, our genial host, Jeremy, who kept things moving right along, and I hope he realized my gruff manner while he was trying to scroll up and down through Possumblog was merely a ruse and a put-on. You did a fine job, and again, many thanks for having me on your panel.

The questions opened up with a quick intro of everyone as we told the stories of our births. I was third in line--

"Okay, time for my Admiral Stockdale moment--'Who am I!? What am I doing here!?'"

::crickets chirping::

Dang--tough crowd.

I went on and on and on and on and on about stupid crap, related my preblog existence, my early Blogspot days, the birth of the Axis of Weevil, my middle Blogspot days, the spin-off of THE PROBOSCIS, the later Munu days, the spin-off of REVOLVOBLOG, and the occasional ghost writing assistance I offer to Luther at the spin-off Cletus' Car Corner, and the fact that I am an idiot.

Everyone seemed to agree wholeheartedly.

The rest of the questions were pretty much as I detailed below, and I have to say I thought the panelists did a pretty fair job of explaining their ideas. Dimitri made what I thought was a good analogy of the current blogworld landscape, noting that it wasn't just a monochrome, level plain of prairie grass, but more like clouds in the sky, with various blog communities sorta clustered around each other based upon interests and likes. I like that image.

About fourty-five minutes into it, Jeremy asked for questions from the audience, and we got a couple, but I had one I wanted to ask--

"How many of you folks have a blog of your own?"

I counted 16 people in the audience--about half raised their hands.

"DERN IT ALL, THEN, WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE UP HERE!?" Really. I mean, my insight is no deeper or better than anyone else's--I say next time, let's just have a round-table with the audience.

Only difficulty of the afternoon was the fact that none of us had a laptop with which we could liveblog ourselves. Jeremy had everyone's sites called up on an overhead and would switch back and forth betwixt us all, but it was a bit hard to be able to explain it all when it's behind your back like that.

Overall, though, it was fun for me, and it's all about me. I even won a door prize! $50 gift certificate, but I felt terrible about winning it when it should have gone to the folks in the audience, so I told them to let the next person have it. Yes, I'm all noble like that.

Anyway, I just hope if you were there, it was helpful to you, and I invite you all to leave a comment or two below about your thoughts, as well as ask you to bookmark Possumblog for a return visit in the future.

Hmm? No, I never get around to making a point about anything.

Posted by Terry Oglesby at November 3, 2005 02:23 PM