the stick from which all future sticks shall be judged

I just want you to know that this is going to change my life for the better. Details soonish. Blog posts also to follow in a relatively soonish fashion.

pardon the dust on your web browser

So you may have noticed a lack of activity here. You may have also noticed a lack of activity over at How RDU Doin'? In both cases, it's due to the combination of restructuring and my impending move to Carrboro.

Look for How RDU Doin'? to get some seriously great new content in the coming weeks (especially after Scott gets himself married and local again).

As for the stuff I'm changing here, you may have noticed certain posts are missing. How you feel about those posts is basically the reason for the shift. In talking to the people who still read my little rambly thoughts, I discovered two camps:

One, mostly my friends and such, said "I like the site, but what's with all the comic book stuff?"

The other, mostly other comic nerds I've met through various online involvements, said "I like the comic book stuff, but what's up with all that other crap?"

So to satisfy both parties, I've removed the "Funnybook of the Week" posts from here and given them their own space. You can find those at the new and improved Funnybook of the Week, which now gives me more room to geek out to a specific audience. Act today, and you'll even find my especially nerdy thoughts on Captain America #600.

You'll still be able to read me talk about all the other stuff I like to talk about right here. So it's okay. Posting with some frequency shall resume in the coming weeks. It'll be great.

how do you avoid getting on a roll?

I'm making a sincere effort to leave well enough alone. This evening, I got a text message from Scott. He had an idea. An idea so perfect and obvious that I kind of hated myself for not coming up with it. We bounced a few idea back and forth and got ourselves to work. The result is big, dumb fun on the internet that you might want to take a peek at come tomorrow.

So I've officially made my contributions and shut things down for the night, eager to go to bed with Andi. Once I was there, though, I couldn't even begin to sleep. If you know me, then you know I'm in a pretty unsatisfying rut in a lot of aspects of the ol' life. So little things like the exchange between Scott and me and the results thereof end up keeping me awake. It's why I don't sleep after the SUPER SPARKLE SHOWCASE or a great show at The Worx. When I remember what it's like to actually do something I'm a little proud of, I want to do more.

So I'm trying hard to leave it be. Let what I've done sit so I can settle down and get a good night's rest. But it's awfully hard, because these moments aren't part of the daily routine.

on my failings to properly cover basketball on this blog

So I was going to go down the results of the ACC tourney one game at a time. That didn't work out, but I did manage to liveblog a pair of the games for How RDU Doin'? Then I thought I'd reprise my NCAA burning questions gimmick from last season. Then I filled out my first set of brackets and found that I had all four #1 seeds in the Final Four. So I'm going to grow a pair and then fill them out again. I'll let you know if I have anything worth reporting on before games start on Thursday.

March. Madness.

you know how hard it is to find a graphic that stays still?

By now, boys and girls, you should be checking How RDU Doin'? on an obsessive basis. But on the off chance you're not, behold my first stab at video editing since I was an undergraduate messing with Media 100 in my field production class. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out.

Special thanks to Chris Mayo, who encouraged me when it was at first difficult getting strangers to speak into a camera about a store that sells "sex helpers."

scott says i've learned the #1 rule of the internet

Yesterday, I sat down to do my part to keep How RDU Doin'? rolling into a powerhouse local blog. I went through the reader, and picked up on a story about The Biggest Loser finale and how it contained a Raleigh couple. The last time someone from Raleigh hit it big on a huge prime time reality contest thingamabobber, it was that Clay Aiken kid.

So I wrote a post pleading with Raleigh to support these folks the way they did good ol' Clay. It wasn't my best work, but I thought it was a funny enough bit. Andi and I went to have a nice dinner at one of Durham's fine eateries and watch Slumdog Millionaire (totally worth your time, by the way), and I forgot I'd written that post entirely.

When we came home, I checked my special How RDU Doin'? email because I'm desperately behind schedule on what was going to be a brilliant feature and want to get started as soon as I get certain confirmations (ooh, mysterious!). I saw that there had been a comment on something I posted. "Oh good, we're getting comments." I took a closer look and saw that it had drawn more than the usual amount of comments.

It seems that the Claymate nation takes serious exception to the implication that Clay rose to fame on a karaoke-style game show. Serious exception. The Claymates showed up to tear me a new one in the comments section by pointing out that Clay is not reduced to blogging, but rather has achieved success as a huge Broadway star (did you know he was in Spamalot?).

I've often been told that you're not doing anything right on the internet until you get hate mail. Clearly this is another banner day for our fledgling blog.

Lesson learned.

how is how rdu doin' doing?

I think this email from our fearless leader says it all:

We are the #1 search result for "tazed at funeral." We have a lot to be proud of today.

That we do, Scott, that we do.

two-timing is awesome, but only with blogging

There's a good chance that production on this bad boy is going to take a nosedive. Before you tear your garments, sit in ashes, and weep uncontrollably you should go check out howRDUdoin' and you'll get more of Ben than you can possibly handle. As a bonus, you'll also get the wicked awesome wit and wisdom of the brilliant Chris Conklin and playful barbs at the Charlotte Bobcats from Scott Jennings.

howRDUdoin.com is locally focused but, since I'm way bigger than the greater Triangle area, there's still plenty to go here. In the meantime, though, visit howRDUdoin.com early and often.