Revoking Jenifer's right to complain about my musical selections: Exhibit A

The first in a series.

I've always wanted to publish something in the Onion-- the satirical newspaper born in Madison when I was wrapping up middle school. This week I have accomplished that goal. But not in a way I would have ever imagined.

A snapshot I took of a local deli and published on Flickr so that I could remember the name of the place was a featured illustration of the Onion AV-Club's review of the establishment.

I took the picture in May of 2007 when I was training at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on their goofy ass pagination system. Then I published the photo, (along with a handful of others) on Flickr added a modicum of meta data, and pushed it out to the Milwaukee - (High Resolution) Creative Commons group.

There are a lot of people-- pro photographers mostly, who would say that I've gone and killed their industry by letting for-pay publications run my photo for free. And I say, Adapt of be Killed.

I am assuming that given the option of paying me $10 or not running a photo, the onion would have picked not running the photo. I was a journalist for a long time. There's no cash on hand to pay for that kind of thing. That photography -- not even necessarily good photography-- is available on he web for free is just part of the new reality.

Regardless, I'm greatful to the Onion for plugging Writelarge.com in exchange for using that photo. Haven't really seen much benefit from the attribution, don't really expect to. But still nice to see none the less.

And Hey, I've had my work published in The Onion. Have you?

Edit for Clarification:The editor of the Onion AV Club Milwaukee obtained my permission to use the photo prior to publication. Just so we're clear. :)

If you are the type to make a fantastic and well thought-out playlist or gift CD to play and give during your holiday celebration, then you are a better person than me.

I used to. I really did. It was a lot of work back then. You had to rip your CDs manually, and you didn't bother to pirate download songs because it took forever at 28.8kbps. But I digress. Times change.

This year I point you in the direction of some of my favorite Holdiay music sources.

1. DJ Riko's Merry Mixmas
   Yeah. DJ Riko mixes up a fresh CD's worth of gapless holiday songs every year. Since 200X. Download these now. Easily the best questionably legal source of holiday awesomeness you'll download all year.
2. Xmas in Frisko on SomaFM
   Often racy, usually rocking, ocassionally unlistenable: That's Xmas in Frisko. Streams seasonally from the folks at SomaFM. If you don't know SomaFM, think of it this way: SomaFM is a way better place to send your holiday donations than some snooty "Human fund."
3. Lala.com
   I can't belive I've become a fan of Lala.com. Just know this: There are probably some Christmas classics you've been wanting to hear for years. You can probably buy unlimited access to streaming that song from Lala.com for about 10-cents a song. If you're careful, you can probably get all the songs you'll want using the free credits that come with signing up at Lala.com.>
4. Last.FM
   Last.fm, the granddaddy of community tagged streaming music has just about any kind of music you could want to listen to, so long as you're clever enough to think to search on the tag. You think I'm kidding? Then have your fill of Harry Potter filk.

G: I want you to know that my last Facebook update, I deliberately did not write, "I AM WORTHY, BITCHES!"
J: Why didn't you?
G: I didn't want to offend any bitches.
J: As a bitch, I am cool with that.
G: Some of those bitches are quite uppity. I loves me some uppity bitches.

One of the things I love about putting together a BarCamp is that those who attend a BarCamp are responsible for making the event what they want it to be.

BarcampMilwaukee4 is going to be a lot more of an Unconference than usual. We're busting to make it a great event, but economic realities have made the "participatory" element of Barcamp more important than ever.

So let it be said, that you, dear Barcamp attendee, are responsible for making Barcamp into an experience that you will enjoy. Think about what you need to ensure you're going to be comfortable, connected, and engaged-- and then bring those things. Or make arrangements to bring those things. Or bring money to buy those things. Just don't expect that those things are going to show be there for you.

I plan to bring my own coffee pot, coffee maker, cooler of drinks, a power strip, cables, chairs, and tables, I also plan to bring some snacks, coffee, and things to share.

That's the thing about a participatory conference, right? It's not just about the Law of Two Feet and about getting great gifts of knowledge and t-shirts from your community. For Barcamp to work, you have to give back, too. If everybody took care of their own needs, and then ensured that they were also contributing to the comfort, connection and engagement of their neighbor, Barcamp could be held in a dark cave on top of a flagpole, and it would be great.

The organizers of BarcampMilwaukee, great people like Jenn, Ashe, Pete and Kevin, have given largely of themselves this year, and I, for one, am going to work as hard as I can to ensure that I live up to the standard of giving of themselves (and their time and their effort) that these folks, my friends, have set.

Will you?

I've been blogging a lot lately, just not here.
BarCampMilwaukee4 is only twelve days away! Holy Crap!
That's super awesome.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do, session wise, I'm kind of rolling with the event and see what happens, but I posted these thoughts on the sessions discussions page at BarcampMilwaukee.com, and figured I might as well share here, too.

You have to give a session at Barcamp this year. There's no rule, or anything, but if you don't give at least co-facilitate a session this year, you're doing it wrong.

Don't let your monkey mind, your self-hater, get in your way. You have valuable experience to share. Sharing your knowledge is righteous and good. Your experiences make you an expert in what you know, and we can all benefit when you share that expertise.

Don’t be afraid to do some beginner’s sessions! You have far more expertise than you realize, and part of the magic of BarCamp is that the stuff you know a little about added with the stuff your colleagues know a little about makes for a whole lot of collective knowledge.

On the other side of the coin, if you know a lot about a subject, consider running an “intro” session before your advanced sessions. For example, If you think you might want to put on an “advanced Joomla hacking” session, think about doing an “Intro to Joomla” session first. You’ll find that running an intro session will help feed the advanced session, and will probably get new users excited about the subject you're so passionate about!

What ever you do, Don't make the mistake of thinking you can coast through a Barcamp without contributing in some way. If you really can't bring yourself to host a session, try volunteering at the front desk, making a meal for someone, bringing water to the session rooms or taking out the trash.

We'll see you punks at BarcampMilwaukee4, Ok? It begins Saturday, Oct. 3, 2009 at 10 a.m. and runs through Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009 at 4 p.m. at the Chase Commerce Center, 3073 S. Chase Ave, in Milwaukee.

You can design the next BarCampMilwaukee T-shirt. And you should. Or I will. And I like unicorns and fairies on my t-shirts.

There are a couple of catches though:

1. Color Choices: One color for the front. One color for the back. Full size images on both. Details of the exact dimentions are forthcoming, but for now, just assume you're working from 12" by 12" image spaces.
2. The BarCampMilwaukee Logo, which you can download here, must appear on the back of the t-shirt somewhere, in some recognizable form.
3. There must be room for a list of sponsors on the back. Typically 12-20 sponsor names. The sponsors are the reason we can even think about providing a t-shirt. Give them a bone, eh?
4. Have your way with the front. It should say BarCamp and Milwaukee and 4, somehow. Other than that, Bob's your uncle.
5. The design mustbe Creative Commons licensed. The less restrictive the better. The judges will be adding bonus points based on this.

Submit your high resolution 1-color artwork By SEPTEMBER 15 to tshirt@writelarge.com.

(Image credit)

Cross posted from Web414

Sometimes, I just can't believe that @AsheDryden puts up with Pete and Me. Well... me.

Anyway, I've agreed to take on the title of "T-Shirt Czar" for Barcamp Milwaukee 4. This is a thankless job, because it will be nigh impossible to follow in the footsteps of the mighty Mike Rohde, but the good news is that I'm not actually going to try.

Here's the thing: With the caliber of designers involved in Web414-- BarcampMKE's sponsor organization-- I can manage this T-shirt thing and hopefully let the designer do the design work-- let me run around making the phone calls and moving the data.
So watch this space for t-shirt contest ideas. If you're a hot-shit designer in the Milwaukee space, shoot me a note, because otherwise I'm going to end up designing the t-shirt and it will probably have skulls or birds or pirates on it. That's supposed to be discouragement, people.

Let the t-shirt ideas flow, friends. Lets go!

I don't normally like to repost content from other sites I work on, but I enjoyed this producing this show too much not to put it here.

It's the Welcome and Monologue from the July 9, 2009 Web414 Show.

You can keep tabs on my exploits at the Web414 show by visiting Web414.com. It's only going to get better.