Do the obvious thing and park your Smart nose or arse to the curb and what you get is a ticket.

The ticket is for failing to park parallel to the curb. Impossible in a Hummer, admittedly. Perhaps the Smart was mistaken for a motorcycle.

Surely many of you must think I was being terribly, terribly unfair to the outdated mediocrities who organized the Mesh Conference. They’re great guys, and it’s really great that Toronto finally got its own great conference about Web 2.0, itself the greatest thing since push technology or Friendster. The conference sold out and everybody had a great time, so I obviously must be wrong.

Well, I’m not. [continue with: Requiem for Robert Manne →]

And now… in stereo:

(Q.v.)

Actually, that’s unfair. This is merely one of the many unique yet unheralded vistas available here. Where else might you find a backhoe at the lakeshore edge?

This pickup truck has an added train wheel on each corner. Whilst taking pictures, the driver chatted me up. He has to pull out a safety pin, drop each wheel down, and then manually jack up each corner of the truck. It then becomes possible to drive down the tracks, sort of Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd–style.

By the way, one curious and dangerous feature of Toronto is the train tracks running right through the city, sometimes so close you can look out your window and see individual bolts on wheels. The trains usually just creep along, except of course for the train tracks through Leslieville, where the Via trains run at full tilt and are quite free with blowing the whistle. Trains in one’s backyard make for a a cozy feel and a distinctive cityscape, but they’re an invitation to disaster. It already happened in Mississauga in 1979.

As promised, the Weblog I maintained from 2000 to 2003, the NUblog, is back online. There will be small invalidities here and there, not to mention the use of rather unusual HTML 4.0 Transitional. Your attention is directed to the archives, which I rather recommend to my friends at Edelman (but more on them anon).

You may also read the NUblog history.

None of this would have been possible without Antonio Cavedoni’s translation of an orphan SQL database into real HTML.

In Boston en route back from Iceland, I had the superspecial pleasure of a quick luncheon with some of the fired captioners of WGBH.

I tendered the proviso that nothing we said would be published, but I would be taking pictures. I will mention something I was told beforehand: One of the captioneers remembered my many letters to the Caption Center over the years (over a period of at least 20 years, in fact) and was impressed by their professionalism and accuracy.

I will also mention what I’ve mentioned before, hence it isn’t a secret: My neighbourhood is the DeGrassi neighbourhood and my Shoppers Drug Mart is the Shoppers Drug Mart where Joey bought his condoms. They squealed with glee at this news! (WGBH, you see, captioned DeGrassi High and Junior High. So did the Canadians – appallingly so, making for an interesting comparison project.)

When you’re spending this much money, all you need is one.

Now, surely you’re wondering: How is Mesh gonna screw up next? By shutting out the press.

The much-unloved Mesh Conference – that modern, now, up-to-the-minute “Web 2.0” confab – has scheduled a panel entitled “Are Bloggers Journalists?” Now, what if we’re both? Here’s the response I got when I filed a request for press credentials.

From: “Manne, Robert” <Robert.Manne@edelman.com>

Hi[,] Joe,

Thank you for your note regarding mesh [sic]. We are sorry we cannot accommodate your request.

Accreditation for mesh [sic] closed a few weeks back as we had a limited number of spots available on first-come, first-served basis.

Like when I first started covering the conference on March 23? (And the conference’s press policy was published where?)

Isn’t there a press table at the back of the room? If the Globe and Mail or CITY-TV shows up unannounced on conference day, will they be locked out, too? No, right?

There still may be tickets left if you would like to attend the conference and we hope to see you there.

Best,
Robert Manne
Edelman

[Top-posted original message redacted]

Ah, yes. Edelman.

Remember them? They expect you not to, but some of us have a better memory.

Edelman is the PR agency that, a mere five years earlier, had threatened me with legal action for asking a client a technical question. After I published that exchange, I received the following fusillade:

Date: Tue, 1 May 2001 15:15:05 -0500

Dear Mr. Clark,

I find your tone and actions completely unjustifiable, malicious, slanderous, unprofessional and creating an extremely serious legal issue for yourself. Further, your request for an interview was not on behalf of a credentialed publication and therefore, you have no claim or right to or for a formal interview. An interview request for an online, non credentialed website and chat room does not provide you with the same access or rights as a credential media publications. Further, your manipulation of the formal correspondence that was sent to you (of which we have kept copies) is unethical and in extremely poor judgment and violates any and all basic rules of journalism, assuming you are a journalist and familiar with such rules.

With those facts present, you have until 5:00pm PDT today to remove and modify your liable statements related to Edelman and Ms. Akbarzad or Edelman will be forced to take immediate and swift recourse. Also, while I can not speak on behalf of Apple on this issue, I would assume Apple will not think highly of your actions or statements or find any of this acceptable.

Harry Pforzheimer
President, Western Region
Edelman Public Relations Worldwide

With that history, would this really be a good time to get cheap and tell a member of the press he can pony up like everybody else?

Since that same episode was well covered in the press, even in a book, would this have been an opportune moment to comp a member of the press? Especially someone with my credentials, and especially someone like me, the conference’s toughest critic?

I’m sure you also noted that Edelman got in bed with Technorati. From their newsletter, dated 2005.09.23 (emphasis added):

Blogger PR survey

Bloggers interact with companies and their products daily and often blog about their most or least favorite product or feature. Many companies and public relations agencies are interested in engaging active users with more information about their products including free products for review and blogs created by product teams to share their insights and developments.

Technorati has partnered with leading public relations firm Edelman [!] to survey the blogosphere for opinions on public relations, corporate communications, and best practices for companies wanting more active involvement with the blogging community.

Edelman is trying hard to look like it knows what it’s doing with bloggers, but, sort of like Republicans dealing with blacks, their true feelings keep popping out at inconvenient moments – like this one.

Mesh Conference: It’s all about the conversation.

(The old NUblog has been offline for the better part of three years. The Wayback Machine isn’t helping me here, but in fact the entire old NUblog archives are going back online in a project resuscitated just for Mesh Conference. Soon you’ll be able to read the whole contretemps yourself.)