Linkage and Contests and Games, Oh My!

I’ve played around a little with the linkage. Added some, dropped others, added a new category – Games and Other Contests. This was prompted by a Press-Citizen article yesterday about a new predictive market established by some City High grads. The market, Media Predict, is run much like the granddaddy of all online predictive markets, the Hollywood Stock Exchange. Upon registering, you are given $5,000 in play money to purchase stocks in future media events. These include whether or not certain artists will receive record deals, whether or not certain books will be optioned, and whether or not a movie will gross a certain amount opening weekend. I’ve opened an account, and would love to have anyone join me who is interested. I’d also love to get a group of folks starting Hollywood Stock Exchange accounts at the same time. Who's with me?

New Template

Okay, this is unrelated to my remark a few days ago about starting a new blog. That's still on the way. In the meantime, I finally took the plunge and updated my template to a new blogger template.

Some thoughts:

* Yes, that’s a big ass list of links. Yes, the new blogger does make adding and taking out links a lot easier. Yes, I tried to make it a comprehensive list of links I visit (or try to visit) on a regular basis. Yes, there are a couple of people left out who I regularly visit, but a: I wasn’t sure they wanted linkage or b: THEY NEVER POST! I’m looking at you, Greenman and Side Notes.

* Yes, comments from earlier posts are gone. No, I don’t know where they went. Yes, I am sorry they are gone because there was occasionally something witty or pithy or interesting or heartfelt there.

* Yes, it’s a lot of black space. Yes, we’ve come a long way from the green template (symbolizing corn, don’t ya know). No, I didn’t have as many template options because I want my links on the left, not the right, as all proper thinking Americans should.