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Just thought I'd shout out the fact that the Conservative Brotherhood as new digs. The "CB" are a group of black bloggers whose politics lean towards the conservative side of things. Contrary to popular belief, we are not a group of Republicans. With contrarian thought, it's nice to have a support system. I do count it a privilege to be included amongst what I feel are some of the finest of thinkers. I however, consider myself the crazy cousin of the gang (oh, and Avery Tooley's the drunk uncle). But check them all out when you get a chance (if you haven't done so already). They are all smarter, older, wiser, and more learned than I.

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I don't usually blog about the blogosphere itself. Sometimes I prefer to treat this growing organism as though it doesn't exist. It's more fun this way and it keeps my writing honest and un-abashedly disloyal to anyone but my web-host, who's really the only one who can pull the plug on this whole offensive deal anyway. Today's different. Now maybe I'd been living under a rock, but up until about six months ago, I'd never heard of Andrew Sullivan, author, blogger, conservative, and gay-rights activist extraordinaire. After surfing a few of my favorite conservative weblogs, I came upon links to his site rather often so one day I decided to see what the hubbub was about.

As suspected, the hubbub was about absolutely nothing. It only took me moments to see that Andrew Sullivan was nothing more than the confused moderate's poster-boy for politics, but more specifically, same-sex marriage. Every time I write about this issue, someone always wants to ask me if I've read good old Andy Sullivan. Well I have, and I'm not impressed. I wasn't buying it then, and I'm not buying it now. Thankfully, others are starting to notice the same.

Many bloggers have recently come out (no pun intended) against Mr. Sullivan. Nathan at Brain Fertilizer cites his inability to relate to anything outside the realm of his "homosexuality" as "Why We Should Stop Reading Andrew Sullivan" (good thing I never really started). Meanwhile, reading Michelle Malkin's post on his recent stooping to the lowest of lows by starting a "sponsorship" campaign to cover costs for his blog, with varying levels of partnership (again no pun intended) and special perks when you give more money (my goodness, he'd fit in perfectly on TBN), led me to these lovely words from one of her brilliant commenters, David Blackmon

"Andrew Sullivan is a classic example of an otherwise intelligent and fairly astute political observer who allows himself to become utterly and completely consumed by a single issue, in his case gay marriage. His pathological need to destroy the institution of marriage in this country has led him to develop a similar pathological hatred of President Bush, and that in turn has basically rendered him irrational on all other political topics.

It's too bad - a year ago he appeared to have a promising future. It has been almost painful to watch over the last year as he has devolved into utter and complete irrelevancy."

Yes! If I had a tambourine right now, surely I'd play it.

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There's nothing worse than having a temporary physical deformity the first time you meet complete strangers.  I suppose it could've been worse. I could've had the chicken pox or a bad hair-dyeing experience, but no, Sunday morning I woke up looking like the Godfather.  My right cheek was swollen to abnormality.  It seems I had an irritation that caused the swelling and I was less than thrilled.  As you may recall,  Sunday was the first ever Seattle Blognic where a variety of Seattle area bloggers and readers came together to eat meat.  To the veg-types, this is known as a barbecue.  Despite my better judgment, I made the decision to go dressed as Marlon Brando and I'm glad I did.  In spite of my ailment and bulging cheeks, a good time was had by all.  There's nothing like realizing that indeed piles of flesh and bones do exist behind these virtual realities we call weblogs.  If more people realized this they might cut back on the hate mail.

I know I said I'd take pictures, but for the first time ever on this weblog, I lied.  I'm certain you understand however, that it would take an honest day in Jesse Jackson's office before my swollen, bee-stung face was going anywhere near a camera yesterday.  Thus ends my personal drama.

It was purely enjoyable to meet some of Seattle's finest thinkers in the blogosphere.  The event was organized by the very hip Matt Rosenberg of Rosenblog, the very much down-to earth Stefan Sharkansky of Shark's Blog, and the just plain nice and gracious Brian Crouch of Medved Fans (who by the way, also has a gorgeous wife).  Meeting peoples' spouses, kids and dogs was quite an experience.  In addition, receiving feedback and discussing blogging was humbling as always.  Strangely, I did get asked twice if I was considering running for some sort of political office.  Errr, absolutely, unequivocally not.  I also realized that I had no idea how to pronounce my own website.  So for everyone's info, Nykola.com is pronounced (Nee-Cole-Uh), like the "N" version of the cough drop "Ricola".  (You have to sing it for the full effect).  I know, not exactly catchy, but unlike some people, I never thought this thing all the way through.

So all that said, it was a good day and I look forward to doing it again sometime.  Maybe next go 'round we'll bring in the Liberals.  Now that would be grand ole party.

Stefan's got a more comprehensive recap of all who attended.  [Gushing] He even called me lovely and talented! [/Gushing]  I'm just eternally grateful no one took pictures.

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Yo (throw-back to the 80's) I'm signing off for the weekend. My nerd-butt is exhausted, spent, fidgety, and anxious to enjoy the Seattle sun (a true rarity).

This Sunday, all things pending, I'm attending a "Blognic". The gathering shall consist of local Seattle bloggers and readers. So if you live in the Seattle area and are a reader and/or blogger. I'd encourage you to come out, eat some bbq and meat, I mean meet some internet personalities in person (details are included in the link above).

I must say, this shall be odd. I'm still a little new to the whole net-relationship thing. Trust me, I'm blacker than I appear on the web (Okay I just cracked myself up on that one).

I'll be sure to take pictures. Enjoy the weekend everyone. I'll still be chiming in on comments.

Posted in Blogging | Permanent Link

 

It seems my recent discussion of our "great" classics has bothered a few. This is music to my irreverent ears. One person has even gone as far as to form a rebuttal on the greatness of The Great Gatsby. Thankfully, however, this same person as well as a few others have picked up the ax and begun listing their least favorite force-fed novels. Makes me feel good to know I've done my part to bother others and spur them onto "paying forward" the bothering. Perhaps I shall call it "Bothering forward". Somewhere there's a screenplay in there.

In light of a few snide comments and not-so-nice emails I've been receiving lately all of which I answer by the way, (except the one telling me white people rule the world and black people should be exterminated off the Earth), I'd like to remind certain folks that under the moniker "nykola.com" my tagline is not stroking the common opinion since 1981, it's bothering people since 1981. Now If people don't like that, then I've successfully done my job (smile).

When I first started this web thing, I thought of a couple different taglines:

- "inciting riots since..."
- "inducing labor since..."
- "sending people back to nicotine since..."

As these are all things I've managed to do in my lifetime. However, "bothering people" was the least abrasive and the most fun. Somebody left a comment one day saying "The thing I love about the internet is its potential to shock". I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, this is both a virtue and a vice. I will always aim to be clean, fair, respectful, and honest, but not always nice. This could make me or break me, but since I can dish it, I sure can take it. Tally ho!

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Okay, I'm posting later today (promised) because I was up all night, but I started to Audipost and then realized I would just be rambling without some verbal ammunition. Any ideas for a subject matter I should focus on?

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For regular readers, a couple of changes to note:

Upgraded Comments
Fed up with looking at ads like "Lesbian Trash Seeks Bowling Partner", I finally upgraded my comments to remove all ads and add an additional 2,000 words. You may now make your comments as long-winded as you choose. This is something I may regret one day.

New Section
Intent on giving myself yet one more thing to feel obligated to update on a regular basis, I added a "Currents" section on the menu bar to replace my (Reading, Listening lists) of yore. I'll probably update it weekly. God help me.

Switching to Movable Type
Lastly, thanks to a generous reader/internet-genius, who shall be named at a later date, I will most likely be converting to Movable Type publishing platform by August 1st if all goes well. The fact that this makes me so excited further validates the fact that I have become a full-blown nerd. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, be very happy and just move on. You're probably still scoring high marks on the cool-meter, as I on the otherhand, am not.

Happy Reading!

Posted in Blogging | Permanent Link

 

I skimmed through all the current nominationsto be certain I wasn't "repeating" (which I probably am but oh well). I was looking for the TRUE nominations and not the shameless self-promotions. There were a heck of a lot of those. One thing I've set out to NEVER do is self-promote my blog. If that means it remains in the fledgling state, so be it. I'd rather have a few faithful readers here by choice than be a linkwhore begging for hits (no offense to those of you that do...it's just not my style). If my blog should one day become popular, I want it to be the good old fashion way: Word o' mouth. Or in the net's case, "Word o' Links".

Now, onto my nominations. I get bored very easily and thus it takes a lot for a blog to really draw me in. "A lot" generally translates to "personality". Dry, stale, content is just like everybody else. I am diametrically opposed to about 50% of the blogs I read, but you probably won't hear about any of them here. I try to only link things of interest to readers. I think everyone on my blogroll is deserving, but these are a few of the blogs that keep me on my toes:

Booker Rising: Awesome news-type blog for moderates/conservatives with a focus on counteracting defeatism in the black community. Maintains a good balanace of positive and negative which I like. He also manages to snag some of the most interestingly obscure daily news.

Rosenblog: Props to fellow Seattleite, and freelance writer Matt Rosenberg. He often writes about the twisted politics in Seattle but he doesn't leave non-Seattle residents out. He writes in such a way that brings you into his world. I was first hipped to him via a commentary he wrote on Bill Cosby in the National Review. Good stuff.

EvangelicalOutpost: I don't always agree with what Joe writes but that's not what I look for in a weblog. He gives incisive commentary with a Conservative Christian worldview. He pushes out way too many good essays at a time. Makes me wonder if he's really that smart.

Avery Tooley: I love this guy. Again, we don't always agree, but he has an underhanded way of making you think twice. He's admittedly a music buff so he spends about 50% of his time on that, but he's been writing more and his writing style is very conversational which I like.

Hot Abercrombie Chick: Yeah okay, bad choice of name. But the chick behind the blog is Amanda Doerty, a sophmore philosphy major. She doesn't post as regularly as I think she should, but when she does they are very thoughtful philospical arguments. Better to read when you have some time to think.

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I'm just going to come out and say it. The biggest, badest, most popular blogger in the land known as Instapundit doesn't really impress me. Good thing for him he doesn't have to. Maybe I'm just one of a different taste, but large amounts of daily links to news reels, and one sentence posts and whatnot doesn't really keep me coming back for more. Insightful commentary and opinion do.

Up for the second year in a row, is the "Underblog" Awards. Nominate 5 of your favorite quality, underrepresented weblogs that you wish others knew about. A list of 100 is compiled. I think this is a great idea. I'm going to post my nominations soon, I just have to narrow it down.

Incidentally, (hat tip: Instapundit)

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I'm a bit perturbed at my web host. Actually, fuming mad at this point. Wednesday started off like any other day. I emerged from a rather dry morning seminar on Immigration Law to find that my tiny website had gone splat. Big time. For those of you not familiar with bandwidth, it's the method by which hits to a website are allowed to take place. Apparently, mine got too many. I'm not sure which was more disappointing, the fact that my website was down, or the fact that no one was able to enjoy the splendor of my Al Sharpton photo montage (see last post). I know what some of you are thinking. This must be a grandious effort on my part to attract attention to myself. Unfortunately, I'm just not that crafty. I really did exceed my bandwidth.

I never thought I'd see the day, but it seems my readership increased a bit exponentially. Apologies for the site being down. As you can imagine, I was not too thrilled about that, but I have only myself to blame. I made the necessary adjustments and all should be well. This is starting to hit my pockets, but I'm not complaining, I don't mind an increase in viewers. I just didn't expect it this fast.

As you were soldiers.

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