Todd Klein is at my mercy!

Okay, not really. But one of the really neat cool awesome things about my job is when I get to handle work from the pros that hasn’t seen publication yet. Especially when it’s the work of a perennial Eisner-award-winning pro. ;)

Right now I’m merging Todd’s lettering for “Burning Hearts,” the lead story in our January issue of Walt Disney’s Comic and Stories (#689). It was originally slated for Donald Duck & Friends #348—but that series was canceled, so we had to shelve this Valentine’s Day story… until now!

“secondmouse” is dead; long live “On The Other Hand”!

For a few years now, I’ve titled this blog with variations of “the second mouse gets the cheese.” Once, I even went into a convoluted justification for the name. But all this time (and even when I wrote that post), I knew the name just didn’t quite fit.

Well, problem solved! I woke extra-early this morning (Joshua screamed at 3:30–sounded like he had a bad dream or something) and couldn’t get back to sleep. Then the name just hit me: on the other hand! It’s a perfect description of how I think and the topics I like to talk to people about. I’m always playing “Devil’s Advocate” and trying to consider what others typically dismiss out-of-hand. Seems like a much better fit for me.

On top of that, it helps me to focus (or maybe that’s just the 4am cup of coffee). “Second mouse” didn’t really do much except encourage me to procrastinate, whereas the new title fits my most popular (and my wife’s favorite) posts. A nice side benefit is that I might finally be able to shed all the “mouse sings to cheese” traffic! (No, ma’am, I can’t e-mail you the video. I didn’t make it!) ;)

Oh yeah, and I guess this means I get to start another blog redesign! :D (But not before Cosley… that would just be mean!)

4 Questions About Surveys and Polls

Seth Godin has been writing about polls and surveys recently, and he’s got me thinking. I shot these questions to him in an e-mail, but I’m going to post them here for your pondering pleasure:

  1. Since all American citizens are not required to vote, are our elections really that much different from web polling (where the passionate have a disproportionate turnout)?
  2. Along those lines, would you say it’s good for elections to be decided by the more passionate (ie. the apathetic would make the results unreliable), or bad (ie., fewer voters means a decreased likelihood that the “right” candidate is elected to represent the people)?
  3. If you think this aspect of the electoral process is bad, then do you have ideas to improve the system?
  4. If, however, you think it’s good, then why are “gimmicky polls” not to be trusted?

I’ll share my own thoughts later, but I’d like to hear what you think, too.

Challies and the Problogger

I was combing through Google Reader, trying to catch up on my blog reading–I fell behind over vacation–and I found Tim Challies has an excellent interview with Darren Rowse up on his blog now:

My critique of Christian blogging is actually similar to my critique of much of what I see happening with the Church today – an overemphasis upon gathering together as believers – at the expense of ‘going into the world to make disciples’.

I came to a point where I saw incredible opportunity in blogging to ‘go’. People are gathering around the web through blogs to learn, build relationships, have dialogue, share their lives, talk about every aspect of their existence – but the majority of Christian bloggers that I knew at the time (including myself) were gathering together in our ‘Holy Huddles’ to do ‘Christian Things’.

I made a decision to spend more time focussing upon going and participating in what I saw happening outside of the ‘Christian Blogosphere’.

I subscribed to Rowse’s ProBlogger months ago, and I think his tips and articles are superb. It’s nice to see him getting more exposure in the Godblogosphere; or should I say it’s nice to see them finally catch on to what he’s doing. ;)

My brain usage profile: insights into how I blog

Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to “catch up” with yourself.

…you can “size up” situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to “lose touch” with the immediacy of the problem.

Finally, someone understands me! You know, one of the reasons I don’t write more is because, just like this snippet of my brain usage profile indicates, I will rapidly take in a bunch of information, but when I go to organize it and classify it (this usually happens when I begin formulating a blog post), I grow agitated and uncertain–like the part of my brain that’s thinking is light-years beyond the part of my brain that’s typing, and it’s too late to catch up.

I’ve considered rambling into a cassette recorder and then transcribing and editing, but that seems like an awful lot of work. I dunno; I guess now that I’ve mentioned it here I’ll have to do it.

And hey, set aside a few minutes to take the test and see how your own brain works. It’s fun! Well, okay, it got a bit tedious toward the end. But it’s fun reading the results.

Automattic Acquires Gravatar; now faster, more reliable and more universal!

Wow.

Just read this post by Mullenweg on the Gravatar blog. I had no idea this was in the pipes, but man, am I glad!

BTW, all the premium Gravatar features are now free, and it’s being merged with WordPress.com’s avatar service. So be on the lookout for many more commenter icons on the way!

It’s funny… all it takes is a little thing like this to brighten my whole day. :)