Bloggystyle -- The Latest

The freshness

A couple of new things to share:

On Thursday, I had a story in the paper about Maura Thomas, a productivity/time management trainer who used to work at the same company as David Getting Things Done Allen. It was a cool conversation and Maura seems good at what she does. You can read the story here and the video that went with it below:

And then in Saturday's paper, I did a Masters of their Domains feature on Rita Aceves, owner of Beary Cute Stuffables. Story is here and the video I shot is below:

The only other major thing is that Rebecca and I are at Austin City Limits Festival this weekend. It's the first time we've been away from home (and Lilly) for so long, but we've got lots of babysitting help this weekend. Yesterday, we saw David Byrne, Manu Chao (EXCELLENT) and Jenny Lewis. Today we plan to see Erykah Badu, Conner Oberst, MGMT, Beck and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

Here's a short video I did of Jenny Lewis:

I'm helping with Twitter updates from ACL for work, so check those out if you're interested. More photos and videos later!

posted by Omar G. at 11:51 AM

Season Eight

If you had told me four or five years ago that Smallville would still be puttering along with its Kansas cows, unresolved sexual tension and arbitrary reasons for making Clark Kent lose his powers every other week, I'd have said you were nuts. Furthermore, I'd have said that there was no way I'd still be recapping that show past Season Four or Season Five.

Well, Season Eight just started and there I am, recapping the show for Television Without Pity. The first recap of the season, for the episode "Odyssey," was posted yesterday. I won't lie: I do it because it's pretty good money for a job that has become easier over time. Do I sweat and strain and toil? A little bit. But the show sort or rewards lazy viewing and I've never taken a hardcore fan approach to Smallville. In that way, it can be goofy fun when my mood is right.

What I'm not doing this season is writing "weecaps" of How I Met Your Mother. I did that last year and it really, really wore me out. I had to ask myself whether I was willing to continue to give up my Monday nights, stressing to finish on such a tight deadline before sleep overtook me, for a much smaller word-count-to-dollar ratio than what recaps pay.

I was also getting cramps in my hands from writing recaps and weecaps the same week. It was just a lot of typing and the weecaps, frankly, were just not worth my time anymore.

The person who took over the weecaps is not someone I know, but I wish her well. It's a lot of work and I'm able to enjoy the show much more when I don't have to write 3,500-4,000 words about it in two or three hours. She gave last night's episode an A+, so I can already tell that the weecaps will be a lot different than the ones I was doing.

On a slightly different track, my brother and I are still working on the video project I've mentioned a few times and we have finalized contracts to sign. That means we should have a launch date soon and I'll be able to tell you all about it. It's been a long road, but I'm looking forward to taking on something new and working with Pablo.

posted by Omar G. at 4:45 PM

Continually updated...