Perhaps I am easily pleased, but I count today as one of the most convergently awesome days I’ve had lately. “Convergently” you say? Yes, for today marks a convergence of entertainment availability that makes me very happy.

1. The new season of The Guild starts today! You can see it on MSN Video, get it from the Zune Marketplace, or download it from the Xbox Live Marketplace (will download to your Xbox360). I watched it on my 360 this morning, and it looks sweet in HD. And of course, hilarious.

2. This week’s DLC for Rock Band includes three Killers tracks – “Mr. Brightside,” “Smile Like You Mean It” and another one I keep forgetting. (Guitar Hero: World Tour is getting three as well, but different ones, except for “Mr. Brightside.”)

3. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, the new album from Los Campesinos!, comes out today. It’s a limited run, so if you want to pick up a physical copy, I suggest you do it soon. And the physical copy comes with a DVD as well, so there’s that. (Amazon)

4. The Rosebuds are doing a show at the Echoplex tonight, and I won free tickets! I get to be on the guest list and everything. So that’s the most awesome of the awesome.

5. In less entertainmenty, but still awesome, news – I get PhotoShop CS3 at work. I only have PhotoShop 7 at home, so this is going to be great. Plus we decided to do a website project at work using WordPress, which I have a whole lot more experience with than just doing plain html/css. Not that I couldn’t have done it without WordPress, you understand. But this will be more fun.

I’ve been finding so much new music lately and not posting ANY Music Mondays. What’s that about? Probably because when I have too many choices I get overwhelmed and choose none of them – which is a positive trait when shopping and saves me a lot of money, but less positive when blogging. So let’s try to work on the music backlog, shall we?

Army Navy

I am officially an indie music fan now, because I went to see Army Navy open for another band. I’ve been to concerts before where I was a fan of an opening band as well as the headliner, but this is the first time I’ve been specifically to see the opener. However, I owe credit for that to my friend Lis, who called and convinced me to go, pointing out that Army Navy was on the Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist soundtrack and thus exactly our type of hipster sound. And she was not wrong. I’d only heard their album once before going to concert, and it didn’t matter at all – I might be biased, but they were way better than the headliner (The Shys, who were good, but too…polished, if that makes any sense). Anyway, they rock harder live than on the record, which is a bit more poppy. Both ways are good.

(The LAist has a photo gallery from the show here.)

Army Navy – Dark as Days
Army Navy – Jail is Fine

Army Navy (2008) Amazon MP3 Amazon CD

Silversun Pickups

The Silversun Pickups are one of the more successful L.A.-Silverlake indie rock bands, and I must apologize to them for not liking them AT ALL when I saw them open for Snow Patrol last March. I did not know them then, and my tastes have apparently changed. Because now I love them, and I hope they finish working on their next record soon and start playing some shows which I can go to. And keep releasing songs on Rock Band. :)

Silversun Pickups – Lazy Eye
Silversun Pickups – Well Thought Out Twinkles

Carnavas (2006) Amazon CD Amazon MP3	Pikul (2005) Amazon CD Amazon MP3

Los Campesinos! is a Welsh band made up of several of the most attractive people I’ve ever seen in a band ever. Wow. It’s a trend that indie rock videos are totally wacked out, and though this one starts out fairly normal, keep watching. It gets there. Rainbows and unicorns for the win. Also, Los Campesinos! second album “We are Beautiful, We are Doomed” comes out in the US on Tuesday (it’s been out in the UK for a few weeks). Already planning my trip to Amoeba. And guys, please come to LA soon! (Their upcoming tour does include St. Louis and Austin, for those of you in those areas.)

Monday, November 24

9:00pm EST / 8:00pm CST – IFC – The Proposition
One of the best reviewed westerns in recent memory hails from Australia; the “proposition” is that outlaw Guy Pearce, in order to save himself and his younger brothers from corrupt lawmen, must find and kill his estranged oldest brother. I honestly didn’t like the movie as much as most critics – a bit too realistically violent for me – but it’s been influential already on newer westerns like 3:10 to Yuma. And director John Hillcoat is currently working on the adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, which should be pretty stark (in a good way), if this film is any indication. (repeats at 1:00am, Tuesday Nov. 24)

10:15pm / 9:15pm – TCM – Witness for the Prosecution
The last great film for three classic Hollywood actors: Charles Laughton (as a brilliant but ailing laywer), Tyrone Power (as the murder suspect Laughton defends), and Marlene Dietrich (as Power’s wife and the titular witness). Billy Wilder writes and directs this twisty-turny courtroom drama, which is beginning to creak a little more than Wilder’s best, but is still worth it for Laughton and Dietrich’s performances.

Tuesday, November 25

1:15pm / 12:15pm – TCM – Arsenic and Old Lace
One of the zaniest comedies you’ll ever see has kindly old ladies poisoning lonely men for their own good. When their nephew Mortimer (Cary Grant) finds out he tries to get them committed, but even more hijinks are in order when another murdering relative turns up (Raymond Massey, with sidekick Peter Lorre in tow). A change of pace for director Frank Capra, and a good one at that.

Wednesday, November 26

12:00pm / 11:00am – TCM – High Noon
An Oscar-winning performance by Gary Cooper and an early role for Grace Kelly in Fred Zinnemann’s classic cowboy showdown drama. Follow it up with Howard Hawks’ Rio Bravo, something of a response to High Noon, which Hawks disliked.

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – West Side Story
Stylized musicals based on Shakespeare for the win!

10:45pm / 9:45pm – TCM – The King and I
I still love Oklahoma! the best of all the Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals, but The King and I is a really close second. Having Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr around doesn’t hurt.

1:00am / 12:00am (27th) – TCM – My Fair Lady
You oughta see My Fair Lady at least once, so here it is.

Thursday, November 27

6:30am / 5:30am – TCM – That’s Entertainment!
In 1974, MGM celebrated its glorious musical past by producing this compilation film hosted by Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Debbie Reynolds, Elizabeth Taylor, James Stewart, and others looking back on MGM’s history (specifically musicals) from the advent of sound through the 1950s. It’s a great overview of Hollywood’s golden age, studio-specific as it is, and chock-full of great musical moments. Two years later, That’s Entertainment! Part 2 showed that MGM had more than one feature worth of great moments, and added in some non-musical sections as well.

10:15am / 9:15am – TCM – Guys and Dolls
Damon Runyon’s slice-of-Broadway-life musical comes to film with Marlon Brando as an unlikely musical leading man, but he muscles through, with the help of Frank Sinatra and Vivian Blaine, who steal the show as a fast-talking gambler and his long-suffering fiancee. Some great tunes, including “Luck Be a Lady,” don’t hurt either.

1:00pm / 12:00pm – Sundance – Monsoon Wedding
A good intro to Indian film (though it’s not really an Indian film) from Mira Nair – she’s got a great visual eye and this is easily her best film.

4:45pm / 3:45pm – TCM – Fiddler on the Roof
A Tzarist-era Russian Jewish village doesn’t seem a particularly likely place to set a musical, but Fiddler on the Roof does a good job of it, exploring the clashing cultures as patriarch Tevye tries to marry his daughters off to good Jewish husbands with decreasing success.

3:15am / 2:15am – TCM – You Can’t Take It With You
Frank Capra’s Best Picture Oscar winner from 1938 is still a wacky good time, as Jean Arthur’s unconventional family bumps heads with her new boyfriend Jimmy Stewart’s family of conservative bankers. There’s perhaps more fluff than substance here, but that’s not always bad.

Friday, November 28

10:00am / 9:00am – IFC – Picnic at Hanging Rock
I have a love-hate relationship with Aussie director Peter Weir. His films are almost always slow and methodical, which works for me sometimes and not others. It works in Picnic at Hanging Rock, one of his earlier films, in which a group of schoolgirls goes into the wilderness for a picnic and mysteriously disappear. (Repeats at 4:05pm EST.)

6:00pm / 5:00pm – TCM – Mildred Pierce
I used to roll my eyes at the very idea of melodrama. Mildred Pierce is one of the films that changed my mind, and taught me to see value in the melodrama as a legitimate genre. Joan Crawford, despite her star status, isn’t a terribly versatile actress, but Mildred is possibly her most perfectly fitting role – a working class woman who claws her way to prosperity in any way she can, much as Crawford herself had done working her way into the movies in the 1920s. Oh, and there’s murder and evil children and stuff along the way, too.

11:30pm / 10:30pm – TCM – The Misfits
I swear I have seen this, but I couldn’t tell you much about the plot. *sets own DVR* What I can tell you is that this is the last completed film for both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable, and they both go out at the top of their game.

Saturday, November 29

6:15am / 5:15am – IFC – Everyone Says I Love You
Nowhere near Woody Allen’s best, but a sunny fun time nonetheless, with a great cast randomly breaking out into song and dance. I will admit a large soft spot for movies in which people randomly break out into song and dance. Just for the record. (Repeats at 2:45pm EST.)

8:00am / 7:00am – IFC – Throne of Blood
Akira Kurosawa does Shakespeare’s Macbeth. I haven’t seen this one myself, but it’s got a good rep, and if it’s anything like as good as Ran (his version of King Lear, which is essentially the only version of King Lear I like, including the original play), it’s pretty darn good.

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – The Postman Always Rings Twice
Sizzling adaptation of James M. Cain’s classic pulp novel has Lana Turner as the unhappy wife of a middle-of-nowhere gas station owner and John Garfield as the drifter who drops in and plots her husband’s demise with her. Skip the 1982 remake, from what I’ve heard, but if you’re feeling adventurous, check out Luchino Visconti’s Ossession, a 1943 Italian adaptation of the novel widely considered to be a forerunner of the Italian Neo-Realist movement.

10:00pm / 9:00pm – TCM – Hannah and Her Sisters
Say what you want about Annie Hall, I throw my vote for best Woody Allen movie ever to Hannah and Her Sisters. It has all the elements Allen is known for – neurotic characters, infidelity, a tendency to philosophize randomly, New York City, dysfunctional family dynamics, acerbic wit – and blends them together much more cogently and evenly than most of his films do.

Sunday, November 30

10:00am / 9:00am – TCM – Twentieth Century
In one of the films that defines “screwball comedy” (along with The Awful Truth and Bringing Up Baby), John Barrymore plays a histrionic theatre producer trying to convince his star Carole Lombard to come back to him – both professionally and personally. Lombard is luminous as usual, and Barrymore can chew scenery with the best of them, which is precisely what his role calls for. Howard Hawks directs, yet more proof that the man can do anything.

The million dollar prize for improving Netflix’s recommendation system (Cinematch) by 10% has been out there for a couple of years now, and programmers are now within a few tenths of a percent of getting there. The New York Times has a new article about it here. Not a lot of new information over the various articles that have come out since the prize was announced, but I’m still stymied by how weird I am, apparently, in the movie rental world.

Cinematch has, in fact, become a video-store roboclerk: its suggestions now drive a surprising 60 percent of Netflix’s rentals. It also often steers a customer’s attention away from big-grossing hits toward smaller, independent movies. Traditional video stores depend on hits; just-out-of-the-theaters blockbusters account for 80 percent of what they rent. At Netflix, by contrast, 70 percent of what it sends out is from the backlist — older movies or small, independent ones. A good recommendation system, in other words, does not merely help people find new stuff. As Netflix has discovered, it also spurs them to consume more stuff.

For Netflix, this is doubly important. Customers pay a flat monthly rate, generally $16.99 (although cheaper plans are available), to check out as many movies as they want. The problem with this business model is that new members often have a couple of dozen movies in mind that they want to see, but after that they’re not sure what to check out next, and their requests slow. And a customer paying $17 a month for only one movie every month or two is at risk of canceling his subscription; the plan makes financial sense, from a user’s point of view, only if you rent a lot of movies.

Okay, first off, I do want to know how they’re deriving the fact that Cinematch is responsible for 60% of Netflix’s rentals. Are they going off how many people rent movies from the recommendation page or from the “movies like this” thing that pops up when you add a movie to your queue? Because if so, the number’s suspect. To me, saying a recommendation system is responsible for a rental means that the person would not have rented it without the recommendation. But I add things ALL THE TIME from the pop up thing not because I didn’t know about the film or that I wanted to rent it but because it’s convenient and saves me from having to search for it. But that’s a bit by the by.

“New members often have a couple of dozen movies in mind that they want to see, but after that they’re not sure what to check out next.” Wow. I can’t even imagine that. I have somewhere around 1450 films spread across three Netflix queues (you can only have 500 per queue), and that’s not including the 400+ discs worth of TV shows that I have in yet another queue. (It does, however, include several instant watch movies that I’ve seen before and probably wouldn’t rent if they weren’t streaming for free.) A couple of dozen? I’m sorry, I can’t wrap my head around that. There are probably 24 films in theatrical release RIGHT NOW I’d see. Much less the last 100 years of cinematic history. Clearly I am strange.

There’s also an interesting bit earlier in the article about how much Napoleon Dynamite; and other love-them-or-hate-them films like Lost in Translation; and I Heart Huckabees; throw off the system, because it’s so difficult to predict whether someone will like them or not. I can totally see that, and all the films they mentioned are ones that I tend to avoid recommending most of the time, for the same reason. Except Lost in Translation, because I have mad, blind love for Sofia Coppola.

The good thing about all this is, I think, the fact that the recommendations are apparently encouraging people to check out more offbeat, older, and independent films. That’s a great thing about a subscription service with so wide a selection – the cost of experimentation is very low. I often think this should be a critic’s job, too – rather than warn people away from the latest multiplex blockbuster that they’re going to see anyway, turn them on to a hidden gem they might otherwise miss amidst the flurry of big studio publicity. (I think Netflix should put up pages for all the major festivals, since that’s where the best indies first come to light. It would certainly save me a lot of time and effort currently spent in searching Netflix for every festival film every few months in case it suddenly ended up with a distribution deal. /selfish)

So tell me, do you use Netflix’s recommendations? Or if you’re not a Netflix subscriber, some other sort of algorithmic recommenations, like Flixster? Does it influence 60% of your rentals? Does anyone rely  on recommendations of this sort, rather than also factoring in human recommendations, whether from friends, critics, or bloggers – or a personal affinity for a cast or crew member? In other words, if Netflix recommended a movie (with a higher than 4.5 predicted star rating, let’s say) you hadn’t heard of, and you didn’t know any of the actors or the director, would you rent it without digging up more info? I wouldn’t. But as already decided, I am strange. And maybe I would get to that unknown film, once I got done with the 1400 already in my queue. :)

Ooh, just got to the end of the article (yes, I’m reading and writing at the same time – sue me), and found this: “[Netflix CEO Reed] Hastings is even considering hiring cinephiles to watch all 100,000 movies in the Netflix library and write up, by hand, pages of adjectives describing each movie, a cloud of tags that would offer a subjective view of what makes films similar or dissimilar. It might imbue Cinematch with more unpredictable, humanlike intelligence.” I WANT THAT JOB. When that job is posted, Mr. Hastings, let me know, mmkay?

Completely forgot about this yesterday. My bad. And I’m short on time today, so this is just TCM for this week.

Monday, November 17

2:30am / 1:30am (18th) – TCM – Hamlet (1948)
Laurence Olivier’s version of Shakespeare’s play is moody and dark, as befitting melancholy Denmark. This is the Hamlet adaptation by which all others are judged, though it’s easily possibly to prefer other takes on the play. That’s why Shakespeare is awesome. (Repeats 11/23 at 9:30 EST.)

Tuesday, November 18

6:15pm / 5:15pm – TCM – Ride the High Country
In the 1960s, Sam Peckinpah contributed to the beginnings of the revisionist western, taking complicated heroes and violence to new levels – in Ride the High Country, Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott (who had both starred in many westerns throughout the 1930s and 1940s) play jaded cowboys hired to transport gold who get caught up in a family feud that forces them to confront their own differences and troubled pasts. It’s a fairly simple plot on the surface, but goes much deeper than most westerns of the time.

8:00pm / 7:00pm – TCM – To Have and Have Not
Or, the film that brought Bogart and Bacall together. Or, the film Howard Hawks made after bragging that he could turn Hemingway’s worst novel into a good movie. And he did, largely by ignoring the novel entirely except for the title. Even so, the best parts of the movie remain the ones that highlight the incredible chemistry between Bogart and Bacall. “You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve?” Oh, yeah.

9:45pm / 8:45pm – TCM – Adam’s Rib
Speaking of chemistry, how about some Hepburn and Tracy? This is their best film together and possibly the best battle of the sexes film as well. They play married attorneys who end up on opposite sides of a trial involving a wife who shot her husband after he cheated on her. Add in Judy Holliday as the wife, Tom Ewell as the husband, and Jean Hagen (of Singin’ in the Rain Lina Lamont fame) as the other woman, there’s really no way this film can go wrong.

11:30pm / 10:30pm – TCM – Top Hat
Arguably the best of the Astaire-Rogers films, at least if you ask me (many also support Swing Time). Fred chases Ginger, as usual, but she mistakenly thinks he is her best friend’s husband. Antics and fantastic dancing ensue.

1:15am/ 12:15am (19th) – TCM – A Night at the Opera
One of the best of the Marx Brothers’ zany comedies finds them running awry through the world of opera. This is the one that contains the famous “how much stuff can we stuff into a stateroom” scene. And subplot with Allan Jones and Kitty Carlisle, but that’s best ignored as much as possible.

Wednesday, November 19

9:45pm / 8:45pm – TCM – A Star is Born (1937)
Janet Gaynor plays an up-and-coming starlet who marries washed-up actor Fredric March; this is the earlier, non-musical version of the more famous 1954 Judy Garland film. It’s just as good.

1:45am / 12:45am (20th) – TCM – Sunrise
I raved about this film last week and suggested you look out for it on TCM. Well, here it is.

Thursday, November 20

2:00pm / 1:00pm – TCM – Dark Victory
Bette Davis at the height of her stardom plays a woman afflicted with a blindness-causing brain tumor. A fine example of Warner Bros.’ high-studio version of melodrama. Also, an unintentionally hilarious appearance by Humphrey Bogart as an Irish (yes, really) stable boy, two years before he really hit it big.

11:45pm / 10:45pm – TCM – Rebecca
Hitchcock’s first Hollywood film. It’s a good film and brought Hitch an Oscar nomination, but I admit a prejudice against it because I don’t like the ending (which is changed from the book). But that’s just me reverting to being a purist.

2:00am / 1:00am – TCM – Citizen Kane
Just pointing out that it’s on. Don’t feel the need to promote it. :)

Friday, November 21

8:15am / 7:15am – TCM – Broadway Melody of 1940
This is not overall a good movie, but it does mark the only time Fred Astaire worked with tap dancer extraordinaire Eleanor Powell. So it’s worth a look just to catch their incredible “Begin the Beguine” routine.

Saturday, November 22

5:45pm / 4:45pm – TCM – Vertigo
We all know how I feel about Hitchcock by now. And Vertigo is in my top five Hitchcock films.

Sunday, November 23

7:30am / 6:30am – TCM – The Lady Vanishes
This is one of my favorite British-era Hitchcock films, as a young woman investigates the disappearance of an elderly friend on a train.

Guess who finally remembered to take her camera to a concert and thus can use her own pictures instead of scrounging ones from Flickr? Yay! On the other hand, I’m still working on finding the best camera settings for low light conditions, so… Still. MINE.

Before Bishop Allen, though, were three opening bands, all of which I enjoyed. First up was The One AM Radio, who actually started before I got in (whole ticket fiasco which was not as much of an issue as I thought it was going to be, but caused me to be in the wrong line – won’t get into it). I was in line with a bunch of people who knew the keyboardist/backup singer, so that was cool. For a little while I felt almost part of the Silverlake scene. Speaking of the Silverlake/Echo Park music scene, the Echo is a great venue. It’s the perfect size, with a good bar (and food, apparently, though I didn’t eat there) and a really great vibe. The bands were wandering around before, during, and after the show, so it felt really casual and intimate. Okay, back to the show. I’d actually heard of The One AM Radio before; they have a track on the compilation CD “Give. Listen. Help.” (available from Urban Outfitters; almost all of the proceeds go to children’s cancer research), which I really enjoyed. Their newest album (from 2007) is called This Too Will Pass, available from Amazon CD and MP3. I apologize for the blurryness of the photo. First one I took, and I was still testing flash vs. no-flash. (Flash is better, FYI.)

The One AM Radio – Old Men

Then came The Electric Owls, which turned out to be one guy – but I think there are sometimes more of them in the band? I wasn’t really clear on that. Anyway, he could pick a mean guitar, and he sorta reminded me a little bit of Glen Hansard, except not Irish. I didn’t have a good angle from where I was at the time, so no pictures of him.

And I REALLY liked the third opening band, An Horse. Not only because they’re from Australia, though I admit that’s part of it. Kate Cooper, the singer/guitarist, was adorable and funny. She bantered more between songs than most. “We’re from Australia, which I’ve just been told is right next to Switzerland. It isn’t really. It’s actually a whole other planet in the solar system.” The other band member, Damon Cox, played the drums and sang backup. Sort of a Mates of State sort of thing, except with guitar instead of keyboards. I wanted to pick up a CD or something of theirs, but didn’t see any on the merch table as I went out. I must’ve missed them. Their album Not Really Scared is available on iTunes, or as an import from Amazon, but that’s way more expensive.

An Horse – Scared as F**k (sorry for the title, but it is the best song, and the one containing the album’s title)

Then Bishop Allen! I will say that I finally know how annoying it was for fans of The Shins when Garden State came out and suddenly there were a lot more Shins fans based solely on their inclusion in the film. Not that I object to bands gaining more fans, and in fact, I’ll admit I’m a Garden State Shins fan. But now I feel an irrational, overly defensive need to declare that I was a Bishop Allen fan long before they were featured in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, and in fact, went to see the film in no small part because of Bishop Allen’s involvement. There, done being defensive. Sorry about that.

Anyway. They had an issue with Darbie’s mic, so after futzing with it for a while, they finally had to make do with one less mic than usual, which meant that bassist Keith kept having to run over to guitarist Christian’s mic whenever he was needed for backup vocals. :) In his tour blog, he complained about tripping over cables, but assuming he wasn’t actually hurt, it ended up being rather more amusing than not.

They did a great mix of songs from The Broken String and the various EPs they’ve put out – last year, they tested the limits of prolificness by putting out an EP every month. And succeeded. I should’ve picked up some of those, but being faced by all 12 EPs on the merch table was a little overwhelming. And did a couple of new songs from the album they’re working on now. Yay new stuff! After the briefest pre-encore break ever, they finished it all up with the Darbie-led “Butterfly Nets” (which was the first song that made me a fan). And it was good. And then I mostly copped out of a review by mostly posting photos.

Bishop Allen – The Same Fire (from “June EP”)
Bishop Allen – The Monitor (from “The Broken String”)
Bishop Allen – Butterfly Nets (from “The Broken String”)

Amazon.com CD Amazon.com MP3	EPs at Bishop Allen.com Amazon.com MP3	EPs at Bishop Allen.com Amazon.com MP3

(Amazon.com MP3 has all the tracks from the EP Project available in two sets, but they were originally released as twelve 4-song EP CDs. Check out the Bishop Allen store page to see the original covers, designed by Darbie.)

Anna of Goannatree tagged me for a meme (originally started at Seedlings in Stone) wondering how blogging has changed your life, for better or worse. Let’s see what I can come up with.

1. Blogging has helped me find who I am as a writer. I’m not wholly there yet, in the writer-finding process, but I’m definitely closer than I used to be. I’ve always written well (at least, judging by my grades), but writing for class always carries some amount of artificial restrictions. I was always a more personal writer than I probably should’ve been in academic contexts, but in grad school, writing for class and writing a blog at the same time really helped me to pick out which parts of my writing came from academic requirements and which ones were me, and how to use both to my advantage. And also figure out that I’m a much better fit as a blogger than as an academic writer.

2. Blogging has given me an online community. Blogging is very fluid and bloggers in general tend to be very open, and you can enter communities without too much difficulty, if you try. I’m still on the outskirts of the film blogging community, but that’s because I haven’t tried hard enough yet (and I don’t want to completely alienate the people who read because they know me personally – more on that in #5). But blogging is also an easy entrance into other social media options – I have a really enjoyable cadre of friends on FriendFeed right now that’s largely independent of this blog, but I wouldn’t be there if I hadn’t been a blogger first.

3. Blogging has helped me shape not only my identity as a writer but as a person. It’s a cliche that you can be whoever you want to be on the internet – I’m not sure it’s 100% true, because it’s very hard to be someone completely different than you consistently. On the other hand, it’s not difficult to shape and mold your identity a little bit online, and as you learn to do it in safe anonymity and distance online, you learn to become a little bit more like the person you want to be offline as well. I can definitely state that I’m a different, less shy (except with phones, that’s a different thing), less fearful person than I was before I started blogging/interacting with people online.

4. Blogging has given me a different perspective on online life. Sort of what Anna mentioned about learning to value internet surfing more since she started blogging. I’ve been a participant in message boards and journals for years, long before I started this blog, but after seeing the things that the tech sector and the political sector and the film sector and, well, everywhere really, is doing with blogs – using them in innovative ways from the very individual to the very journalistic to the very academic – I’ve learned again and again that to claim that bloggers are just a bunch of navel-gazers focused on minutiae is to miss the wide variety, interests, and quality of the blogging world. If you think that about bloggers in general, you’re reading the wrong ones.

5. Blogging has made me very aware of audience. Writing for school, the teacher is the audience, no matter how much they try to make the assignment call for a different audience (unless you have a fairly radical composition teacher, which I never had). In blogging, you have to constantly remember at least three audiences: the one you know you have (from people who comment or tell you in person they read your blog), the one you want to have, and the completely amorphous one made up of everyone anywhere who may stumble upon your blog from a link or a Google search. For me, the first one is a few people from my church, a few people from school, internet friends from previous boards, and people I know on FriendFeed or in the film blogosphere. That’s a wide range of people already I have to think about as I wonder how everything I say will come across. The one I want to have is the film and entertainment blogosphere (I would say film only, but I’m having increasing trouble keeping music out of the spotlight), so I think about trying to post things that would interest them. The amorphous one you can’t really plan for (though you can follow it somewhat through stats trackers), but you have to be aware that everything you say is public. Lately, potential employers have been greatly on my mind in this category, since my blog is my major writing sample when I apply to writing/editing/proofreading jobs.

That last thing has actually been on my mind for a while, as my blog has gone through some focus and identity changes in the past few months, so it’s good to get that out there. Thanks, Anna!

Let’s see, I’m horrible about tagging people, but saying “I tag everyone!” is a cop-out. So I’ll tag:
Abby – Pretty Funny for a Girl
Kat – So. There’s That.
Lori – She’s No Lady
Evan/Luke – MovieZeal
Ed – Only the Cinema

And anyone else, of course.

Here are the rules:

1. Write about 5 specific ways blogging has affected you, either positively or negatively.

2. Link back to the person who tagged you.

3. Link back to this parent post on Seedlings in Stone.

4. Tag a few friends or five, or none at all.

5. Post these rules— or just have fun breaking them.