Welcome to the fifth annual posting of this entry!  Long time readers can skip it, but as I keep adding more readers, it’ll keep getting posted!

Ah, Columbus Day, the day we set aside each year to celebrate a lie. It always warms my heart.

People tend to forget that Christopher Columbus wasn’t looking for North America when he landed here, he was looking for the West Indies. Quite the navigator there. He also believed, until his death, that the entire time he was in this area that he was exploring the Eastern coast of Asia.

Never mind the fact that he also took the indigenous people as slaves and shipped them back to Spain, against the Crown’s wishes. Never mind that colonists he brought over here rebelled against him when the New World didn’t come close to what he described. No, no, all those things are just a-ok for a man we should honor with a governmental and banking holiday.

The biggest offense to me is that he was far from the first person to “discover” the Americas. (how does one “discover” a place that is already inhabited?) The Siberians crossed the land bridge with Alaska as early as 70,000 BC, and it was those crossings that gave us the Native Americans. There were numerous other occurrences of people coming to the Americas, but one of the most well documented was Leifur Eircksson in 1005 when he sailed from Iceland to North America and traveled down the coast. Gee, does that come before 1492?

Yet, history textbooks still hail him as the man who “discovered” America. Why is beyond me, but a friend pointed me to a wonderful book called Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
(Barnes & Noble link) that spends an entire chapter delving into this very matter. Fascinating stuff.

If you want to credit Columbus with something, just say that he brought the America’s to the attention of Europe, but leave it at that.

Skyview High School in Vancouver, WA did not have a good week last week. I guess that’s what happens when two faculty members are arrested in the same week for separate sex scandals.

On Tuesday, Oct. 5th, 23-year-old band assistant Adrian Kelley was arrested for having sexual relations with two separate 16-year-old female students at the school.  Mr. Kelley graduated from Skyview High School in 2005, and started this school year with the band as a privately paid assistant.  Apparently Mr. Kelley didn’t waste any time in getting to know the students.

One of the students was not a member of the band, but hung out with other students who were involved.  She revealed the relationship to a school counselor, to whom she also told about a member of the band that was also involved with Kelley.  Upon questioning by the police, the 23-year-old initially denied the accusations, but finally relented and admitted to having had physical relations with both students.

Apparently both students friended the former Skyview student on an unnamed social network, progressed to discussing non-school subjects with him, eventually socialized with him and then progressed to sexual relations.

He faces charges for “abuse of trust” which is statute that applies to anyone that works with students.

As if all that wasn’t exciting enough, on Thursday, Oct. 7th, it was revealed that science teacher and coach (boy’s track & football) Nathan Botnen had a sexual relationship with a student during the 2007 – 2008 school year.  It has not been revealed how the relationship with the then 17-year-old student  came to light now, but Mr. Botnen has already appeared before a judge and is being held over for arraignment until Oct. 15th in lieu of $100,000 bail.

The 33-year-old teacher is charged with 30 counts of first-degree sexual misconduct with a minor.

The girl graduated in 2008, and the relationship reportedly ended in Aug. 2008.  Somehow text messages between the two were discovered now, and the school immediately contacted the authorities.

It would seem that Skyview High School has some serious problems to deal with.

Both of these men join the ever growing list of teacher sex scandals.

A total of 47 published this week.  Fun week …

FunJug.com

• Completely Honest Funeral
• The English Language In 24 Accents
• Darth Schwarzenegger
• Uncle Matin’s Sword Trick
• The Lady and The Reaper – La Dama y La Muerte
• Julie Brown’s “Another Drunk Chick”
• Jersey Shore RPG

RememberingChristmas.com

• Hallmark Debuts More Than 100 New Ornaments This Weekend

SeanPAune.com

• Leave Me Alone When I’m Writing
• Becoming A Professional Blogger: Part 2 – Finding The Job
• Zack Snyder To Direct New Superman Movie
• Emma Stone Cast As Gwen Stacy In Spider-Man
• Verizon iPhone: Will It Save Every One Of Us?
• Scattercast Episode #116: The Cost of Big City Livin’
• Marvel And DC Comics Lowering Prices On Some Books Next Year

SpookieBits.com

• Sexy Witches Through The Years

TechnoBuffalo.com

• iPad Owners Are Definitely A Mixed Breed
• How To Set-Up Your Kinect
• Gears of War 3 Delayed Until Fall 2011
• Facebook Movie Has $23 Million Dollar Opening Weekend
• Rumor: Adidas Says “So Long” To Apple’s iAd
• Google Finally Lifts The Curtain On Google TV
• Twitter Gets A New CEO And Promoted Accounts
• World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Releases On Dec. 7th
• LG Drops Plans For Android 2.2 Tablet
• AT&T To Launch Three New Motorola Android Phones
• Skype Finally Comes To Android Phones; U.S. Gets Wi-Fi Only Support
• Check In Oct. 11th For Windows Phone 7 Launch Coverage
• September Web Browser Market Report Has Chrome Posting Biggest Gains
• Could The iPad Become A $9 Billion Dollar Product?
• Libya Starts Reclaiming .ly Domain Names; Watch Out URL Shortners
• Reader Poll: Would You Miss The Sub-Blogs?
• Facebook Gives You Control Of Your Data, And Gets Even More Social
• Verizon Rolling Out LTE To 38 Cities By Year’s End
• Logitech Takes The Wraps Off Its Google TV Device, The Revue
• Verizon iPhone Seems Closer Than Ever
• Goldman Sachs Calls For Microsoft To Spin Off Xbox Division
• AT&T Ups Early Upgrade Fee From $75 To $200 For Smartphones
• Rumor: Sony Google TV Set Prices Leak Early
• Netflix Adds Another Company To Its 28-Day Delay Window
• Sprint Pricing For Samsung Galaxy Tab Leaks Out
• Hulu Eying An IPO in 2011
• Flashback Fridays: How Far TVs Have Come
• Yahoo Bringing PC-To-Mobile Video Chats To iPhone And Android
• Walmart To Begin Carrying iPad Next Week
• MySpace Announces A Redesigned Logo
• Discounted Technology May Be Huge This Holiday Season

It seems that someone finally got around to telling the two biggest comic book companies, Marvel Entertainment and DC comics, that they were about to price themselves out of existence.

The New York Comic Con is currently in progress, and both Marvel and DC have taken the opportunity to announce major changes to their book pricing starting in 2011. DC was first out of the gate with the news that $3.99 books would lose a few pages, but the rule from here on out would be $2.99 except for over-sized specials and annuals. “[The] announcement re-affirms DC Comics’ commitment to both our core fans and to comic book store retailers,” said Jim Lee, DC Comics Co-Publisher. “For the long term health of the industry, we are willing to take a financial risk so that readers who love our medium do not abandon the art form.”

“As Co-Publishers, we listened to our fans and to our partners in the retail community who told us that a $3.99 price point for 32 pages was too expensive. Fans were becoming increasingly reluctant to sample new titles and long term fans were beginning to abandon titles and characters that they’d collected for years.” said Dan DiDio, DC Comics Co-Publisher. “We needed a progressive pricing strategy that supports our existing business model and, more importantly, allows this creative industry to thrive for years to come. With the exceptions of oversized comic books, like annuals and specials, we are committed to a $2.99 price point.”

Marvel wasn’t quite as fancy in its announcement, and it definitely rang of the company being caught off guard by the announcement.

While I appreciate the drop in pricing, it’s something I have been saying the companies have needed to do for ages.  Even at $2.99 I think books are over priced, but when you count in the 50 percent discount most retailers receive, and the cut the publishers take, there isn’t much left for the creative team, so its understandable.  However, when they started popping up at $3.99, I knew the writing was on the wall that this couldn’t last.

Unlike DC, Marvel will just be using this strategy on new books, and won’t be reducing the pricing of titles currently at the $3.99 price point.  Marvel is also using this weekend to stress how much digital sales are picking up, and, to be honest, I won’t be surprised if we see Marvel begin testing the waters for some “download only” titles in the future, but we’ll have to wait and see.

As Mr. DiDio pointed out, the pricing had become such that people just could no longer take sampling a new book, and with people deserting old characters it just goes to show what I’ve been saying that the industry has to be shrinking.  Little Johnny will have a hard time convincing his mom to let him try a comic for the first time at these prices.  My thinking is that while these price reductions are a step in the right direction, both companies also need to look at lower priced “sample books” for some of their key characters to entice in younger readers.  How about a $1 reprint published quarterly?  You already have the artwork, don’t contract anything new, just reprint some key stories that would help new readers get started.  If you want them to get used to buying monthly, call it something like “Marvel’s Best” and rotate different characters through it, but you have got to do something to lure kids in now to secure the future.

Kudos to both companies for finally realizing they have a problem, but I still don’t think they went far enough.

It’s episode #116 of Scattercast and you’re back to just boring old me this week.

While there is no co-host this week, it’s still a show for the usual crowd.  A lot of movie news, some thoughts on vacations and just how much it costs to live in a bigger city.

Enjoy the show folks!

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

subscribe to Scattercast via iTunes.

Rumors of the iPhone coming to Verizon have circulated since the phone first came out in 2007. To be honest, I’d given up caring some time back, but these latest rumors are the strongest yet, and it does appear that the Apple phone will show up on the Verizon network some time next year.

The big question is: Why does it matter?

People have been acting like this will somehow change the entire world.  The feeble will walk, the blind will see and somehow I’ll finally understand the “comedy” of Emo Phillips!  HUZZAH!  No, what it will do is increase the ongoing war between Google’s Android operating system, and Apple’s iOS program, which has been losing ground to the Big G.

The iPhone coming to Verizon (and possibly other carriers) has nothing to do with giving consumers what they want, it is merely a way for Apple CEO Steve Jobs to fend off Android, a contender I think he really didn’t see coming.  By limiting the iPhone to one carrier the company surely got a bigger percentage of each sale, but they also cut out huge sections of the possible customer base.  People, such as myself as a loyal Sprint customer, wouldn’t change over to AT&T for anything, but back in 2007 that was fine because enough people did that Apple grabbed a huge chunk of the market.  Well, those of us on other carriers now have Android at our disposal, and suddenly we don’t feel envious enough of the iPhone to even ponder switching.

Oops.

The second component to this is that the iPhone has gotten huge off the back of its wide array of apps, the vast majority of which are built by small developers.  As the Android phones have grown in popularity, so has its app market.  Developers are going to go where the consumers are, and with new Android devices popping up seemingly every day across all the carriers, those all important coding geniuses are going to start looking elsewhere to sell their wares.

Apple has become a victim of its own hubris.  It could do no wrong with the iPhone there for quite a while, but when faced with the double attack of a decent new OS on the market, and the fallout of the antenna issues from this past summer, the company has to be wondering where all the new customers are.  The only way to get them is to open the phone to more carriers, and the sooner the better.  The next regular iPhone update will happen in summer 2011, but the company can’t wait that long, they need fresh customers as soon as possible, so expect something to happen in very early 2011.

Will it be Verizon only?  Who knows, but I do think eventually Apple will have to have the iPhone on every major U.S. carrier if it hopes to stave off the little green robot from Google.

Although some people are less than thrilled about the news that the Spider-Man film franchise is already being rebooted, myself included, the project is on track to begin filming in December. With production so close casting news continues to come in, and now we know who will be playing the inevitably doomed Gwen Stacy: Emma Stone.

For those unfamiliar with Spider-Man lore, Gwen Stacy was Peter Parker’s first love, and not the more commonly known Mary Jane Watson. Actually, if you watch the first Spider-Man movie, and replace all the “Mary Jane” references with “Gwen”, you get a pretty good idea for her original story, including the fight on the bridge with the Green Goblin dangling her over the edge.  The difference in the comics was that was how Gwen died, and hence why I say she is inevitably doomed.

For Mary Jane to come into play in the movies properly, Gwen must die. However that is getting pretty far ahead of ourselves, and we don’t even know who the villain in this first of the new films will be yet.

As for Emma Stone, she is currently starring in the hit comedy Easy A, and has been in other films such as Superbad, Zombieland and The House Bunny. She obviously leans more towards comedies, but she does appear to have some acting chops.  I saw Easy A while I was in Philadelphia and quite enjoyed it.

Rumors had been circulating for sone time that Ms. Stone was up fir the part of Mary Jane as she has mostly been seen with red hair, but in actuality the actress is a natural blonde. Not that natural hair color determines who can play what role, but it always helps things.

Andrew Garfield, currently seen in The Social Network as Eduardo Saverin, is still on tap to play Peter Parker/Spider-Man. Filming begins in December for a release in 2012.

This could either be the coolest news ever, or the worst possible news … it just depends on how much you love slow motion.

Zack Snyder – the director of 300, Watchmen and the upcoming Sucker Punch – has been tapped to direct the upcoming Superman film that is being watched over by Chris Nolan of The Dark Knight fame.  While Mr. Snyder had been rumored for some time to be taking up the director’s mantle on this project, but it wasn’t confirmed until Monday.  He gave the following statement to Nikki Finke’s Deadline:

I’ve been a big fan of the character for a long time, he’s definitely the king of all superheroes, he’s the one,” Snyder, who directed Watchmen and 300, told me. “It’s early yet, but I can tell you that what David and Chris have done with the story so far definitely has given me a great insight into a way to make him feel modern. I’ve always felt he was kind of awesome. I’ll finish Sucker Punch and get right at it.

There is no word on plot points, or if it ignores Superman Returns (which, apparently, the Diabolical Miss M and I are the only two people on Earth who liked that movie), but David S. Goyer and Chris Nolan have supposedly turned in the first draft of the script, with some rumors saying that General Zod will be the villain this time around.

While in general I enjoy Mr. Snyder’s work, he definitely has some trademark directorial habits, such as the afore mentioned slow motion shots.  I can almost see a slow motion shot of Zod and Superman punching at the same time … the impact … and a shockwave of the strength radiating out from them, shattering windows.  Mark my words, something very similar to that shot will be in the movie if Zod is indeed the big bad guy for the film.

I just don’t know if Snyder is the right guy for this project.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s a good director, and I enjoy his work, but I’m not sure it’s the right fit for a character as iconic as Superman.  Only time will tell, but this choice does have me a bit nervous.

So, you’ve decided you want to try your hand at professional blogging, congrats! If part 1 of this series didn’t scare you off, apparently you really are serious about giving this a go.

Now, how do you find the work? There are several sources for jobs out there, but the quality of listings varies wildly. The best rule when applying for any professional blogging job is to go look at the site that posted the listing, and see if it feels like a truly good fit for you.

I made a few mistakes early on by applying to any and all blogs I found, not minding the subject matter. It was a learning curve of an extreme nature, and one I would never care to repeat. It also led to my first ever firing from any job, ever. Not a good time. This will be covered more in-depth in part 3.

Now, as to the sites where you can locate work.

AboutFreelanceWriting.com: Aggregates jobs from multiple sources as well as asking employers to send in their job listings to the site directly.

AllFreelanceWritingJobs.com: Jobs are posted every few days, can also have them emailed to you for automatic delivery.

AuthorityBlogger.com Forums: This one takes a little bit of sifting due to the subsection of the forum being for all commerce, including the trading of ads and links.

BloggerJobs.biz: This site offers a lot of job listings, but also has the unique addition of once a week allowing bloggers to post about themselves so that they can lure in new employers hopefully. I wouldn’t do this until you’ve built up a bit of a portfolio of published work you can share.

Craigslist.org: Lots of writing jobs, not just blogging, get posted on Cragslist daily.

FreelanceWritingGigs.com: This was the first site I found and it led eventually to everything else I found.

Jobs.ProBlogger.net: This is actually the job board I located all my jobs through. I think the companies that list here tend to be a bit more serious due to the fact they charge for their listings, and ProBlogger is a fairly serious publication in the realm of professional blogging.

MediaBistro.com: A bit of a snarky blog, but for some odd reason they have a thriving marketplace for freelancer writers to post bios of themselves for $19 a month.

Performancing.com forums: A part of the popular Performancing.com site, a blog dedicated to making a living from blogging, their forums have a section just for blogging jobs to be listed.

WritersWeekly.com: Updated once a week, Writer’s Weekly is a site all about helping writers find work, and their jobs board is no different.

You’ll find that a lot of ads repeat across multiple sites, so make sure you don’t send more than one application to the same site by accident.

Ads are constantly changing, so if you’re on a serious hunt for a blogging job I suggest you check at minimum every other day if no every day for new listings.

Check back next week for part 3 of the series where I’ll be discussing tips for getting the job once you’ve found one you think fits your needs.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments.

There is something that I have never been adequately explain to my family, and that is why sometimes when they interrupt my writing I’m fine with it, and other times I bark at them like a mad man. Leave it to John Cleese of Monty Python fame to explain it.

To be blunt, Mr. Cleese’s video below about creativity, and the boundaries one needs to set up to be so, is one of the best explanations I have ever seen or heard of what it is that happens to writers when we’re trying to create. Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not putting what I do on the same level as what Mr. Cleese has done in his career, but the process is definitely at least somewhat the same.

Oddly enough, the articles I create that are quite possibly the least creative, the hundreds of lists of Web resources I’ve written are the ones I can not stand to be interrupted writing. I am so deep in research mode that pulling me out of it verges on a shock to my system. Once I take care of whatever the interruption was, I find trying to pick up where I was to be a lengthy and arduous process. I have to remember where I was, what items I have already included and so on.

While I try to take precautions of making sure I am alone when I do that type of work, it just sometimes isn’t a possibility, and, well, those who come around me usually pay the price of me barking or growling at them any time they speak to me. I don’t relish that reaction, but it is such a visceral reaction that I don’t actually realize I’m doing it until I’ve done it.

So, if you know a writer, you need to watch this video below, and take some of what he says into account. Sometimes, no matter what type of writer we are, we just need to be left alone in the quiet to either think or try to make sense out of the random thoughts swirling through our heads.

Pompous sounding? Of course it is, but I’m a blogger, you have to give me something to make me feel like I still have some sort of dignity …

A total of 40 published this week again.  Not bad for being on vacation Sunday through Tuesday.

FiveMinutePhotographer.com

• How To Make Sure The Sun Doesn’t Ruin Your Photos

FunJug.com

• Inception Trailer A Capella Re-Dub
• Sesame Shore
• Japan Likes It Women Big?
• Darth Vader Feels Blue
• Zuckerberg! The REAL Social Network Movie
• Cebu Pacific FAs dancing
• LITERAL Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Trailer Parody

RememberingChristmas.com

• Disney Breaks Out The Christmas Goods

SeanPAune.com

• Walmart Trying Out Solar
• Becoming A Professional Blogger: Part 1 – What Do You Want?
• Fan Made The Walking Dead Opening Credits
• Braindead TechCast Gets Its Own Home
• Star Wars Coming At You In 3D
• Scattercast Episode #115: End This!  It’s Not Real!
• Philadelphia, A Hate Story

SpookieBits.com

• Skull Speakers Perfect For Your Halloween Parties

TechnoBuffalo.com

• Why Apple Must Get FaceTime Into More Devices
• Tekken Movie Gets USA Distribution Deal
• Who Will Buy Prescription 3D Glasses When No One Wants The TVs?
• Why The Combo Pack May Save Blu-Ray
• Study Finds That Apple Dominates Tech News; Sky Also Blue
• Windows Live Teams Up With WordPress
• Rumor: Hulu Plus Coming To Roku
• I’m Not Paying For Hotel Internet At These Speeds
• How To Use A Cell Phone To Find A Missing Child
• Nielsen Says iPad Owners Are Younger, And Kindle Buyers Are More Intelligent
• AT&T To Launch Two New BlackBerry Handsets Soon
• Hulu Plus Coming To TiVo And Roku
• Google Allows You To Turn Off Threaded Message View
• Target To Start Selling The iPad On Oct. 3rd
• Judge Rules Nothing Is Private On Social Networks
• Google Launching New Image Format For The Web
• Verizon Looks Set To Flood The Market With New Phones
• Flashback Friday: Cars of the Future
• An Infographic: How Popular is the iPhone?
• It’s 2010, Could You Please Stop Hotlinking?
• Rumor: Apple Testing Touchscreen iMacs
• Movie Review: The Social Network
• Say Good Bye To BIOS, And Hello To UEFI

You know how there are some cities you just click with? The second you arrive you get in tune with the rhythm and flow, and it feels comfortable every moment you’re there?

Yeah, Philadelphia is the exact opposite.

I just got back from five days in Philadelphia, visiting the Diabolical Miss M (you can hear some of this on Scattercast #115), and I know this is going to get me some hate comments, but I can not believe how much I disliked this city.

While my visit with M was great, I unfortunately ended the trip by telling her so long as she lives in Philly, I won’t be back. For those of you who have read this blog for any length of time are sure to summarize, that means I really, really didn’t like the town.  She also isn’t a raging fan of it, and is looking to return to Boston as soon as possible.

I was staying downtown as the Residence Inn at the corner of Market and Juniper due to it’s relative closeness to M’s apartment, and I don’t think I have ever felt more uncomfortable stepping out of a hotel after dark in my life.  Between the numerous homeless people who would immediately descend upon you for change, to the less than savory looking characters that would wander by at all hours, the whole vibe of the area left you feeling less than comfortable.

Any time Miss M and I did get together to hang out, we almost immediately headed out to the suburb her cousin lives in as she knew the area.  All but two of our meals together were eaten elsewhere than Philadelphia proper with the exception of picking up cheese steaks from Pat’s King of Steaks to take back to my room, and a dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe.

And it was the latter meal that really proved to me that this was not the town for either of us.  While I was about two blocks away from the establishment, she wasn’t much further away in the opposite direction.  In that short walk a man passed her, walked a few more feet and then fell in behind her as she continued to walk.  Despite changing sides of the street multiple times, he continued to follow her each time until she got close to her destination.  (She took a cab home that night)

This isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy some portions of the city.  We went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (yes, the one where Rocky ran up the stairs … no I didn’t do the pose) on Sunday afternoon, and it is an amazing building with a world class art collection.  The upkeep of Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell and such is top notch, and I spent an enjoyable morning going through all of that as M was at work.  Other than those two things, you just didn’t really feel like going out for any period of time, and you certainly didn’t want to just wander around.

I caught some grief two years ago when I came down on Seattle after spending a weekend there;  I will imagine this post will do the same.  My question to those who would take me to task over my observations would be: Shouldn’t a city that played such a major role in the founding of this country take more pride in itself?  The city even feels dirty to some extent, like every surface has a layer of grime on it that will leave you wanting to wash your hands after you touch it.  It is just not a pleasant place.

For those who think I have a negative view of everywhere I go, you would be wrong.  I loved Boston last year.  Loved it.  I honestly was disappointed when this year M had moved for a job to Philadelphia because I really wanted to return to Boston again.  She is hoping to be back there before my next visit, and I hope that comes to be because that town I could take another dose of.

As for Philadelphia … sorry, folks, but I don’t think I’ll ever be back.