PodCamp Western Mass. is Saturday, Feb. 6 at Westfield State College ! You in, or you out? 

Grab the image or the code here, cool kids. The first features the stoic Massachusetts state bird, the wild turkey (hold your senate jokes, gah!) and the second the Connecticut River.  

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<a href="http://podcamp.pbworks.com/PodCampWesternMass"><img src="http://www.3pmclub.com/clients/pcwm/pcwm_l2.jpg" name="PodCamp Western Mass" alt="PodCamp Western Mass"/></a>

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Click on the link above to see our online newsroom at PitchEngine - complete with media coverage links, video, photos, logos, you name it. 

 PodCamp montage by Morriss:

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I first started reading Elysa's blog GenPink when I was a 20sb - Twenty-something Blogger. Not only is her writing fresh and her blog oh-so-coolly designed, she's one of those folks in the blogosphere that is always on the cutting-edge of what to do next.

Such is the case today too, at which time Elysa hasn't posted about the latest Technorati trend, but rather a good productivity tip for Creatives that's also good for the soul: 20 Questions to Ask Yourself Every Sunday. 

The list of Q's actually originated from Marc and Angel Hack Life, another great productivity blog, and just as it inspired Elysa (to add her own five 'bonus' questions, no less), it spoke to me. Greater detail as to why the questions are important to ask oneself at the close of a week are at Marc and Angel's ; here's my own dry run. Edited for General Blog Audiences, of course.

(Caveat: this past week blew for me. My life is not generally as morose as my answers make it seem, or for that matter, philosophical.)

1. What did I learn last week? ~ I learned that I still have a lot to learn, but that I'm better than I was 10 years ago in most ways.
2. What was my greatest accomplishment over the past week? ~ That I ploughed my way through at all.
   
3. Which moment from last week was the most memorable and why? ~ When my 72-year-old dad texted me. The method and the message were both memorable; "Love U."
4. What’s the #1 thing I need to accomplish this week? ~ Solidify an important appointment.
   
5. What can I do right now to make the week less stressful? ~ Get a few easy things done on my laptop and keep an eye on the forecast.
6. What have I struggled with in the past that might also affect the upcoming week? ~ Stress, time management, overwhelm.
7. What was last week’s biggest time sink? ~ travel and errands caused by upheaval. Personal crap.
   
8. Am I carrying any excess baggage into the week that can be dropped? ~ I dropped a lot throughout the week. The rest will have to fall in time.
9. What have I been avoiding that needs to get done? ~ Finances, invoicing, miscellaneous writing, client contact, hour tracking, and eating.
10. What opportunities are still on the table? ~ ...There are still opportunities on the table.
    
11. Is there anyone I’ve been meaning to talk to? ~ yup. Mostly work-like folk that got the shaft this week.
    
12. Is there anyone that deserves a big ‘Thank You’? Yes.
    
13. How can I help someone else this coming week? ~ Listen more and talk less. Work toward common goals. Keep calm and carry on.
    
14. What are my top 3 goals for the next 3 years? ~ life, love, and growth.
    
15. Have any of my recent actions moved me closer to my goals? ~ no.
    
16. What’s the next step for each goal? ~ make a plan, break it down, take it one step at a time. Chill. Stop procrastinating. Be tough.
17. What am I looking forward to during the upcoming week? ~ Talking socmed with a restaurant client. Doing some scrapping. Publicizing PodCamp II.
18. What are my fears? ~ more drama, more upheaval, more people needing me than I can handle.
    
19. What am I most grateful for? ~ the awesome people around me.
20. If I knew I only had one week to live, who would I spend my time with? ~ I really dig this question. ;)
    

From Elysa:

1. Who can I inspire this week? ~ My clients, my boss, mah babehs.
2. Did I tell the people in my life how much they mean to me? ~ Not all of them. Thanks for the reminder.
3. Did I make a difference with someone? ~ I'd like to make a more positive one this week.
4. Did I learn something? ~ Yes; I think that's ultimately the best part of the week.
   
5. Have I done something creative this week? ~ Yes. I created five new scrap pages with Teen and got back to this poor, neglected blog. There's also a new featured blogger at TSB.

What questions do you ask yourself every week?

...Peace.

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It was Christmas night, and my SiL Jenny and I were driving home to my parents' house from my Grandmother's. My precocious little niece, the Bean, was in her car seat in the back holding a conversation with her newest friend, a plastic Handy Manny doll.

"Vamanos, tools!" she exclaimed periodically. 

In between exchanging stories of family holidays gone by - the good, the bad, and the ugly - I happened to look down next to the passenger seat to see one of my favorite novels, The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen . I had given it to JaxBro a few Christmases earlier - it's the story of one family and the wackiness that family can be. These are the people that know you better than anyone else, and those we feel most often don't know us at all.

"That's one of my favorite books," I said, reaching for its thick spine. 

"I know, I don't think your brother has read it yet, but now I am. It's great!" Jenny replied. 

I asked her if she'd noticed the same similarities I had between Franzen's fictional American family and the one she'd married into. At the surface alone, for example, there are three adult children: one hopelessly straight-laced, the middle child a bit of a hurricane, and the youngest daughter unpredictable at best.

Jenny chuckled. There are a few scenes in the book that I'm sure many American families can relate to - not just ours. But in the haze of the Christmas frenzy, I think we were both feeling kind of introspective.

"My family is a lot of things, but I think it's a much bigger support system than a lot of people I know have," I mused.

Jenny agreed. "I love your family. And Bean has so many people around her."

It's true - my extended family on the Cape can be huge and imposing, unless you're the kind of person that can run into the fray full-force, which Jenny is. It's like a big game of red rover, with holidays, but once you've broken through the barrier, you're in.

"OhmyGod, right?" I replied with another tired laugh. 

On cue, Bean held one mittened hand up in the air. "Oh, my God," she repeated. I think she'll be reading Franzen by the end of the month. 

...And that's how the holidays went this year - quietly, for the most part, with a few comfortably predictable moments and a few changes to the repertoire. Mum jingled sleigh bells at the bottom of the stairs on Christmas morning, even though the youngest child in the house was 32, declaring we better get down to the kitchen soon before she lost her Christmas spirit for good. Stockings bulged by the fire. Later at Gramma's, the Bean pulled toys out of the same cabinet I used to run to to grab dominos, crayons, and coloring books. I took a mint out of a decorative bowl and almost broke my tooth. At home, I drank too much nog and ate all the Goldfish crackers. I heard about the latter in the morning.

At the Boston-area home of JaxSis, we toasted with red wine and played games as my brother-in-law ignored us. I slipped on the hardwood floor and fell on my ass like I always do, and fell asleep on the couch with one leg shove underneath the cushions and the other splayed across an ottoman. My 12-year-old niece overdosed on sugar and adrenaline and JaxMum wished, briefly, that she'd stayed in a hotel. JaxDad didn't say much - he watches, and reads, and takes it all in - the degree to which I'm sure no one is aware.

Then in my own house, I took advantage of the quiet to reflect and to unwind. Then, I passed the point of unwinding and just got bored, sitting on the couch looking at the ornament-stripped tree and the cat. Drowning in the silence of January. This is the cycle.

Inevitably, at the end of the holiday mayhem, I turn to my pens and my keyboard, and this is the best part of the later winter months. I'm able to untangle a thought or two, let my brain switch from nostalgic to inspired, and maybe record some little moments. I think I might want to remember, for instance, that Handy Manny was Bean's favorite toy of Christmas 2009 and the moment at which JaxMum and I realized Gramma's fridge was stocked primarily with beer and cheese (the apple, they say ...).

Because truly, will I remember where my mind was, what was eating away at me, what my hopes were, my dreams, my obsessions, and my never-ending foibles? Will I look back on that one day and remember that life seemed like it was speeding up, and moreover that I was well aware that Christmas 2010 will be an entirely different day for hundreds of reasons?

In some ways, yes, these vague impressions will remain. But when I really break down how my mind works, the snapshots of a little mittened hand waving from the back seat of an SUV, my favorite book on the floormat next to one of my favorite people, and the sound of clunky little sleigh bells at the bottom of the stairs I used to slide down on my bum will retain the bulk of the detail.

That said, a book is nothing but uninteresting if the pictures don't change as the pages turn. For me, 2009 will keep its mental images of a white Christmas on Cape Cod, but 2010 is already the proud owner of a few visuals.  

Keep following along with me.

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• Media is My Life

Try as I might to put together a top ten albums list this year, I'm coming up short. While my multimedia consumption hasn't exactly slowed, it's changed. For one, I was the queen of the iPhone in 2009, and as such did a lot more downloading of individual tunes and podcasts than of full albums.

New, fun, live-in-the-moment techie stuff also adds a wrinkle. I've had live recordings of my favorite singer-songwriters left on my desk in jump drives in the past year, and received new additions on my phone and in my inbox. I've even captured one of my own tracks, holding the iphone's built-in recorder up in the air to grab Bleu doing a cover of MJ's Human Nature at tt the bear's. I kinda wrecked it by trying to sing along with the high part, but it's a nice moment.

There are a couple of album stand-outs for me from '09 - David Gray's Draw the Line among them - but, overall, I was definitely more of a sampler in 2009, dipping a tentative (and cash-strapped) toe into the pop culture pool.

That said, here's a list of some of my favorite, er,  lists -  those of the end-of-the-year variety, to add variety. Sample away.

• The WMVY Top 25 Albums of 2009 - WMVY has been my favorite radio station for a long time. Based on Martha's Vineyard, I used to listen to it via the airwaves when I still lived on Cape Cod, and now I listen online. Every year, MVY puts together a list of top albums - ranging from indie dark horses to chart-toppers  - and plays each album in their entirety at the end of the year.

• The RollingStone Top 100 Albums of the Decade  - A great summation of ten years of music, if not erring on the side of pretentious from time to time (as RS is wont to do). Still, the albums that should be there - in my opinion and Billboard's - are in there, as are some I'm sure are worth the discovery.

• The iTunes Rewind 2009 - Fab one-stop shopping for all things media, including games and apps and things.

• The TIME Top Ten of Everything - which is pretty self-explanatory.

admin

...one more list - RedHeadedDivaK 's Top Twenty of Social Media , on which yours truly appears. I'm humbled to be in such awesome company - definitely give the list and its bloggers a look, then get back to changing the world. 

;) 

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On this, the eve of Christmas eve, I bid you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. My gift to you is a concise Christmas letter - scannable and brief. So grab some 'nog and settle in, or just move your thumb briskly up the side of your phone's screen. 

2009

The highlights:

• By the grace of Max , I squeezed a great, if not butt-kicking, press trip into the year and just saw the fruits of my labor published last week. It's a nice feeling to see a project come full circle, especially when it was a project on which I made some great friends. 

•  I hob-nobbed with some very cool people, largely through the burgeoning social media scene. Dozens of TweetUps , EatUps, and one PodCamp later, I am the proud friend of a slew of business owners, dynamo Web gurus, a best-selling author or two, pioneers of hyper-local journalism, and perhaps most notably, people who can hold their booze. This is a very important trait in the social media scene.

• I got back on stage, and it was for a very good cause.

• I continue to have the best friends in the world, and I'm eternally grateful that they put up with me.

The lowlights:

• I'm still battling the never-ending war of Jax vs. her stress-induced stomach issues. Dear stomach: Quit it. 

• Clearly, the economy still blows.

• Lost my mother-in-law, my uncle, and a friend from high school this year. Amidst a sea of celebrities passing on in the public eye, these  lives moved on more quietly, but left no less of a legacy.

Onward we go ... see you on the flip side.

jax

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our Christmas card to the fam this year: 

my new ski hat

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Enjoy. 

 File Under: Baby, You Could Drive My Car if I Had Any Money for Gas

• Support independent music by the sea with a purchase of Cape Cod Covers, Vol. 1 - "The King" or Vol. 2 - "The Beatles." It's a feel-good, spend-less way to jump on the vintage rock wave created by Rock Band. $13

File Under: I'm Drowning in a Sea of Paper, and Lovin' Every Minute of it

• I'm making a lot of my gifts this year, and I imagine a lot of my readers are, too. As such, I've become addicted to Paperclipping.com podcasts, hosted by Noell Hyman, who teaches papercrafting tutorials (scrapbook pages, ornaments, home decor, and more). Paperclipping is hip with a cutting-edge (forgive the pun) look; the complete opposite of its HSN and QVC counterparts. Check out some of the free shows archive for crafty holiday ideas, or buy your favorite scrapper a subscription, which includes members-only tutorials, access to all past shows, and HD videos. $55 one-time fee for six-months.*

File Under: Oooh look at all the pretty colors!

 • If you're on or near Cape Cod this season, by all means stop by the Rear View Mirror Boutique in Brewster. It's a cute little shop filled with vintage and mod clothes and accessories, which of course are my favorite things. New things are always flowing in, but the vibe is always the same: chill. 

File Under:  You Can be Two-dimensional, or You Can be Clean

• Want to gift the gift of virtual awesomeness? Hire designer Merrilee Aurora Hale to create a one-of-a-kind digital work of art for you. Merrilee also creates and sells various sundries through her shop Copper Orchid - soaps, scents, and other curiosities, wrapped in labels she designs herself. 

File Under: Shameless Self-promotion as a Coping Mechanism

What can I say - my zazzle shop has had great success with La Foodie Apron this year. Simple. Concise. Yellow. $20.

Other Gift Guides by Jax:

Point and Shop: Photo Gift Guide

Wrapping Up

Present Tense

* For a very limited time, you can use coupon code E520D at checkout to get $16 off the normal price of a membership, dropping it to only $39.

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It has. 

As this, often the most family-charged event of the holidays approaches, a lot of us are eager with anticipation, but more are experiencing anxiety spikes. Whatever your family's dysfunction - and everyone's has at least one, so no one is excluded here, either - T-Day is going to put a high-powered microscope on it and serve it up with a side of mashed potatoes. 

I was reminded of this last night while re-watching Jodie Foster's Home for the Holidays , starring Ann Bancroft, Holly Hunter, and Robert Downey Jr. Never has there been a better representation of Thanksgiving: a cornucopia of joy, neuroses, laughter, tears, jokes, arguments, blessings, bad behaviors, and turkey. 

It's a good primer for the season, especially if your gullet can't handle the tequila like it used to.

Leave your favorite Holiday Therapy Flick in the comments. Another favorite of mine is The Ref -  you better believe it's in the Netflix queue.

"Well, that was absurd, let's eat dead bird!" 

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The highlights:

October 09: Reunited with the old band for Rob's wedding

September: Went camping, saw a moose.

August: Made some lemonade.

July: Discovered the joy and horror of the Happy Lamp

Got a live music fix

June: Had my first bacon-flavored cocktail  

Returned to good old Jockey Cap

May:  Hung out with Abe

Watched The Love blossom

April: Entered the age of Airbrushed Obama

Busted in pride over PodCamp

March: Met Marilyn Monroe

Survived Montana, Hot-tubbed with Jill Adler

February: Hosted the 12th annual Oscar Party

January: Spoke at a media conference, lost my neck

December:  played with a 16mm movie projector

November: Ran the Chatham Turkey Trot

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I'm not much of a material girl - I'll take a trip over a tiny box any day, and  while I can appreciate and savor a five-course meal, I also understand the subtle merits of the White Hut cheeseburger. 

That said, I am a girl, and things catch my eye now and again. Here are a few items off the Mad Money Wish List this month: 

Pandora wood beads; Plasticland patent purse; flor rake; Hot Chilly's Pepper base layer; iRobot Roomba; Veho neg scanner; VooDoo Rossi SC74 skis

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1. House of 1,000 Corpses

2. The Wicker Man

3. Wicked Little Things

4. The Cottage

5. Brainscan

6. The Blob

7. Haunting in Connecticut

8. The Burning

9. Feed

10. Snuff: The Documentary

11. The Nun

12. The Abandoned

13. Murder Party

14. An American Haunting

15. Devil's Rejects

16. Resurrection Mary

17. Severed Ties

18. Return to the House on Haunted Hill

19. Halloween 

20. Documentary: The Villain

21. Primal Secrets

22. The Omen (Remake)

23. Clown at Midnight

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Not much. Sara and Rob 's wedding at the Dennis Inn (<-amazing folks and food, hi Brad!) was one of the best I've ever been to, and celebrated some of the finest things about fall.

Things like bright colors and soft light...

Sweet treats... (a red-velvet cupcake tower as a wedding cake)

seasonal touches reminiscent of home...

bits of whimsy...

 ...and most importantly, a reminder: some of us have new bags of tricks these days. But we can always find each other at the old haunts. 

Singer Bad Dancer 1997 - 2001

(Pete - drummer turned Boston-based AV professional; Jon, bassist turned certified arborist, Rob, software engineer, rockstar, and new husband, and me. I hang out here.)

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What is a good playlist if not seasonal? I give you my Rocktober Playlist - feel free to add to it in the comments. Let's make an uber list! 

Stop Dead, Duran Duran  

Superstitious,  Stevie Wonder    

Abracadabra, Steve Miller Band 

Frankenstein, Aimee Mann

The Ghost Of Tom Joad, Bruce Springsteen 

Dig Your Grave, Modest Mouse

The Ghost of You, My Chemical Romance 

Harvest Home, Big Country 

Haunt You Every Day, Weezer 

Hoodoo Voodoo, Billy Bragg & Wilco  

Monster Man, Soul Coughing El Oso 

I Want Candy (Kevin Shields Remix),  Bow Wow Wow

Purple People Eater, Judy Garland 25th Anniversary 

Real Live Bleeding Fingers And Broken Guitar Strings,  Lucinda Williams 

Season Of The Witch, Donovan 

Slippin' Into Darkness, War

Treat Street, George Winston 

I See Monsters,  Ryan Adams

Spiderwebs, No Doubt 

Werewolves of London,  Warren Zevon  

X-Files Theme, The Dust Brothers 

Halloween, Siouxsie & The Banshees 

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My favorite month is whizzing past me at break-neck speed. I've barely had time to stop and document the moments - but here are a few.

The Spoils:

The Likely Duo: 

The Food. Stuffed pork loin with spinach, cheddar cheese, apples, and garlic; homemade apple sauce; apple stuffing. Nom.

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A group of alumna from a Catholic boarding school start dropping dead across the globe under strange circumstances. The daughter of one of the deceased, Eve, travels with friends to the school in Barcelona to find out the whole story, and meet some of her mother's surviving classmates. Those not-yet-knocked-off and the young travelers end up at the boarding school, where the spirit of Sister Ursula is none too pleased.

Wackiness ensues.

Overall, The Nun (2005, dir. Luis De La Madrid) falls smack in the middle of the horror spectrum, from blood-curdling to belly-laugh. What I find most interesting about The Nun, however, is how it takes a perfectly creepy premise and stretches it to its outer limits, thus damaging what started as a perfectly solid horror flick with religious undertones. Catholic school flashbacks - check. Protagonists with warped senses of spirituality - check. Sabre-toothed, undead nun in full European habit, circa 1960 - check. 

All of the elements of fear are nicely set in place. Throw in a few good-looking teenaged actors with relatively good chops and you've got a winner; just put the camera on autopilot, Mr. Director (who is also probably Mr. Writer and Mr. Producer). We don't need any more crazy in this movie, we're all stocked up.

But nay... directors can never keep their hands off of things, can they? Enter the twist ... way too late in the film, and poorly explained. It's almost like the twist is an after-thought; push it a little further, and there might have been something to salvage. But leave the plot alone as is, and The Nun would have sailed through Catholic-school-hell with ease.

Here are some of the highlights: The Nun takes a valiant stab at that tried-and-true horror staple of fear through the addition of complicated religious beliefs. As we all know, The Exorcist is and will likely remain the Godfather of this genre. The Omen isn't too shabby either. Moreover, what The Nun has that other films is an intriguing vehicle for the villain - literally. Undead Nun Ursula can only travel through water, as she was drowned, so she appears through drains, stagnant pools, what-have-you. This makes for some sick visual effects, and a particularly pasty, water-logged looking Ursula.

In addition, the cinematography in general is great in this film, from grainy hand-held shots to panoramas of Spain, to night-vision shadow-chasing in the abandoned boarding school. The live-action underwater shots are also downright pretty.

There are some loose ends left untied and a few too many subplots for the sake of subplots - but overall, The Nun is a good rental, saved by its visual effects and less-than-stale storyline. I also appreciate that Sister Ursula doesn't take the easy road and kill people by, you know, drowning them. I hate it when the undead nuns go for the obvious stuff.

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I wonder if she knows I once went trick-or-treating as 'mouse,' or that her father looked exactly like Pete Wentz when he was nine.

Click here to see more of the Geeks of Halloween Past:

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Fresh produce at Rosedale Farms and Vineyard, where I visited today for a magazine article I'm working on.

This is the latest offering at one of my favorite watering holes - a Shipyard Pumpkin Ale with cinnamon and sugar on the rim. Nom.

One of my favorite exhibits at the Big E - the 4H farm-contest entries. This pumpkin-as-turkey was particularly cool. 

...And Horrorfest continues too, my daily consumption of horror movies. Here's the rundown so far:

1. House of 1,000 Corpses

2. The Wicker Man

3. Wicked Little Things

4. The Cottage

5. Brainscan

6. The Blob

7. Haunting in Connecticut

8. The Burning

9. Feed

10. Snuff: The Documentary

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If nothing else, The Burning (1981) proves my theory that you can't lose with horror movies; if they're good, they're scary, and if they're bad, they're funny as hell.

The Burning was released in the wake of the success of the original Friday the 13th, and takes on the similar challenges of making rural locations, bodies of water, and canoes seem terrifying day and night. Granted, it's much less successful in this endeavor, but as I said half-way through the film - "Yes, this is awful. But you can't say this isn't entertainment."

Here's the set-up: Teenaged campers at Camp Blackfoot, newly sexually aware, are being stalked and killed by a murderous burn victim. As it seems, the antagonist, whose name is Cropsy and this will go down in the annals of history as the worst name ever given to an undead pyscho killer since Jason, was once the caretaker of the camp, and was burned alive by former campers in an ill-fated prank.

Another comedic high-point: The flick features a young, curly-haired Jason Alexander as the likeable camp jokester. If you're judging by overall quality-of-film standards, he's easily the best part of the movie, upstaged only by its unabashed badness overall. It's also Harvey Weinstein's (Pulp Fiction, Scream) producing debut, and he wrote the screenplay. Throw in the bit part Holly Hunter plays - blink, you miss it - and The Burning earns a little bit of film-history cache, but in the end, it's best enjoyed ironically.

Characters who seem to be almost laughing as they're brutally murdered. The faulty logistics of six campers killed at once, while Cropsy balances in a canoe. The severed arm that comes off in a counselor's hand as she reaches for a camper she thinks is sleeping. The way the camera casually pans down as a girl washes her hair in the shower, or is being killed with garden shears after a skinny dip, or is brushing her hair in the nude. All of these hilarious moments prove that when it comes to The Burning, the word unapologetic never applied so well.

Bad movies have earned their place as an important part of the horror tradition unlike they have in any other genre - except maybe sci-fi. The unfortunately named villain, the b-acting, the kneesocks ... these alone make The Burning a classic. The best approach to this one: Instead of suspending your disbelief, amplify it.

Further reading

Stars Who Struck it Big in Horror

Fangoria Review: Reexamining The Burning

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Me: Saw VI is coming out soon.

ArcherVision: Yeah, I saw that on Facebook.

Me: When the Saw movies come out, you know what else is right around the corner!

ArcherVision: What. October?

...I was getting at my birthday, but happy to give partial credit, yes, a new Saw movie in the theaters means it's nearly my favorite month, October (or Rocktober as some of my fellow bloggers renamed it last year). As you can see from the color changes (people reading this via the Facebook feed, go here), I'm already gearing up for my annual October blogfest, featuring rants and raves about my favorite fall destinations, horror movies, creepy books, seasonal soundtracks, and a slew of other topics.

The early start is for a couple of reasons - first, the leaves have started to change ahead of schedule in my neck of the woods, making for a very tenth-month feel. Second, I promised to dutifully post 31 posts in 31 days last year, and I fell short. I figured I'd give myself a little more time to drown the interwebs in my Bubbling Fountain of Useless Information.

That said, the all-things horror relationship between me and my remote has begun. I'm trying to fill in the blanks in my horror lexicon, watching those I missed or that frequently pop up on classics lists. I started with House of 1,000 Corpses, and moved on to the 1973 version of The Wicker Man. Yesterday, I had a double-header: Wicked Little Things followed by The Cottage, a British indie flick that is a little bit Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and a little bit Shaun of the Dead, although not as good as either of those. Worth the rental.

Check out the Amazon box in the sidebar for other things I'm reading, watching, and listening to, and I'll also be posting some of my reviews specific to the genre on Helium this month. Let the depravity begin!

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Man, I'm beat.

I hit two TweetUps in four days recently, making a great number of new connections, and visiting with old friends, too. Two great spots hosted each event - Amherst Brewing Company in downtown Amherst, Mass. and Mission Bar in the Berkshires.

Downtown Amherst, view from the brewery

Tweeps and the beer list - an apt contrast

Serious conversation.

Mission Bar, a very cool place with awesome food

Berkshire Tweeps

The best cheeseburger I've ever had, at Mission Bar and Tapas - just mouth-watering and awesome.

Tweeps to Follow:

@shawnfumo

@_daves

@christinepilch

@mmpartee

@lesleylambert

@lisawray

@a_teen

@jasonturcotte

@berksbess

@needlemine

@locavoreway

@prostylus

@paweissenstein

@shikariwolf

@nicole_planB

@berkshire_ideas

@gregdonahue

@jeannetteseward

@tgalanis

@redheadeddivak

@derekallard

@dpakman

@paulcj2

#berkshiretweetup

@gregdonahue

@ruralintel 

@rneilthompson

@nicole_planb  

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If you're any kind of banshee person in the morning like me, you'd be lucky to even recognize the sound as some sort of moving object. But I was lucky that morning, my friends, and for some reason I stopped in my tracks a few feet before I reached the road, to see a massive, full-grown, gray ghost of a moose come striding toward me at what we New Englanders call 'a pretty good clip.'

My first instinct was to scream across the road to my family at their campsite so they could see this spectacle, too.  But moose are big, people. They're big, and they don't look like they take a lot of grief. So yelling MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE! across the road didn't seem like the best choice.

I clamped my hands over my mouth - because I don't have a lot of self control - and watched as the moose trotted by, and then as my brother, sister-in-law, neice, and ArcherVision all turned around to see it running by at just the right moment. In the relative distance, I heard my brother half-screaming, half-whispering Moooooooooooooose! as he held up my neice so she could see.

As the moose passed, I ran across the street to share the moment with the fam, and we were all equally dumb-struck. Even Oscar the Dog got in on the action, marking his territory and ruffing - as soon as the moose was well out of sight, of course. He ain't no dope.

Alas, these little life moments are rarely accompanied by a camera, so I don't have a photo of this amazing creature. I did look up 'moose meanings' though, because I like to surmise what's going to happen in my life next, based on random events. This site had a particularly cool description that I latched on to...'you will be full of contradictions...Awkward yet graceful.'

Lack of moose pictures notwithstanding, there were some other photo-worthy moments this weekend. Enjoy.

The maiden voyage of our new Eddie Bauer tent and sleeping bags, complete with zip-up carrying cases. Both are awesome!

SiL and the Bean pontooning on the Otis Reservoir. They look like they're in a parade!

JaxBro by the fire

Oscar the Dog was a good boy

We made bacon on the fire in this grill basket that Max and Cindy gave us

This was another fortuitous meeting on the same dirt road as the moose sighting. Dick, a Camp Host for the Mass. Dept. of Conservation and Recreation, is charged with assisting visitors to the Tolland State Forest. He takes the job a step further by giving free tours in his pontoon boat of the Otis Reservoir - our trip was two hours long and included a cruise through a cloud of dragon flies like I've never seen before. Dozens of bright red flashes sailing over the water and on the horizon ... quite a sight.

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Related Entries:

• Press Release of the Week: PodCamp Western Mass Returns
• Thematic Photographic #2 - The Vanishing
• Zoom in at the Inn
• The Future of the State Fair is in your hands (and gullet)

Can it be true? Did I actually enjoy the VMAs the other night sans a sense of irony?

Indeed, it seems musicians are making a comeback to the Mtv airwaves. Kanye the Douche notwithstanding, that was one of the best award/performance shows I've seen in a while. Lady Gaga is freakish and amazing - she's this decade's Madonna, Grace Jones, Debbie Harry, and Cher all rolled into one tiny package. They say Pink was singing live as she flung herself around on the trapeze, but frankly, this is one performance during which a little lip-synching wouldn't bother me. 

And shudder as I do to refer to Green Day as the grand-daddies of the show, their longevity is as impressive as their punk-rock spirit to flood the stage with unruly ticket-holders during their number. They've been with me since high school and they just keep getting better. For someone who graduated in the nineties, this is saying a lot - if you're in your thirties you know we Gen Xers once had to accept 'thong, th-thong' as a popular lyric. 

It was a dark time. 

Still, most of the highlights of the show were from new performers including Gaga and Muse, and the new royalty - Jay-Z, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, and Acrobatic-Pink.  Dare I say, Music Television made me feel young again.

The low-lights

The MJ dancer who nearly fell over during the Smooth Criminal lean. Bummer, dude. 

Madonna's preachy, loosely-tied-together speech. The best thing about her appearance was her hair. 

Tracy Morgan - Eminem sketch comedy. I like M, but it's not a good thing when the rapper from Detroit is funnier than the comedian.

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