First, a brief promotional message: Should you be in need of either a rev-up or respite at 9.10pm on New Year's Eve, please do join us for the Media7 NYE Special. It takes the form of a loosely structured debate on the contention that "it's still a man's world in the media."
The teams are, in the affirmative, Lucy Lawless, Peta Matthias and Pam Corkery; and for the negative, Sean Plunket, Finlay Macdonald and Mikey Havoc. But let's not allow ourselves to be tied down by patriarchal notions of "for" or "against".
It would be fair to describe the atmosphere of the discussion as boisterous. In a good way.
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One of my favourite American bloggers, Roy Edroso of alicublog, has written Why This Decade Sucked, Reason #10: Social Media Ruined the Internet for the Village Voice website. I am not entirely without sympathy for his argument.
Mr Litterick, who has been as busy as most bloggers have been lazy during the holiday period, has a number of useful new items at The Fundy Post.
Of particular note is The Fundy Post's Christmas Message to the Commonwealth. The message itself ("Don't be a dick") could hardly be more concise – or apposite -- but the real meat is in an extensive set of notes, most of them concerning Archdeacon Glynn Cardy of St Matthews in the City. He helpfully names my thoughts about Archdeacon Cardy and his provocative, if pointless, billboard.
Also of note: Mr Litterick's discovery of coeds poised to go wild in the official literature for the Ilam Halls of Residence. Should someone be told?
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I think something remarkable is going on with Mike King's Nutters Club radio show on Radio Live. A couple of friends have been involved with it, and the show is clearly transcending your usual commercial radio. It genuinely seems to be a setting in which people feel safe, and helped, in discussing their own experience with mental health issues. Indeed, I'm sure that's a key reason for its success – it solicits the experience of its audience and not their mere opinion.
Hamish did a promo:
The radio show becomes a Maori Television show early next year. Meanwhile, the Nutters Club YouTube channel is here. There's also The official show page, and the Facebook group and the podcast via iTunes.
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Meanwhile, Leo, having previously expressed the kind of thoughts about hip hop that one might anticipate from Garth George, seems to have come over all nerdcore. He showed me this rap video created and performed by the staff of Iceland-based Crowd Control Productions (makers of the very complicated Eve Online), telling me it was "a solid tune":
So I showed him 'I'm on a Mac (ft. PC-Pain)' by the Pantless Knights:
Yeah boyee.