There's a new princess in the world and Sweden has her! (Det finns en ny prinsessa i världen och Sverige har henne!) Prince Daniel declares "Mina känslor är all over the place."

Kungabebisen

http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/article14421584.ab

There's a new princess in the world and Sweden has her! Det finns en ny prinsessa i världen och Sverige har henne!

Prince Daniel declares "Mina känslor är all over the place." (My feelings are all over the place.)

For a while at least, it looks like the Swedish royal family will have some happy news to celebrate and most Swedes will have the common sense and proper perspective to cut them some slack for a bit, instead of continuing the personal criticism of the King and Queen regarding their so-called "secrets" -that were NOT really quite so secret after all it would seem- that have come out over the past few years.


As I've stated here previously, Crown Princess Victoria's positive and warm personality and earnest thoughtfulness has helped keep her personally popular among the populace even while her parents have suffered the slings and arrows that many felt were overdue.


Already, hours later, there are stories appearing in the mass circulation newspapers with various "experts" positing that the birth of Victoria and Daniel's daughter will begin the permanent shift away from her parents and usher in a new era towards what she (and her new family) will do in the future, logic that is very hard to argue with, given how unpopular her parents are with some people.


Dagens Nyheter, http://www.dn.se/, had such a story on Thursday titled Focus shifts from challenged king to Victoria, with various media editorial types from different media groups weighing-in on how they thought they'd cover things in the near-future and long-term.


Fokus flyttas från en ifrågasatt kung
Allt ljus på Victoria och nyfödda prinsessan. Hovexperten Sten Hedman tror på en ny era, som kommer att vara väldigt lönsam för medierna.
http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/intresset-flyttas-fran-ifragasatt-kung-till-victoria


Naturally, once everyone got over the initial news, the next question was, so what's her name?
There's the mystery!


We'll all be finding out on Friday morning around 11:30 a.m. Stockholm time, and as I mentioned in an email to someone Thursday night, also named Jennifer, like one of my sisters and my niece, I asked, "So why not name den nya prinsessan "Jennifer" and then Sverige can really celebrate?"


I haven't heard back from her, but popular Stureplan.se blogger/model and longtime HBB favorite Tess Montgomery was already noodling on the name game from her perch in London by the time I came home Thursday:
http://stureplan.se/bloggar/tess/2012/02/23/una-principessa


The DN also has an angle on that naming question, too, with the Conventional Wisdom p.o.v. being Sylvia, like the Queen, the Crown Princess' mother, with some thought towards Astrid, which I like.


Names it WON'T be, based on my own educated hunch, include Chelsea, Hillary, Ashley, Jessica, Shania, Demi, Taylor, Reese, Winona, Juliet, Rachel, Giselle, Alyona, Lexie, Hayden, Angelina, Dakota or Brooklyn.
Or Lisbeth!


Malin or Marin or Marina would be good choices, and some of you out there in the blogosphere far from Miami know why I've always loved Kirsten.
But that would be too much to hope for.


Aftonbladet will be streaming the press conference LIVE at their website, so check it out if you can:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/

Popular Swedish DJ and blogger Anna Hibbs visiting Miami for a while, so mind your manners and be friendly, por favor

*May 2013 update: meant to mention this before but Anna has not only moved from Sweden to the Miami area, but has also moved her very, very popular blog to her own site: http://annahibbs.com/blog/ 
Go check out what the always-interesting Anna is up to now at her new site full of her adventures and thoughts! 
*April 2015 update: no blog posts since October of 2014 :-(
-------

Above, charming personality-plus Swedish DJ and blogger extraordinaire Anna Hibbs, 
one of the featured bloggers of the hugely popular Stureplan.se media platform -covering news, music, nightlife, fashion and entertainment- is visiting family and friends in Miami for a bit while making her way back to Stockholm after a trip out west.

Yes, that's the same very successful media platform that London-based Tess Montgomery is at, which I've mentioned a few times previously here, esp. in a post that compared it to how feeble and slow the Miami Herald's media platform is, esp. the one for blogging:

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/thoughts-re-mondays-nyt-article-blogs.html

IF it's not too much trouble, South Florida, I humbly beseech you all to treat Anna (and friends) with the utmost courtesy and respect due a traveling Blogger Ambassador of Good Will, esp. one with such an eye for detail and a good time.

This especially goes for all you chefs, taxi drivers, retail clerks, night club owners, et al out there.

If Anna's visiting your store, restaurant, club or gallery and asks you what's good or popular, please don't just say the first thing that pops into your head, tell her the truth.

She wants to know and to be accurate if she mentions it later, plus, well, she's very sharp and discerning anyway, so it would be a shame if you tried to mislead her.

Think of Anna as the sort of ideal client you'd want coming back over-and-over because of the quality and service you offer, who's only too keen to tell all her friends how well she was treated.

Seriously, a positive word or two from Anna will reach lots of consumer eyeballs.

Just saying...

Plus, she's sweet and it'd be the right thing to do, anyway, right, so how about it?

You can also follow the latest with Anna on her Instagram account:
https://instagram.com/annahibbs/

------

http://www.whiteroom.se/

Older Anna blog posts are at http://stureplan.se/bloggar/hibbs

Sunrise, sunset... Well, actually, a ten-hour Arctic sunset courtesy of Terje Sørgjerd, and beautiful ones via Andrea Hegard and Tess Montgomery

Wall Street Journal: Norwegian landscape photographer Terje Sørgjerd has released unique footage of the extended sunrises and sunsets that occur just prior to the arctic summer. He explains how he captured the images. Originally published June 8, 2011.
http://youtu.be/5xEssyTHVMs
I originally planned to post this video on June 23rd, but because of some interesting posts with photos that I received late yesterday afternoon, it's probably for the best that the video stayed in Blogger Draft for the past three weeks.

By the way, for the record, Terje Sogjern is also Terje Sørgjerd, it's just that different publications and media outlets spell his last name differently because they don't all use use the Norwegian letter "ø" in their keyboards or stories. And that my friends explains why so many people with that same first name have similar videos!
Meanwhile, in another part of Norway that's far from the Arctic Circle, blogger Andrea Hegard who lives in Stockholm but who's now elsewhere on vacation like the rest of Sweden, takes a moment out of her rest and relaxation to snap some great photos of the orange sunset she just saw, and trust me, it's well worth checking-out. http://stureplan.se/bloggar/andrea/2011/07/14/sunset

Andrea blogs on the hugely popular Stureplan.se blogging platform that I've spoken of here before that gets so many reader eyeballs every day, keeping multi-national consumer product advertisers happy as a clam, and which also includes bloggers like London-based Tess Montgomery and Anna Hibbs among others I keep tabs on.
Tess is actually back in Sweden for a bit of some Swedish sommar fun now, and has a great sunset shot today, too!
She calls it beautiful heaven on earth, if that gives you an idea of the photo:
"Vackraste himmelen på jorden!"
http://stureplan.se/bloggar/tess/2011/07/14/vackra-vackra-sverige
In my experience from reading her for a while, Tess has a real knack for taking photos with her family and friends that are consistently inspired, amusing and sweet, as last year's photos around Christmas almost looked like something straight out of a 1940's Warner Brothers film set, but it was all real.
It was really something!

It really, really, really made me envious, too, especially when I accidentally got stuck in traffic gridlock on U.S.-1, a half-mile north of Aventura Mall, when I got distracted by something I was listening to -the great Point of Grace Christmas CD from 1999, A Christmas Story, back when the original four-member band performed.

Everyone who hears it absolutely LOVES that wonderful album.

Having seen POG perform LIVE in Washington, D.C. in 1999, with Amy Grant and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra as part of her holiday tour, when I hear their songs, esp, When Love Came Down, I think back to the concert and... well, the next thing I know, I've missed my turn and am stuck in the line of cars being attracted to the Mall like a magnet.

It took me 20 minutes to navigate my way off the road and make my escape!

(To North Miami Beach, no less, not Shangri La!)

That gridlock was NOT a happy holiday memory!

Almost as envious as I've felt the last few weeks hearing about various friends summer plans on the water, esp. near the archipelago, and going-on and on about the great weather.

Far from the humid and non-breezy 94 degrees your faithful blogger is experiencing hereabouts!

(And not just brutally hot, but brutally boring and repetitive, too, as one day seems like the one before.)

Meanwhile, over there, everyone is relaxing, absorbing sunshine, having fun, jumping in the water once in a while and eating outside, esp. -of course!- strawberries.

Below, in a relaxed moment from July 7th, awesome Cecilia Kallin, lead singer of Timoteij, anticipates the taste of some delicious strawberries while in Lysekil, Västra Götalands län, on the country's west coast, before their recent tour, which they've been blogging about here,
http://www.timoteij.se/

Photo from the official Timoteij blog

http://www.timoteij.se/2011/07/07/smultron-sommar/

Warning! Don't upgrade to Firefox Mozilla 4.0 or you'll regret it -it's bad news!; YouTube Video Speed History

Warning! Don't upgrade to Firefox Mozilla 4.0 or you'll regret it -it's bad news!

My home computer has NEVER 'hanged' as frequently and for as long as it has since I downloaded the new version of Firefox Mozilla 4.0 on Sunday, upgrading from 3.6.15, which is one of the reasons that there have been no posts here since then.

Lest you forget, my computer crashed a LOT on Google Chrome two years ago, which is why I migrated to Firefox Mozilla in the first place. Frankly, in 2008, I got tired of resorting to simply yanking my computer's electrical cord out of its surge suppressor and starting over again after Chrome CONSTANTLY froze-up, and Google said they couldn't fix the problem.

Guess what, I DON'T drive cars that don't already have a reverse gear, working windshield wipers and headlights, because sometimes, they are needed, even when the car is used perfectly.
That's the same reason that I no longer use a web browser that the geniuses behind it can't or won't fix, preferring instead to simply shrug their shoulders and say that it's my problem when it doesn't work when used properly.
Sorry, I'm old-fashioned that way.

Chrome will have to be perfect for me to ever go to it again.

Yes, I know I can use the computer Restore function but the point is why is something being released to the public that is so problematic?

I mentioned the problem in an aside in an email earlier this afternoon about another subject. Sent, I should add, from somewhere other than my home computer, where this blog is cobbled together, two miles west of the Atlantic Ocean -and far-too-close to Hallandale Beach City Hall.

I've been having constant computer problems since Sunday night when I updated my Firefox Mozilla, i.e. lots more of "frozen" screens.

I pay for AT&T DSL Lite 6.0 but my computer is constantly operating at roughly between 3.7 and 4.2, and hence, a source of great frustration, esp. when AT&T customer service tells me that 6.0 is not a guarantee.
Thanks for telling me that after I signed-up!

An international jet-set friend commiserated.

glad to hear I'm not the only one having problems w Firefox...I watch Korean dramas on it, and it's been spotty...not downloading properly, freezing, etc.

Don't say you weren't warned.

To get a real gauge of what your computer speed is, as opposed to those dopey "speed tests" you see advertised, go to YouTube as I did below.
http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=174122

Right-click a YouTube video you like and select "Take speed test."

It will give you a color-coded graph of your speed and how that compares to others with that ISP, your area, your state, your country and globally.

I assume this YouTube test will work as well for my friends and readers at distant posts in the far-flung Hallandale Beach Blog universe as it does for me here in Hallandale Beach, whether it's:

a.) my fashion-forward friends in Sweden with non-fashion/media jobs, who keep the Stockholm nightclubs busy at night even while studiously avoiding Stureplan's omnipresent photographers http://stureplan.se/ -so they don't get linked by mistake to the free-spending credit card crowd, i.e. the "Brats"- or,

b.) my tech savvy and political savant friends in London and Notting Hill, who keep sending me great material to read and ponder, both insightful and humorous.

The latter are constantly encouraging me to do whatever is necessary to come over next year for the London Olympics.
Like I need any encouragement for that!

Let me know if you try it and it doesn't work in your area, and I will mention that in a future blog post, but make sure you try it three times over two days before emailing me your thumbs down evaluation.

I'm sure the folks at YouTube would be interested, too, since they want everyone to be able to see the videos -and the ads.

Below, the chart that tells me that my home computer speed is not world-class -or Olympian. Me and my digital divide!

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YouTube Video Speed History

Your average video speed at this location from Feb 26, 2011 to Mar 26, 2011 was 3.71 Mbps.

Video Speed Comparison (Feb 26, 2011 to Mar 26, 2011)

Results from users of other ISPs near you:

• Comcast [5.53 Mbps]
• AT&T [4.84 Mbps]

This data is aggregated from our video servers. All ISP and geographic speed numbers are averages across many types of Internet connectivity.

Our FAQ has more information about our measurement methodology.

Show Test Video

The test video will show you your streaming information in real time (look next to "Streaming HTTP").

------

Forgot to mention above that Stureplan.se is one of those great media platforms for bloggers like the ones that I referenced back on February 21st, like Spotlife.se http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/thoughts-re-mondays-nyt-article-blogs.html that South Florida has nothing like, despite how much everyone keeps telling Bridget Carey of the Herald how sophisticated this area is.
Nope.

The Herald's longstanding inability to leverage their power and well-known name into a great platform for thoughtful bloggers with something original to say -and that people are interested in- is proof of that.

-----
April 2011 postscript:
One of the unfortunate aspects of this story with Firefox Mozilla 4.0 was that after upgrading, I could no longer listen to the BBC Radio streaming feed, and specifically, 5live,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/5live/, which I generally listen to a few hours a day.
It was finito.


Even after I reversed course and went back to the previous Mozilla I was using, I could no longer hear the BBC, so I'm now forced to use Internet Explorer.

In fact, the small speaker icon no longer appeared on-screen on the radio player pop-up as it had previously after
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/bbc_radio_five_live

On April 4th, after trying my best to get this resolved, I sent out an email to IT-brainy friends titled: It's official: a week of using Firefox Mozilla for BBC Radio equals no sound for programs/programmes, Back to using fussy ol' Windows Explorer for Beeb!

The management geniuses at BBC Radio have no clue what's going on, witness this at their r comments page for the No Sound problem forum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbiplayer/NF7331803?thread=8141049

The idea that people that don't have the problem themselves have so much time on their hands to actually write-in to the website to chastise other listeners they don't know and make them sound like audio hypochondriacs, says a lot about something, I'm just not sure what precisely.

Some thoughts on the frustrating South Florida blogging scene in 2011 that compares so unfavorably to the innovative one in Sweden; Observations re NY Times' article on growing cleavage between using blogs and Twitter to disseminate original content: "Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter"; On comparing the blog portals at the Miami Herald to the ones used by savvy Swedish news media that makes young women like Blondinbella, Tess Montgomery and Josefina Boston influential voices on so many issues; The whole blogging scene in Sweden is not just different from the U.S. -it's better. Meanwhile, here, MSM and "Usual Suspects' try to dominate the conversation

South Florida blogging scene in 2011; Observations re NY Times' article on growing cleavage between using blogs and Twitter to disseminate original content: "Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter"; On comparing the blog portals at the Miami Herald to the ones used by savvy Swedish news media that makes young women like Blondinbella, Tess Montgomery and Josefina Boston influential voices on so many issues; The whole blogging scene in Sweden is not just different from the U.S. -it's better. Meanwhile, here, MSM and "Usual Suspects' try to dominate the conversation

* Updated in January of 2016

I'm still laughing and bemused after reading this New York Times article, below, with my emphasis in red.

This fascinating-yet-revealing quote is what really hit me: “It’s different from blogging because it’s easier to use,” she said.“ With blogging you have to write, and this is just images. Some people write some phrases or some quotes, but that’s it.”

Yes, putting those pesky words together in sentences and paragraphs sure is hard work! 
These kids are all thumbs.

New York Times
Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter
By Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Published: February 20, 2011

SAN FRANCISCO — Like any aspiring filmmaker, Michael McDonald, a high school senior, used a blog to show off his videos. But discouraged by how few people bothered to visit, he instead started posting his clips on Facebook, where his friends were sure to see and comment on his editing skills.
“I don’t use my blog anymore,” said Mr. McDonald, who lives in San Francisco. “All the people I’m trying to reach are on Facebook.”

Read the rest of the article at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/technology/internet/21blog.html

Meanwhile, in Europe, media companies that create a stable of popular and blogs stressing text and visuals, esp. those written by popular teens and twenty/thirty-somethings about fashion, design and pop culture, are making money. Why?
Because they offer something that readers always want: interesting unique content.

The hugely-popular blog, The Blond Salad, http://www.theblondesalad.com/ created by a very 
savvy and resourceful Italian twenty-something named Chiara Ferragni @ChiaraFerragni today had this exclusive: Burberry fashionshow in real time on Theblondesalad!

Yes, timeliness and genuine relevancy for her readers, just two of the things that concerned residents like me perpetually complain that we have far too little of in South Florida for local politics and government, in part because in the year 2011, we also STILL lack an All-News local cable channel that can fill that gap. 
To match the All-News radio station that South Florida also still lacks.

How The Blonde Salad's @ChiaraFerragni made millions by #blogging (and designing shoes) https://t.co/cBFaoBUQfM pic.twitter.com/N4aV4I9bSj

— Telegraph Fashion (@TeleFashion) December 27, 2015

Above, the colorful header used by model Tess Montgomery for her popular blog, TessM.se.

*2016 Update to below: In 2013 Tess was one of the featured bloggers on the very popular Stureplan.se platform at http://stureplan.se/bloggar/tess but in 2016 Tess is now blogging at http://tessm.metromode.se/  

Spotlife.se with two London-based blogs, Josefina Boston's Absolute Boston, http://absolutboston.se/  and Tess Montgomery's, http://tessm.se/, both of which I have mentioned here very positively in this space previously, have multi-national advertisers, and that's even more the case at Isabella Löwengrip's Blondinbella blog -also at Spotlife- who has become a well-known celebrity/author throughout Scandinavia and Europe.

She's also not only a frequent presence on national TV in Sweden, but is more influential than most veteran reporters and correspondents at well-known European newspapers, magazines and wire services covering fashion or pop culture.
And everyone knows it, too.

In Sweden, there's even a nationally-televised awards show for blogs on Channel 4, for the best blogs in about a dozen different subject and age categories, and it's promoted on both TV and in print, even to the point where they have TV ads featuring the various candidates in the weeks leading up to the telecast. I've even placed those some of promos here on the blog in the past to give you an idea of how differently blogs are viewed.
Here's the video they produced for the Blog Awards 2010 show in the category of Best Newcomer - Årets nykomling


http://www.tv4play.se/noje_och_humor/blog_awards?videoId=1.1773279

See some more recent clips at: https://www.tv4play.se/program/blog-awards

Let me tell you something -there is no station promo for local Miami TV newscasts or Dolphins or Hurricanes shows that is as well-produced as that one.
Yes, genuine effort and vision still counts for something with readers and viewers.
And the numbers show it.

Here's the list and video of the 2010 winners:
http://www.tv4.se/1.1831566/2010/09/27/vi_vann_blog_awards_2010

Meanwhile, the Miami Herald's blog network such as it is, is featured in the bottom-third of the website's first page, and has no identifiable icon or graphic next to it, just boring black text saying South Florida Blogs.

Above, a screenshot I took Monday night of the location on the Miami Herald's website where their blogs and collection of South Flordia blogs are located, with, as you can see, no icon to attract your attention or differentiate them -just text in black.
Boring!

I'll leave to another time the question of why a media company like McClatchy that prints both English and Spanish language newspapers in Miami insists on placing Spanish language blogs on an English language website, and even worse, confuses people by having a Spanish language blog with an icon being the first one that people actually see on the English language website.
And it's also the only one.

Why are there blogs listed in the South Florida blogs section that are actually written by Herald staffers, and why aren't they listed in the Herald's own section?
That's real genius!
And nervy!

Lots of online Herald readers no doubt see that and say, "Why even bother?"

And when you get there, you aren't exactly wowed visually by what you see!
http://yourblogs.miamiherald.com/

Compare that frumpy-dumpy scene of the Herald blog page to not only Spotlife's colorful blog home, http://spotlife.se/ but also the very popular Stureplan blogs, which are very much about Stockholm's exciting nightlife and entertainment scene which puts Miami/South Beach's to shame for genuine fun for non-millionaires, http://stureplan.se/

Could there be more of a contrast between the integration of color and design?
And there are other differences, too.

For reasons that were never explained to me, my own blog -yes, this one- was listed on the Herald's blog page when it first launched, but since I was never asked about it or received any info from the Herald about their plans prior to its launch, I only found out about it a few weeks after it started, thru an email from a friend who'd seen my blog on it and was puzzled why it was there without my ever having mentioned it to her.

She wanted to know who I got there to put in a good word for me.
Nobody -it was a complete surprise to me, too.
That's NOT exactly a strategy to win well-informed hearts and minds -or readers and eyeballs.

And now that the Herald's link for their hodgepodge collection of blogs has migrated from near the top of the website to some dubious real estate with no promotion, graphics or icon, it's not at all clear that readers even realize it's STILL there.
I don't even think about it anymore, even though I'm on it.

Since this article is about a downward trend among some sub-set of bloggers, let's call them the never-reads, let me leave you with a more encouraging stone-cold fact about one who gives people facts and context they are looking for.

Isabella Löwengrip at Blondinbella has more people following her on Facebook than the Miami 
Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel and ALL their reporters, columnists or subject blogs combined.
She's... actually recognized in Stockholm at the airport when she flies home into Arlanda.


Interesting and unique content -it's why I read the blogs I've mentioned here and why so many other people do, too.

Just saying...

How a video of Paramore in Stockholm & Razorlight in London proves the Miami Herald is too damn slow. Iceberg dead ahead!

Paramore -Misguided Ghosts, LIVE in Stockholm, acoustic http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9OuNtlXiGA

How a video of Paramore in Stockholm and Razorlight at the Cuckoo Club, London proves the Miami Herald is moving too damn slow in its news coverage.
Iceberg dead ahead!

A number of months ago -I want to say it was mid-April- when I wanted to prove a few points about how poorly the Miami Herald was serving their increasingly smaller number of subscribers and readers -esp. the Sports Dept., led by their editor, Jorge Rojas- part of my grand plan was to run photos of what they ran in the newspaper on Saturday and compare that to what other East Coast newspapers ran that same day, since it's the same time zone.

The point, obviously, was to skewer the Herald once again thru some easily-understood and
rather self-evident anecdotal evidence to demonstrate that their conscious decision to send copies of the newspaper to next door Broward County where I live -in my case, right next to Aventura, only 14 miles due north of the newspaper's HQ on Biscayne Bay in Miami- which contained old news, lots of Wire stories and less local locally-written stories with important context, was only making their well-known problems MUCH WORSE

This is most easily demonstrated when you don't see complete sports stories and scores the next day -or timely election result updates on the website.

Some examples of this from this past year:

Wednesday, November 3, 2010
The Miami Herald's dismal Pony Express-style coverage of The World Series -compared to the New York Times- is a bad omen for readers
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/miami-heralds-dismal-pony-express-style.html

Thursday, September 2, 2010
Breaking: Miami Herald & sports editor Jorge Rojas already in mid-season form as they ignore BigTenNetwork's televised ballgames
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/breaking-miami-herald-sports-editor.html

Saturday, August 28, 2010
Miami Herald is channeling Pony Express in its reporting on Broward School Board elections from four days ago. But it's the year 2010!
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/miami-herald-is-channeling-pony-express.html

Saturday, April 24, 2010
UCLA edges Sooners to win 2010 NCAA Women's Gymnastics Championship at Gainesville; Coverage of Women's Sports in the Miami Herald
http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/04/ucla-edges-sooners-to-win-2010-ncaa.html

Monday, January 4, 2010
A TV program we can use more of over here: "Jag ska bli stjärna"; Girls sports in South Florida and the abysmal media coverage of it

http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/tv-program-we-can-use-more-of-over-here.html

As you can see from above, in the interim, I've run a few pieces here and there demonstrating that central uncontested fact about the Herald's declining quality to a fair-thee-well, using both the coverage of the second NCAA D1 Womens Basketball Semifinal game, and Game Two of the 2010 World Series, Texas Rangers at San Francisco Giants, the latter of which started before 8:30 p.m. Eastern.

At the time, the other part of my plan was to show that despite all the technological innovations of the past 15 years that allow legacy media companies like McClatchy's Miami Herald, as well as bloggers like myself, to share and post information quickly, the Herald was "moving kinda slow" -like Uncle Joe in front of the Shady Rest Hotel in Petticoat Junction- to the absolute detriment of everyone concerned, most notably, news consumers.

One of the ways that I was going to do that was to post a great video of Paramore performing in Stockholm late on a Friday night/early Saturday morning, that had been recorded and posted to YouTube, and which later in the early A.M., was sent to me by a friend in Stockholm who'd been at the concert, and was so wired that she literally couldn't immediately fall asleep.

Naturally, like millions of other people, unable to fall asleep, she promptly started checking her email and surfing the Web.

In her version of the story, after reading my humble blog here for the first time in a few days, and sending me a note about some things she liked and some constructive suggestions, intent on going to sleep but wanting to check one last time, she typed in Paramore on YouTube, assuming that it was unlikely that anyone at the concert had uploaded something yet.

But she was wrong.
Somebody had!

At the top of this blog post is a better quality version of the original video that I saw, but you still get the point nonetheless.
Technology and social media allow news, ideas and information to flow freely from all sorts of places.
So why is the Herald so laggard at doing the basics, like timely reporting?

Why are they consciously turning their back on covering local government in South Florida and losing what precious remaining credibility they maintain?

When I woke up that Saturday morning in April, the newspaper lacked what I and many other news junkies or sports fans would consider some basic information, yet my email inbox was ALREADY full of interesting news, including that hours-old video that was still PIPING FRESH!

Since I didn't post that back then when I was of a mind to, I'll do it now, and further buttress my point by posting here yet another video that proves the point.

Blogger extraordinaire Josefina Boston of AbsolutBoston blog fame, and Escada's London HQ, http://absolutboston.se/ shot some interesting video when she and her beautiful model pal Tess Montgomery went over to the Cuckoo Club in Mayfair.
That is, they did so after they and two other fashion-forward friends hit the opening of the new Dior store on Bond Street, where the champagne was really flowing.
http://absolutboston.se/dior-opening-party/

While there for the Cuckoo Club's second anniversary, Josefina filmed this performance by Razorlight from very close-up.



Razorlight playing LIVE at The Cuckoo Club, Mayfair, London
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCCWY_xL33w

Josefina blogs for the very popular Spotlife blogging platform, http://spotlife.se/ as does the lovely Tess Montgomery, who, in my opinion, looks like a taller, sexier Julie Delpy.
http://www.motmodel.com/models/detail.asp?model_id=3991

Not that there's anything wrong with the regular-sized one! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000365/

Tess blogs from http://tessm.se/, where she has even more photos of Razorlight performing at http://tessm.se/cuckoo-club-2-ar/ as well as some photos of the Dior event at http://tessm.se/dior-event-pa-bond-street/
Bon Chic, Bon Genre!

Tess even has some good sound advice that's especially practical at this time of the year when she says at one point in her post, "Jag har nämligen som regel att aldrig blanda shopping och alkohol."
Which is to say that she's developed a rule about never mixing shopping with alcohol.

That's clearly a lesson that's yet to take hold of many area women, since I often see them over at the Aventura Mall around 6:30 p.m.or so, as they go straight from drinking with their gal pals to shopping, usually over at Nordstrom's.
http://about.nordstrom.com/MapPoint/MapResults.aspx?bizid=774

I can't help but think that Tess probably has a good story behind that rule, too, just like Jethro Gibbs of longtime Hallandale Beach Blog fave NCIS has for his rules.
http://ncis.wikia.com/wiki/Leroy_Jethro_Gibbs/Rules

So, getting back to the Herald, I know when I look at the Saturday newspaper tomorrow and it's ponderous website that is both too-busy and yet NOT full enough of legitimate news stories, I will see so-called "news" that's largely been pre-chewed or eaten with all the turkey leftovers on Friday, on what is traditionally one of the worst weekends for news stories because the varsity news team is away on vacation.

When specifically is Miami Herald publisher David Landsberg finally going to publicly share with Herald readers what his actual plan is to rescue the newspaper, and make it relevant to readers and news consumers, which it increasingly is NOT by any stretch of the imagination?

It's getting kind of late in the voyage with Landsberg at the helm, and while I'm no expert on icebergs, I can see with my own eyes that the known and unknown icebergs keep getting closer and closer to the Herald's bow as it steers into unchartered waters without a compass or, seemingly, a legitimate plan to get to its destination.

And like you all, I know with absolute certainty that most of an iceberg is unseen -and below the surface.
Just like the Herald's myriad problems.
But some problems are too big to hide.

-----


Paramore: Sweden Photoshoot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbKIFZY3q9M

Paramore - New Music - More Music Videos

Paramore - Decode, Ulalume Festival
http://www.mtv.com/videos/?id=1623823

More Paramore interviews and goodies at
http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/paramore/artist.jhtml

Paramore's official website: http://www.paramore.net/


See also: http://stureplan.se/bloggar