“Five Signs” returns next week.

Sometimes it takes a village to raise a child… or to invigorate a blog?

Next week will mark the return of the “Five Signs” series. There’ll be a M-W-F full to commemorate and also to get regular posting back on track. Are the locales exotic enough? Any theme week needs a crown jewel after all, so get ready for some  virtual travel after the weekend.

- In Pursuit of the Trivial

Trivial Links: Free Online Journalism Tools

Science & Nature Trivial Links
Written by Nathan Mattise

• The more I experiment with video or audio editing, the more useful free journalistic technology services like these become.

• Speaking of online journalism experiments, here’s my recent favorite from online story innovation guru Jonathan Harris.

• This study just confirms what everyone already knows – Facebook is wildly popular (1 in every 4 pageviews popular).

• Finally, two intriguing NYT pieces… this midwestern study attempts to find whether the positive or negative externalities of office gossip win out.

• …and this piece lets you know that those weekend mornings of sleeping ’til 1 p.m. really don’t recover for lost sleep.

 

(Links today from ESPN.com, The New Yorker, KEXP, Brooklyn Vegan, The NewsHouse, Twitter and Morman Husbands)

Got something for next week’s Trivial Links? E-mail it in.

Trivial Links: The best reads from our recent spell of apathetic blogging.

All Categories Trivial Links
Written by Nathan Mattise

Unfortunately, it’s been awhile since we’ve posted (anything, period.) here at In Pursuit of the Trivial. It’s been even longer since our last consistent Trivial Links run. To commemorate the return to normalcy, here’s a smorgasbord of the best reads that span a variety of Trivial topics…

• The famed Malcolm Gladwell recently tackled the topic of violence in American sports (even comparing football and dogfighting).
  

• This article is a bit older but just as good for the sports lover, here’s why folks should stop ragging on Shawn Bradley in retrospect.

• One of our local favorites, Phantogram, has been all over recently (from Brooklyn Vegan to the BBC).  Major indie radio KEXP in Seattle has been on them to the point that they even linked In Pursuit of the Trivial work on them.  (Congrats on Barsuk to the band as well!)

Twitter / Phantogram: Hey folks! Phantogram is n … via kwout

• The new ESPN Ombudsman unleashed his first lengthy reflection on audience perception of the success of a live program.  (…and on the same day Bill Simmons talks with Chuck Klosterman again).

• Finally, with all of the self-deprecating Letterman stuff happening now, it was interesting to hear from a former-insider on the situation.

(Links today from ESPN.com, The New Yorker, KEXP, Brooklyn Vegan, The NewsHouse, Twitter and Morman Husbands)

Got something for next week’s Trivial Links? E-mail it in.

August/September CNY Music Podcast: The Best Non-Mainstream Music CNY Fall Shows

Geography | Entertainment Podcast
Recorded and produced by Nathan Mattise

It’s been far too long since the last podcast, there’s so much to cover…

Time to relax with some classy music.

It’s time to contest all these contests.

Science & Nature Column
Written by Nathan Mattise

I would never expect to win a raffle, a lottery or any of the “be the fourth caller” type of contests. However, whenever any caveat including some semblance of skill is added to a competition… suddenly I find myself diving in head first.

Take the recent PopCandy Guest Blogger week. I submitted at least seven ideas (some of which I ultimately used on my own) and easily spent at least two hours researching and writing out my pitch. I remember anxiously checking the blog and Twitter feed several times the day of the announcement only to be forged into a pseudo-bad mood when I wasn’t among the lucky ones.

That was fine though. I still had the SU Football Guest Blogger prize to chase.  I followed the team fairly closely for the past five years. I’m in very close proximity to the games and players. I also happen to blog, report and generally write all the time (even about sports on occasion). My post was fairly well received on the BleacherReport – a decent mix of resume, potential and Orange pride.

Different game, same result. I received a nice e-mail offering me two free tickets to home opener for participating and that was the end.

More often than not, I find myself genuinely surprised that I didn’t win when entering these competitions. It’s as if one taste of actually victory in one (or two) of these costs you logic and common sense around contests from then on. Just look at the folks who actually won the PopCandy slots – the most famous site commenter, the director of the AMI and a Daytime Emmy-nominated actor. My Twitter-failure stories and I didn’t stand a real chance among hundreds of others.

The reality is any contest involves odds and most of them are long. Getting invested in them or banking on a break coming via this route is just too unrealistic and undependable.

Now, will that stop me from putting too much time and energy into entering them? (Don’t look after the jump..)