You just know that every applicant in the world is going to start off with “I was born in…” So I asked a few of my trusted friends some different ideas for beginning a biography. Here, in no particular order of quality or seriousness, is what we came up with.

• “Once upon a time…”
• “Hi my name is _____ and I am dumb.” (Great for the scholarship apps!)
• “I came out of my mom in…”
• “My first moments of independent life…”
• “I began my journey to success on…” (You go-getter you!)
• “My mom gave birth to the 8^th Wonder of the World on…”

But if none of those suit you for some reason or another, here are some rather intelligent ones:

• “My life has been like a…”
• “My parents named me….”
• “My favorite color has always been… because…”

Have fun with your next autobiography! You only get one.

Bloggies: Asian

http://noodlepie.typepad.com/

http://popagandhi.com/

http://glutter.typepad.com/

http://tokyotimes.org/

http://blog.codefront.net/

European

http://elastico.net/

http://viewropa.com/

http://www.binarybonsai.com/

http://www.petiteanglaise.com/

American:

http://photomatt.net/

http://kottke.org/

http://atrios.blogspot.com/

http://chicagoist.com/

http://justwatchthesky.com/

Photography:

http://sh1ft.org/shutterbug

http://overshadowed.com/

http://sensitivelight.com/

http://adampolselli.com/

http://snowsuit.net/

Food:

http://tastingmenu.com/

http://theredkitchen.net/

http://chezpim.typepad.com/

http://becksposhnosh.blogspot.com/

http://101cookbooks.com/

http://thefoodsection.com/

Politics:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog

http://powerlineblog.com/

http://andrewsullivan.com/

http://watchblog.com/

http://washingtonmonthly.com/

Computers or Technology:

http://daringfireball.net/

http://engadget.com/

http://we-make-money-not-art.com/

http://slashdot.org/

http://osnews.com/

Humorous:

http://jonnybillericay.blogspot.com/

http://littleyellowdifferent.com/

http://gawker.com/

http://defectiveyeti.com/

http://fuggingitup.blogspot.com/

Best Designed:

http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal

http://justwatchthesky.com/

http://brookelyn.org/

http://shauninman.com/

http://mezzoblue.com/

Lifetime:

http://megnut.com/

http://plasticbag.org/

http://a.wholelottanothing.org/

http://www.molly.com/

http://pamie.com/

Some categories were rather odd, specifically the Asian, European, and American categories. Because of what they were nominated for, I tried to choose blogs that contained content specific to those interested in that geographical region.

Photography was a blast to sort through – it was the category that by far took the most amount of my time! However, I think that two blogs should have been added to the list, Jinky Art and Utata – Catherine Jamieson Photography (which appears to change it’s interface pretty much every other day. Those are both by far my favorite photoblogs, giving me something to learn from and live up to.

All in all, it was a fun and explorative (made up that word) experience, and I have discovered plent of new and interesting sites that I would have not otherwise!

The categories I have been given (each panelist receives 10 of the thirty) are:
Asian, European, American, Photography, Food, Politics, Computers or Technology, Humorous, Best Designed, and Lifetime. Deadline for final votes is this Saturday, the ²²

IEBlog

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Examples: Chinese/Japanese site (?) with English image headers: CandyIMG.com | German blog with an English slogan: 127.0.0.1

Why are these sites in two languages (ie native plus English)? Most English readers are not going to speak the second and primary language the site is in, and isn’t it an inconvenience to native readers? Albeit, many international users run a higher risk of speaking a second language like English, but still, would it not be easier to have the whole site in the native language? Especially for script languages, such as Chinese and Japanese? Can anyone answer these questions? Just a little confused…

podq

• This site is entirely run and operated by [2]Josh Lyman, an aspiring graphic designer who will be enjoying his senior year this year, and hopefully continuing on to Brigham Young University – Provo.
• I’m #15 and #20 on Google for searching “Josh Lyman”… stinking West Wing. Actually, I like the West Wing, Josh is cool, but he’s got a doofy haircut. I own 3 full DVD sets of the seasons. When my name is number 1, I will have a big party, and give something away free on my site.
• Font designated for display: Perpetua | Download Perpetua
  • Most users do not have this font installed, so you can download Perpetua here and install it. Isn’t this illegal? Well, the license says that the font is allowed to be temporarily embedded on a system, so as long as you uninstall it when you decided never to come back to my site again, you may use it.
• podq live is hosted by the highly reliable Equivity Hosting, and I in turn host people upon occasion.
• podq live is powered by the incredible open-source project WordPress, currently running version 1.3-alpha5 with several interesting and helpful plugins. The index page is heavily hacked out, but the rest is rather intact. Before WordPress 0.72, there were only SSI’s used to run this site, so the clouds have broken.
• On good days, the site validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional, Section 508, CSS, and all that schwah.

score! i’m going snowboarding tomorrow in lovely colorado. i’ve always gone skiing before, so this will be a new adventure and exciting. i don’t know, i guess i’m just kind of bored of skiing. and i’m going with my best friend, so it should be lots of fun. well, i’ll fill ya in on it later! toodaloos!

also, my first real publication/post/regular column will be published on january the 3rd. cuz i like the number three. and guess what? it will have to do with the law of thirds! o how interesting! well, after that, i should be posting every other day, to keep myself on schedule. well, see ya later!

• finish crisp layout out
• make crisp cross-browser compliant (ya right)
• bring back code for photo gallery
• make the other layouts cross-browser compliant (never)
• finish customization of template file
• reinstate custom entries and such i forgot what i meant by this so….

okay, so it’s been a few days, and i’ve been working hard to restore the site to what it was (or wasn’t) before the upgrade to wordpress 1.0. basically, almost everything to you guys is 90 % done, except for photos, which i’m waiting for a fellow blogger to update code with. also, all custom styles have been moved back to experimental status. why? because things changed in the template of the new wp, and so i have to accomodate for those changes. should be finished entirely by the end of the week, hopefully with a completed ’crisp’ template that will become the site’s new look. very experimental today. also, that date is pending the return of the code for the photo gallery, so hold your breath!