First Impressions: Hmm..the name’s pretty direct, to the point. I know what I’m doing at this site. A good thing!

Good: Self described as trying to come off as “easy to understand,” I couldn’t agree more. From the simple but aesthetic layout to the writing itself, PureBlogging is easy too look at as well as finding and understanding information you can actually use. While one might expect to find this at all blogs…people have done quite the job at making a mess of things. Not here! I’m glad to say.

Bad: Other than having ads (say it isn’t so!) which I can’t really blame him for (maybe he’s gotten something on there to help me get some), the thing that gets me is those embedded text things that brings up another ad when you hover over just a word. I’m not a fan of that, but really, it doesn’t get too in the way here.

Other Cool Stuff: The guy who runs this all, besides knowing a thing or too about blogs, seems to be pretty generous, too. As much as I’d love to get readers this way, I can’t give away an 8 GB Ipod Nano like him. All you have to do to win it, too, is just by writing a review (good or bad, which might be pretty funny depending on how creative you get) about PureBlogging.

It’s blogging…made pure.

That’s not his motto, that’s just me making a fool of myself.

I might win something free? Isn’t that great, my loyal reader? Yes, you. The reader. Ohhh the shame…anyhow, my entry:

Kelly at A Yoga Coffee Outlook is giving away a Zune MP3 Player

www.yogacoffeeoutlook.com

The bully, er, Reverend Ken Hutcherson has had his victory, but maybe a loss, as well.

Hutcherson being the nice fellow who threatened a national boycott of Microsoft if they continued their support of a Washington state anti-discrimination bill for gays. Anti-discrimination, why would any right-thinking human being be against that? And here’s the kicker: Ken Hutcherson is black. He grew up in the south, destitute and black. How do you think his life was? Yeah.

And I read the article this morning, and they brought this up, but he pretty much said, “Shut up, alright? That’s entirely different. Entirely. ” This bill had nothing to do with legalizing gay marriage, or anything of the sort. But what they obviously are trying to do is to destroy it at the stem of their individual freedoms. If you cut their throats, they cannot speak up.

What this bill was doing was adding to the list of illegal discrimination against people of color, disabled, and all the other groups you’d expect to receive equal rights. But he scared (though Microsoft denies it) the software giant into taking their name off the list of supporters for the legislation.

The bill was rejected by one vote in the state senate.

And what’s pretty funny, is the news that came out today. That’s right, the adventure’s not over, as Microsoft again claimed they would support similar legislation in the future. Just two weeks after it gets shot down in the senate. No, they weren’t intimidate by the good reverend. Maybe now they can stick to their convictions and urge the congress to make a new bill as soon as they can.

It’s like sitting in a room with someone you thought was interesting. But all they do is sit there. Nobody’s talking, and it gets really awkward.

That’s when I don’t post anything new.

Canada legalized same sex marriage–and no one really took notice. It seemed to not really be that big of a deal to anyone….except for gays and lesbians in Canada. Though I haven’t heard anything from them either. This is another example of the poor coverage by the media and why it has really become an entertainment-news source. It’s got to stop, plain and simple. Everyone becomes dependent on the filth on TV, and the news tries to compete by being the same.

It would even be more tolerable if, say, they all didn’t report on the same things. Why doesn’t anyone say, “Oh, Channel 4 is already doing that story so how about we go report on something interesting?” And here’s where their brainwashing media powers really have an effect: It seems like there is a fewer and fewer amount of people who actually look for real news. So the vast majority, as I see it, get on their knees and are violated by the media who “persuade” the viewer into watching what is interesting. The real job of the media, having legitimate reporters (I know, I have high expectations) and not wasting time with repetetive stories and unjustified opinions: is to bring journalism to the public, and though not always exact, to do that to the best of their ability. But none of that seems to be happening, it always keeps reminding me things are going more and more downhill in this highly influential and important part of modern society.

To bring this full circle, blogging is a bit like journalism. I say a bit, to those of you who would quickly reject my saying it’s anything more. And I say it’s a lot like journalism to anyone else who believes that.