Bloggystyle -- The Latest

Work-related

I'm panicking, just a tiny bit, as I look at the schedule of thing I have due before my wife's due date later this month.

It's all manageable; I always manage. But then I look at the clock around 5 p.m. and another whole day has passed without a lot of progress on the things that are looming.

I really hate being one of those reporters who throws stories together at the last minute, especially since my editor and I work so hard to plan things out months in advance, but after 12 years at this job I've learned that the majority of my stories get written in a burst of activity and energy at the home stretch. That's not a bad thing, necessarily, but when I do get stories done in advance and with a lot of control over their flow, I wonder why they can't all be like that.

Last week was a good example of a Wednesday when I wrote story stories simultaneously over one long workday as I tried to make sure all the loose ends were tied up before my Thanksgiving days off.

One of the stories was a Tech Monday column about Cyber Monday featuring two Austin sites, CheapTweets and Offers.com.

The other story I wrote Wendesday was a tech gift guide that runs on Sunday. I'll post a link to that when it's up.

Another story that ran Monday was a piece I filed a while back, a Masters of their Domains about Enzo Monfre, a 9-year-old who has his own popular Web show about nature at enzoology.com.

I was a little disturbed by some of the angry, unnecessary comments below the Web version of the story. I think people are wary of any pursuit where a child may earn fame, and I certainly had misgivings about it when I met the family and asked questions about it. But I still find it hard to stomach people who can go online and say mean, vile thing about a 9-year-old and his family under the veil of relative Internet anonymity. I find it disgusting and enough people in our newsroom have felt the same way; we're cracking down much harder on comments at statesman.com and austin360.com, a move I was very happy about.

Jenni Jones, who is a video wiz, shot the video below to go with the story:

posted by Omar G. at 11:24 AM

Trailers Without Pity: The Wolfman

Maybe I've become a little too cynical because when I heard they were doing a movie of The Wolfman, I already saw flashes of fiery disaster, like I was Christopher Walken awakening from a long coma with new, soothsaying powers.

But then I remembered I think that about most movie ideas.

How strange, then, that I actually like the Wolfman trailer we did up in this week's Trailers Without Pity?

Maybe it's the A-list acting talent or just the steampunky elements in the trailer, but I'm kinda sold on it. Of course, I think that all the time and the number of actual movies I pay money to go see could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

A hand that has been involved in accidents where fingers have been cut off.

Anyhoo, here's the video. We've only got one more left before we go on vacation.

posted by Omar G. at 9:56 PM

Continually updated...