Evan Williams, one of the founders of Blogger, is moving on to new things in his life.
Way back when I had my lame Geocities site, I asked loren how I could add a blog like his to Where’s My Burrito, and he directed me to Blogger. Back then, I was a total noob (unlike the partial noob I am now) and everything online scared the shit out of me. But Blogger was really easy to understand, and allowed me to put what was in my head online without having to waste time and energy worrying about technology.
So I guess what I’m saying is, without Evan (then Noah Grey, then Domesticat, and now Ben and Mena Trott) there would be no WWdN, and I wonder if I would have ever examined my life the way I have.
That means more to me than I can put down here, so I’ll just say thank you, Evan, and good luck. You made a difference in my life, and I know that I’m not the only one.

I recently did an interview with Forces of Good dot Com where I talked about Just A Geek, WWdN, and some other stuff, and it hit the site today:

Do you now think of yourself as an actor who writes or as a writer who acts?
It depends on what I’m doing on a given day. When I have worked on shows recently, I have to consciously focus myself on acting, because I when I am A Writer, I am constantly recording things: what a room looks, feels, and smells like; how I react to something someone said and how they said it, etc. It’s vital for actors to live moment to moment, and react to everything naturally. As a writer, I am constantly looking at the bigger picture, and mentally filing away important details so I can recall them later. Right now, I am a writer who acts. Ask me in a year, and I may have a different answer.

You can read the rest of the interview here.
Also, I spoke with the Los Angeles Times this morning about podcasting. I’m really new to the podcasting phenomenon, and when I talked to The Times this morning, I’m wasn’t convinced that it’s the next Really Big Thing, but after spending some time researching it more and more tonight, I think I may have been wrong. It seems pretty damn cool, anyway, and could very likely mean the return of Radio Free Burrito.

After several conversations at Gnomedex with geeks who are better at being geeks than I am, I’ve decided to put the full text of all my posts into my XML feed from now on.
I guess I hadn’t done this in the past because I wanted people to actually visit my site, but I don’t care about traffic any more. Now I just want people to enjoy what I write, in whatever format they prefer, including offline newsreaders.
In a related story, thanks for all the advice about newsreaders. I’ve been fooling around with Sage for the last few hours . . . the “discover feeds” thing is a killer app, man.

A bunch of random thoughts that I need to get out of my head so I can write some other stuff that’s in my head:
Item the first:
WWdN reader Gia sez:

“. . . my sister and I are running a marathon in just over 3 weeks. My sister is running for Team in Training, just as you and Anne did. My sister still has just over $1000 to raise by Oct. 10th.
This is a message from my sister:
I am running in honor of my boss, Lynn. She was diagnosed with lymphoma 4 years ago (when she was 34). Her daughter was only 5 years old at the time. I just can’t imagine how difficult that was to face death with such a young child.
My minimum fundraising goal ($4700) covers ONE night’s hospital stay and care for a newly diagnosed blood cancer patient. Considering that treatment can last months to years, and there are over 500,000 Americans living with blood cancers, there is a HUGE need for donations. Thanks to BushCo, 40% of Americans do not have health insurance. My boyfriend, daughter and I are part of that unfortunate group. Hopefully, my fundraising efforts can help someone fight the cancer and survive to see their child grow up.

Here is her sister Sari’s Team In Training Homepage. She needs about a thousand bucks. Are there one hundred WWdN readers who can part with ten bucks each? I think it would be awesome times a billion if we could send the power of WWdN her way.
Item the second:
What’s your favorite RSS reader? I’m looking to try some different ones out. Bonus points if it runs on Linux.
Item the third:
Opie and Anthony got the royal fucking shaft job by Viacom, and they just came back on the air this morning, on XM 202. It’s $1.99 a month for the show, and it’s totally worth it. O&A fucking rule, and they are way ahead of the curve by making this move to satellite radio.
Item the fourth:
After reading Viva Las Vegas, a lot of people have asked me to tell them my favorite poker books. I talked about them in my Poker Lizard interview, (which now has a second part that’s all about Hollywood, I’ve just discovered) but here are my top three “how to be a better player” books, ranked according to how much profit they’ve resulted in for my game:

1. Winning Low-Limit Hold’Em by Lee Jones
2. Hold’Em Excellence: From Beginner to Winner by Lou Krieger
3. The Theory Of Poker by David Sklansky

I have left off the great no-limit books, like Super / System or Cloutier’s books, because I don’t play no-limit very often. In order to be a winning no-limit player, anyway, you have to be a great limit player, and I’m still developing my skills as a limit player. When I can consistently win at limit and move up, I’ll figure out a list of no limit books.
Item the fifth:
The Mount St. Helens Volcano Cam is producing some amazing images right now. Go look.
Item the sixth:
There is no item the sixth but you all knew that already, didn’t you?

Item the seventh:
I have no idea what HYPNOTIZE is, but it comes to us from The Absolute Kimiaki Yaegashi, where quality and performance have no substitute, apparently. It’s weird and wonderful, and not for everyone.
Item the eighth:
WWdN reader Graham sez:

I was on a rare trip to London (London, England, as you colonials call it), waiting outside the club where I was later to enjoy 2 pints of Guiness and a superb gig by the astonishing Carlos Guitarlos (How cool is he? He has Marcy Levy in his band, that’s how cool he is) when I sensed a presence….
Turning round, I saw your face glowering at me from the windows of Foyle’s bookshop, via several copies of Just A Geek.
Now, 98 year old Foyles is infamous in London as although it is probably the biggest bookstore in the capital, you can *never* find anything in it, as they mostly order the books by publisher.
So, since your book is published by O’Reilly & Associates, JAG is not in the StarTrek section, nor in the biography section. It is in the geek section. In the window it was between “how to configure OSX” and “WiFi hacking tricks”.
Not bad, eh?

Not bad at all, Graham. Not bad at all! Thanks for sending this awesome news!
Item the ninth:
It turns out that Entertainment Weekly listened to the tons of WWdN readers who wrote letters and e-mails to them about their “Whiner of the Week” thing, and they printed the following:

Triumph of the Wil
I’m very disappointed in the misrepresentation of Wil Wheaton as “Whiner of the Week” (Books.) Wil has matured into an exceptional writer and comedian, and his weblog speaks brilliantly for Gen-Xers. The use of his acting experiences to jump-start a few personal stories falls far short of whining and doesn’t represent the tome of a well-written and entertaining book.
Ellen Rhatigan
Staten Island, N.Y.

I’m stunned that EW would print anything in my defense, and I’m even more stunned that they didn’t take another shot at me. I know for a fact that this wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t gotten a TON of letters from people, and I have to thank everyone who spoke up on my behalf. As I said before, I was upset because I was misrepresented, and the fact that they ran that letter is a victory for The Truth. Ellen, and everyone else who wrote letters: you ROCK! \m/
Item the tenth:
I absolutely can’t believe that my Dodgers not only made the playoffs, but also made them by coming from 3-0 in the bottom of the 9th to beat the hated Giants! It happened while I was at Gnomedex, and I didn’t get to see it on TV . . . but I think that Finley’s grand slam is going to take its place next to Gibson’s 1988 homer in the halls of Dodger lore. Awesome.

Okay, now that all these items are out of my brain, they’ve cleared the way for my gnomedex report, which should follow shortly.
Or maybe tomorrow . . . it’s really nice outside.

Oh man, I am wiped out.
It took me almost 8.5 hours to drive home from gnomedex, and I’m going to go fall down for a little while.
Tomorrow, I’ll have a full report, which will include some poker, a lot of geeking, some really cool stuff that I think WWdN readers will like, and some thoughts on the future of this website.