Bloggers Feed On Pizza Man's Plans

Blogophile Tracks Hottest Stories In Cyberspace

(CBS)  What does it feel like when you can’t even leave your home to go to work? Omar at Iraq the Model writes, "I was just about to leave home to work when I heard a big bang… Uh, oh...I won't be able to reach the clinic today, I told Mohammed. The explosion was probably less than a mile away so I knew the roads around us would be soon blocked. And minutes later I found they were."

Nancy, an Iraqi student living in the U.S., reflects on her war-torn native country in her blog. "These beautiful memories are much stronger than all the car bombings, civilian killings, and bloodshed that are currently taking place," she blogs. "No matter how powerful they may be, these acts of destruction will not succeed in stripping me from this one thing that I deeply treasure: Memories of my beautiful Baghdad!"


Published Authors, Beware

Think your blog is worthy of publication? New Book-Smart software from Blurb is making it simple for bloggers to publish their words. The software, which is expected to be available free later this month, features a "slurper" tool that automatically downloads and reformats the contents of a blog into a "blogbook" that can be purchased online.

Not surprisingly, this is music to many bloggers' ears.

Mip’s Scan is a big fan. "First, it allows you to extend the intellectual capital you've created by bringing it into the offline world. I see it as a nice compliment to what gets created online. Secondly, I think it's a powerful and effective way to extend the conversation so to speak."

Geeklike calls the software a "revolutionary blog to book converter." And Squelly writes, "I have not tried the Booksmart software yet but I am certainly going too. I can see the Blurb books competing with the photo books offered by Ofoto (I just can’t call them Kodak Photo Gallery — stupid name) Shutterfly, Snapfish and their kin."

But for bloggers like Lifehacker, the glass is half-empty. "While the thought of a million muffled hyperlinks subjected to the non-clickable imprisonment of actual paper makes me sad, self-publishing blogs jives with the whole scrapbooking/DIY media phenomenon," he blogs.

And others bemoan the consequences of bloggers-turned-published-authors. "As if owning a blog is not narcissistic enough, you can now turn your blog into a *real* book," Marcus Mooi writes. "Wow. No but yeah but no ... Huh!?"

Ad Pulp adds some practical concerns. "I love the idea, but negotiating the print rights to images and content lifted from news sources around the globe seems like a Herculean task. On the other hand, if all blog content is totally original, or paid for by a sponsoring brand, then the book idea truly has legs."


Still Have Your LEGOs?

How do you know you may have too much time on your hands? When you spend your day looking at other people's LEGO creations. Well, at least some of the day, that is.

But, I'm hardly alone. Techblog's Top Ten Strangest Lego Creations was the ninth-most-cited link on Monday. The LEGO-builders who made the coveted list, in LEGO circles at least, put some serious time into their creations, which range from a harpsichord constructed entirely from LEGO parts (over 100,000 parts, in fact) to a LEGO replica of a Volvo XC90, the official car of Legoland, California. Yes, there actually is a Legoland (there are four, in fact). Coming in at number 10 is a BrixPod Classic iPod Shuffle case, which gives your Shuffle the appearance of a full-sized iPod made of Lego bricks.

There are many LEGO-lovers online. GremSpot gushes over the list. "You can use LEGO to build almost any thing… these are all amazing LEGO creations. Amazing and strange, but true."

Dustin at Nano News Bites calls it, "a fitting tribute to all us little geeks who spent collective years in our rooms trying to think of things to make with those magical pieces of plastic."

And what better tribute to a favorite movie than…well, a LEGO-ized version of it, Daniel Brown has found. He writes "I can't quit you, Lego" at the top of his plastic tribute to LEGO Brokeback Mountain. BottleImp also created his own display, though more practical than Daniels. The photos on his blog show a Lego firetruck, firehouse, and an equipment room.

But perhaps Obilog sums up the LEGO displays best. "Very cool indeed!!," he writes.