Every once in a while I see some rather strange things in my referer logs. For instance, why did I get three hits from a search for "Beth Goza and Scoble" on Google? Is someone trying to place us together? Start some rumors? Hmmm. Maybe Andrew over at the Register is looking for an angle to go after me.

Kalsey Consulting Group says "I’d guess that more people learned of NEC’s Tablet PC from Robert Scoble’s blog than from any official NEC marketing channel."

Well, hopefully the ads that are running in major magazines are reaching a few more people than my 16 readers.

Loren says "People are still learning about Tablet PCs and aren't sure of their value." (His report on taking a Tablet to the recent Visual Studio launch event).

A friend just told me "actually, the Web traffic at The Register is probably 100,000 times what yours is." What, you trying to make me feel bad?

I really hate pointing to the win_tech_off_topic Yahoo group, since it's one of my favorite mailing lists, and I really don't want people to figure out there's some good stuff to learn there, but I gotta point to it today.

For the past 24 hours people have been writing in and telling what kind of pathetic systems their bosses are making them work on. You know, developers are probably people who are getting paid $60,000 to $300,000 a year. Why would you want to pay someone that much money and force them to work on a three-year-old PIII/750MHz machine with only 250MB of RAM and a small screen?

You know, you can make your developers happier AND more productive by buying them better machines.

But, I doubt your boss reads this weblog anyway. He's probably over at the Register and laughing at all the webloggers.

Oh, oh, Michael O'Connor Clarke asks "I'm wondering what you would make of a Senior VP at the world's largest PR agency who is also a frothing-at-the-mouth advocate for blogging and an active blogger?"

Then he goes on on his own weblog in a rant titled "Giving PR a Bad Name ;-)."

Ahh, but Michael, Andrew over at the Register says that blogs aren't the answer and that he has 100 times as many readers as any weblogger has. Plus, we're all cultists and groupthinkers.

Help me, I've only got 16 readers and I can't think for myself. Noooo....

Yes, I really am trying to avoid the drudge work of packing my house up.

Someone asked me yesterday "how do you stop a flame?" I told her to use self-deprecating humor. I haven't found a flamer yet that it doesn't work with. What's that? Did Andy at the Register call me a wacko weblogger? Why, yes, Andy, I'm even worse than that.

See, how can you keep calling someone names, when they just call themselves even worse names? Flamers get tired of that.

Hey, Andy, webloggers are worse than just clueless, self-aggrandizing, full-o-hype, religious, cultist, lamo, ego-centric, rantings. Well, at least mine is. Maybe that's why Andy hasn't picked on me yet. Or, maybe cause I don't have a picture of me hanging out with the French Prime Minister.

Ahh, back to packing...

InteractionLaw: "Microsoft risks copyright impotence.

The Terminator hype is starting up, this time with a new DVD set that includes ultra-high resolution video in Windows Media 9 format. So says Sean Alexander.

Oh, I am no longer an NEC employee. Now I gotta move to Seattle.

The world has changed. Andrew over at the Register has attacked Joi. Now Joi answers back. What changed here? Well, in the old world, Joi would have had to convince a newspaper to run his letter to the editor and we would never have seen a conversation like this one happen. Today I trust Joi even more than I did before today. Why? Because he proved he can take searing criticism professionally. To me, that's real important.

"Big pubs" like The Register are still important -- and will remain so, they have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of readers -- but now we get to answer back the claims of journalists personally. That's a sea change. Thanks to vendors like UserLand and Six Apart and Pyra for making it happen!