I've gotta be honest. I'm burnt out and I'm just overwhelmed lately with what's going on. I have 700 emails waiting for me with new ones coming every minute or so. I am behind on my Channel 9 tasks. I haven't been paying attention much to Maryam. I have an exercise machine staring at me that I need to assemble and start working on. I'm giving a talk this weekend that I haven't prepared for. So much has happened so quickly to me that I just need to unplug a bit, and get caught up with the rest of life.

So, I'm gonna try to unplug all my blogs for a few days. Hope you don't mind. That should give you some time to go through the link blog, find some new bloggers that you like, and subscribe to their feeds.

On the plane last night I was reading feeds and it's just amazing at the interesting ideas that are cooking around the blogosphere right now. Oh, my boss moved his blog to a new home and my partner in crime, Charles Torre (or his alter-ego Carmine), continues doing excellent blogging.

I met with Ben and Mena at Demo (they were working in the lobby at 1 a.m. -- ahh, the unglamorous life of a startup -- their CEO, Barak, was there too). They just redesigned the Six Apart Website. Looks really great. Why don't you start a blog? Heck, leave your URL here in the comments on this post.

I'm struggling to find a way to say thanks to everyone. You have no idea what you've done for my life. All of you. I'm having experiences right now that are just over the top.

The downside of all of this is you forget to live life. You know, take a walk and smell the flowers. Blogging is quite addictive.

See ya on the other side!

Oh, one last post, on Thursday night we're doing a geek dinner in Bellevue at the Crossroads. 6 p.m. Famous guest? Jeremy Wright. And a few other geeks.

Hi Blake Ross (and Asa and others on the Firefox team): Congrats on hitting 25,000,000 downloads of Firefox. You did what few people have done: you changed the world and got people to download and install your application.

At Demo yesterday I saw Firefox all over the place. I saw far far far more Firefox icons than I saw Linux or Macintosh icons.

In just a few months your app has become one of the most used Windows applications in the world. My hat's off to you!

If I had a company at Demo here's what I'd be doing right now. I'd be doing anything I could to get bloggers to try out my product. Here's how to pitch me -- just start a blog. Link to me. Use my last name. And then write something like:

Hey, Robert Scoble, I see you were at Demo. Did you check out our product (name the product here) while you were there? We'd love to improve it with your help. Got any suggestions? If you missed it, our product does (put a 25-word description or less here).

Now, do that for five of your favorite bloggers. Need help finding five bloggers? Read my link blog. I put more than 180 items up there in just the past few hours alone.

You might even start a blog just for this purpose. It'd work. Why? Because of PubSub. And referer links.

Don't want to start your own blog? Well, try the standard old way of just sending email (although that isn't going to work as well anymore because I just get too much email).

Of course, I didn't tell you the real secret. Just tell Buzz Bruggeman about your product. He knows everyone (seriously, why do you think they call it "getting buzz?") and if you can convince him that your product is the next best thing he'll get you the attention you deserve.

Someone emailed me yesterday and asked "how do I get invited to do a demo at Demo?" Seriously: get Buzz to see your product. He knows everyone in the industry. Important or unimportant. I've been watching Buzz work conferences for five years now and he's the best in the business. No one is even close.

Oh, and Chris Shipley listens to him. So there.

Five bloggers is all it takes to spark something. If the first five don't work out, try another five. In fact, pitch five bloggers a day every day for the first month after Demo.

"But don't bloggers get mad at getting pitched?" Yes, if it's done in a non-clueful way. But, demonstrate you read our blogs and that you have something of value for our readers. Keep your message short and conversational. Don't expect us to talk about you. Just present it as something that we might be interested in. Keep it to a paragraph. Include a note that demonstrates that you aren't scripting this to 1,000 bloggers (we do compare with other bloggers behind the scenes, by the way). Offer your phone number, your email, and include a link to the URL. It is appreciated if you have your own blog. That tells us you're serious about this new world. Plus, we can subscribe to your RSS feed if you do that.

James Governor, talking about Microsoft's Linux guys, says "get these guys to blog."

Oh, I don't want anyone else to blog. Why not? Well, I don't want anyone else to understand the relationship-building power of blogs.

Go ahead, Martin Taylor and Jason Matusow, ignore this little fad. Don't start a blog.

Hey, did anyone notice the 400 comments left over on the IE Blog yesterday?

Nah, don't start a conversation. Why would someone want to do that? Heh!