If you’ve been around the blogosphere for awhile, then you’ve probably heard of Michael Arrington at some point. He writes for a site called TechCrunch and he has seemingly appointed himself supreme overseer of the blogging world. At least that’s how he comes off to a casual observer like me.

In his latest post, Arrington takes the time to bash rockstartup.com, PayPerPost’s latest venture. For some reason, Arrington thinks that PayPerPost’s business model is “ethically-challenged” and has made no secret of the fact that he would like to see PPP fail.

Frankly, I don’t understand what Arrington’s problem with PPP is. I’m not sure why he thinks it’s a bad idea for people to get paid for expressing an opinion. He has brought up the disclosure issue in the past, but still wasn’t satisfied after PPP launched DisclosurePolicy.org. What will it take to make him shut up about PPP already? He’s made his position known; why can’t he just move on?

Sheesh.

I didn’t catch either the live webcast or the SpeedTV broadcast, but after reading some race reports, it sounds like the Toronto Supercross was a pretty wild event! James Stewart’s wild riding (landing on Ivan Tedesco in practice, re-entering the track right in Travis Preston’s path) earned him not one, but TWO protests. Both Tedesco and Preston filed protests with the sanctioning body of the event, but we’ll have to stay tuned to see how those turn out.

As for the racing part, Chad Reed won in his first race for his new team. Ricky Carmichael overcame an early mistake to finish second, and Stewart managed to cross the line in third before falling over in pain from an apparent leg injury that might have been sustained during his get-together with Preston.

Here’s how the Supercross class finished:

Chad Reed, Yamaha
Ricky Carmichael, Suzuki
James Stewart, Kawasaki
Tim Ferry, Kawasaki
David Vuillemin, Honda
Nick Wey, Honda
Ryan Clark, Honda
Paul Carpenter, Kawasaki
Heath Voss, Honda
Jeff Gibson, Kawasaki

And the Supercross Lites class:

Martin Davalos, KTM
Broc Tickle, Yamaha
Zach Osborne, KTM
Michael Willard, KTM
Troy Adams, Suzuki
Tyler Medaglia, Suzuki
William Ainsworth, Kawasaki
Robert Marshall, Kawasaki
Benjamin Ritter, Kawasaki
Logan Martin, Honda

Like most people, I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff over the years. While I wouldn’t exactly call myself a pack rat, I do have trouble letting go of things and throwing them away. After all, I paid good money for these items and might need them at some point in the future. But since I don’t like clutter, I have to find a solution to this problem — and quickly!

The only logical answer I came up with was to find a self storage company in my area. I visited moving.bz and searched their database to come up with a list of suitable storage units. All I had to do was click on my state, select my city, and then browse through the results. I got instant quotes and even found out about a great discount on a storage facility right near my home.

Moving.bz made it very easy for me to compare storage options and find a convenient, inexpensive solution to my problem. I wish I had used this site a long time ago!

As most of you know, I watch the FOX drama Prison Break regularly. I just read that Lane Garrison, better known to PB fans as Tweener, was in a car crash that left one person dead. This AP report that appeared on Yahoo isn’t too clear on the details, but it sounds like all four people involved in the crash were riding in the same car. It’s uncertain at this point whether Garrison was driving or not.

It’s interesting that the other three people in the car were all underage. The boy who died was 17, and the two girls were both 15. Garrison is 26. I wonder what that’s all about?

My husband and I got married in Hawaii six years ago, and it was a better experience than I ever could have imagined. I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of planning everything by myself, so I hired a company to organize the event for me. The company set me up with a person who specialized in Maui weddings and she took care of every last detail for us. I didn’t have to worry about anything at all and the whole day was just perfect! Plus, we were in one of the most romantic places in the world for our honeymoon!

If you’re planning to get married soon, why not try a Hawaii wedding? They’re stress-free and far more affordable than you think. Take it from someone who’s been there, done that!

I have mixed feelings about the Bears’ 23-13 victory over the Vikings today. First of all, I’m of course excited that the team has clinched their second consecutive NFC North title. They do so with four games left, which should give their banged up starters plenty of time to rest and recuperate in order to be at 100 percent for the playoffs.

On the other hand, the win leaves me very worried about the team’s chances to make it to the Super Bowl because once again, the Rex Grossman-led offense looked just terrible. How bad was it? Just take a look at the numbers. The Bears only made 6 first downs on the day. Yes, just SIX. Then, the team mustered a minuscule 107 yards of total offense. How pathetic is that??? But the worst stats of the game belong to Grossman alone. He was 6-of-19 for 34 yards and 3 interceptions, for a passer rating of… 1.3!! This from a guy who was second to Peyton Manning in passer rating at the beginning of the season. Remember his four-touchdown performance against Detroit in Week 2? Where is that Rex Grossman???

Something has got to change in order for the Bears to win a playoff game. They can’t count on their defense and special teams alone to get it done. The offense, and more specifically, the quarterback, must improve drastically before then.

(Photo credit: AP/Nam Y. Huh)

Anyone who has been keeping up with the latest developments via the PayPerPost blog or PPP Forums knows that Ted Murphy’s RockStartup idea has been in the works for awhile now. Basically, RockStartup is a reality TV show type deal that will give viewers a rare behind-the-scenes look at how a Web 2.0 company gets off the ground. Of course, since the show features PPP employees, posties, and other random people, you never quite know what you’re going to get!

The first two episodes are now up on the RockStartup.com website for everyone to take a look at. I thought these were fantastic and I’m really excited to see what other kind of HD content the team will be uploading in the near future! These first episodes dealt with Ted and Britt’s trip to New York to secure funding from venture capitalists (to the tune of $3 million) and their adventures at a trade show. The second episode dealt with their appearance at The Today Show, where they promoted PPP to the people waiting in line to see the show or whatever. I’d heard about these adventures, so it was great to see how things really played out.

From what I’ve seen so far, I believe the RockStartup.com concept is going to be a hit! Ted and his team are fun to watch and it’s interesting to see all they’re doing to make their business work. I’ll definitely keep checking back at RockStartup.com for new episodes. And who knows? As a postie, I just might be in one of those episodes in the future….

Tom Brady of the Patriots is my favorite non-Chicago athlete. I even have a #12 jersey that I wear whenever I watch nationally televised Patriots games (like Monday Night Football). But as much as I love Tom, I would never in a million years have gone so far as to put together this video of him. I found out about the video in this week’s Sports Guy column, and thought it was one of the funniest I’ve ever seen. If you read through the comments, you’ll see that people are pretty divided as to whether or not this was intended as a spoof or meant to be a serious tribute. God, I hope the guy was joking!!!

Check it out for yourself and see what you think. The lyrics are soooo funny!