I’ve been procrastinating all day, and here it is, Saturday night!  I know everyone is eagerly awaiting today’s update, so here’s some new blogs that were added to the blogroll this week.  It’s fun watching the community grow…

help people to pc – A blog for people who are not tech savvy to learn more about computers

George’s Wonder Blog – A mostly tech-stuff blog.

The SIMS Agency – definining internet strategy

The Savage Report – This one looks like a combination of political and technology news.  What they lack in a catchy tagline, is more than made up for with a cool logo.

Nonprofit Technology – Some great technology tips, geared toward nonprofit organizations.

The Charleston Observer – THE CHARLESTON OBSERVER looks at cultural sites and events that may be of interest to tourists as well as residents.

The Wedding Invitation Ideas Blog – I think the name says it all.

Rantings of a Young Entrepeneur – This is a nascent blog, but it certainly has piqued my interest already.  She dreams big, and I’m rooting for her.

Copy Doodle – This one HANDS DOWN wins the best blog title award, in my mind.

Outplacement and Career Transition – Corporate assistance with outplacement initiatives and award winning, expert career advice for candidates.

Sheer Dumb Luck and Brown Mascara – A lethal combination.  This one gave Copy Doodle a run for its money.

That’s right, it’s officially square root day, 3/3/09.  I’m a big fan of obscure math nerd holidays, so thanks to Sherry for calling it out!

Maybe the holiday season has something to do with the continuing strange weather.  On one blog, I’m looking at a gallery of snow pictures, and on the next, I’m being told that we’re going to see weather in the 70s and even 80s over the next week.  But of course, there’s a catch:

The models indicate yet another surge of cold air coming our way by the middle of the month. Could it snow again? Hmmmmmm

Fuzzco has a cartoon that points out that the future’s not always quite what you expect.

The first report I’ve seen on the DTV switch comes in, and it’s not a glowing review:

Over the weekend when I was sick I was flicking the channels like I normally do and ended up with some black channels. Now I’ve known a few to go out due to weather and you get snow but these were solid black with either a “No Signal, Poor Signal, or Unstable Signal”. Are you kidding me?

The cut company will be helping create the 2009 Green Fair

The second annual Green Fair will be a big, 4-day event centered around Marion Square in downtown Charleston, SC, including some of the years most exciting opportunities to learn about and network with sustainable companies and industry leaders.

The Food and Wine Festival is coming up this weekend, and Fish is going to have a 100-mile dinner:

It’s a local experience, kids. Meaning, everything you eat will have traveled less than 100 miles from our fine local producers to your plate. Even more fun, some of our local producers, like Rita Bachmann and Mark Marhefka, will be on-hand to mix and mingle.

Last, but certainly not least, I found another runner on the blogroll.  I know there are more of you out there!  The Lowcountry Bloggers will be entering the team competition.  I think we just hit the 6 member point for our team, but I believe there is a 10 member team category, so if we get interest from enough people, I’d love to expand the team.  There might be free T-shirts in it for you!

Well, the weather over the past few days has ranged from beautiful on Friday, to rainy most of the weekend, to possibly snowing tonight.  Weather only the turtles could enjoy.  Fortunately that has not stopped local bloggers from getting out and meeting-up!

Thursday Night was the Lowcountry Bloggers and Tweeters Meetup at the Glass Onion.  Attendance was great, 20+ people.  It was a blast, and I was glad to see quite a few writeups:

Heather seems pretty happy with her meal.

Eugene took some great pictures, as usual.

I am quite jealous that I didn’t try the fresh lemonade, Heidi did, and gives it the thumbs up.

James has some great thoughts on the way these meetups have impacted his world.

Thanks to Twitter and blogging I have met folks like Heather Solos, Don Lewis , Jared Smith and others which means that my social network has slowly but surely been expanding. Just like the Star Trek intro says “Going boldly into strange new worlds”, Just today I spent some time on Vox looking for other Lowcountry bloggers and added them to my neighborhood. One of them I actually know through the LowCountry Bloggers group and one of them I did not. The cool thing is that we all have something to contribute not only to the blogosphere but also to one another.

Friday night was a Lowcountry BBQ meetup at JB’s Smokeshack.  I really need to get myself to one of these.

Eugene reports in that the food was worth the trip:

The buffet comes in two sections, and it’s hard not to make at least two trips up to the buffet. Everything is drool-inducing good. At $8 ($11 for dinner), it’s tough to find a deal like this that’s much better.

Saturday night some bloggers got together and caught some Rays (yes, I believe the pun is intended), at the Stingrays Hockey Game meetup.

Jared hit the trifecta this weekend, and is thinking about going for the world record.  By my count, he may have some stiff competition from Eugene, who also shows up in pictures from all three events.

It really is fantastic to see so much enthusiasm and activity in the Lowcountry Blogosphere.

And in other news, Heather’s Home-Ec 101 blog hit a big milestone this weekend.  Congratulations Heather!

News highlights from the past week, courtesy of the folks at TheDigitel:

TheDigitel is a Charleston-only news source that’s updated throughout the day. We put an emphasis on interesting local content, clean design, and connecting you with the most interesting content, even if we didn’t write it.

If you haven’t heard, we’ve also started producing a weekly podcast, The DigiCast. Each week we have a local guest speaker and run down the most interesting stories, and what’s coming up. We record from a different location in the metro area each week. Go check it out.

Well, I knew I had to link to this post by Tom, even if only so that I could use “Cud Chewing Antelope of Doom” in my title.

The Monotonous Life is the first to weigh with thougts on the Oscars for those of us who missed it.  (coded message to SA, yes “Slumdog Millionaire” was that good, go see it!)

Mardi Gras is almost here, and Hugging the Coast has some great recipes to celebrate in style.  They already celebrated this past weekend down on Folly Beach, and the folks at No Popouts had a little fun with the festival goers who wandered in.

If you thought it was a bit chilly this weekend, just be glad you weren’t the model in this photo shoot by Leigh Webber Photography this weekend.  I can’t believe they pulled off seeming like it was the middle of the summer:

Luckily, our model Jessica is a real trooper and braved the cold Arctic blasts of air you get out on the Charleston Harbor on a day like this. We had blankets and hot coffee on hand, but I can’t imagine how tough it was to look happy and relaxed for the photos, while shivering to death inside.

Katie posts her latest homework assignment from her Broadcast Class, a report on the Halsey Institute’s recent photo exhibit.

Eugene is experimenting with graphical representations of his Facebook network.

To reward those of you who read all the way to the end, I’ll leave you with Guiness Cupcakes!

In the Exciting News category, we’ve got some meetups coming next week.

Steve is organizing a group trip to the Stingray’s hockey game.  I think he needs a headcount by tonight to purchase tickets, so go RSVP.

We’ll also be doing a meetup next Thursday, the 26th at 6pm at The Glass Onion in West Ashley.  It’s one of my favorite restaurants, and should be a great time.  RSVP on the Facebook invite so we can get a headcount.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled roundup:

Go Green Charleston calls out that tomorrow morning will be the MESSA 8K run for H20.  It’s not too late to sign up.

Upper King will be doing the tango:

In conjuntion with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra and McCradys Charleston Pops performance, Neuvo Tango with Pablo Ziegler on February 21st, you can tango down King Street! Many of the stores and restaurants of Upper King Design District feature dancers from Lunatango and some great Tango music.

Jason is stimulating the economy by giving away free music.

Fuzzco wants you to upgrade your browser.

Last but not least, Park West Palazzo sees some echoes of the Scopes trial in the recent ruling on the illegal poker game in Mt. Pleasant.

Now have a great weekend, boys and girls!

Jared notes that after the uproar about Facebook’s new TOS, they’ve taken a step back.

Chris at BlueIon introduces us to TinyChat, a new communication app:

We tested it out internally and it was dead-simple. I’m sure there are a million uses for this type of service, built on the continuing trend of “micro-apps” like Twitter or TinyURL (both of which have yet to figure out how to make any money).

Chuck is learning about the different options for free classified ads, comparing the features and their effectiveness:

My observation so far: the newspaper has a definable local audience with circulation numbers while online is an unknown number of unknown ages/incomes people. Combining the best of each makes for a good marketplace.

Eugene speculates on what the end of PalmOS means for him.

Dan takes an irreverent look at some Charleston traditions.

Not sure what to think of this, but apparently Kid Rock is getting into the beer business.

I really enjoyed my last picture-roundup, so I think I’ll do another.  I’m actually thinking it might be fun to do a bi-weekly picture contest or something.  Just an idea, leave some feedback in the comments if you think that might be fun.
Chuckles from TheRooster Gallery is playing with his new Photoshop CS4 install:

Next we have Audobon South Carolina promoting the Great Backyard Bird Count:

The Microbial Laboratory always comes through with some gorgeous flower pictures, even when she’s feeling down:

Nikki uses some pictures to emphasize some of the arguments in her Love-Hate relationship with biking.

Chad takes another great picture at Palmetto Island County Park:

And of course I can’t do a photo roundup without including something from Joan at Charleston Daily Photo.  She even tells jokes.

The big topic for local bloggers right now is President Obama’s stimulus bill, and the economy in general.  There is a wide range of viewpoints.

There are some, like the OldController, who think that the stimulus program will do more harm than good.

Francis thinks that we need to move forward with the bill, and that arguments over the details are akin to throwing the baby out with the bath water.

James shares his thoughts on the presidential news conference.  Among other things, he thinks that greed is a big part of the problem:

How many of us Americans are willing to admit that we too are part of the big picture with regards to being greedy?

Most Americans, including those whom we label as poor are richer than most folks in a third world country. It is a crying shame that the richest nation in the world has a growing population of homeless people which some of them are actually veterans of foreign wars. How long will we pursue our capitalistic entitlements at the expense of others around us?

In the Land of Ozz, there is agreement with that sentiment:

I believe that the root of the entire economic meltdown is rooted in greed and no amount of government programs, tax cuts, or funny money from Washington with fix that root cause. A lot of people and businesses are going to have to feel some real pain before this problem goes away.

Jack wonders whether or not the stimulus bill will deserve the credit if the economy does improve.

Not everyone is focused on the macro economic picture.  Some people are staying focused on the day to day. At the Food and Wine festival, there will be a session focused on managing a restaurant in this downturn.

Andra at Positus Consulting gives us some tips for staying positive:

It’s everywhere. Doom and gloom is the new vogue. Well, you know what, people? I’m SICK of it.
Expecting bad results, poor performance and negative outcomes usually lead to…..bad results, poor performance and negative outcomes. Banding together to promote a positive flow of information could be just the ticket to counter all the yuckiness we’re bombarded with at every turn.

There are a lot of political topics turning up in the local blogosphere.

ThinkSouth talks about some of the debate over the Economic Stimulus bill.

David discusses his opinion on the idea of capping executive pay.

Steve has thoughts on the tax troubles of Obama appointees.

The DTV switch has been delayed at a Federal level, but local news stations are thinking about switching anyway.

The Go To Team made a promotional video about Charleston, that can be viewed on their site.

There was a Lowcountry BBQ “Meatup” yesterday.  Looks like quite a few bloggers showed up.  Eugene has a great writeup here.  Ian posted some pictures.  The folks at The Digitel even did their weekly podcast live from the Momma Brown’s.

Jeff has a great post pondering the point of blogging.  It is serious in places and whimsical in others:

Some of that increase in traffic was due to people finding my blog by using some very odd search terms, including “bear grylls eats sheep eyeball,” “bee ice cream,” “skip snodrass,” “would a bear eat a bat,” and most recently “miss america man hands.” The one that worries me the most, however, is “easy job for someone stupid.” Like all the other examples, I know why those search terms brought them to my blog, but I have to wonder which business out there hired the person who performed that search.

Girls about Charlestowne are going to learn about investing.

That’s it for today!