Fellow gators (and hopefully any college football fan) might enjoy this little tidbit from Monday night’s Gainesville debauchery. This has got to be the best damn little city in the world.

After a long, long night of reveling in the glory of the Gators’ miraculous win against Ohio State, I opened my Web browser and was a little troubled.

I am long-time CNN watcher for my news. I have their Web site as my homepage so I can browse the day’s headlines before whatever surfing (or shameless Facebooking) that I do. But that may change real soon.

This morning amid their “Latest News” links I found out that Hilary Swank officially confirmed a rumored relationship. So glad she clarified that. I read that celeb socialite Paris Hilton pleaded not guilty to her DUI charge. Thank goodness that’s settled. And in case you follow celebrity real estate, you may be interested that Suzanne Somers’ Malibu house won’t be going on the market any time soon. It caught on fire yesterday.

These three stories were not categorized among the headlines and were listed among stories about terrorism, politicians and international conflict; stories that undoubtedly belonged where they were.

Granted not everyone in this country is concerned with which university’s football team reigns at the top for the year, but surely the outcome of the National Championship college football game ranks higher on the news priority list than Hilary Swank’s newest love affair! Am I alone in my feelings on this? If CNN was a newspaper, would front-page photos of Chris Leak hoisting that beautiful crystal football be replaced with pictures of Paris Hilton? Seems like CNN could be the next big celebrity tabloid.

Old Projects

The Fall 06 semester has delightfully come to a close! Our final Web projects were turned in about two weeks ago and it looks like everyone came really far with their design skills. As I mentioned before, there were a lot of things I wish I could have added to or improved on, but that would have been difficult considering the other classes I needed to focus on as well. Bring it on Spring!

New Projects

A gentleman I work with on campus recently inherited the Web site of an area lake association that he belongs to. Sadly, the previous owner passed it on in a severe state of disorganization and chaos. With limited knowledge of Web design and knowing that my friend Christie and I just finished our Communicating on the Net course, he’s adopted our help. We’re not great, but we don’t charge anything . If you stumble upon this and check out the link, Gary is looking for any type of comments or opinions of what would look best/most professional for a lake association Web site. They have many members who use the site as a resource in their legal battle against Florida mining businesses to save their beloved lakes. As a beginner in this area, my question is basically what should set organizations’ Web sites apart from, say, a small business or a law firm or something of that nature? Are there industry standards for this sort of thing, or does anything go? There’s no doubt the site needs work, as Gary acknowledges, but at this point it seems that starting from scratch might work best to achieve a professional look.

Final exams and projects have temporarily taken over my life! First on the list of priorities is my final web project for Communicating on the Internet. I’m creating a webpage/news story about the nation’s recent fight against trans-fats in the average American diet. With more time and resources, I would have loved to include a video interview with a nutritionist on campus. I think I’ll be lucky to get some good audio to use. Whatever the outcome, I’ll post the link to all the student projects for whoever may be interested. Until then, it’s back to the Dreamweaver drawing board.

Bloggers can now accept their press passes with pride. CNN is hosting an election night blogger party for notable political bloggers to gather with their laptops and keep track of pour-ins from the polls. While most large news organizations do have an election 2006 blog of some kind, CNN’s blog party shines the spotlight on independent bloggers and recognizes them as a bona fide media group. It will be interesting to see who follows suit.