Nonsensor.

Between bottles of cough medicine, I've managed to get some work done. One of those projects has been expanding my knowledge of Blogsmith's galleries features. They were created almost especially for TMZ, but have since been rolled out to popular Weblogs, Inc. sites like Engadget, Autoblog, and WoW Insider. Current galleries are fairly simple, so I'm trying to see where we can go with them. Have a look at my portfolio and witness me pimping while simultaneously witnessing Blogsmith galleries.

About a week ago, the blogosphere exploded when "news" came out of Blogsmith going out to the public. It might be the first time I could search for "Blogsmith" on Technorati and not get a bunch of results from people I already know.

By now, most people have (hopefully) read Brian's response, which is basically "news to me." He also cited this post wherein Duncan Riley called it a "Jason Calacanis designed blogging platform." The comments there are a good read. Knowing peoples' usual reaction to Brian's quips, everyone's scrambling to find evidence of his secret plans for a Craigslist killer.

Anyway, all speculation of a consumer-oriented Blogsmith aside, the original article somehow got the logo off the corner of our current CMS. That means two things:

1. Someone tipped them from the inside, regardless of accuracy.
2. We need a better version out there since I'm fairly pleased with how it came out.

You might be wondering where the hell this came from. It actually took a fairly odd path from futurism (for some reason, something made me think Soviet propaganda posters) into art deco. But the primary goal was to stand out from Web 2.0. There are no reflections, no glossy Apple surface, and no rounded letters. Futura, baby. It's retro time.

Let me know the first thing that comes to mind when you hear:

• pumas
• robe-donning
• fireworks
• five-legged goats
• fast-moving chicken fingers
• blogsmith updates
• Doodlebops on the elevator and mice in the sheets

It must be CodeJame Puma. Unhinged. These past two codejams have been a little on the twitchy side. Not much recreation. And I thought this was the happiest place on earth. To be fair, there were constant fireworks, and quite the amazing rainbow... and we did get to go on these little awesome boats.

Oh wait. No we didn't. I just thought we were gonna because Gavin promised.

Good things:

• Doodlebops?
• California Grill
• Wazzabi
• Fran
• Colors in the CMS -- finally
• The porch
• monorails
• bash.org
• pumas, pumas, pumas

Not as good things:

• Delayed launch
• Crazed media tab
• Brian sick
• Airplanes
• No boats. Not even a little. Not even go-karts. I don't think Gavin and Celly realize how much they take the sun in November for granted. I'm more than likely going home to snow now.
  

So I guess it evens out. Except for the part about the boats. Look for those updates to launch soon. I'm using the "alpha" version now, and it's a far more pleasant blogging experience.

Gavin's a lucky guy, he gets to spend his birthday not just with me, but a room full of the Blogsmith team plus something like 27 other people.

We're split between the Portofino (Gavin and Alex's room and our "office") and the Hard Rock, both at Universal. Pretty nice, a little bit Vegas-y, and definitely the biggest room we've been in for any Blogsmith trip. Then again, it's the most people ever involved in any trip.

The first major result of this? Engadget and some other sites (soon to be all) are now readable on phones and other mobile devices. If you use a PSP or a Sidekick, or one of a few other sundry devices that answer as desktops for some reason, you can manually point your browser to m.sitename.com. Most of the bugs should be ironed out soon.

Things are starting to feel a little like normal again. My parents will be gone again in a couple days, I haven't spent any time planning major events for a week, and 5 people didn't show up to cook lasagna for 200 in my 7x9 kitchen today. The worst part of everything wasn't the wedding, the trip, or the reception, but the fact that some kind of cosmic alignment created the most incredible workload at the exact same time. I had to add those HP Lovecraft italics just to show the horror of it all. The addition of TMZ.com to our platform really pushed the limits of Blogsmith, and of Blogsmith's developers. Now it's mostly taken care of, and I'm back to launching a backlog of new blogs for Weblogs, Inc. Expect the sidebar to start filling up soon.

So how was it? It was great. I would not do everything exactly the same again, though. I loved the DIY aspect of everything we did. It all came off very well, and people accepted the nontraditional aspect much better than I thought some would. But the scope of it was perhaps a bit much considering that DIY aspect. Nearly 150 people in a yard, dubious power supply, the threat of rain (that fortunately never delivered), the mother of the bride doing a bunch of cooking, and a groom turned sound man all added up to a situation where we were left wishing we could hang out with people a little more.

"Hey, thanks for driving 8 hours to get here. See you in 3 years!" Then again, I think everyone deals with that at their wedding reception.

Either way, if you ever want to do a destination wedding (don't bring 10 people), a DIY reception, or both, ask me. I'm now the world's authority on the subject.

To make sure readers were up to the minute on Engadget's coverage of CES, we made a special page with all the applicable headlines flying by. This year for E3, Joystiq gets even better treatment.