It's not that Alex's apartment isn't nice (it's actually very nice, with a great view of many other condos), but it's no Grand Floridian. Thankfully, the Blogsmith clan seems to thrive in reduced space and comfort. And we've done our best work since the days of the White Plains Code Crunches. I'm confident that we've yet again revolutionized the blogosphere in a way that unfortunately only a relative few will ever get to benefit from. Suffice to say that graphic designers/html guys have never had it so good for building blogs. You can thank me later, Matt.

What else happened over the week?

• I managed to sit next to both Sir Richard Attenborough and an unnamed member of Lynyrd Skynyrd on the plane ride back. I also was on two flights that took off and arrived pretty much on time. This might be a first.
  
• I played a Wii. Now I really want one. (Did you see me resist the temptation to say "I played with Alex's Wii?")
  
• We provided a textbook case of our work process for Alex to document for his talk at the AOL developers' conference this week.
• Gavin managed to perform his new managerial duties while still getting a bit of slick code written.
• I met Celly's fiancee and Gavin's new lady friend as well.
  
• We got to hang out with Brian on the first day of him being someone else's boss.
  
• I got a great idea for starting a business by ripping off drunks and letting them pretend to understand/enjoy wine (annoying flash site warning. To sum up, dispense single ounces of wine for 10% of the price of a bottle, enjoy your profit).

Oh, and I started refining my new startup idea. I can't wait to tell everyone!

Wah Waaah wa wa wa wa Wahh. Yep, everyone sounds like the adults on Charlie Brown cartoons when your inner ear is full of fluid. Probably a magnified effect when your eardrum is somewhat perforated. That's the story I heard from the doctor today, after returning (by 36-hour train ride, mind you, to avoid further pressure-related damage) from my lovely trip to Orlando in which the descent on the airplane swallowed my soul. I guess at least I escaped the coldest week we've had since the dawn of time here. And with the ear problems, I could sit in the same room with Celly and only hear half of what he said! I jest, Celly, I jest. Not really, but at least I was ignoring Alex the whole time too. And I could blame my bad attitude on pain and reaction to decongestants.

So after two weeks of taking these giant antibiotic horse pills that could easily wound a chihuahua (I got home and there was one in my house, for real... I'd test my theory but he's kinda cute), I'm going to see an Ear Nose and Throat guy who's either going to tell me I'm fine or that I need tubes in my ears. It's gonna be a great couple weeks!

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.