We get to see a half-dozen shows per year for free at the Huntington Theater by volunteering to usher. We show up early, stuff programs, help people find their seats. When the lights go down, we find seats ourselves and enjoy the show.

It’s a great deal for everyone. The nonprofit Huntington Theater doesn’t have to hire ushers, and members of the community can see shows they otherwise wouldn’t be able to see.

We volunteer through Boston Cares, though you can also volunteer directly with the Huntington Theater.

A. and I saw The Gem of the Ocean last night at the Huntington Theater. Phylicia Rashad is starring in the play’s last stop before Broadway.

For the seventh time, Huntington audiences will explore the soaring language and emotional power of two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner August Wilson with a new play before it heads to Broadway. In Gem of the Ocean master storyteller August Wilson brings us the first installment of his decade-by-decade chronicle of the African-American experience. Set in 1904 when slavery is still a living memory, Citizen Barlow arrives at the home of Aunt Ester in search of spiritual redemption. At 285 years of age, Aunt Ester is not too old to heal, and she guides him on a soaring, lyrical journey to the City of Bones.

It’s among the best of the shows I’ve seen at the Huntington, though incredibly long — going to a three-hour show on a school-night is not the smartest thing I’ve ever done.

Today is the first birthday for Curt Rosengren’s routinely excellent Occupational Adventure blog, which I’ve been reading almost since it started.

I first wrote about his blog for the Globe, seeing it as a valuable resource for BostonWorks job seekers. It’s also one of the first reads in my aggregator each morning.

Congratulations, Curt.

Ok, so we’re going to try to be informed voters, so A. and I are actually going to watch all the debates, starting tonight.

Just to get started, here at the top 10 secrets they don’t want you to know about the debates.

(10.) They aren’t debates!

“A debate is a head-to-head, spontaneous, structured argument over the merits of an issue,” Rice says. “Under the ridiculous 32-page contract that reads like the rules for the Miss America Pageant, there will be no candidate-to-candidate questions, no rebuttal to your opponent’s points, no cross questions or cross answers, no rebuttals, no follow-up questions — that’s not a debate, that’s a news conference.”

Jay Rosen reports that more and more professional journalists are eschewing the spinmeisters and watching the debate from home.

Managing the board so you can manage your business.

Good interview with eBay’s user experience chief.

What is today’s legacy?

I’ve been reading Merlin Mann’s blog on 43 folders for the past few weeks. He’s another person who’s a Getting Things Done devotee as well as a Mac guy. I’ve found all sorts of interesting things through his site and blog.

I read with interest the guest blog posting by Good Experience’s Mark Hurst, reviewing TypeIt4Me. (Other random linkage, Phil Terry, Good Experience’s CEO, is a fellow former PlanetAll guy).

I downloaded TypeIt4Me and I’m just blown away. It’s a smart text expander — you define a short piece of text and it automatically replaces it with a longer one.

It’s incredibly handy. I was looking at it and I found out it can do smart datestamps, so I defined “ds” as inserting a datestamp. I track everything through Tinderbox, and I’m constantly typing in the datestamps as I’m taking notes while working on my various projects. This little feature just saved me a minimum of 15 minutes every single day.

I also just defined a quicky Amazon one in which I define “amzn” as “http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos /ASIN/{ASIN}/jpbutlercom-20/” so that I don’t have to rewrite the long ugly URL string each time I want to point to a book on Amazon. Another few minutes each week saved.

When you come across software which so easily and elegantly solves a problem you have, you almost want to cry with joy. If you’re on a Mac (and why aren’t you?), you should go get TypeIt4Me.

The spammers’ social engineering just gets better and better. Now, they are taking advantage of the fact that more and more people are sending each other photo galleries through services like Ofoto.

I just got an email with the subject “Cathy’s Invited you to view her Photo Album” from alerts@igreetings.com. As I don’t know anyone named Cathy Windsor, I grew suspicious, viewed source, and saw all the standard spammy indicators.

Beware. I didn’t click on the link, but I don’t want to know what sort of evil it would have tried to pull.

Could this really be the year? The Red Sox just clinched the wild card.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: 2004 is looking like a momentous year.

Jeff Jarvis: “I don’t watch broadcast TV anymore.” Actually, neither do I. Other than Survivor and football, I never watch anything on the major networks.

Robert Scoble: How your blog will get discovered.

UI patterns and techniques.

What couples do when given unexpected free time without their children.

Never stay at Howard Johnsons.

I’m doing a lot of market research for Life Times Voice, researching markets, building strategy, etc. In the course of that, I just found this excellent two-page summary of Crossing the Chasm.

It’s useful for its brief definitions of early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards.

Or, you can buy the book yourself, which I also highly recommend.

OnPhilanthropy: four suggestions to help nonprofits better communicate online.

Wonkette has a transcript of Jon Stewart’s visit with Bill O’Reilly last week.

O’REILLY: But even so, younger people tend to be a little bit more, you know…

STEWART: When you say younger, are you talking 9, 10? What are you talking here?

O’REILLY: No, I’m talking 18 to 25, you know. The people who are on your intellectual level.

STEWART: Thank you.

A. and I watch The Daily Show the next day (thanks, Tivo!). We proudly count ourselves among O’Reilly’s stoned slackers, slackers who are surprisingly well informed.

Polling conducted between July 15 and Sept. 19 among 19,013 adults showed that on a six-item political knowledge test people who did not watch any late-night comedy programs in the past week answered 2.62 items correctly, while viewers of Late Night with David Letterman on CBS answered 2.91, viewers of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno answered 2.95, and viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart answered 3.59 items correctly.

The Globe writes on an increasingly common scam in which the criminals pass bogus cashier’s checks.

There might be a moral here: don’t perform favors involving large amounts of money for strangers who live in another country.

Today’s New York Times magazine has a long feature article on the experiences of today’s top political bloggers, with special focus on the people behind Wonkette, Talking Points Memo, and Daily Kos. There’s a lot of inside baseball, but I find it fascinating to see a different perspective on bloggers I read each day.

The article makes me not want to hang out with any of the three, portraying Cox as venal, Marshall humorless, Moulitsas ego-maniacal. But that’s ok, it’s not like I’d want to hang out with Hemingway either; it’s enough to respect their work.

One outstanding quote/factoid: “A pizza-stained paper plate sat between [The Daily Kos’] Moulitsas and [Eschaton’s] Atrios. Together, they have more readers than The Philadelphia Inquirer.”

Update: Some conservative bloggers are upset that the piece focused on liberal ones: “You might think that those [conservative bloggers, Little Green Footballs, PowerLine, FreeRepublic, etc.] might be the bloggers the NYTimes would talk to– you know, the ones actually making news.”

Update II: Steve Gilliard: The real hero in this is not any blogger, but Henry Copeland of Blogads.

Regardless of what you may have read, “liberals” like me have no desire to ban the Bible. I love the Bible; I also love my gay friends who’ve committed to spend their lives together, raising their children in a stable home.

Here is a copy of the RNC’s much-maligned direct marketing piece aimed at Arkansans.

Here is the coverage from the New York Times

* F.U.D. is standard tech talk for “Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt,” most often used in reference to Microsoft’s traditional PR tactics. It seems an apt descriptor of this year’s political rhetoric.

Business Week dissects the spyware menace.

How do you protect your computer in the future?
Protection is an ongoing process since spyware makers are constantly creating new threats. First, install a personal firewall and an anti-virus program. ZoneAlarm from Zone Labs is a free basic firewall. Symantec and McAfee sell popular personal firewall and anti-virus software. Until the anti-virus programs become more thorough in blocking spyware, which should be within the next year, it’s imperative to use a separate anti-spyware program.

Next, set the computer’s operating system for daily security updates. Also set the Web browser to a medium- or high-security level. For Windows, go to Microsoft’s Web site for instructions. Windows XP users should install Service Pack 2, which makes it close to impossible for software to be downloaded without your being alerted. Consider switching to a Macintosh computer or a browser less popular than Internet Explorer, such as Mozilla Firefox (mozilla.org) or Opera (opera.com). They are less likely to be attacked.

“They are less likely to be attacked” because they are built without those darn glaring security holes. If you are still using Internet Explorer on Windows, go download and use Firefox. If you are in the market for a new computer, get an iMac.

Moreover has opened up all their various newsfeeds to the public, with one contextual ad per day embedded. Here’s the list of their feeds.

I’ve just subscribed to a bunch of the feeds; we’ll see whether their utility justifies the advertising annoyance.

Wal-Mart goes shopping for Subsidies (.pdf file)

What is not widely known is that this wealthy company’s aggressive U.S. expansion has frequently been financed in part by taxpayers through economic development subsidies. This report, the first national study of the subject, documents more than $1 billion in such subsidies from state and local governments to Wal-Mart; the actual total is certainly far higher, but the records are scattered in thousands of places and many subsidies are undisclosed.

The overall document is sixty-five pages, but the executive summary gets right to the point. I wish corporate welfare were more of an issue in this campaign.

(via the routinely excellent Oligopoly Watch)

Andy Sack starts blogging. He left Abuzz just before I started there, but I’ve heard some great things about him. And the checkbooks have just opened.

The Big Gig.

When newspapers fudge the numbers.

What Yahoo! web services would you like to see?

10 questions for Jon Stewart.

New Tennessean (and fellow Abuzz alum) Jess Tardy will be back in Boston next Friday, playing a show at Club Passim. Definitely worth checking out.

A. and I will be there; swing by and say hello if you get a chance.

Ed Foster reports in his latest Gripelog on a judgment against AOL France forcing them to alter their terms of service. The French court found 31 separate clauses in AOL’s “user agreement” abusive.

Almost all the clauses deemed abusive by the court are ones that you’d find in virtually any American ISP’s terms of service. The offending terms included AOL’s disclaimer of all liability for service outages, the customer’s automatic acceptance of billing changes, AOL’s right to terminate the service without warning, and the practice of charging a full minute of service for partial minutes. Also included was that most classic of sneakwrap terms, the right of AOL to unilaterally make changes to the agreement at its discretion.

Of particular importance among the 31 clauses was also the one where AOL says the customer’s sole remedy in any dispute is to stop using the service.

Good for France, and the other European countries likely to follow its lead. Now, we just need to get similar remedies here in the States.

CBS may have lost a lot of credibility over the past few weeks, but at least they aren’t squelching their corporate siblings. Both The Daily Show and David Letterman have had a lot of fun with Rathergate this week.

Top Ten Ways CBS News Can Improve It’s [sic] Reputation

10. Stick to stories everyone can agree on, like cookies are delicious.

9. Move nightly “happy hour” to after the broadcast.

8. Stop hiring guys with crazy names like “Morley.”

7. Can’t figure out if a news story is true? Let Judge Joe Brown decide.

6. Every time Mike Wallace tells a lie he gets a life-threatening electrical shock.

5. Newsroom patrolled by some kind of lovable but strict “truth monkey.”

4. If it turns out the story is wrong, give away 276 brand new cars.

3. After delivering a report, correspondent must add, “or maybe not–who knows?”

2. Newscast consists of Dan Rather sitting down to watch Tom Brokaw.

1. Oh, I dunno, stop making up crap?

BostonWorks just launched “The Job Hunt” section on their website. It’s really good, pulling out articles from the Globe’s archives relevant to the different stages of the job hunt: planning, interviewing, resume, etc.

Fun with cross-indexing!

Peter King is reporting that Michael Holley’s new book has Bill Parcells making calls to Hampstead during Super Bowl week.

[T]he Patriots have phone records from the New Orleans Marriott the week of their Super Bowl XXXI appearance against Green Bay linking then-coach Parcells to the New York Jets. And the book quotes staff member Bill Belichick — then the defensive coordinator of the team, now its head coach — as saying the Patriots were distracted heading into the game because Parcells was “talking to other teams.'’

If this is true, then it’s pretty slimy of Parcells.

Prison Book Program weblog.

Registration: “It’s a feeble attempt to emphasize the printed version of the paper at the Web site’s expense.”

Joss on Serenity.

Internet helping stay at home moms.

Online publishers hit with cease and desist letters are no longer rolling over in the face of unreasonable demands.

What would happen if your friends and colleagues treated you the way marketers do?

The New York Times has a brief article on the dangers of phishing — sending fake emails trying to get people to give you their personal information — this morning. Check out this infographic, it hits many of the highlights.

I’ve received many of these types of emails, and it’s not just Citibank and eBay anymore; I just got one this morning from “Citizens Bank.”

After looking at the raw source of the email, it was pretty easy to see that it was fraudulant. Two key tipoffs:
1. No legitimate email would be encoded in base64;
2. The spam-filter-buster keywords in background color text. Again, no legitimate email would include these.

If any email ever asks you to click on a link to update your information, don’t do it. Always type the website’s address into the browser yourself.

Apparently the unbreakable bicycle locks are easily broken. With a Bic pen.

I found the Volunteerist table at the Boston Cares volunteer fair yesterday afternoon.

You should read their magazine — all sorts of interesting information at the intersection of the corporate, nonprofit and volunteer spheres in Greater Boston.

Speaking of birthdays…

Thanks to my attorney/CFO/sweetiepie, A., Life Times Voice, LLC is now officially organized and registered to do business in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Date of Birth: September 10, 2004.

And, the ultimate community application will be out of stealth mode before the leaves fall.

Happy Birthday to my brother (and Best Man) Michael!

Are we done bowling alone? Social Capital Inc. is a local organization working to build “social capital.”

Social Capital Inc. (SCI) is working toward the day when all citizens play an active role in shaping the destiny of our communities and our democracy.  We will achieve that vision by creating a network of communities working locally to raise levels of social capital and civic engagement. 

SCI’s initial programming in Woburn, Massachusetts, has been operating successfully for the past two years.  We are now in the process of expanding our work to other communities in the Boston area, starting with the development of SCI Dorchester. 

A. and I are going to a fund-raiser for them on October 6th. The featured speaker will be Lewis Feldstein, the co-author of Better Together. It looks like a fantastic program.

If you are interested in community development, social capital or social software, you should give it a serious look.

Boston Cares and Fidelity are hosting a Community Volunteer Fair tomorrow (Tuesday, 9/14) from 11am - 2pm at Boston City Hall Plaza.

More than 40 non-profit organizations will be there, explaining how they help the community and explaining how you can help them.

I’ll be there. I hope to see you there, too!

Wow, it’s been a long time. Here’s some linky goodness.

Good pictures.

The Passion of the Clerks.

Priest hassled for using WiFi outside a library.

A firsthand account of Nepali riots in the wake of terrorist violence.

Jobs at Habitat for Humanity International. (Links along the left-hand side)

Fascinating graphic showing word density at the two political conventions.

How many times have you been arrested, Mr. President?

Craigslist invades Boston.

MLM Watch. Ten big lies of multilevel marketing.

I try to stay away from politics here, but I believe Vice President Cheney’s remarks yesterday went over the line. Here’s the BBC’s report.

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said a vote for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry could make a terror attack on the US more likely.

“If we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we’ll get hit again,” Mr Cheney told in a rally in Iowa.

The picture in the new banner logo (at the top of the page — you’ll have to click through if you’re reading this in a newsreader) is of the main mountain overlooking Banff.

Notice the gray sky. We pretty much had that every day, except for the wedding day itself and the day at Niagara Falls. It was all good, thought — kept it from getting too hot when we were out hiking.

A. and I went to the Sox game last night, our second of the week. All is forgiven: we’re back in love with this team. And love was everywhere last night — the guy four rows behind us proposed to his girlfriend during Sweet Caroline.

Plus: Yankees “ace” Kevin Brown broke his hand punching the clubhouse wall. <Nelson>Ha Ha</Nelson>

I just put this together for LTV; figured I might as well put it up on the site and see if I can save someone a few minutes someday…

<select id="state" name="state" size="1">
<option value="">Please select State or Province</option>
<option value="AL">Alabama</option>
<option value="AK">Alaska</option>
<option value="AB">Alberta</option>
<option value="AZ">Arizona</option>
<option value="AR">Arkansas</option>
<option value="BC">British Columbia</option>
<option value="CA">California</option>
<option value="CO">Colorado</option>
<option value="CT">Connecticut</option>
<option value="DE">Delaware</option>
<option value="DC">District of Columbia</option>
<option value="FL">Florida</option>
<option value="GA">Georgia</option>
<option value="HI">Hawaii</option>
<option value="ID">Idaho</option>
<option value="IL">Illinois</option>
<option value="IN">Indiana</option>
<option value="IA">Iowa</option>
<option value="KS">Kansas</option>
<option value="KY">Kentucky</option>
<option value="LA">Louisiana</option>
<option value="ME">Maine</option>
<option value="MB">Manitoba</option>
<option value="MD">Maryland</option>
<option value="MA">Massachusetts</option>
<option value="MI">Michigan</option>
<option value="MN">Minnesota</option>
<option value="MS">Mississippi</option>
<option value="MO">Missouri</option>
<option value="MT">Montana</option>
<option value="NE">Nebraska</option>
<option value="NV">Nevada</option>
<option value="NB">New Brunswick</option>
<option value="NH">New Hampshire</option>
<option value="NJ">New Jersey</option>
<option value="NM">New Mexico</option>
<option value="NY">New York</option>
<option value="NL">Newfoundland and Labrador</option>
<option value="NC">North Carolina</option>
<option value="ND">North Dakota</option>
<option value="NT">Northwest Territories</option>
<option value="NS">Nova Scotia</option>
<option value="NU">Nunavut</option>
<option value="OH">Ohio</option>
<option value="OK">Oklahoma</option>
<option value="ON">Ontario</option>
<option value="OR">Oregon</option>
<option value="PA">Pennsylvania</option>
<option value="PE">Prince Edward Island</option>
<option value="PR">Puerto Rico</option>
<option value="QC">Quebec</option>
<option value="RI">Rhode Island</option>
<option value="SK">Saskatchewan</option>
<option value="SC">South Carolina</option>
<option value="SD">South Dakota</option>
<option value="TN">Tennessee</option>
<option value="TX">Texas</option>
<option value="UT">Utah</option>
<option value="VT">Vermont</option>
<option value="VA">Virginia</option>
<option value="WA">Washington</option>
<option value="WV">West Virginia</option>
<option value="WI">Wisconsin</option>
<option value="WY">Wyoming</option>
<option value="YT">Yukon</option>
</select>

A. and I married each other three weeks ago, and we are still getting great compliments from folks about the band.

We had the Laura Allen trio play the reception. They are a jazz trio, with vibraphone, bass and drums. They did an outstanding job at the reception, and I highly recommend them.

The vibraphone adds an almost-Caribbean feel, and combining that with the jazz standards makes for very subtle and entertaining background and slow-dancing music.

Freecycle is an interesting concept in which people recycle items they no longer need back into the community. You post a note saying what you have, then someone comes and picks it up. I’ve been a member of the Cambridge Freecycle group for a couple of months now — all sort of good stuff comes across the transom.

And, it’s better for the world than just throwing stuff out.

I have all my browsers configured to block pop-up advertisements. You’d think that would be an obvious enough cue that I’m not interested in receiving them.

Sitepoint, a web development content website (no linky goodness for them), has found a way to circumvent the pop-up blockers. (Not hard, actually, you can do it with a little smart Flash programming). So, when I followed a link to Sitepoint, they threw one up at me.

Question for Sitepoint’s marketing team: if people are actively avoiding your advertisements, what makes you think they will respond favorably when you are sneaky and find a clever method to bug them anyway.

Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to be one of those horrible parasitic readers, so I’ll make sure to never go to Sitepoint.com again.