Onward we go

Of all the new things we've done at the Chanticleer this year, the thing that I'm most proud of is the amount of convergence we've brought to the JSU student paper.

For those outside of the industry, convergence is a dirty word to most print journalists. The tradionalists especially. Basically, the word just means more work.

The term refers to the melding of the printed page with various online and multimedia aspects of journalism. As the world in general moves to the Internet, print journalism is no different.

They say newspapers are a dying medium, and to some extent they're right. Fewer and fewer people read anything, much less something they can read quickly with the click of a mouse. For free.

So when I looked at what the Chanticleer needed going into the school year — and it was a lot of things — the first thing on my list was to redesign the Web site.

Thanks in large part to good friend and Online Editor Chris Pittman, we did just that.

With the new site, we've implemented new aspects to the Chanticleer as a product that didn't exist before.

This blog you're reading right now (painstakingly, no doubt) is a new feature this year. We have regular photo slideshows. We started weekly podcasts this semester. The only thing we haven't ventured into successfully is video.

Suffice it to say, as if it didn't take enough work to put out 8 pages of content a week, in my heart of hearts I know how hard my staff has worked to build this paper's product as a whole. And it pains me that it takes so much work for so little compensation.

If it doesn't come across in person or in the office, I hope my staff knows how grateful I am for their help and support. This job sucks sometimes, and I hope they feel the rewards I do.

But my sincerest hope is that readers of our paper appreciate not only the quality of the product in print, but our online presence as well.

I hardly think that all of the extra work our staff has done has gone for naught, though sometimes it feels that way. It really is harder work than it looks like.

And we're only just beginning.

Blame it on the economy

You'll notice a change in the Chanticleer this week. A couple, actually.

For one, this is the first black-and-white issue we've done all year. The rough state of the economy seems to have enough local advertisers scared. Selling ads has been our toughest task thus far, and I include that with practically having to turn over an entire staff.

This is also the first time we haven't printed at least 8 pages. Readers from last year are accustomed to seeing 6-page, black and white papers from the Chanticleer, which is something I was adamant not to have this year.

Alas, the lofty title of Editor-in-chief of the Chanticleer still doesn't ...

*Pause for gratuity*

BUY ADS IN THE CHANTICLEER! HELP FUND ANTI-TERRORISM! 9/11! BUY BUY BUY!!!

*Back to blog*

... have enough social stroke to alleviate a weak economy. Maybe someday.

Anyway, we still feel we put out a solid newspaper this week.

But, if you need your color fix while reading, simply keep handy one of those Magic Eye books that were so popular in the 90's.

*Actual event*

"Hey look a story about cloning livestock," You, the Chanticleer reader. "Eww gross it's in black and white. Wait a minute! I have my Magic Eye book with me! *Crosses eyes and stares at wavy, colorful lines for like 5 minutes* HOLY CRAP A PALM TREE!!1! Ok back to reading my Chanticleer :-) Wow, the black and white doesn't bother me now!"

I've lost my mind.

They are a changin'

Let it snow indeed.

Jacksonville was graced with the presence of a rare visitor on Wednesday. All across campus, the red bricks of the buildings contrasted beautifully with the bright white on the ground.

While driving conditions were dangerous and temperatures were frigid, reporter Bethany Harbison and all-around-good guy Matt McRae went around town and snapped some fantastic photos of the scenery, which we have in a slideshow on our Web site.

It was a nice change of scenery to say the least.

Speaking of change, that's a popular word these days. The presidential candidates are throwing the word around left and right (no pun intended) in the hopes that the promise of a new America will sway discontent voters in their favors.

We've had quite a few changes around the paper ourselves.
Toni Merriss has a great new opportunity to pursue her career in Nebraska, leaving yours truly in charge. We all wish Toni the best.

Bethany has moved into News Editor position vacated by Brandon Hollingsworth, who has gone back to his first love in radio. You can listen to him again on weekday mornings on NPR's Morning Edition. He will still contribute articles to the paper as Commentary Editor, and you can still read his Saturday science blog from our site.

Suffice it to say, Bethany is more than capable of filling the News Editor's shoes.

We also have a new Features Editor, Julie Skinner. She will be blogging on Fridays about health.

Jered Staubs and Jared Gravette will double-team the sports department this semester. Coverage of the Gamecocks is in good hands, I can assure you.

Eager young go-getter Webb Dillard (I couldn't resist) is now on staff, doing anything and everything. As Multimedia Editor, he has already edited our first weekly Podcast.

We also now have Sudoku puzzles so you can pass time in class. Solutions to the puzzles are also on our site.

Yay for convergence. Yay for progress. Yay for snow.

Hope you enjoy the first issue back. See you next week.

Ironing it out

We try to reserve the sports blogs for Patrick's space, even though there are a few sports fans among us at the Chanticleer.

However, this week is a big one sports-wise in Alabama with the Iron Bowl on Saturday. Couple that with the fact that I have absolutely no idea what else to write about this week, and you got yourself a sports blog, courtesy of me.

You're welcome.

The Iron Bowl is a funny thing to me. It's not a one-week-a-year rivalry. You almost can't go anywhere on any given day in the year without hearing somebody talking about the Tide or Tigers.

Every time you get on the road to drive in Alabama, you see at least 20 cars sharing the road with you that advertise their drivers' allengience.

And there's no in between allowed. You are either an Alabama fan, or you are an Auburn fan. Never mind the fact of the disproportiate amount of those fans who not only never attended that school, but has no family who had either.

What's that? They have schools at Alabama and Auburn? Not just football teams?

I digress.

So, what is my take on the Iron Bowl? Where do I stand, War Eagle or Roll Tide?

Well, I've lived in Alabama pretty much my entire life. I've actually lived in Calhoun County for that matter.

Naturally, when you grow up in Alabama, you have to be a fan of one or the other. You don't even have to like football or sports.

"So who are you for?" as someone asked me recently.

"Neither," I says.

"I'm a Falcons fan."

After a few seconds of silence, I explained to him that the Atlanta Falcons are a professional football team (not a very good one, I know, but I'm a fan nonetheless). To save the poor guy's head from spinning, I changed the subject.

See, not only are football fans in the state of Alabama so generally blind to the notion of professional sports, they don't know of many teams outside of the SEC at all.

It's okay to be a casual sports fan. It's even better than okay if you are a tried-and-true, die hard fan of your team. In fact, as a die hard fan of my teams, I almost expect that from fellow sports fans. If there's one thing I hate in sports fandom, it's a fairweather fan (I'm looking at you, "Red Sox Nation").

My dad raised me to be an Atlanta sports fan because that's where he's from. My fondest childhood memory was when I was 9 and Sid Bream slid safely into home in the 1992 NLCS to send the Braves to the World Series. My dad picked me up and swung me around, huge smiles across both of our faces.

He is also an Auburn fan. That didn't rub off on me.

I grew so disenchanted with the tired Alabama/Auburn rivalry before I hit middle school, that I still to this day am not a fan of either. Maybe if I went to one of the schools, I would be.

Still, when people across the country or on ESPN ask the question of what the biggest college football rivalry is, I laugh.

There's really no comparison. The Iron Bowl matters. More than it should, probably.

And nobody, whether they or a fan of Auburn or Alabama or not, who has lived in this state long enough can deny that.

Bayside had a dance every freaking week

Watching the Democratic debate is kind of like watching a beauty pageant in high school.

Sure, typically the most popular girls are up there on stage. But usually, knowing the hierarchy of high school as I do, almost every clique is at least represented by somebody. More often than not, there are two or three of the seven or eight who stand out with a clear-cut shot at winning.

The others? They'll get honorable mention.

For the Democrats, the three most beautiful (or richest, or smartest depending on how open-minded your school was) are Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

Not only is it a three-way race in Iowa polls (the poll I pay most attention to, you can have your national ones), but watching tonight's umpteenth Democratic debate from Las Vegas, they're the only candidates who can get any words in edgewise. They are the favorites.

And the other four contestants—I mean—candidates have obvious, yet restrained frustration on their pretty little foreheads.

Sadly, this is how my mind works:

Hillary Clinton is the popular girl who has gone to the same school her entire life. The head cheerleader who is going steady with the guitar- (or saxohpone-?) playing quarterback. By 12th grade, she is finally the favorite to win beauty queen. She's on the ballot, err. . . stage because, for no better reason, you've known her name since kindergarten.

Barack Obama is the new girl to town. She transferred from her former school (in Illinois or somewhere, it doesn't matter where because she's hott!!1) and has out-of-nowhere taken some popularity points from Hillary, the standard by which all other hussies are measured. You actually listen to what this girl has to say, and she makes sense on some things, if not all of them.

John Edwards is the girl you knew in eighth grade who all of a sudden is really attractive four years later. Because she was a late bloomer, she still has that ugly duckling syndrome and is eternally nice about everything she does. Not only is she beautiful and smart, she's super-sweet. I mean, having to take care of her sick family and still able to get on stage? That takes guts. There's not a bad thing you can say about her. Unless you're one of the other girls. . .

Your heart has to go out to Dennis Kucinich, the smart, nerdy kid who always plays his Gameboy and swears aliens are real. Not only has the man had to stand on barstools to order at McDonald's his whole life, he can't even finish a sentence without one of the more popular kids interrupting.

Gotta go. Principal Blitzer is calling me to his office.

Renaissance blogger

I've been told by my colleagues at the Chanticleer that the topics of my blogs are completely random.

See, everyone else on staff has a specific topic about which they blog. (By the way, any word, in this case "blog," that can serve as a noun in a verb is OK in the Jeffers sylebook.)

You got your Harbisons of the world who blog about faith and junk. The Chris Pittmans of the world that
educate us with their video game expertise. The McRaeseses who harp on about Porcupine Tree and maybe the three other bands they may listen to in a music blog.

Me? The managing editor— the second-in-command whose idea it was to start the whole Chanty blogging thing in the first place—I got nothing.

No topic. Just random thoughts that happen to cross my mind (and may be able to fill a few paragraphs) every Thursday.

But I'm OK with that.

For you see, I am multi-dimensional.

I am, to put this modestly, well-versed and well-rounded enough to speak on whatever important topics are on my mind

I am a renaissance blogger. Too world-weary to limit myself to one topic and neglect my loyal readers (all zero of them) my diverse musings of all the important topics in today's world.

From melting gummy bears to complaining about the crappy local film coverage, I gotcha covered.

Brandon put it best today on the white board in the office.

At our weekly budget meeting, where we assign stories for the upcoming issue, I volunteered to write an opinion piece for our editorial page.

The topic for the piece?

As Brandon put it, "God knows what."

Man of the hour

You know that nasally, stuffy-head, can't-get-through-your-day feeling you get right before you get really, really sick?

Yeah. That day was today for me. Fitting that it came on my first day on the most important promotion I've ever gotten.

It's funny to look back on those days at the end of them--how drowsy you were without taking any medication. How simple tasks become oh-so-arduous.

And how sentences become near-impossible to read.

I chose my lunch break today to start reading a book for my book for class.

The italics are my drowsy thoughts getting the best of me.

Ahem . . .

"Big Fish. I liked the movie a lot, looking forward to reading the book.

"Chapter 1. . . On one of our last car trips--holy crap that chicken sandwich was good. Really wish we had a Jack's in Jacsksonville--near the end of my father's life as a man, we -- I mean, Jacksonville has 'Jacks' right in the name of it. Wtf I think Ohatchee even has a Jacks -- stopped by a river, and we took a walk to its banks, where we sat in the shade of an old -- Ohatchee for cripe's sake. Ohatchee always reminds me of that old Mr. Chandler standby CSI Ohatchee joke. . . heh -- On one of our last car trips near the end of my father's life as a man... WELL CRAP. Lost my train of thought and started over. Man that chicken sandwich was good."

Now I'm not a terrible reader. I don't claim to have the longest attention span in the world, but I don't usually have this much of a problem reading.

That's just how it is when you try to do so much in one day, then you're sick on top of it.

It's frustrating when, as a self-reliant student with a job (two in my case) and thus no insurance, you get sick. Studying, working, reading -- it all becomes even tougher.

This is the time of year when classes get their toughest. It's also the time of year when you're more likely to get sick.

Funny how things work out that way.

Just gotta keep trudging along. That diploma isn't given to you, after all.

You have been poked by Kevin Flash Jeffers

I am everything I hate with American youth. But at least I can admit it.

Here is a typical day for the Kevster:

Wake up, turn on laptop, check Facebook, check MySpace.

Shower, check Facebook, check MySpace.

Go to class. Go to office, check Facebook.... you get the idea.

Social networking has become a plague on our generation (I think we're into Generation Z now, or Generation Apathy, I get lost). Friendship, popularity, daily routine all seems to hinge on one's place on the interwebs. I honestly don't remember a time when correspondence was not possible through one of these two sites.

I honestly don't know how anyone could do without it either, for that matter.

Take this week for instance.

My good friend of a million years and Chanticleer web editor Chris Pittman turned 24 this week. But Chris is one of my few friends who is not on any social networking site with me.

This will not stand. If you are going to be somebody's friend, you have to be their friend in every instance of cyberspace as well. Otherwise, how will anyone know that he or she is your friend (*cough* gratuitous blog reference happy birthday Chris *cough*)?

On Monday, two days before his birthday, I pestered the guy to register for Facebook. That way everyone could see his birthday on Facebook and wish him a happy one.

Such are the times we live in. A birthday is not complete until people who both are either your good friends and who barely know you at all (but friends on Facebook with you nonetheless) wish you a happy birthday.

I honestly was disappointed on my birthday last year when I got a mere ten wall posts wishing me a happy birthday. Ten! Out of my 300+ Facebook friends, only ten were friends enough to wish me a happy Faceday.

It's funny to think about, but I get a slight sense of importance every time I see a new message.

Even funnier is thinking about when these sites finaly go under, leaving the world in the archaic days of simple e-mails.

I shiver at the thought.

May these highly-addictive, procastination-inducing Web sites never die.

Now playing

Recently I had a revelation that flew in the face of 23 years of complaining and whining.

Virtually my entire life, I have longed to leave the small town of Anniston. Then Jacksonville.

Big dreams, big city---that was the idea. That was the plan.

The revelation I had was that this place wasn't so bad after all, and if I always lived here I'd be pretty okay with that. It's quaint here. Quaint ain't bad.

However, there are still things that annoy me about living in a small town. Like the lack of culturally stimulating things to do. Yes, we have a museum. Of history.

Coming from somebody who has lived here his whole life, you can take my word on this. Once you've seen the museum once, you don't need to see it again. McDonald's-sponsored dinosaur or no.

The thing that annoys me most is how the one movie theater in the entire county (a county which has three Wal-Marts on the same highway) does not play the movies I want to see.

Into the Wild, a film adaptation of the phenomenal 1993 book, has been in theathers (limited release, I admit) for almost a month now. And not even a whisper of an indication from Oxford's movie theater (it used to be AmStar, they changed it to something else. I forgot what exactly) says the movie will be playing here.

Here is the current lineup of movies in Oxford:

30 Days of Night Vampires. Halloween. Makes enough sense.
Comebacks, The Pass.
Elizabeth: The Golden Age Because this is what Alabamians want to see.
Game Plan, The Didn't this come out like two months ago? Just another step in the Rock's career that will inevitably end in the Florida governor's office.
Gone Baby Gone No clue.
Heartbreak Kid, The "Ben Stiler is funny," me ten years ago.
Kingdom, The Saw this, hated it.
Michael Clayton The one film of these I would see. And do intend to do so.
Rendition Pass.
Resident Evil: Extinction Of the 10,000 video game movies in the last ten or so years, this will be the 10,000th I won't see.
Sarah Landon and the Paranormal Hour See below

Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, The No clue what this is but I'm betting it sucks.
Ten Commandments, The I think this is an animated take on the Bible story. What's funny to me is that Christian Slater has something to do with it. Because his name is Christian. Get it? Yeah, you get it.
Things We Lost in the Fire No clue what this is.
Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married? Probably 20 theathers in America are playing this movie, and they are all close to Perry's native Atlanta. Pass.
We Own the Night They will show a Mark Cuban-directed movie but not a Sean Penn-directed movie. I think I've made my point.

I also like how the theater has the number '12' in the marquee but there are somehow 15 movies showing. That's like how the Big 10 has 11 football teams.

Suffice it to say, it can be a bit frustrating to have to drive to Atlanta to see the film I want. Or to wait and pay $22 for it to come out on a plastic disc.

Still, the small-town kid in me loves this area.

Save the font, save the paper

I'm a huge Heroes fan. I don't even admit that coyly. I love it.

As all nerds who are obsessed with something know, you start to relate to the characters. I wish I had a super power.

Then you start to become disillusioned with reality. Wait a minute. . . I do have a super power.

I really do, though.

I, Kevin Jeffers, am the master of fonts.

Over the summer, while the Chanticleer was out of print, I worked tirelessly on redesigning the paper. No pay, no official training on the ways of newspaper design (yes, I include the joke of a class that is Publication Design).

Just me, my Mac and a dream -- make the Chanticleer look like a real newspaper and not like a middle school paper like it has in the past.

Or like Nick Nolte's mugshot (props to BHoll for the simile).

After Chris found a way to download the Linotext font for free and I played with other fonts some more, it became obvious.

Less is more.

Two fonts. Times, Helvitica.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Simple, right? You'd think so. But that simple of a notion never occured to previous editors (I base this on the one year I spent around the paper prior to this year). Last year's paper was a parade of fonts.

So there's only one explanation.

Fonts are my super power. I eliminated unnecessary fonts, like a hero.

Save the font, save the paper.

Mission accomplished.

Oh and last night I used Courier New, 14-point font (because it's the biggest font available) to write my research paper. I think cutting corners might be my second super power. . .

To be continued. . .