About Me

Hi, I'm Sarah Lane.

I'm also a show host, video producer, writer, photographer, traveler, socialite, loner, and technology enthusiast. I recently bought a Nikon D90 (it's very pretty). I love my brats. I've been blogging here since 2003.

Was that description too vague? Try my extended bio.

Or view my professional resume on LinkedIn.

If you're a Web 2.0 junkie like me, where else I frequent may interest you. Let's be internet friends!

If you've commented on one of my posts and it hasn't shown up yet, that's because I moderate comments in an effort to cut down on spam and crazy talk (seriously, you have no idea). It shouldn't ever be more than a few hours lag time, and usually a lot less. Thanks for understanding!

You can email me at sarah at sarahlane dot com. I get too many emails to respond to each and every one, but I can assure you that I do read them all. Especially if there are cat photos involved.

Go back to my blog?

Let's Never Buy Toilet Paper Again!

Got a cool tip from Leo's Jaiku feed today: Amazon Subscribe and Save. It works well for grocery items you find yourself regularly stocking up on, like vitamins, or baby diapers, or razors, or toilet paper - things you know you'll need, and don't want to run out of.

According to Amazon, the benefits include:

• A delivery schedule that fits your needs--every one, two, three, or six months
  
• Discounts on our everyday price, whether you subscribe for a single month or for years
  
• Free shipping
  
• E-mail reminders of upcoming shipments
  
• The flexibility to change your schedule or cancel at any time

What's nice is that there's a big selection of items, often at better-than-grocery-store prices. For example, I love Seventh Generation products, and I get a better deal through Amazon than I would at Whole Foods.

I'm wondering though... how is the merchandise delivered? If my box of Clif bars shows up inside an additional Amazon shipping box, the extra packaging seems a little wasteful, doesn't it? At least I can recycle my grocery bags over and over at the store.

Legitimate Questions, Part One

When a book sells enough copies to earn a place on the New York Times Best-Seller List, it's really on one of several different lists. The bestsellers are first categorized by type of book (children's books, business, advice, etc.), then ranked. I'm telling you this because I just learned it myself. Until today I had always imagined one grand master list, impenetrable to all but the world's greatest writers. Turns out there can be like nine "New York Times #1 Bestseller!!!!" claims at the same time without anybody technically lying.

Let's stick with two obvious lists: hardcover fiction and paperback fiction. Here's my question: since hardcovers precede paperbacks as a rule, would it be right to assume that the paperback best-seller list will not actually include new releases? Or are some books never printed in hardcover, and instead shoot to the top of the paperback heap? Or is the paperback best-seller list just an extension of the hardcover best-seller list once the publisher stops printing the expensive versions?

These, I believe, are legitimate questions.

A Trip Down Blogging's Memory Lane

In 2003, when I decided to make the leap from "strictly behind the scenes producer" to "producer but now also timidly standing in front of the camera because I'm hoping I'm good at it" while working on a show called "The Screen Savers" on TechTV, I needed an angle for myself. So I chose blogging. Back then, blogging wasn't exactly new and unusual, but it didn't have the mainstream online presence it has today. To most of the world, calling yourself a blogger was still geeky and exotic - the sort of thing parents didn't understand.

The segment, which I creatively dubbed "The Blog Report", didn't really last long, not because blogging wasn't interesting, but because after a few weeks there often wasn't much to say besides "here's another interesting blog by some guy using Movable Type". I shifted my energy toward other TV features and that was that.

But thinking back just now, I had a little pang of sadness for that poor, unloved, forgotten Blog Report. So without too much hunting around Google, I found the first web article I published to accompany my very first foray into  what may someday be considered a lucrative television career. Awww. Quaint, isn't it? My, how we've all grown. Well, not literally. I haven't grown an inch since 8th grade, though I've lost a couple inches in the chest since those initially promising puberty years. And I'm really kind of bitter about that, to be honest with you.

sarah.fm

Have you ever wondered if rock bands who don't have a "The" at the beginning of their band name get bent out of shape when people get it wrong? For example, Pixies sing "Where is My Mind?", but if you were to be in my vicinity as I was playing said song and asked me who the band was, I'd probably answer "The Pixies" without hesitation. I obviously know better, so why do I do that? I guess it's a case where wrong sounds right.

Other bands in my music collection that I have the same problem with:

• (The) Arcade Fire 

• (The) Doves

• (The) Eels

• (The) Foo Fighters

• (The) Pet Shop Boys

• (The) Yeah Yeah Yeahs

• (The) The

Just kidding about that last one. Dumb band name humor. I don't actually have any The The in my music collection. Nothing against the band itself, but it's a profoundly irksome band name.