If you want some great international perspectives on international affairs on the WNYmedia network look no further than Buffalo Expatriate. A very unique contribution to the local blogosphere.

Came accross a pretty cool blog called The Stencil by someone who seems to be a musician from the club/hip-hop group called Caps and Jones…some interesting music by the way. Covers a lot of young/urban lifestyle type stuff as a traveling artist…and some random Buffalo stuff along the way.

Not your typical Buffalo blog. Nice change of pace

Buffalo has one of if not the worst metropolitan blogosphere apparently.

Proves my theory that most of my readers do not live in Buffalo.

And reminds me of a Buffalo News article I can’t find but it was about Alan Bedenko announcing he was running for office and his opponent said “I don’t read blogs” with the syntax suggesting he was above that sort of subculutre.

In DC, blogging is huge. The Washington Post fully embraces the large blogosphere in the DC area, sometimes profiling select bloggers in their print editon, publishing a summary of what is being said in the blogosphere in their “Express” edition, and linking to all sorts of local blogs on their website.

As they said in the BizJournal story, cities with the best blogospheres were tech savvy and young.

[Insert obvious/cliche observation of Buffalo and its people here.]

Mark is one of those names that is so simple yet not nearly as common as other one-syllable names like John or Matt.

But in the Buffalo blogosphere Mark(c) is the name that dominates the game. Here’s the newest one called Mild Mannered Blog.
And then there’s Buffalo Blogger and of course WNYMedia’s Marc Odien. Oh and Jennifer of All Things Jennifer has a husband/blog contributer as well.

I know there are others but it’s hard to keep track.

I should mention that my name is Mark too…in case you didn’t understand why in the world I found this information to be so interesting.

David Torke from FixBuffalo is hangin’ it up after some discouraging news. In some ways, it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Anyone who pretty much devotes their life to the East Side of Buffalo and does everything in his power to make it better, only to have his heart broken would stop trying for at least a little.

Personally, I grew up off Bailey and when I came back last year I had all sorts of plans to buy my Grandma’s house, spruce it up, and watch the “other” end of the University District come back to life. I lived there this summer and realized how hopeless it was. It started to ruin my outlook and opinions of Buffalo…I had to flee and went back to DC for a couple of weeks before being able to put everything in perspective, roll up my sleeves, and head back to work.

And that’s the University District.

David was dealing with a whole other animal (and not a very nice or healthy one either).

I try not to think about a lot of Buffalo’s problems because there are so many. I focus on downtown because I ended up there by myself as a 15 year old without knowing anyone and very little about the place. I found myself as a person and decided that Buffalo was always home and will always be home.

Thankfully I got into the whole dowtown Buffalo thing right before all the growth came. I understand the awful past and I see the awesome future ahead for it. If downtown wasn’t growing, I don’t think I’d be doing this whole Buffalo thing like I am.

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I really hope David goes back to doing his thing for the online world and the East Side of Buffalo. Buffalo needs more people like him and we can’t afford to lose him, the East Side really can’t afford to lose him.

So David, I suggest a nice vacation in a thriving part of the country, the continent, or anywhere in the world. Hopefully it’ll liven up your psyche, and maybe you’ll be able to head back to the grind that seemingly only you can handle.

On a whim I decided to go downtown (you will all reap the benefits of this visit later) and as the metro went by the HSBC Tower I saw a familiar man with his dog taking a walk out on the plaza. Realizing who it was I got out at the Harbor Station and walked back as fast as I could…BuffaloRising’s own Newell Nussbaumer was there.

Newell and I talked about a bunch of things, including the whole wnymedia-bro debate that we’ve been witnessing over the past week. I’ve been making a consious effort this week to not get involved in it in my blog but Newell had some interesting perspectives on the whole thing and it was pretty cool to talk about it with him. Him and his dog (I couldn’t tell you how many people would tell him how beautiful the dog was…and it really is) followed me up Washington Street to the Ellicott Commons, shared some stories, discussed some architecture and then went over to Fountain Plaza to watch some kids skate.

Newell is pretty much an older, blonder, more excitable version of me. He gets so excited at the littlest thing when he’s downtown…like, pure, unadulterated joy when he sees a certain building or kids skating or people walking downtown…anything. We’re lucky to have him around since so few of the creative class remains here.

So I know that BRO and wnymedia.net are going at it right now but basically we’re just two different online options in the world of the Buffalo internets. When you want to know about new or unknown stores and restaurants, or little things about the city that make Buffalo cool, then you go to BRO. When you want to know about how much of a douche bag all the politicians are around here, or how screwed up the economy is, or how stupid people are doing stupid things to hurt this region of ours, you come to wnymedia.net

But anyways, it was an amazing day to just walk around downtown and soak in everything. I suggest you do so sometime as well and see all the awesome developements and architecture that exists. And who knows, maybe you’ll run into me or Newell.
That was my take, here’s how Newell saw it…

When someone googled “Nick Carter’s beer gut” they were referred to my blog.

That makes me happy.

Stumbled accross this interesting blog called Outside.in. It has about 50 different city pages and keeps a blog roll for each city (I’m on there but not Pundit? Oooookay.) Lacks content but it looks like it has a boat load of potential to be something pretty cool.