Ann and I went to a Harry Potter party last night at Barnes & Noble, and saw this great family. Couldn't resist snapping a picture! They seemed pleased to accommodate me ... and many other people with cameras. They were the hit of the party.

It's been an intense week for Google, and therefore an intense week for me blogging about Google and talking with media about Google Desktop 2, Sidebar, and Google Talk, all released in the past three days. I'm being interviewed by the BBC at 9:15pm EDT US time tonight--not sure if it'll be live or taped. I hope taped, because it'll be the middle of the night in England at that time, and the only person listening will be an insomniacal innkeeper in the Cotswolds. Certainly not my sister, who lives in London. I was pleased to see CNET quote my Google Talk review pretty extensively in a story that resided on the News.com home page all day. My mail is off the chart, and blog traffic is spiking like crazy. Thanks to Google for providing Weblogs Inc with a preview download link of Google Talk; many of us were up late last night playing with it. Sleep is for the weak. I love times like this.

The blog publisher I write for, Weblogs Inc., is the first platform to run Google ads in some of its RSS feeds, beating the much-anticipated beta launch of Google's RSS-ad service. I'm thrilled to be on the bleeding edge of what promises to be an enormous development in both online advertising and blogging. Effectively and tastefully monetizing RSS feeds will support high-quality blogging from all over the map, and will encourage full-post feeding as opposed to headline-only feeding. That's good for readers.

I operate five blogs in Weblogs Inc.: Digital Music, Google, Yahoo!, Search Engine Marketing, and RSS. This work pays at a steady rate, so I am not directly affected by changing ad revenue, but what is good for the platform is good for its writers. I am also designing three personal blog to be launched this year, and Google's promised RSS-ad service is a big part of my thinking.

Ann and I caught the taping of Prairie Home Companion in New York this weekend--the final of four consecutive shows broadcast from Town Hall on 43rd Street. There's always a special energy to the New York shows; you can hear it on the radio. And no matter where it's presented, seeing PHC in person adds a dimension to what is arguably the most satisfying variety show on the air today.

Everybody is loose--especially Keillor--yet PHC is  a tight and seemingly effortlessly timed operation. The best part for me (whether listening or attending) is the interplay between the host and the absurdly talented  sound-effects guy, Fred Newman. The opening story is meant to showcase Newman's astounding mouth-sound ability, and to trip him up, if possible. Watching this extended riff, I got the impression that the story was loosely planned, leaving room for Garrison and Fred to veer a bit off script. They each delighted in quickly recovering from the other's misdirections, and their stifled laughter was evident only to the live audience.

"News from Lake Woebegone" is the centerpiece of the show, yet rarely my favorite part when listening. It is fascinating, though, to watch a born storyteller at work. Relaxed throughout the broadcast, Garrison seemed to settle into his true persona during this long monologue, perching on a stool with his legs drawn up, working utterly without prompts or notes, turning this way and that to bond with different portions of the audience. During the final minutes he was swivelled around to the band, something having caught his attention back there, wrapping up his story directly to the fiddle player, his back to the audience. The man connects.

The New York shows usually feature classical music, and this week's guest was opera diva Renee Fleming, who owns a voice to die for. Unfortunately, she is still promoting her American song-book CD, and three of the four songs she performed were standards. This particular crossover never works well; opera singers cannot turn off, or even tone down, their over-trained, highly sculpted voices. Fleming trundled out this enormous instrument, and tried to package it into a small-scale pop song; the effect was grotesque. Traditional American love songs are about ordinary people and their ordinary hearts. You want them sung by an attractive voice but an intimate one, not by a jet-fueled vibrato that was built to penetrate the deepest corners of a vast opera house. Town Hall is like a coffeehouse compared to the Met. I can hardly wait for Renee's CD to become history so she can go back to her ravishing presentations of the classical literature.

Go see Prairie Home Companion if possible. It's money well spent.