It’s not often that a new search engine comes along to challenge Google.  Or rather, that happens all the time, but none of them make a go of it.  Who remembers Cuil?  More specifically, who uses it? Well there’s a new kid on the block getting some love, called Bing.  Catchy name, makes me think of turkey timers .  Bing!  Search is done.  Needs a little sound effect.  Instead of googling yourself you can bing…or perhaps bong yourself. I thought I’d mention it because the results seem to do something better than Google.  Namely, they seem ordered around the concept of a person or organization (such as yours truly) and not just use of those words together in sequence.  There’s a difference between the person known as Shakespeare Geek, and places where people put those two words together, as in “I am a big Shakespeare geek”. As somebody trying to build some brand, I appreciate the difference.

http://bardfilm.blogspot.com/2009/06/juliet-at-darmok.html No, not a link to a generic list of Shakespeare references in Star Trek that’s been going around the net since we were all using ftp and gopher. No, BardFilm is actually digging up video of Startrekkian (ha!) Shakespeare references, and then discussing them in context of the story.  He’s been doing it for quite a little while, so if you enjoy the linked post (I’m a language geek so I found this one particularly interesting), be sure to check out the rest of the series.

http://shakespeareportraits.blogspot.com/2009/05/new-portrait-of-edward-de-vere-suggests.html

In the next week SP will be posting pictures of a newly identified portrait of Edward de Vere. This mystery portrait, long affiliated with William Shakespeare, will add even more fuel to the bonfire of evidence suggesting that the 17th Earl of Oxford Edward de Vere wrote under the name William Shakespeare.

I don’t usually post every Authorship story I come across, but people tend to like pictures.

http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlands-news/2009/05/31/shakespeare-porn-shocker-66331-23749752/ Seems there’s a bit of trouble, or perhaps irony, brewing in dear Stratford on Avon.  “Romeo and Juliet’s Adult Boutique”, purveyor of … well, I’m sure you can guess … got a license to open up shop in Shakespeare’s hometown. Given all the sex jokes Shakespeare wrote, I think it would be funny if they just themed the whole store and had nothing but Shakespeare puns everywhere you look.  The “Much Ado About Nothing” section could be right next to “Country Matters.” …and that’s about as far as I’m gonna take that. 🙂