But first up … bronchitis.

The monthly game night that John Brigham and I organize at True Grounds was written up in a Boston Metro article on August 24 titled “Hottest Coffee Shops.” For some reason the article highlights the Star Wars game that someone brought to the July game night. Just for the record, there are a lot of other games to play at game night: Scrabble, Boggle, Apples to Apples, Uno, etcetera. We have a few games on hand and people bring their own favorites, too. The article mentioned that True Grounds doesn’t have a website. They’ve got one and are working on a new design.

The game night schedule is the fourth Tuesday of every month, 7:00 – 9:30 PM at True Grounds, 717 Broadway, Ball Square, Somerville. It’s all ages, free admission and complimentary snacks during the first half hour. The tables can accomodate 2-4 players. True Grounds full menu of food and drinks is also available throughout the evening. They normally close at 7PM (the article incorrectly notes closing time as 8PM) but stay open late for game night.

To view Boston Metro’s archive of the article, go to their website at metropoint.com and select the August 26, 2005 Boston edition. The article is on page 10.

Most of their tenants seem to be small companies and startups. And just for the record, I receive no perk or million dollar payment for writing about them. I’m just a happy customer.

Sleep. Work. Apartment Search. NYC Visitors. That’s the theme of the day. Hopefully in that order. I’m behind on a lot of work and hope to catch up on a bunch of things this weekend.

A couple weeks ago Pete Caputa introduced me to a reporter who was working on a “getting paid to blog” story for the Boston Globe. Thanks, Pete! (That’s sincere despite my rant throughout the rest of this entry.)

Unfortunately the tidbits about me in the story weren’t accurate. Maybe they were honest mistakes. I’m not sure but I wish I would have had a chance to go over the information with the reporter.

For other bloggers, the compensation can be a windfall. Somerville resident Susan Kaup received $2,100 this winter for writing a dozen times about Marqui — a Portland, Ore., marketing software company — and linking to its website on her blog, www.sooz.com. Though Marqui disclosed it was paying bloggers, Kaup did not always mention the compensation on her site.

First: It was $2400. $800 times three months = $2400. Windfall?

And second, I did always mention the compensation on my website. I had this icon on my website throughout the program and several weeks afterwards. It said “I get paid to talk about Marqui.” The reason it’s not on my site anymore is because the program is over. At no point during our brief conversation did the reporter ask me if I disclosed my arrangement. She did ask if I ever wrote negative things about Marqui and I said I didn’t think so but searching for “Marqui” on my site would be an easy way to find out. As it turns out, I was critical at least once. I usually included a tidbit about the program in each entry. In hindsight, I think I should have placed that button inside every entry. But her indication that I did not always mention the compensation is misleading.

At least we have our blogs to set the record straight.

While expressing frustration about this to a friend who is excellent at being the voice of reason in curious times, he passed on this humorous link that somehow I had never seen before. For the record, I don’t think all reporters are bad or anything. Robert Weisman was awesome when he wrote the Sunday Boston Globe article about Meetup.com that included the Wi-Fi Meetup that I organize. He spent at least an hour with us in person at the Meetup and exchanged emails with me.

YANE: Yet Another Networking Event

I aspire to do events that are not YANE-related. ;)