Whew, lots of speaking this morning. Talked with the Seattle Chamber of Commerce already, am meeting with information officers from all sorts of government branches in 20 minutes, talking at Amazon around noon.

What's interesting about speaking is what you learn. I love talking with business people who are trying to learn how to make their businesses work better. People are still trying to figure out how search engines work and how that's disrupting their businesses. There were lots of scribbling when Shel and I talked about search engine optimization.

On another topic. I've been getting some very nice emails and phone calls from you all. I got one from Dave Sifry, founder of Technorati, today that's going to keep a smile on my face for days. I won't tell you what he said, but this journey has been quite remarkable.

It's the relationships that are magical. It's the small things in life. It's getting more people onto the Web and into using technology to connect with other people who care about what they care about. It's about listening. I haven't done enough of that. I'm gonna listen to Dave's voice mail again. And again. And again. Anytime I need a smile.

We need more smiles. Hope you have one today.

Reading Rebecca MacKinnon's blog today gave me perspective. If the worst that can happen is people calling me a few names, that is OK. I'm happy to see Hu Jia was released from Chinese jail today. I'm also happy to see MSN Spaces hosted his wife's blog.

I hope the Chinese government can see that they can put up with all sorts of people saying all sorts of things. Some will be nice (thanks Don Dodge!) Some won't be. Speaking of which, Scott Koon wins my little flame contest. He not only made me feel bad for not bringing him anything of value, but he flamed all my readers at the same time. Welcome to the "cult of Scoble!"

Anyway, onward.

Mini-Microsoft, an anonymous but popular blogger who writes from inside Microsoft has turned on comment moderation. Interesting. That means he's gotten tired of the anonymous commenters who are griping about things. Ironic. But, I understand. Boy, do I understand. Mentally it's hard to separate out the personal attacks (and, boy, they have been getting personal lately — things that you wouldn't hear in even the worst bar fight) and keep them from hurting you. These things are designed to hurt. They aren't designed to help anyone or help anything.

The venom is flowing. I figure there's no way to control it, so might as well encourage it. Who can write the best anti-Scoble flame? What's the nastiest thing you can say to me? Let's get it all out on the table so you can get all your venom out of your system and we can go on with life together.

Here, let's practice: Scoble, you are the evilest, fattest, rudest, stupidest, most egotistical, corporate shill that I've ever seen. Even poo is better than you.

I'm sure you can think up better. It's 2:44 a.m. Shoot me for not having good flaming skills this late in the evening.

There's a good example over on Rick Segal's blog. I bet Rick will pull it down, but it says "I am so sick of that fat retard….he is like a overgrown child and looks so stupid trying to defend MS as their press turns to shit around them!"

That's getting into the spirit.

There's a couple of good examples over on Shelley Powers' blog: (Ken Camp) "he’s become a drone without new insight and is such a boring read any more than i don’t bother most of the time." (Scott Koon) "I just …. feel smarter since I stopped reading him. I filled my aggreagor with more do-ers and less talkers like him."

Or, how about Comic Strip Blogger? He goes even further with his comic about me. First panel? "That swine Robert Scoble."

Oh, ouch, keep it coming! Who can flame better?