I am looking forward to this weekend. I will be spending Friday and Saturday at the Beaufort Film Festival and Sunday night watching the Academy Awards. I know for some of you this sounds like a prison sentence, not a fun weekend, but I am excited.

More importantly, I am excited because I will be covering both events via these blogs. I will "blog" from the BFF Friday and Saturday, then I will host a blog chat on here Sunday night for anyone who wants to talk about the Oscars. Think of it as a break from the daily grind of debating about gay marriage and Obama. It should be fun.

More importantly, though, it is an example of news gathering in the 21st century. You "Gazoggers" are testament to how important the internet is to not only how we do our job but how you prefer to remain informed. Thanks to the tremendous results we see on a daily basis from our online readers and our bloggers, you will be seeing more and more online content and -- like this weekend -- "exclusive" online content. What we create on these blogs over the next few days -- for better or for worse -- will be ours, for this site, only for you readers.

Please give it a shot and feel free to leave me a note as I sit through 13 1/2 hours of films tomorrow and more on Saturday. Also, check out some of the other coverage we will be uploading over the next few days -- we're talking video, we're talking sound, we're talking photos, we're talking my hazy ramblings after 12 hours in a movie theatre -- and it is all here, just for you.

Sunday I will attempt our very first "live blog forum" while watching the Oscars. (And, yes JoeFarrell, I know you don't care. I understand, buddy.) You don't have to wear a tux. Just bring your computer.