I stepped away from the computer for the better part of 12 hours today, and found the world hadn't changed all that much. Guess that's good.

Following Sunday's kerfuffle around Google Reader stat tabulations, both official and unofficial, there continues to be a lot of discussion throughout the blogosphere on what statistics are relevant or not, and whether they are valuable, or simply point to a bunch of ego-focused invalids aiming to give themselves greater visibility. Additionally, comments from Jeremiah Oywang question whether some of the clear gaming of public news aggregators, like TechMeme, can be snuffed out.

Yesterday, Pete Cashmore of Mashable called B.S. on the whole argument, saying Google Reader's stats were prefilled, and therefore tainted. Of course, Google Reader spokespeople disagreed. Scott of Blogcosm, in an effort to round up the discussion, correctly notes a lot of this back and forth could have been avoided if Google had just listened to my requests back in March, for more transparent data. His clearest comment on whether they would? "I'm not holding my breath."

Which leaves us with the TechMeme issue. Jeremiah Owyang correctly pleads with bloggers to stop following TechMeme around and to start adding real substance. But, as I noted in a comment to him, sometimes it seems that those of us without the big brand names (yet) just might break a story or have original reporting, but proving that to a faceless algorithm is nearly impossible. As a result, to gain the real estate that's felt to be deserved, a little link play is needed.

Frederic at The Last Podcast backs me up, saying, "Sometimes I know I had a story first, but nobody linked to me, so I will still tag on to the Techmeme headline." It's kind of like chasing for scraps, but somebody's got to do it...

After today's repeated flight delays, which saw the departure time go back and forth seemingly by the half hour, the last thing I expected was more hassles once I reached ground. But I guess it's just going to be that kind of trip.

I got into Dallas around 11 p.m. local time, and as is typical, I was setting up the laptop on the "high speed" Internet before even truly unpacking. As I was talking with my wife over video iChat on my MacBook Pro, wouldn't you know it, but some random guy puts his keycard into my door, and he comes strolling in, luggage in tow. Oops. Good thing I was G-Rated.

Of course, my being there caught him by surprise. I said, "This is my room. What room number is your key for?" Of course, he had the same room number I did. Turns out the hotel computers reset at 11 each night, and the service staff has to assign rooms by hand for a little while, and we just so happened to get double booked. Luckily, he acquiesced to my squatter's rights, and set off to get his own room. And no... we didn't offer to share and split the costs.

Later, on search of something resembling a midnight snack, I duck out of my room and find a 24-hour coffee shop open across the hotel. I come back, only to find now MY key doesn't work to my room. Turns out when the mysterious gentleman was assigned my room after I was there, it was his key that was activated, and mine was blocked.

So... back to the service desk I went, where they apologized, told me of their computer woes, and I was reissued a new card. This time, upon returning, I put up the door latch and raised the deadbolt. I've got the room now, and they can't have it back until I say so.

I'm supposedly flying to Dallas this afternoon. But I have two concerns:

1.
2.

Delayed 7 hours. Already? Uh-oh.

Take the community submission format of BallHype or Digg, the blog ranking algorithms of a TechMeme leaderboard, and sprinkle in the gossip and glamour of Hollywood, and you get the unique community news and discussion site of ShowHype, which debuts today, brought to you by the minds behind BallHype.

The latest "Hype" in the family aims to take the mantra of "The best stories, the biggest fans" and apply it to a world where people are more familiar with movie scripts than JavaScript, and the box office is more closely watched than the NASDAQ. ShowHype users can log in to view the most popular entertainment news, videos and blogs of the day, submit new articles or even create unique ShowHype stories for what's sure to become a focused audience trading in the latest Hollywood dirt.


The ShowHype front page highlights today's stories with the most buzz.

Six months after the successful debut of BallHype, the site's creators, Jason and Erin Gurney, just may have another sleeper hit on their hands. Speaking to them a few weeks ago about the site in a sneak preview at their home, we talked about how they're eager to find fun topics, like entertainment and sports, for their users, and are steering clear of more divisive subjects. So don't wait around for PoliticsHype or GodHype any time soon!

Anybody familiar with BallHype will find the ShowHype interface extremely familiar. If you already have a BallHype login, the same credentials will get you into ShowHype. In fact, I've already started a users' group in ShowHype for "TiVo Fans", where we can share tips, news and tricks. If you're into Hollywood in a big way, or even if you're the more casual type who secretly wants to know what exactly is going on with Lindsey Lohan, Kate Hudson, and Justin Timberlake, then ShowHype should be a must-bookmark destination.

Also see: TechCrunch | ParisLemon | Frantic Industries