Spring is in bloom (in theory) and with the turning of the seasons comes an annual tradition...award season.

Local business, local artists and local musicians are all coming into focus this month and it's time to celebrate some of the things that make it pretty great to live and work in this community.

The best part is - you get to decide.

When was the last time you went to the theater? When was the last time you wanted to go see a play, musical or opera?

There are a lot of entertainment options these days, some that don't even require you to leave your home.

But if it came down to seeing something at Cinemagic versus going over to the Portland Stage Company for their latest show, where would you go?

Consequences have actions, even the ones we don’t think about. If you take the “butterfly effect” as fact and apply it outside of science and bad Aston Kutcher films, almost anything we do must have some unintended aftermath, right?

- The Tenacious D, "Rock Your Socks Off"

We here at NXT firmly believe in the adoption of advanced technologies and using them to our own nefarious ends. We're very much like a Bond villian in that regard. Let's hope we never get hold of that weather controlling device they have at the Gulf of Maine Institute, or Bowdoin's time machine.

And with that completely odd non-sequitur, readers, commentheads and innocent bystanders alike, behold, we have made a Podcast.

Enough with the Halo 3 news already, we get it.

Yes, we're moving on, gentle reader, to matters with significantly less galactic implications.

We're thinking local.

I spent a good portion of this morning trying to figure out how many blogs I was going to post today, a task made more difficult thanks to cold medication (thanks a lot fall, your creepy seesaw weather patterns are making me ill.).

In the end, I went for quality (in theory) over quantity. This is a long one, we got Halo 3, local music and youth radio on tap.

This one has to be quick friends. The demands of Lady Journalism are...demanding. Also, I am a little under the weather. Perhaps all this mustache growing is draining me.

If so, the only cure is red meat, cheap beer and a viewing of "Smokey and the Bandit" followed by "Over The Top."

In most people's lives a moment will come along where you realize who your good friends are and why your life is better off with them in it.

For most of us this time comes when you need help moving or getting over a vicious break-up.

When you come across a good local story about something you’re into, it’s hard not to get a little excited. When I first heard about Small Victory Studios my first reaction was "how sweet is that, a local company that does original T-shirts!"