I am the proud owner of an Audi A4 2.8 Quattro, 1999 model. I love my car. I love it so much, give me a few minutes and I'll likely convince you to buy an A4 as your next car. When I buy another car, it will likely be another Audi A4. That's why when I read this piece, 2009 Audi A4 makes local debut in the Sacramento Bee, I had to wonder who the heck at Audi is making these types of marketing decisions?

Apparently, Audi had its "North American debut" of its new 2009 A4 in El Dorado Hills last week. Yadayada. Catered by Bistro 33, I like that place, I'm sure the food was great. But what about this part, "Prime Time Boxing provided entertainment, with eight semiprofessional boxing matches announced by professional boxing announcer Michael Buffer"? What? What the heck does boxing have to do with a new car? Especially an A4, which given its compact size is just as much of a girl car as a boy car. They're trying to appeal to women buyers with boxing matches?

Someone sent me an email to request a conversation with me tomorrow at 2:00 pm. Ever since I stopped wearing a watch with regularity a couple of years ago I've been struck by how tethered we are as a culture to the idea of hours and minutes. Time, as in the time of day, days of the week, is so woven into the fabric of our lives that we have a hard time organizing ourselves without considering it. We have difficulty imagining what a day would be like if it weren't broken up into hours and minutes.

Slots to be filled with useful activities.

So, when someone wants to have a phone conversation with me, instead of just picking up the phone, they send an email, and try to find a particular slot, bounded by numbers, in which I might be available to talk with them, in a particular slot, bounded by numbers, which works well for them.

Don't people just pick up the phone and call anymore?

The problem is that now that I work for myself, building a business that requires just my creative attention, not a consulting business that is bonded to time constraints of clients, I have a hard time with doing anything at an appointed time, and submit to it only because it is necessary and important to others. There is also TV; Dr. Who comes on at 8 pm on Friday and if I miss it, god help me if I can find a rerun. I get almost a little panicky around the hours that I need to remember, because so out-of-time-consciousness am I that I easily, completely forget. Yet when I need to wake up at a specific time, I can do so, without an alarm. Can you?

Days are a bit easier. Wednesday in the food section. Saturday I can usually get some work done because I'm not bombarded by a hundred emails that need answering. Sunday is church, whether I go or not. I'm addicted to 2 TV programs at the moment, but I don't usually remember that they are on until a half hour before. Monday dinner, "oh, the Closer is on." Friday dinner, "Yikes! Dr. Who starts in 5 minutes." (Except when it doesn't. Half the time our cable company shifts it to another time slot on Friday. Ironic. Dr. Who is a time lord.)

Last week I was in NYC participating in the first BlogHer Business Conference. Since its inaugural conference in the summer of 2005, BlogHer has been a focal point for women's voices in the blogosphere, both in its conferences and on the BlogHer website, an effort which I am proud to be part of.

As a business woman and a woman with a blog that has evolved into a business, what better place to meet peers and share ideas than at a women's conference devoted to the more professional aspects of blogging. Diva Marketing's Toby Bloomberg and I have been to all the conferences so far, and we shared a moment or two of awe at how far things have come, since July 05.

We have a pomegranate tree in our front lawn, pretty close to the sidewalk. Although we live on a quiet, sheltered, cul-de-sac, that doesn't keep people from driving by, hopping out of their car, nabbing a few poms and speeding away. Last year we woke up one morning to find half of the tree stripped - basically all pomegranates within reach.

Important topic. At least to us bloggers.

The problem? Let me see, out of the eight bloggers mentioned - Andrew Sullivan, John Amato, Jim Romenesko, Mark Lisanti, Jeff Jarvis, Kevin Drum, David Weigel, and Michelle Malkin, only one of them is a woman. What's up with that? Here we have a medium where it has been documented that there are at least as many women blogging as men, the writer, Elizabeth Holmes, doesn't bother to scratch beneath the surface of the Technorati top 100 to bring her article into some semblance of balance. Heck, she could have at least interviewed Heather Armstrong of Dooce. Dear Ms. Holmes, The Technorati 100 is not even remotely representative of those of us who blog. Those sites may get a lot of press attention, but even Technorati's CEO David Sifry would point out that those top 100 blogs only represent a tiny fraction of the blogging activity on this planet. Given the length of the long tail of blogging, there is so much more of interest going on outside of the top 100 than within, I encourage you to look a little deeper the next time you want to talk about bloggers. Heck, with over 19,000 feed subscribers, my little food blog gets more traffic than many of the Technorati 100. That I can assure you. Please. Next time provide a little more balance in your reporting. And if you happen to want to learn more about some great blogs written by women, stop by BlogHer.org.