Ervin, I spent the requisite 3.7 hours attempting to get through your full two-page ad on pages 14 and 15 of the December 1st Florida Bar News. After several brief naps and thirty-two shots of cafecito, I persevered and made it to the end.

In it, you set forth a detailed and thoughtful agenda for change if elected as President-Elect of the Florida Bar. You already know you have my support.

But I paid particular attention to your section on technology:

"My administration will take advantage of the technological advances that have been made in recent years and provide greater access to electronic filing of court documents, internet seminars, teleconferencing meetings and interactive web based seminars and programs for Florida lawyers."

Recently we saw how you pretty much own YouTube.

So naturally I went to your website electervingonzalez.com, expecting it to be nearly as neat as the new Avatar interactive trailer and here's what I found:

Web Site Coming Soon

Huh?

Umm, that's ok -- you have a very busy practice I'm sure you'll get your IT guy to put something up soon.

Then I saw in your ad you mention your Twitter account so of course I wanted to get your "tweets" and follow you like I do Meghan McCain and Sarah Silverman but here's what I found:

We couldn't find anyone named Ervin A. Gonzalez.

Now that's odd.

When I put it "Ervin Gonzalez" this is what comes up:

Did you mean erwin gonzalez?

We couldn't find anyone named Ervin Gonzalez.

Listen, I don't want to fly off the handle and accuse your opponent of an internet-savvy "dirty-tricks" campaign or anything (that would involve me having to look up who your opponent is, for one thing).

But something is rotten in cyberspace, dude.

Ervin (alright, you too Mr. Erstwhile Opponent), you are more than welcome to use this limited plot of intertubular real estate to make your case to the good lawyers and judges of South Florida -- or at least the ones who spend way too much time screwing around on here.

Play nice, fellas!

That's pretty weird.

I was searching for a new "cat playing piano" video and somehow ran across Ervin Gonzalez.

Not bad Ervin, but a few tips if I may:

1. Get up from your desk. These tubes are a fluid medium.

2. Why are your hands clasped so much -- express yourself!

3. If possible, figure out a way to include that Wii girl from Miami.

Oh well, it doesn't really matter -- Ervin has my support either way.

BTW, the Florida Supreme Court today approved new rules regulating lawyer advertising on the web -- you can read the opinion here.

Note -- they have a particular interest in the potential abuse of client "testimonials."

A few years ago everyone wanted to talk about "metadata."

There were CLE seminars on it, papers, you name it.

Of course the Florida Bar got involved and the Florida Bar Board of Governors held a conference and naturally everyone got very worried about it -- so worried that several of the board members hadn't heard the word "metadata" until the meeting in which they immediately voted to denounce it.

I don't want to say it reached what I would describe as the highest level of inordinate outsized media attention --"flatbread mania" if you will, but it got up there.

Add to that the annoying obligation recently imposed by the CM/ECF system to check off your awareness of your redaction responsibilities every time you log on -- thank you, stupid bankruptcy lawyers! -- and you have a perfect storm of y2k-style paranoia brewing.

Just a few moments ago I received this email from a federal district court advising that even your well-intentioned yet totally lame redaction methods may be inadequate:

Some redaction techniques used when e-filing are ineffective, in that the text intended to be hidden or deleted can be read via a variety of techniques. And, because information about the document, called "metadata", is also stored inside the document, it is often viewable as well. Examples of metadata and hidden data include the name and type of file, the name of the author, the location of the file on your file server, the full-sized version of a cropped picture, and prior revisions of the text.

E-filers must use extra care to make sure that the PDF documents to be submitted to ECF are fully and completely free of any hidden data which may contain redacted information. The protection of sensitive data can be compromised if improper redaction techniques are used. Here are a couple of examples of sensitive-data visibility issues:

* Highlighting text in black or using a black box over the data in MS Word or Adobe Acrobat will not protect the data from being able to be seen. Changing the text color to white so it disappears against the white screen/paper is similarly ineffective.

* Previous revisions and deleted text may be able to be seen by manipulating an Adobe Acrobat file.

Listen, I'M JUST TRYING TO FILE A NOTICE OF APPEARANCE HERE!

If somebody wants to take the time to unpack my one page notice and learn that I spent half the day rewriting the first page of the brilliant graphic novelization of Kafka's Metamorphosis to include wild half-man, half-bug sex between Gregor Samsa and Drew Barrymore, so be it:

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.

“What’s happened to me,” he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls. Above the table, on which an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods was spread out—Samsa was a travelling salesman—hung the picture which he had cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt frame. It was a picture of Drew Barrymore from her January 1995 Playboy pictorial, with several well-placed tattoos and a smile that could make a man go buggy with primal animal desire. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm had disappeared.

It goes on from there, but you get the picture.

There, I hope it was worth it, all you efiling metadata thieves -- happy now?