ACT 2 – Scene Observations – Setting

Where:

-Entirety of this act takes place within Macbeth’s castle

-Scenes are inside the castle, and out, it seems the majority of the actions occurs inside the castle, while Banquo and Fleance’s parley takes place within the courtyard.

- As these scenes occur within in the castle, the setting can be described as being man-made.

-From the description, the space doesn’t seem extremely cluttered or sparse, but several items are mentioned specifically, ‘the curtained sleep’ This makes the area seem well furnished.

-There is much praise given onto the castle in the beginning of the act, especially from Duncan and Banquo.

Time:

-The defining scene of this act (the murder of Duncan) occurs during the night

-Banquo states ‘There’s husbandry in heaven; their candles are all out” referring to the stars. This is also significant as the stars also represent fate.

- The night is made to seem dark and foreboding, this is emphasized by Fleance stating “The moon is down”

Context:

-These scenes occur after act one. This is after Macbeth has learned of his advancement and after  he has been convinced by Lady Macbeth to carry out the murder against Duncan.

-The setting doesn’t change from the scene immediately before, except night has fallen on the castle

Act Analysis:

-The majority of the elements of the scene are dark and foreboding. Macbeth accentuates this by referencing Tarquin, amongst other images to create a dark and evil tone.

-In terms of staging this scene, the lighting would be definitely toned down, angles could be used in lighting to create dramatic shadows, especially in Macbeth to communicate to viewers evil resolve within him.

- The castle is presented as dark; therefore, the colors used would be cool colors, such as greys and blues, and even black

-The tragic aspect of this play comes out in this act, as Macbeth murders Duncan. The murder of a character presents the human suffering, which characterizes tragedy.

[Via http://roycewei.wordpress.com]

Why facebook why?

Hey Awesometownies,

It’s been a while since my last post, but I really haven’t had a good idea for something to blog about. This week I think I will vent my frustrations and pet peeves about the wonderful world of the social networking sensation that is facebook. I think it’s safe to assume that everyone who reads our blog has a facebook account, and if they don’t this blog will be pointless to them. So if that’s you, you should stop reading this and spend a minute out of your life and get caught up with the rest of America.

Since I’ve had facebook I’ve watched it blossom from a small website of college kids into the face of a new generation. It has taken over myspace and is now the king of the social networking world. Since the creation of it we have seen many new changes and upgrades or downgrades to what it is now, but no matter how many times they change the format or add new features, some d-bags will always find a way to keep it down. I will share some of my findings that make me cringe and sometimes wonder about what the future has in store.

1. I can’t stand people who have a stupid nickname where their middle name would be. You ether have a middle name or you don’t it’s that simple. I mean how many kids out there can have the middle name “shots” or “noonecallsmethisbutiwishtheywould.” I wish there was a lie detector for things like this so you would start seeing more realistic nicknames like, John “I’m a d-bag” Smith or Jane “Slut” Doe. If you are reading this and you have a stupid nickname as your middle name you should probably change it or do the rest of the world a favor and kill yourself, if your luck your nickname might make it on to your tombstone.

2. This isn’t so much facebook as it is technology in general, but I think that kids really do not know how to spell anymore. Granted I make mistakes here and there, but kids now days have something I didn’t have when I was growing up…spell check. I was lucky enough to be in the generation right before the bell curve took a turn for the worse. Internet chat and cell phones didn’t become popular until I knew basic grammar function, and proper spelling. Kids now have grown up with a language of their own, which involves laziness and slurring of speech. Example; wassup dawg u c that girl 2day she was so hawt I bet she wuld prly be my gurlfren if I axd her. Aight homie ill chck u l8r. Now I’m not sure when ignorance actually started but I am sure that it is getting out of hand. I think the only solution to this, is to have everyone take a spelling and grammar test before they are allowed to get a cell phone or use the internet. F u think u are prly part of the problem u shuld do the rest of the wrld a fvor and kil urself.

3. People using their facebook status as a way to vent. I can’t stand this at all, some people always have negative things to say on their statuses. Blah blah blah my day is going bad, blah blah blah this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. Well you will get no sympathy from me, if you want to complain get a blog or write it in your journal don’t waste your facebook status on something looking for a self esteem booster. You are not the only one that has bad days, everyone does but you can either share it with the rest of the world and feel sorry for yourself or you can talk about it with one of your friends, that’s why you have them. I would tellyou o kill yourself but you might actually do it so save it for a rainy day, and start putting thing up that make you happy.

4. The news feed and the stupid shit facebook has decided to put on it. I really don’t about how people’s farms are doing or if their mafia had new members join. I don’t even play those games what makes you think that I would be so interested to see how other people are doing in them. That would be like me having a ticker on my computer or TV that shows the scores to all the cricket matches taking place, it means absolutely nothing to me, it serves me no purpose. Facebook news feed guys, go kill yourselves maybe someone will make a cool app about you.

5. Facebook chat. You have spent so many times changing the layout of the website to make it more user friendly. You don’t even tell us the layout is changing you just lay it on us and let us figure it out. Even though you must get so much negative feed back every time you do this. Now this doesn’t bother me that much but I always see a lot of people complain. Lets be honest, we grew up in the age of technology, if you can’t figure out how to operate a new lay out to facebook you should probably kill yourself. The thing that I hate about all these changes is that facebook has a team of people to brainstorm on how they can make things easier and they spend all their time on that when they need to fix a simple glitch in the program which is facebook chat. This thing is a crap shoot, you never know what’s going to happen. You’ll be talking to someone and the automatically disconnected, am I still on dial up? Did some one call the house and kick me off the internet? Why is it that AIM and ICQ could do this and they are far older than you facebook. Facebook chat members you should probably do the world a favor an go kil

Sorry I got cut off in that last sentence. These are just a couple of things that bother me about facebook, do you have anything that bothers you, well lets here about it. There is a lot more stuff out there that I didn’t mention, but I thought 5 would be more than enough to read about me bitching.

Until next time,

Timbo

[Via http://theawesometown.com]

I should title this post, "Why I hate the Internet."

But what did the Internet ever do to me? Nothing horrible, truthfully. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe the Internet is so common in everyday life that I don’t even notice its absolutely devastating effects. I should really title this entire blog “Why I am a huge hypocrite: Irony, Irony, Irony.” But then my search engine optimization would probably be terrible. Because I’m told I’m supposed to care about these things. Ugh!

I have a few short reasons, aside from the fact that this stupid series of tubes has gone ahead and ruined any hope I ever had of working in print journalist.

One of these reasons occurred to me today while I was sitting in my 5:30 class. We had a pretty serious publishing mogul and seasoned politician come to our class. I’m pretty sure my professor had to pull a lot of strings to get him there. So, I’m sitting in the back of the room, taking pretty good notes and listening to this guy talk to a room filled with college seniors. I take a couple seconds to look around at my peers, and of course, nearly everyone had their laptops open to Facebook. Now, I’m as addicted to mindless social networking as most other people my age, but come on, people. This guy was actually interesting. Why anyone would feel the need to creep on other people’s profiles at that given moment is so far beyond me.

Another thing that really gets me about them Inter-webs is how easily people with no social skills can get through life without having any incentive to improve that. My roommate asked me this afternoon if I’d ever heard of this Web site called “Chat Roulette.” It’s exactly what it sounds like. Think, modern speed dating. Or fleeting interactions with strange-looking people from across the world. While cool in its concept, there is no reason to let most of these people within 100 yards of a school. And yet we probably do. Every day.

My roommate met me with a problem yesterday. Some guy she’d known, ugh, “IRL,” who she’d recently been linking to in her blog and communicating (sort of) via Twitter, recently asked her on what sounded like a date over a Twitter message. We both pondered whether or not one could successfully score a date in 140 characters. My vote is: a resounding no.

Sure, I take full advantage of the Internet. I wouldn’t have even considered blogging if the world/my university didn’t beat me over the head with the importance of these “tubes.” But I think the trouble with “kids these days” is that we’re forced to put ourselves in the public eye through all this social networking blah blah blah. So many of my journalist-in-training friends measure their success based on how many pages come up when they Google their names. Certain publications pride themselves in their ability to tweet out breaking news and then never follow-up on it. And sure, there is a need for those things in this fast-moving world. But I can’t say I’ve ever been moved by a tweet or a twit-pic. At least not the way a well-written, thorough article has. I worry that someday, I’m going to be stuck in a world that puts priority on speed over accuracy and brevity over thoroughness.

But for now, I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Oh, and check my Facebook page. And tweet out this (poorly-written, not even a little bit thorough) post.

[Via http://jencalantone.wordpress.com]

Case 2: Google's Soul For Sale

During the 1990s, Microsoft was the evil corporation of computing, trying to tie together a litany of shabby software products including Internet Explorer, thus making it impossible for any other companies to move in to the industry. However, in the last 10 years, Apple and Google have made serious strides gaining not just market share, but mind share as well. Apple with computing and hardware, Google with software programs. And in the last 10 years, these companies have taken on the image of fighting the big guy, David v. Goliath, Rudy just trying to make a tackle (more Google, Apple really already had this brand image). But with the release of Google Buzz, some people (I’m not really sure how many) are starting to this that Google is the big bad wolf that needs to be escaped from. But in reality, is it true?

I recently found on Gizmodo a step-by-step manual on how to take your life out of the hands of Google. Let me tell you, after reading through it, it would not be easy for me to rid myself of all of my Google ties. Not only do I use Gmail, but I use Wave, Google search, Chrome, Docs, Chat, and on occasion, Google Reader. That list is not exclusive, I will still actively search out any new product that Google releases. But the real question is, do I want to take away all of my services from Google? One of the biggest issues that consumers are dealing with right now is the privacy issue.

Google specializes in targeting advertising. By tracking your searches, just like Facebook tracks your posted information, Google can better feed you ads that relate closer to you.

The ad in the picture above is for ESPN, which not only do I have bookmarked, but I also sports in many of my e-mails. While this would bother a lot of people, thinking that it hits a little too close to home, I am not one of those people. I know the risks of having information online, and I’m of a firm belief that if I don’t want someone to know something about me, I will not post it or discuss it online.

The most backlash with Google Buzz is coming from the automatic tracking that Google added so you have a group of friends to start with, instead of having to search them all down. However, they created this list from people you contact with frequently in your contacts, which is a list that could include bosses, lawyers, ex-significant others and many other that you do not want being able to see any of your updates.

But Google Buzz cannot be the only cause of the public backlash against Google, can it? Google gave us Gmail, which allowed us to escape from the amateurish e-mail clients of Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL. Google gave us Docs, the first well publicized, well constructed online document creation program. But most of all, they gave us Google searches. Think back to the days before Google search. What was available? Ask Jeeves? Yahoo? Google redefined the search industry and have became the market leader because it is well deserved.

These search engines might be a thing of the past, however, Microsoft has thrown their gauntlets into the search engine industry with the ambitious release of Bing. Bing is not just another search engine, it is a redefinition on the common search, and gives the user a very different experience than does Google.

While Google will give you all web-pages, images, news articles and other such information having to do with any specific search, Bing goes a different route. They will still provide you with the same information, however, they will summarize basic information and display it for the user on the front page. Sort of like a Wiki Junior.

So while there are modern options from switching from Google platforms, the question is still there. Why do it? I believe that it all comes down to how much information are you willing to let one company not only know about you, but control. I know that by using as many Google products as I do, they could paint a very realistic picture of who I am. Every time you sign up for a company’s website you submit information. And with Google products, most of the time it’s not just submitting entry information, but the sending and receiving of messages with their products by E-mails, searches, documents, etc.

Until the release of Google Buzz, Google had a near spotless brand image and no signs of an evil corporation. But by looking in the news lately, that’s have to have changed, right? I mean, start angering your customers and your going to get a lot of negative PR. But what recourse is the right recourse? In the comments section of the article I discussed earlier, on how to delete Google from your life, a few consumers are discussing what they think on the subject.

“Why would I ditch a great service?” Never been more simple to some I guess. Until Google starts to seriously inconvenience my life, I will continue to use Google products. If I start to worry about online privacy more than I currently do, I think Facebook with be my first stop. Google may sell certain information to create targeted ads, but Facebook has more information publicly listed than I will ever disclose on any of my Google accounts. But I still easily found this online, but I just think this is pretty funny. Enjoy.

[Via http://gwillonthenet.wordpress.com]

Lent

A recent facebook post I made stirred up–well, I will say comments, not so much “controversy.” I was asking why so many of my friends who were not Roman Catholic celebrated Lent. I got lots of responses. Some people who were not religious were using it as a time to try to do something different. I’m assuming they chose Lent mainly because it is a conveniently defined period of time. Some felt that they did not think enough about the sacrifice that Jesus made for us in their day-to-day life and felt that giving something up would help them to remember that. Some people were doing something rather than giving something up; in fact one person was doing something that I believe is based on a misinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 11:3-16. I am not participating in Lent. I don’t think it’s wrong, necessarily, I just don’t think it is something I want to do, and here are some reasons why:

1. I don’t feel like I need to give anything up now any more than usual. A few weeks ago I set a goal of trying to drink more water than soda everyday. I haven’t been achieving that goal everyday, but I’m keeping track. I don’t want to give something up because I feel like I can enjoy a soda to the glory of God, just as I can enjoy any of the many things with which He has blessed me.

2. I don’t “need” to give something up to remember what Jesus did for me. Maybe I don’t think about His sacrifice every second of the day or even every day but it isn’t something I will forget easily, at least not now. I think that giving something up for me would just feel like a chore and my religion is not a chore.

3. I don’t like the idea of Lent being “self-improvement.” I can’t help myself. Only God can help to effect any kind of real change in me.

Today at church the bulletin had a passage that addressed Lent. I’m going to quote a little bit of it (if you wrote this and want credit let me know–there was no author or anything it’s just from a church bulletin):

“It is very important to remember that whatever you do during Lent, it must not be construed as a spiritual act that achieves any status or favor with God. Rituals and habits are meant to educate, discipline, and sensitize. They should never be meant to impress or give spiritual self-satisfaction. Hyper-devotion and super spirituality often lead to an exaltation of the self.”

I feel like a lot of people give up things that will help them. I don’t think that’s what Lent is for and I would rather enjoy what the Lord has given me every day and remember His suffering throughout the entire year, not just 40 days.

[Via http://reactionaryhousewife.wordpress.com]

On to Week 2

Well the weekend is now over and on to the next week of no Facebook. It is actually getting quite easy, if I may say. I’m not really suffering too much, and I guess it helps that nearly all my friends are filling me in anyway on what I missing out on. I got a little nervous when my friends told me I was tagged in a couple pictures from Friday night. Found out they’re all good. As my good friend Matt Wachtel said earlier to me, “Is there ever such a thing as a bad picture if you’re in it?” It’s so true.

Anyways, since it was Sunday, and “technically” Sundays do not count, I thought it would be funny to sign on to Facebook to just see the status of my account. No, I did not look at my wall, look at anyone else’s status, harvest my crops, compare my friends, admire how Chad Michael Murray was my Celebrity Doppelganger (no joke), or do any Friends Exposed, but I did just take note of everything. Current Tally: 63 notifications, 4 friend requests, 8 inbox messages, 12 other requests, and 1 poke (thanks, Mike Cattermole). It’s been only 5 days. Rumor has it that Facebook stops keeping track at 99 notifications. At this pace, I guess we’ll find out by Thursday night…

[Via http://40daysnofacebook.com]

Facebook to run on Coal!?

In case you haven’t heard, Facebook recently announced the development of its first data center in Princeville, Oregon, and instead of buying electricity from a clean source within the state, they’re going to mostly import coal electricity from Idaho.  Why?

“With the price of hydropower increasing in the Northwest, Facebook opted to bet on the incremental price increases associated with coal rather than face tier-two pricing from BPA.

Brian Oley, a data center site selection expert at the real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle, said it’s no secret that the Northwest’s hydropower is getting tapped out. Oley expects that when tier-two pricing kicks in, prices will increase from two cents per kWh to six or seven cents.”

As Treehugger notes, data centers such as the one Facebook is building are big energy hogs

“Data center power use of the last decade is astounding. In 2000, data centers comprised 0.8 percent of total US electrical consumption, but just 5 years later, data centers’ power consumption grew to 1.4 percent of the total energy use in the country, according to the Energy Information Administration.”

What’s interesting here is how Facebook is clearly aware that they’re making an unpopular decision.  They touted the energy efficiency measures taken to minimize the environmental impact of the data center, and posted an official defense of their decision on Treehugger by touting the energy efficiency measures again.  A big

They don’t seem to be addressing the head on issue of what KIND of power they’re using.  Efficiency is good, coal is terrible on emissions of every kind which damage human health at every stage of the life-cycle and causes climate change.  An energy efficient coal-powered building does NOT make for a green building.  Sorry Facebook.

But I think they know that too.  I’m hearing from multiple users they’ve started censoring Facebook groups which include the words “Facebook and coal”.  This was the most recent comment on TreeHugger…

“Facebook has, without warning, deleted the FB-group “Tell Facebook to use clean energy in its data center.”  The group existed for merely two days, was very popular and swiftly growing. At the moment of its deletion the group had about 700 members and there were over 3000 invitations to join the group, send out by its members, which were not yet responded upon. The number of group memberships was rising exponential.  Also at the moment of deletion the groups creator was in the progress to join forces with a major environmental movement to mobilize the public and to let them show their dismay by becoming member of the group. Which would have boosted membership even more.

We regret the undemocratic tactics which Facebook has applied in this matter.”

Also, the Facebook group “Get Facebook Off Coal” had to use zeros in place of their o’s in order to create their group.  They’re clearly afraid of this one getting around because they know what they’re doing as wrong.  If you have a Facebook account, please join the group linked above, and sign this petition.

Lets get Facebook off coal.

Cross-posted from The Dernogalizer

[Via http://itsgettinghotinhere.org]

Twesting Cwonnections

Yeah, so I just introduced myself to twitter (welcome to the 21st century dumbass!) and I find myself reading up on how to connect each and every account that I have to each other (or to twitter, mostly). Facebook to Twitter, WordPress to Twitter, WordPress to Yahoo, WordPress to Facebook…. Luckily, with WordPress, I just have to tick the box on links. I really don’t want to sound like an advertisement for wordpress, but connecting Facebook to twitter is such a pain in the *ss.

Luckily, I didn’t have to subject myself in reading how to create an RSS feed for my Facebook status. I found this blog where you don’t have to create a new facebook account or create your own RSS feed. Then, there’s twitterfeed! God bless the makers of those apps/sites. Big BOO! on facebook disabling RSS on our own status’.

Yeah, and I just made this post to see how all the connections that I made goes, hehe. So if you’re reading this, congratulations! You know how to read!

[Via http://olyabut.wordpress.com]

How to become a Facebook Star: 10 Tips

The way Facebook is growing with millions of users joining it without a break, I am concerned that soon there will be only two mankind species – some who use Facebook and others who don’t. But many users still need proper handholding to use and become popular on the world’s biggest social hangout on the Net. How? Here are the 10 Tips

By Rakesh Raman

[Via http://mytechbox.wordpress.com]

Facebook Is the Web’s Ultimate Timesink [STATS]

Each American Facebook user spent an average of 421 minutes on Facebook per month

via Facebook Is the Web’s Ultimate Timesink [STATS].

Exactly why everyone is so ready to kick Facebook to the curb, because they really fear what will happen if nothing can check its growth.  Think more about how many ways Facebook could have completely fallen down

1. Change UI – everybody howls let’s go back
2. Allow advertisers to use your profile pic in advertisements to your friends – oops let’s back out of that one
3. Change privacy settings – Zuckerberg pens letter to the masses saying Facebook cherishes privacy (while really just trying to push the envelope of acceptable sharing)
4. Change UI – everybody is just tired of complaining

In all that time MySpace, Orkut (who?), and Twitter have yet to make any significant decrease in the growth of Facebook.  Games like Farmville help to feed the addiction to Facebook.  Allowing more and more interoperability like Vivox for voice chat (potential competitor to Skype?) and opening IM to other 3rd party clients like AIM.

Facebook looks poised to keep their growth going.

[Via http://a1by.wordpress.com]

My Kind Of Guy

You started flirting with me today. Dont denie it im not that stupid. We actaully talked, about when we were going out, about how you cheated on me… we were whispering in class. Talking about everything, all the walls were down, no secrets, If i went out with you again… thats what it would be like.

Your My Awesome Waterpolo Dummy

[Via http://see1saw2in3an4igloo.wordpress.com]

Are we being social right now?

Sooooo……What do you think is the culmination of this social media frenzy?

ICQ, Yahoo chat rooms, MSN Messenger, Hi-Five, Facebook, Myspace,  Twitter, Google Buzz….etc….

Social interactions with people you would never really interact with in the flesh. The virtual self seems to be more appealing – how do we aggregate all of this extraneous information?

Are we trying to communicate that which can not be said?! I wonder. McLuhan believed that eventually media technologies would lead to a ‘post-literate’ world, where the written word and language would be superseded by the visual medium.

Hmm.  Well, that’s hardly the case is it?!  All of our ’social’ networking is highly contingent upon the written language!! Gah! Literacy is a HUGE aspect of how we now communicate in our ICT (information and communication technology) laden world!

But is literature social?  The written word is not entirely a social thing – I mean you are reading this and I have written it and in some way we are sharing the experience – but not in ‘real time’, not with any meaningful fleshy connection (no sexual innuendo intended here).  Doesn’t being social inherently include a human connection which is predicated upon a physical human characteristic? (Touch, taste, smell, sound…you get the idea).  We are experiencing a social moment together in some sort of suspended time warp where the human aspect has to be ‘guestimated’ – sarcasm and intonation fail miserably over social networks.

Even if we can have updates that are fractions of a minute or second apart (ahem..twitter), it’s not nearly as quickly as you could transmit a message by just talking to me in person. Granted of course that these technologies are leaping great distances in short periods of time, What is the need for people in the same place to have an interface between them?  More over – why do I need to know INSTANTANEOUSLY what is going on in the world?!  How have our social interactions been hijacked by technologies created by the inherently anti-social?  We sit in our own rooms distanced greatly not only by physical geography but by a constant interface through which we must first pass our message.  I suppose telephones did the same thing – but then with telephones there was a physical connection still – the human voice.

Oh – and does Blogging count as a social media?!  Is a cork based real life bulletin board a social media?  So confusing!

Obviously this is just the beginning of a phase or stage of communications technologies – we have yet to plateau.  Where are we going – where is this taking us?  After you have read this,  are we now ‘friends’?! (I’m a pretty great friend who always has chocolate on hand just so you know)

So many questions!!

[Via http://bsingh83.wordpress.com]

I Write. Other Ladies Make Money.

So here I sit, cozy at home, looking nerdy, and listening to the Olympic brou ha-ha which echos across English Bay. Fireworks, crowds, and what may you.

Meh!

I hate crowds, and for as much as I’m happy that Vancouver’s hosting the Games, I don’t feel it necessary to check-out the scene downtown. I also shall not be tuning-in to the opening ceremonies tomorrow night. Instead, I’ll be having fun out at (former) Riverview Psychiatric Hospital, being an extra on some indie film about zombies. (One of my best friends is the caterer/with craft services for the film.)

I get to be a zombie for several hours

Whoo! Big stretch, hey? I wonder if I ought just roll outta bed, fail to brush my furry teeth, and frighten the shit out of everyone on-set?

Much more fun than sitting at home, watching the opening ceremonies, or being part of the crazy scene, downtown! I can watch that stuff online, later. I’d rather be a zombie, and have fun with my friends Dawn (caterer) and Dana (fellow Mistress of Macabre). I’ll be certain to take some photos & post some to the blog over the weekend.

So … apparently, I wasn’t the only person who’d noticed the distinct similarity between an earlier blog post (and Facebook notes) and that which was published to a local blogger’s website AND in yesterday’s issue of 24 Hours Vancouver.

I was not imagining things, nor am I delusional. The content was awfully close to what I’ve previously written elsewhere.

I hope that this was just a coincidence.

This was NOT the first time I’ve written something, only to stumble upon eerily similar content published in 24 Hours Vancouver, weeks later.

Last January 7th, I wrote and published a note to Facebook entitled You Know You’ve Become Comfortable In A Relationship When … (see hyperlink for actual note, clipped/pasted from Facebook).

It was about crossing the “fart threshold” in new relationships.

You Know You’ve Become Comfortable in a Relationship When … (Note Published to Facebook: Wednesday, January 7, 2009 at 3:08pm)

… the farting begins.

You know it’s “real”, and you’ve moved beyond the casual dating/early relationship stage when the farts start a’-rippin’! Oh, yes!

Farts happen. Farts are funny (in moderation). Farts are sometimes just too good not to share with a special someone. Nothing defines “intimacy” more than fart-sharing.

However, there seems to be an unspoken, undetermined “honeymoon period” when one wouldn’t dream of blowing the asstastic trombone, and should one let a fart accidentally slip … utter mortification ensues.

As per my status update last night:

“Kate says, ‘Dignity comes in many forms. Such as: laying naked in someone’s bed, post-coitus, in gastrointestinal agony, never letting-on that you’re dying to fart.’ “

So, so true, and most of us have been there! You know it, I know it, and there is no shame in laughing at one’s gastacular moments!

In case you’re wondering: yes, that status update was based on personal experience, and I’ll bet that at one time or another, you too have experienced something similar (especially fellow members of the fairer sex)! Possibly too much information for some to share, but … it’s funny, and ladies will sympathize with the fartastic tale!

Just know that I’d been dating someone for several weeks, and while laying in his bed early one morning, put myself through the AGONY of withholding … something really evil. Put it this way: we’d been drinking a lot of beer the night before, and like the brewmaster who’d perfected whatever we’d been drinking, yours truly had been brewing something special in her gut over-night.

Though the guy laid asleep next to me, I knew that he wouldn’t be for long, should I let-loose under the sheets. And so I laid there, perfectly still, trying not to double-over, but not daring to move an inch, lest the post-beer brew slip-out with violent velocity. There was an adjoining en suite bathroom, but forget the awkwardness of strolling naked across the room: I was more worried that the fart would fly out while trekking across the room, or once having reached the bathroom, the powerful blast would vibrate & ricochet off walls, echoing throughout the room. There’d be no muffling or disguising that one.

Clearly, we hadn’t reached the “I’m comfortable enough to fart in front of you” stage. (we never arrived at that point, breaking-up when he cheated on myself about a week later.)

And so I laid there, painfully … for more than an hour, pretending to be asleep, just waiting for him to get-up & hit the shower. Let’s just say that when I let-loose, the duvet almost rippled, and I think that a robin may have fallen out the tree near the bedroom window.

For all of my agony, dignity & consideration, he was none the wiser, detected nothing, and (soaking wet) jumped back into the freshly farted-in sheets.

Others aren’t as considerate as myself, I might add. Without saying too much, or being overtly graphic, just know that my former fiancé, “Sharty Sweatpant Man”, cut-loose during … up-close & personal moments with myself.

Yup. Horrific. Traumatizing. (and you wonder why I didn’t marry him?!) “Poor Kate!”, indeed.

I reckon that like trimesters of pregnancy, new couples ought to arrive at an official “you can fart in my presence” point of their relationship. You know: say, 3-6 months into the relationship?

Perhaps there should even be an intimate, personal “fart sharing” ceremony of sorts. Copious amounts of cabbage, beans, and beer could be consumed during a romantic, candle-lit dinner for two … some Julio Iglesias, Luther Vandross, Barry White & Peabo Bryson playing in the background … gifts of Beano exchanged in-between words of love, softly whispered into each others’ ears … (“oh, you shouldn’t have! thank you! does this mean that you really love me?”)

Like a kiss to seal a wedding ceremony, this intimate, pivotal point in a couple’s relationship could culminate with a synchronized game of “Pull My Finger”: farts shared simultaneously. One might compare it to … the dizzying explosion of release one feels at the point of climax, or (for you less risqué types) … pulling a Christmas cracker together, without having to wear funny paper hats!

Capping the evening of the romantic, fartastic ceremony: some horizontal hokey-pokey, in a bed warmed by intimate … Dutch ovens.

Whoo! I don’t know about you, but I’m getting chills just thinking about it …

The majority of my notes published to Facebook were set for a limited amount of my contacts to read. However, there were some notes which I permitted all of my contacts to read, as well as “friends of friends”. Meaning that all 350+ of my former Facebook contacts, as well as all of their contacts could read my note about farting.

That’s a lot of people, folks!

The note was/is humourous, and — no doubt, struck a chord with many whom read it’s content. It garnered several responses from Facebook contacts, including one from a former uncle (who shared his story about a honeymoon fart, when he’d married my aunt).

I can’t remember the exact time frame (definitely within less than two months after I’d published my note to Facebook), but one morning, I sat reading that day’s new issue of 24 Hours Vancouver, and there on the page was … an article about couples farting, within the beginning stages of their relationship.

Very similar to what I’d written, weeks prior — including the line “the honeymoon’s over”!

What. The. Fuck.

The author, a local freelance writer (woman, about my age), writes a dating column in that paper, but also has work occasionally published to another well-known, freebie paper, The Georgia Straight. It appears that she also has a small online blog.

Out of respect for her talent, reputation, and credibility — and because I am now unable to find an online link to the specific piece published to that paper — she shall remain anonymous.

I am not insinuating that my work (published to Facebook) had been viewed by her (a friend of a friend?), she was “inspired-by”, nor plagiarized what I had written. No. But it’s very similar content, and the time frame which that piece of her work had succeeded my own certainly DID cause me to raise my eyebrow.

This is a small city. People know people. People are connected via Facebook.

Can you blame me for wondering about the article’s coincidentally close content, published within 4-8 weeks of my own work hitting the `net?

I clipped & pasted the content of my work, and sent her a friendly email, saying something along the lines of, “Wow. Great minds clearly think alike. Isn’t it ironic that I too wrote something similar, recently? We must be on the same wavelength. I enjoyed the humourous slant of your article.”

I blind carbon-copied that email to the editor of 24 Hours Vancouver, but no response was forthcoming from either the writer nor editor.

And like I just said: I can no longer find that piece of her work online (though it used to be published there).

Hunh!

There are a lot of talented, witty writers out there. I’m sure that this city is filled with thousands of them, competing to get their work published & make a living. Many have spent thousands of dollars on university or college educations — degrees in Journalism or English. They have worked hard, are trying to keep a roof over their head(s), and like all areas within the arts, freelance writing is a cut-throat industry. Sink or swim.

I do not have a formal education in writing. I am a self-taught, life-long writer. I have not tried to earn a living by writing. Many have suggested that I do so, and many others have sited that I can write circles around many of those whom are earning a living, writing.

I write, because it brings me joy, and I love sharing my wit with others. Hence, I’ve given it away for free, here, and previously on Facebook. I probably could stand to make a fair bit of money from what I write.

**shrug!**

Coincidence or not, it chafes my ass and upsets me when I see other local authors, having EXTREMELY SIMILAR content (to that of my own) published, weeks/months after I’ve already shared MY original, gifted content with people. Those authors are being PAID for what they’ve had published, and receive professional accolades for their work.

I have received not a penny, but praise & encouragement from friends, relatives, and strangers who love what I so generously GIVE to people to read.

Something’s not write right, here, folks!

I wonder if there shall be any “open letters” written & published by those two aforementioned columnists. You know, something similar to my Mark Darcy, penis, Jake Ryan, and vagina letters?

You can bet that I shall be watching & reading local columns with great interest. To those of you living within Vancouver, following my blog (or back from Facebook): I hope you’ll keep your eyes peeled for “coincidentally” similar content, too!Maybe my hot, new look should be coincidentally copied/posted to the local papers, too? “Yahoo Serious-chic”?

[Via http://darthkater.wordpress.com]

If It Ain't Broke...

With the advent of Google Buzz, I’m starting to get tired of all the rapid changes in technology and social media.  If technology is going to progress so quickly, I’d like to be able to choose whether or not I can opt in or opt out of these changes.  For instance, Google Buzz simply swooped in and gave its Gmail users Twitter-like abilities and public profiles without fair warning. Facebook has changed its image and added more features so many times that it’s becoming frustrating.  What was wrong with the first 500 versions of the website? 

Today’s phones don’t just take calls, but also videos, photos, hold music, store important documents, act as a GPS, balance your check book, and count your calories.  Anything you’d want to do in your daily life, now there is a phone app for that.  Remember when text messaging was a novel concept?!

It’s hard to keep up with all these changes, especially when I preferred some of the older models better than their newer counterpoints.  I’m still adjusting to the fact that VHS tapes are out along with video rental stores like Blockbuster.

In honor of my favorite “oldies, but goodies,” here are 5 technologies that are fine just the way they are:

 1) The boom box.  Do you really need to bring your personal computer around with you to provide music at parties? The boom box did just fine.  Plus it still plays your old mix tapes.

 2) The overhead projector.  Invented during the 1940s, this is hands down the best way to display information on a wall in front of large groups of people.  No need to worry about memory stick problems or losing your connection to the internet during a presentation.

 3) A physical book.  No digital reader can ever replace the feeling of holding a book in your hands and feeling the pages between your fingers (and of course the new book smell).

 4) The Nokia cell phone.  I agree, we all need cell phones, but you can’t even use a touch screen with your winter gloves! Flip phones tend to snap in half eventually, but the Nokia can fly down a flight of stairs (and even survive a drop in the toilet) and still accept your calls and text messages.

 5) The single air conditioner unit. Forget central air.  I just want my bedroom to be cold. The noise these things make is soothing, especially if white noise helps you sleep. I don’t need my whole house to be cold all the time and I like how easy you can control the temperature on these things.

What are some of your favorite technological “oldies but goodies”?

[Via http://sjwhipp.com]

Google Buzz: 2 years ago

2 Years ago I wrote a blog post entitled “Dear Yahoo, Microsoft and Google mail, forget Facebook, start innovating”. Facebook was coming up strong (still is), giving headaches to everyone. And it occurred to me (and other, smarter people, like Om Malik) that these companies had an extremely strong asset that could be socialized, e-mail!

There are, even today, more people on the web using e-mail than there are people on Facebook. E-mail, as old-fashioned and clumsy as it sounds, is still at the heart of our social interactions. It has been declared dead uncountable times, mostly by people without imagination. But the basis service e-mail provides us, the ability to reach out and interact with the people we know, was there long before any social network was ever imagined.

Google made the first real attempt to innovate on e-mail, and gave us Gmail. Gmail brought a nr of important features to mail that didn’t exist before. It is web-based (and easily reachable from anywhere), has excellent SPAM filters and it gives us free storage. They added chat to it and the ability to change its appearance and functioning via scripts.

I’ve mentioned 9 improvements to mail 2 years ago. These improvements would make email more social for me. And now that I’ve watched the video on Google Buzz, it has become clear to me that Google implemented these requests (and more) into Google Buzz (I wonder, did they ever read my post )

Google never ceases to amaze me. Everyone laughed when they “missed” social networks. Everyone declared Facebook the winner. I’m sure Google would have liked to own a company like Facebook. But I’m glad Google didn’t and had to invent social networking the hard way. Building a closed walled garden was the easy way out then. Google was forced to solve the issue differently. And it turns out they had all the assets already available to them. Just think about it. They have (real-time) search, maps, localization, mobile, chat, e-mail, photos, video’s, and they most likely have you and all of your friends using Google accounts. It’s all there.

And with Google Buzz they now offer an open solution that connects and integrates with anything else Google and others have to offer. And by opening up this social space, Google has made the web just a little more User-Centric.

Well done! Let the buzz begin

ps. hat tip to @stevie_glass who pointed me to my post on Twitter this morning

[Via http://vanelsas.wordpress.com]

Stepping up to the challenge of our time

The 7x9 feet three panel mural painted by the University of the Philippines Artists’ Circle Fraternity to commemorate the 20th anniversary of SV Rainbow Warrior’s bombing.

To the dismay of my colleagues here in the Philippine office I am licensed to surf the web and even accessed this pesky website called Facebook –and come to think of it is indeed really interesting what you can find over there, as a few minutes ago I was able to come across Greenpeace International’s profile picture on their page and seeing it again (although technically I see it everyday) reminded me of the my first assignments when I started to become a part of Greenpeace, fulltime, not to mention one of the first people that I’ve been glad to call a comrade in the cause who is none other than –Tomas Leonor.

It was during a rainy after noon sometime in August 2009 when I first met Tomas, remember having been assigned by the office to write an article for their project to paint a mural painted to commemorate the 20th anniversary of SV Rainbow Warrior’s bombing.

Greenpeace Activists assemble smoke-spewing coal plant at the Asian Development Bank headquarters in Manila.

Tomas was a part of the University of the Philippines Artists’ Circle Fraternity a university-based fraternity, which carried out the task of creating a 7×9 feet three panel mural which will serve as a fitting tribute to the first Rainbow Warrior which was bombed back in 1985 for its role as a symbol of the growing consensus for a nuclear-free world at the time.

During the violent direct action at Masinloc, Tomas was again one of the first activists that I interviewed at the scene after the activists were intercepted by plant security. As the years past he has been one of the more active Greenpeace volunteers who’ve dedicated his time and talent for advancing our campaigns and to add color and life in our creative confrontations with the powers that seek to jeopardize the welfare of our planet.

Greenpeace activists dress up as genetically modified (GM)'zombie' crops.

His signature can easily be seen in the works that he has done over the years here at Greenpeace not only in the Philippines but in Southeast Asia who could forget the coal plant that we constructed outside the Asian Development Bank (ADB) headquarters in Manila; or the Genetically Modified Zombies that blockaded the Thai Government House; to the novel solar cooker that was deployed during a cookout that was done in at the site of a soon-to-be constructed coal plant in Iloilo to demonstrate the viability of renewable energy like solar energy; to the recent alien costumes that I was able to wear during the ADB’s Climate and Clean Energy Week.

Tomas collecting plastic rubbish from Manila Bay.

A group of unidentified aliens visited the Asian Development Bank.

None can question Tomas’ flare for outrageousness and his penchant for creatively getting our attention on important issues like climate change, genetic engineering, toxics pollution and the like.

All this is evident with his recent endeavour called Step Juan which is the embodiment of Tomas’ dream of helping out children under the Cancer Warriors Treatment Program.

Step Juan is a walking expedition done by Tomas. The idea is to walk from Pagudpod to Sorsogon without any means of vehicular assistance and to do this for several weeks, straight, stopping only for food and rest. The backbone and foundation for this idea is to raise funds for the cancer children under the Cancer Warriors Foundation.

It is with great joy that I speak for the rest of Greenpeace in our support for this venture, because we know that change (whether it bee ecological, social or political) is only possible if there are people who are crazy (in a good way) enough like Tomas who seeks to step up to the challenge of the time and have fun while working to make the world a better place for all of us.

Chuck Baclagon

[Via http://greenpeacesoutheastasia.wordpress.com]

pramleeelvis.wordpress.com is now Ranked No.64,764 on Alexa's Top Malaysian Websites

This is the latest Malaysian Rankings on Alexa:

ALEXA’s Rankings

Top Sites in Malaysia

as of today(8thFeb,2010)

The top 100 sites in Malaysia. The sites in the top sites lists are ordered by their 1 month alexa traffic rank.

The 1 month rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past month. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1.

1. Facebook
   
   facebook.com

   A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and videos.

2. Google
   
   google.com.my

   google.com.my

3. Yahoo!
   
   yahoo.com

   Personalized content and search options. Chatrooms, free e-mail, clubs, and pager.

4. Google
   
   google.com

   Enables users to search the Web, Usenet, and images. Features include PageRank, caching and translation of results, and an option to find similar pages. The company’s focus is developing search technology.

5. YouTube – Broadcast yourself
   
   youtube.com

   YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your videos worldwide!

6. Blogger.com
   
   blogger.com

   Free, automated weblog publishing tool that sends updates to a site via FTP.

7. Windows Live
   
   live.com

   Search engine from Microsoft.

8. Wikipedia
   
   wikipedia.org

   An online collaborative encyclopedia.

9. Microsoft Network (MSN)
   
   msn.com

   Dialup access and content provider.

10. Maybank2u.com, A Complete One-stop Financial Portal
    
    maybank2u.com.my

    maybank2u.com.my

11. Myspace
    
    myspace.com

    Social Networking Site.

12. Mudah.my
    
    mudah.my

    mudah.my

13. The Star Online
    
    thestar.com.my

    Breaking news and views from Malaysia’s top English language news source

14. WordPress.com
    
    wordpress.com

    Free blogs managed by the developers of the WordPress software. Includes custom design templates, integrated statistics, automatic spam protection and other features.

15. Tagged
    
    tagged.com

    Tagged.com is one of the top social networking sites in the world.

16. Malaysiakini.com
    
    malaysiakini.com

    Malaysiakini.com, a subscription-based website, offers news and views that matter in Malaysia. Updated daily, the site has won several awards for its quality reporting. In English, Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil.

17. Friendster
    
    friendster.com

    Friendster is a leading global social network emphasizing genuine friendships and the discovery of new people through friends. Search for old friends and classmates, stay in better touch with friends, share photos and videos, and so much more.

18. Lowyat.NET
    
    lowyat.net

    Malaysia s Tech Enthusiast Resource Community. Tech News, Reviews and hyper active discussion forums focusing on the Malaysian IT scene.

19. Cari Malaysia
    
    cari.com.my

    One of the most popular local Malaysian community website started in 1996. The three languages forum, English, Malay, and Chinese are the largest and most popular in Malaysian community. Also provides directory listing of over 30,000 Malaysia related web sites and company details.

20. RapidShare
    
    rapidshare.com

    Users can upload up to 100 meg files for sharing. Provides downloads of 100 megs per hour on the free service. Premium service also available.

Rank No: 64,764

Pramleeelvis.wordpress.com

Ramli Abu Hassan’s Blog

[Via http://pramleeelvis.wordpress.com]

A sentence I swore by.

My sentence: “I promise nothing other than to devote  time, adoration, and passion to my family, friends, professional life, and personal life and I will do just that.”

First and foremost, I absolutely dislike talking about myself. It’s the worst thing ever. Give me a topic to discuss and I will state my blunt opinions but it better not be about myself. I get very nervous and get the butterflies. However, I liked this assignment because it actually took me 45 minutes to figure out a sentence that hit right on the mark and is honest. 

I can’t write a professional sentence without incorporating the people and things that matter most to me in my life. My family and friends come before my career. Careers can come and go, but family and true friends never leave your side. I can’t even go a day without speaking to every member of my family or friend about what they had for dinner or thought about a tv show – which is standard procedure. (Notice how I am rambling because I don’t know what to say).

What I do know is that my sentence could not be complete without incorporating spending time and loving the momements captured with the people I love and the activities I love to do. 

Social media and the rapid technological advances constantly change my sentence, both positively and negatively. The more communication devices created, the many more ways in keeping in touch with what matters most to me.  On the contrary, the more advances, the less time spent building a relationship one-on-one and the more time spent on facebook, twitter, and text messaging. But wait, no one can live without them.

[Via http://gmurante7.wordpress.com]

Facebook Threat

Because he’s the only person in Dubai who has no Facebook account, I told Jules, “Kapag ‘di ka gumawa ng facebook, ako gagawa para sa’yo. Gusto mong makakita ng mga status messages na: Jules is *** o gusto mo relationship status na Jules hates Ann? O kaya naman mang-aaway ka ng ibang tao sa facebook. Deadline mo hangang March ha?”

With that, he finally made one.

[Via http://orleebaldedara.wordpress.com]

Roundup: Best Writing Advice

Today, and only because you love them: a roundup. The focus? “Best Writing Advice.” Here are a few key suggestions turned up by a Google search.

1. Knuckle down. You’re gonna be at it for a while. This guy says it’ll take you at least ten years before you can expect to reap any rewards from your creative writing. I’d say it varies, but for the most part he’s right (even if he does use too many adjectives). Even Malcolm Gladwell says it takes about ten thousand hours of practice to become an expert at anything.

2. Don’t be repetitive. Uh oh: I think I’ve said this before. But at the risk of being, um, repetitive: be wary of using the same word too many times within one document, article, or – god forgive you – paragraph. In my writing for The Corporation, I’ve discovered I have an embarrassing fondness for the word rich. I’m always mentioning BC’s rich history, or the rich stories of this land, or the richly textured stories presented in the galleries and exhibitions. (Gets a bit rich after a while.) Word to the wise: Under the Edit menu, the “find” function is your loyal friend. It’ll help you locate and decimate those unintentional acts of repetition.

(And what’s with my little rich obsession, anyway?)

3. The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. It’s a golden oldie, isn’t it? But while this adage may have held true a dozen years ago or more, you don’t need me to tell you that email, Facebook, twitter, YouTube and millions of other time wasters are just waiting for the seat of your pants to park themselves in front of the computer. I still haven’t figured out how to ignore these and other distractions when I’ve got Stuff To Write. If there were one on the market today, I’d put my hard-earned money toward an app that locks me out of cyberspace for 90-minute intervals, thereby forcing me to work. (According to Tony Schwartz, author of The Power of Full Engagement, ninety minutes is about how long our brains can remain productively focused on a single task. I am patiently, agonizingly working my way up from four.)

4. Show, don’t tell. “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass,” wrote Anton Chekhov. Closely related to this is E.L. Doctorow’s suggestion that “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”

I agree. In fact, I agree so much that I’ve alluded to it in a previous post somewhere, but I can’t find it right now and it’s getting late, so you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.

So here we have four reasonably good pieces of advice about how to approach the craft of writing. But I gotta leave the last words – the best advice of all – to C.S. Lewis, creator of the Narnia series and igniter of children’s imaginations the world over (and, coincidentally, sharer of my birth date):

5. “Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. You should hear every sentence you write as if it was being read aloud or spoken.” Every time I sit down to write to you through Infernal Memo, I want to say things just this way. I don’t believe I succeed very often, because I don’t tend to speak in run-on sentences and in the real world I can never relay stories in any sort of logical manner and I’m not even particularly funny in person. But I like it, this act of trying to write the same way I talk. Just like you’re sitting across from me in the saggy, mauve, edges-rubbed-away wingback chair – or better yet, across the table over a cup of coffee and gingerbread at Bubby Rose’s.

Here’s my question to you, in three parts: when you write, do you hear your voice saying the words? Do you hear inflections and pauses? Do you try out syllables and parts of words on your tongue as you wait for the right ones to come?

[Via http://infernalmemo.wordpress.com]

Online Suicide. [Don't get emo - it is not what you might be thinking.]

I made a decision last week to delete both my MySpace and my Facebook accounts. I had been thinking about it for a while for myriad reasons, but every time I considered it, I came up with a reason not to do it: But, I have all those photos on there… But, how will I know about all those ‘events’… But, what if that ONE person I MUST meet is on there… But, what if I miss something really, really, really cool…

Yeah, right.

I spent a lot of time as an adolescent worrying about missing shit. Like, if you were not somewhere, something amazing might happen. This caused me tremendous stress the one time I was put on “restriction” by my mother for antics that had gone just a few steps too far. My mom decided that I would be on “restriction” and this meant that I had to be home by 9 pm on weekdays (you know, all those nights spent at the Petaluma Public Library  – working so hard…) and I could only go out one night on the weekend with a midnight curfew. I thought my life was over. Only one night? What if I picked the wrong one? Oh.My.God. Total devastation. Looking back on this now I have to laugh for a couple of reasons: 1) I lived in freaking Petaluma after all, if it happened on a Friday it was gonna happen again on a Saturday and truth be told, shit rarely ever happened… and 2) The fact that what I just described was restriction is sort of hilarious – my unborn children better hope they never cross the line because I will lock them down – and for the record, after like five months of said “restriction” I asked my mom when – oh when! – would it be over and she went for the total killer blow saying, with complete coolness and appropriate aplomb, “Oh, yeah, I suppose it can be over now.” Talk about fished in. Mom, FTW.

Anyhow, to have this happening in my adult life was becoming too much of a recurring and horrifying déjà vu.

There were some other issues. I am really irritated at how both sites are operating and using our information/photos/etc – regardless of the fact that there are “Terms of Use” and the framework itself may necessitate said operations. The more I read about how they work, the more I don’t like it. Then I checked out the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine and it really made me think. [It is with no small bit of irony that the reason I heard about the Suicide Machine was through a blog I am linked to on Facebook.] But the developers of the concept have a point. Get back into the real world.

Then consider the fact that I have more than 300 “friends” on Facebook, and 150 or so on Myspace. [This after much culling, which has led to all sorts of drama. I have actually received emails asking why people had been deleted. From the people in question as well as other friends. Seriously. And then, someone I know was speaking to another person about me, and person #2 said, "Well, can Amanda be trusted? She deleted me from Facebook." I know you think I must be making this shit up - but I assure you, I am not. ] Who the FUCK has 500 friends? I mean, SERIOUSLY. I have already expounded on Dunbar’s number here, so I will not bore you with that, but SERIOUSLY. And the politics of social network friends. Holy Mother of God. I know there are tons of articles about it already, but it is like people lose their sense of reality when they enter the virtual world of social networking. Perhaps that is the point for some people, but where have the boundaries gone? In real life, you have to have a reason to be someone’s friend, don’t you? Just because you know Person A does not mean you are therefore friends with all of Person A’s friends… or does it? Though, to be sure I have fallen on both sides of this equation as well, as I mentioned here.

It is entirely likely that this is totally about me, and not the social networks. Consider this story: I returned to Petaluma for my 8th grade year after having been in Seattle and San Diego since the 3rd grade. I had wanted to “go back” to Petaluma since about ten minutes after leaving the place and had made it abundantly clear (sorry Mom & T.) When I did get back, everything was different. I have already talked a lot about that here, but suffice it to say, nothing was as I remembered, people had new friends, I was the freaky tall “new” kid and the social order – not to mention the mores – were totally foreign to me. When we received our school pictures that year, about a month in, I was approached by my (eventual) dear friend Kelly C. Kelly asked me for one of my pictures. I looked at her with what I am sure was confusion, but I know it just looked snotty. I replied, “Why do you want one of my pictures, you don’t even know me?” [Kelly still tells this damn story all the time, so I suppose I can too...] Kelly was like, “Whatever.” I am fairly certain she added a few other choice words there too. Looking back on it, I see both sides. I understand now what I did not then, which is that the number of school pictures one had was a very big deal. It was the absolute quantitative demonstration of one’s social viability. And for 12 year-olds I think that is mildly appropriate. I also see my side of the story, which was why would people want to have photos of people they did not know? Perhaps it was a way to get to know someone. Perhaps it was just the thing to do. Either way the similarities to the current friend situation of online social networks seem about the same. I suppose there are good and bad reasons to collect friends, but I liked it better when we ‘made’ friends. [Don't even get me started on the way that 'friend' has become a verb. So annoying.]

You may be an ambassador to England or France,

You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,

You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

Then there was what had started to show signs of an addiction to life on line. Is that who I want to serve? Like, knowing things about people that I barely knew, and so then having this really weird sort of intimate knowledge when in fact we should be more like “What’s up?’ type of friends. That, I suppose, is a result of online stalking of your friends, and their friends and so on and so forth… of which I am guilty. And that is creepy. But ultimately it came to this: I was taken in by a connection on line one year ago – almost to the day. I was absolutely gobsmacked at how cool this person was. I began to seriously live for being on line… including changing sleeping patterns and social engagements to accommodate conversations. And though that came to a well known dissolution (hello, euphemism!) it did initiate a pattern of behavior that I did not like. Not one little bit.

So, when I made the decision to delete the accounts.. I checked to see how I felt about it. I considered what I would lose. Would I lose friends? Family? I sort of doubted it. I deleted the apps from my iPhone and nothing really happened. I did not get more or less interaction I simply discovered that I had all this time. Time to look around a little more. Time to read. Time to write. Time to sleep. Suddenly the thought of not having those pages pop up on my computer seemed really great. And then people started to ask me about it. A guy at work (who thinks he knows me better than he does) said, “But you LIVE for Facebook.” Uh, no. There are a few other things. Mostly though, the questions were legitimate, and honestly, the people who I spoke to about it are definitely people I will stay in touch with. My friend Mikey V, who I met only because of MySpace (serious) sent me a very reasonable message – Why? FB makes it so easy to link to your blogs and keep up… And he is right. To this end I certainly do not discount ever re-joining the world of online socializing, and I am keeping a dummy page to have my blog upload so my friends have and easy way to track that because I have to admit, Facebook has hugely increased traffic to my blog and this certainly soothes my savage ego. What I told Mike and I will share here is the following:

I want to not have Facebook be something that takes up time in my life, and I know I do not have the discipline to not constantly be wondering what “might” be happening out there in the world of online social networking… it is certainly not some sort of test, like to see who my real friends are or something, but at the same time, I think it will make the interactions I have with people a little more meaningful, at least on my end – more intentional, you know? Lastly, one year ago, almost to the day, I got really sucked into something that I thought was one thing and was clearly another, and a lot of it had to do with this new world of living on line. It is something that taught me a lot and is also a reason why I want to step away. I want more time in the meatspace – not cyberspace. It is so easy to hide away in – or behind – all this stuff, especially as an ex-pat when the desire for connection might be that much greater.

I think I am more at risk for delving into an online life than others because it is such a connection to people from ‘home’ and I have my struggles with finding the genuine purpose in my life as an ex-pat. Plus, let’s face it, I am nosy. There are a lot of things that I like in the world of online social networks to be sure. But I believe I can get them in other ways. I like the photos – those are easily shared a million ways. I like the occasional “Wow! That person… haven’t heard from them in a while!” I like seeing the funny side of my students, who honestly impress me constantly with their insights and senses of humor. I like the ease of event maintenance, but you hear about them in the meatspace simultaneously and I honestly just don’t go to that many events. But there are a lot of things I cannot stand about it either. Farmville. Mafia Wars. Apps. The perpetuation of negativity. Dishonesty. Entitlement. Social lubrication. The slow, but sure replacement of direct contact.

I do not think these sites are going to go away, but I think the future of all them is in the business and branding realm. For interpersonal connections and building friendship? You have to get real.

For real.

I was asked about keeping in touch and I hope that the people who are interested in keeping in touch do – I know I will. I still have the same email address and I am keeping my blogs active (this one and my photo blog) and my Twitter account. Plus, you never know, I might be back. For now I just need a little time away from the machine. As my friend Anna said, (the one who reminded me of the importance of the meatspace when things were looking a little (a lot) dodgy):

“Ah, the first stage in reentry! Welcome home Major Tom.”

(image courtesy of this site.)

[Via http://shakingthetree.wordpress.com]

How to create a facebook page for your web site

1. Log into Facebook
2. open Create New Facebook Page.
3. Select appropriate category
4. Name the page
5. Add some cool image, and some info about the page
6. If your website is syndicated (RSS) then import the RSS feed, to auto populate when new content is added, then Select “Edit Page”
7. Select “Notes” +”Edit”
8. Select “Import a Blog”
9. place your RSS URL in Web URL field. (if your word press your url is http://BLOGNAME.wordpress.com/feed/
10. Select “Start Importing”
11. Select Confirm Import
12. Update your web site.
13. Become a fan by selecting “Become a Fan”
14. Suggest the page to friends by selecting “Suggest To Friends”

Jumptack Facebook page

[Via http://jumptack.wordpress.com]

Join Guerilla Grocery Choice on FaceBook!!

I’ve created a group on FaceBook called Guerilla Grocery Choice Australia, join up!

I’ll be asking members to tell me what they paid for items on a weekly basis.  This week is the iconic Australian biscuit made by Arnott’s: the Tim Tam 175g.  You’ll need to go to the group & see what I’ve paid, and how many packets I’ve bought this week.

I’ve also uploaded pics from Coles in-store advertising…

See you on Facebook, of course my receipts will still be here.

[Via http://fabulousandwitty.wordpress.com]

February - Snow and Wind

The picture is one I posted on Facebook last week. This week’s title comes from a prediction by one of our Latvian neighbours. It is 7:15 am on February 1st as I write this. I just opened the door to check the weather and it is snowing, but no wind at the moment. We heard yesterday that this has been a bad winter the worst in the last 8 years. I haven’t checked into this as to its truth but if that is so we have done very well with the circumstances we have been handed. My dream at the moment is to have our log house built and completely ready for next winter; to thoroughly winterize every aspect of living to the extreme and enjoy Spring and Summer to the fullest possible experiences.

My motto for 2010 is ‘Live in the moment with a heart prepared for change.’ My human tendency is to try to figure out what’s coming so I can get ready (prepared) but God says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths.” Does that mean I shouldn’t prepare, I don’t think so. Yet, it does mean not to count on or build my security on my preparedness. We began our life here on the farm knowing we weren’t prepared for the extremes winter might bring and we face difficulties because we weren’t prepared. Even some of our preparations failed but for the most part our hearts have not been locked  on to the preparation for winter other wise we would be most depressed. We are learning to live in the moment and adapt as necessary. In praying for God to guard our hearts I am most concerned that my heart not be focused on faulty belief systems that are rife not only in the world but in the church. Some of these ‘unbelief’ systems are rooted in from times long past, things that move us, however slight, from a complete surrender to our Lord, Jesus Christ. Am I completely surrendered?  Rarely, if ever, but my hope is in Him not in myself to refine me to that place of total surrender.

So what are we doing amidst all this snow? “Not much,” as Ian would say, lol. Ian has shovelled snow a bit now and again. I attempt to do a ‘bit’ in the house, but again not much. We spend a lot of time on our computers, Ian is back on Facebook and I continue some fun time playing virtual farm games on the beast (FB.) Another bit I heard yesterday, there are more people playing Farmville on Facebook than there are people in the whole of the UK. I enjoy meeting people from all over the world as I play this game, including several Christians, many of whom now pray for us here in Latvia. Just to give you an insight, the creators of the game Farmville have announced in the last 24 hours that if 1,000,000 people request it, they will add a church to the buildings available on the game. They indicated they might add other houses of worship later. It all came about because at Christmas on the Farmville game there were no items directly related to Jesus birth and many have complained. Once the awareness was raised of this dissatisfaction level we are now offered a church building. It does pay to speak up so those who make decisions will hear. I have shared many conversations about trusting in Christ on the game Farm Town because I have a permanent large cross built in 3D format on my farm. So though you may dismiss playing virtual games on social networks, it’s not for everyone, I have found it a new and encouraging way to share faith in Jesus Christ.

Another indoor pursuit is enjoying films together, often with popcorn, even, lol. Now I am not a fan of Clint Eastwood but — Ian has his WHOLE collection of films and we have watched most of them, now. He also has a war film collection again not my first choice but as we watch we share our different perspectives on various conflicts and I have learned much of life in England during WWII and after with rationing, billeting of soldiers, the American troops in Britain and such. On occasion we dip into my small collection of rom coms, period pieces and so forth and so on. It is nice to have the popcorn (Microwave) to accompany our film hour(s.)

All long with the snow shovelling we had another even this past week. Our next door neighbours offered to phone our neighbour on the other side of our farm and ask him to plow our driveway as the snow build up was reaching a level that might prevent us from getting out to the road. So along came Leoneides who helped fell our dangerous Oak tree in September. In the picture you see Leoneides and his blue tractor complete with rear loader acting as a snow plow while Ian looks on. He made us two driveways in case one drifted over and one has done just that, drifted over. Yesterday when friends called to ask us to meet them in Madona for a meal we were able to drive right out nice and easy. The cost of plowing, 3 Ls. and it will need doing again probably this week. At 8:26 am the wind is now blowing steadily and the snow is drifting a bit.

One other event I want to highlight is Ian’s prowess in the baking department. He loves his bread machine and launched into a new endeavor on Saturday. He made some lovely crusty rolls and they were delicious hot out of the oven with butter. He was experimenting by adding bran to the flour mixture. He also made one of his fruit loaves that is a lovely healthy snack to much on these cold snowy days.

Finally, Ian, at my urging, bought me an early birthday gift. I have down loaded a ‘Expressing Faith through Writing’ course. It is a very basic course just to get my writing juices flowing again. I plan to go on to the next course after finishing these 9 lessons with the thought toward writing articles for faith magazines. I also hope to get some discipline into the writing idea so that I can make this long held dream a reality. Watch this space. lol

[Via http://ergliangel45.wordpress.com]