Friday, April 30, 2010

Oh the irony

BP named finalist for pollution prevention award. BP, btw, is the company responsible for the corroded pipeline in Alaska that shutdown supply for a summer due to problems and also for the massive explosion in Texas City that killed 11 or 12 people about 5 or 6 years ago. BP's got some 'splainin' to do.
LotD

I had a little anxiety today when I read this blog about job hoppers making terrible employees. I 'fess, I'm a job hopper. I worked for Very Big Insurance Company for four years and since then, I have't held a job for more than 2 1/2 years. I move for different reasons, but if I look back over my experience, I have no regrets because I picked up a lot of new skills, experience, valuable connections, and other intangibles. I long for stability, for the job that is The One(tm), but it hasn't happened yet.

I do think my experiences bring more to the table today than it would have five years ago and that's directly attributable to my job hopping. Also the idea of "loyalty" when working is so 1960s/1970s; nearly every place I have worked except for Very Big Publishing Company have had layoffs while I was there. So don't talk to me about loyalty when I've got bills to pay. And the reason I can job hop is because I have good references and skills that people are willing to hire. When I find the right fit (hopefully soon!), I will stop. So I was very pleased to read a rebuttal to the initial blog posting here that was more in line with my perspective on the subject.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

LotD

Yum! The 50 Best Restaurants in the World. Have you eaten at any of them? Incidentally, it's kind of annoying how most news resources have sharing buttons for Twitter or Facebook or Stumbleit(?), but not for blogger. With recent Facebook changes, I'm reluctant to share any links or "like" any links because I don't know who is going to see it or how some of these organizations are going to use the information. Of course, it seems kind of funny to care about it when I'm here blogging away...

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Welcome!

I gave in and followed the path of least resistance and chose to go with Blogspot. I spent the last several weeks investigating several options, including WordPress and Tumblr. I really liked Wordpress and Tumblr had some cool features, but at the end of the day, I wanted to have control/ownership over my files even if they were hosted somewhere other than my own domain. There's a good possibility when RL settles down somewhat I will migrate this blog back to my domain and blogger allows you to import/export your data. Also, I was feeling kind of lazy about learning a new interface and so going over to blogspot allowed me to keep the interface I've been using since 2001.

Please update bookmarks/links to this new addy.

This blog has moved


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Saturday, April 24, 2010

LotD

The Funniest Protest Signs. There are some really good ones in here, and not all are what you might expect.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

FB Meme

"Meme" might not be the right word for it, but there is a trend on Facebook right now where people take a particular status posting and replicate it as theirs. This usually take the form of "I appreciate my mother/daughter/father/son/goldfish/car and if you do too, post this in your status." Lately, they've become more militant with some adding, "93 percent of people won't dare to post this; will you be brave enough?" And I say, BS.

First of all, the number is arbitrary. Was there a market study done to prove that 93 percent of people truly had issues with whatever the status had to the point they didn't want to replicate it in their status? Or is it more the case that people like me aren't interested in regurgitating canned Hallmark-esque statuses? Second, the inherent dare is kind of silly; a copy and pasting into Facebook status isnt' a singular act of courage in anyway and most of these meme-thingies are inane and sacchrine enough that you're actually going to offend anyone at all (though some people are, admittedly, easily offended).

I find these types of status updates annoying because they are redundant, ineffective, and useless. Of course, you could say the same about most status updates (and I'm not excluding my own either), but these are especially conversation stoppers. There's really no response required, other than perhaps imitation, and even if there is a response, how many times can you possibly read and respond to the same status? I imagine the motivation behind such redundant statuses has everything to do with accumulating a certain level of support, but to what end? And wouldn't it be more meaningful to write your own words of appreciation rather than copying something? I'm guessing 98 percent of you aren't brave enough to answer.

Sunday, April 18, 2010

LotD

Came across this site while searching for blogger alternatives: Clients from Hell. My favorite, posted on April 3, 2010:

Client: “Make the numbers in our phone number capitalized to stand out more”

Me: “That’s not possible…”

Client: “Just hold the SHIFT key and type our phone number!”
Moving tips

Here's a post on migrating to WordPress from blogger, which is what I'm leaning towards right now. Just as an FYI, there might be an "intermediate" step before the final URL change. A lot going on in RL right now so unfortunately, this hasn't been a priority and I'm feeling curiously unmotivated to figure out how to actually do all of the things I need to do to migrate the blog prior to May 1. So my current plan is just to back-up this one and then maybe use a different service for a couple of months until I figure out what the final solution is going to be. I just need time to think!

Friday, April 16, 2010

I'd like to teach the world to spell

The Flawed Language of Protest; hilarious misspellings at Tea Party protests. In general, I think it's a sign of a lackadaisical attitude towards grammar and spelling. In so many different venues, I see just atrocious attitudes towards grammar, but no overwhelming attitude to impress on people that knowing the difference between then/than and you/your/you're is important nor do people seem to care to get it right.

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Update

Still running around like a crazy person. I haven't had a chance to decide what to do with this blog come May 1, which is the date blogger ftp ends. I'm probably going to go with a temporary solution and then tackle Wordpress at a later date. Watch this space for the new URL.

Thursday, April 08, 2010

Dilemma

I don't typically post politics or respond to politics I disagree with on Facebook. As someone eloquently put it (you know who you are ;-)), Facebook is for fun. At the same time, I scroll by lots of non-fun posts, including some with misinformation of the "if you go to New Orleans, you'll get kidnapped and your organs harvested" type. Usually I ignore them but today I couldn't stop myself and posted a rebuttal of the snopes.com type. Now I feel all guilty, but come on people! Before linking/posting, please, please, please check snopes.com before emailing/posting.