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Add comment April 7th, 2009
Posts filed under 'Blogging'
Topic? I gotta have a topic?
Uh oh. Sh** gosh darn it, it’s my turn to post again. And I’ve got nothing. Not a witticism to be found. And the last post is at … 95! 95 comments?! Oh geez. I gotta come up with something or everyone will be grousing mildly concerned about not being able to see past 100 comments. Verbose my Aunt Hildegarde. These people would talk to a brick wall.
Okay, okay, calm down. I can do this. It doesn’t really matter what I write anyway, it’s just something to hang comments from. Except for the lurkers. Lurkers, Bob love ‘em. Who knew we’d have lurkers? It boggles the mind, it does. Apparently we’re amusing. Huh. Probably shouldn’t go there.
Let’s see, what can I write about? Ummm, how about helpful hints for saving money around the home? *yawn* That would bore me silly before I finished it. Oookay. *drums fingers on desk* Anything interesting in the news I can draw from? Oh, politics … eehewww! *quickly pulls finger away from keyboard* – NOT. Why is this so hard?
*much pacing to and fro ensues*
I could wax philosophical on something. There’s always something. What can I wax Philsophical on? And why would I wax Phil anyway? He’s never done anything to me. Oh geez, okay get a grip, McB. We’ll leave Phil alone for now. And what does that leave us with, my girl? Sports? Yeah, like I know anything about sports. Oh, come on. Just come up with SOMETHING already. Any interesting conversations lately? uhhhh … welllll …
Oh. My. Bob. They’re up to 119. DON’T PANIC! I’ll just have to go with what I’ve got. What’s the worst they can do?
Ahem.
What do you want to be when you grow up? I was talking to a friend at dinner the other night and discovered that we both had yet one more thing in common … a singular lack of ambition. Neither one of us had a particular passion or interest, or at least not anything that we could have made a living at. But lacking ambition in the real world doesn’t mean a person can’t dream. When I was a kid this movie came out “The Greatest Show On Earth” and all the kids in the neighborhood had seen it and dreamed of being trapeze artists. Okay, not much of a living, but I suppose it could be done. If I a sense of balance. And timing. And coordination. And … well let’s just say that walking upright is my grand achievement. And then there was the time I told my parents that I wanted to be a waitress. Okay, that’s a living of sorts, but in the dream department? Not so much. Of course I also told them I wanted to be a bar girl ‘cuz they got to wear those shiny dresses with sparkly stuff on them. Hey, I was 6 at the time. Sparkly was pretty ambitious.
What about you, what do you want to be when you grow up?
111 comments January 12th, 2008
Mob Mentality
Before I get into the actual blog post, I wanted to mention the upcoming First Annual Tree Trimming/Cookie Baking At McB’s Extravaganza on December 8. Ya’ll are invited.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog post.
Where was I? Oh yes, mob mentality. What had me thinking about the subject was a recent article on blogs and bloggers, about how blogs are the modern equivalent of a public soapbox in the town square, allowing any idiot anyone with marginal internet smarts to hold forth on any topic they desire. Probably a good many of these people would do better to keep their thoughts to themselves. Was it Mark Twain who said that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and be known for one? And as is so often the case, like attracts like with people reading and commenting on the blog posts merely to make themselves feel important and to reinforce their own biases.
The article talked about how the internet provides much the same anonymity as being part of a crowd; and it’s that anonymity that fosters the mob mentality, allowing people to smear, trash, rant and libel others without requiring that they take responsibility for their words. In person most of these people are probably not the fruitcakes they appear to be in the virtual world. Probably. Then again, some of them might be. If you look up the term “mob mentality” there certainly seems to be a general feeling that it is a Bad Thing. That’s probably a valid judgement in 99% of the cases (ymmv).
And yet … and yet … you have to wonder if it isn’t a case of bad news making headlines while good news goes unnoticed, because it seems to me that a mob mentality can go either way. If being lost in a crowd can give you the courage to be bad, can’t it also provide you the courage to do good? Aren’t most of us more willing to take a positive stand when we know we don’t have to stand alone? And isn’t that a kind of “mob mentality”?
You’re probably thinking that before I start proselytizing on the subject, I ought to do a little more research. (I probably ought to look up the word “proselytizing,” too, but I think I got it right.) After all, what do I really know about mob mentality? Quite a bit, actually. In fact I think I might have fallen victim to the mob mentality myself about a year and a half ago. :oops: Who’da thunk it? Yes indeedie Bob, folks, I do believe we might qualify as a mob. Huh.
Wadaya say we go start a revolution? I even have some nifty slogans handy. How about “Ban Ignorance!” and “Up With Tolerance!” and how about “Life, Love and Literacy!”
What? You got something better?
116 comments November 10th, 2007
Limp Noodle Awards
I’m substituting for Wapak (as if anyone could truly replace her) who is busily pacing to and fro awaiting MAX!’s arrivial and unable to post this month.
With this post I am announcing the first annual Limp Noodle Awards. This award celebrates those persons who should be summarily flogged with a limp noodle without benefit of trial, counsel, blindfold or last meal. And the candidates are (drum roll please):
- Every driver in every city who blocks the crosswalk forcing pedestrians to go out into the intersection in order to cross the street.
- The person who was riding my bumper on the wet road yesterday only to zip around and pass me so that he could be in front at the next traffic jam.
- The idiots who blocked the drain in front of the building construction at the corner of 15th and K Streets which resulted in a lot of standing water that pedestrians had to walk through in order to cross the street
- People wearing large backpacks on the subway, thereby doubling their body mass, who remain oblivious of the fact that they now take up more space and thus should take care not to smack said backpacks into people standing/sitting near them everytime they shift position.
- The person who stopped in the middle of the subway car this morning, blocking everyone else’s access, in order to debate which particular seat they might prefer, as if the various seats might possibly be going to different destinations!
- Whoever it is that loaded the 3-hole paper backwards into the photocopier last week.
- The guy who pushed past everyone else on the subway this morning in order to score a seat for the duration of one whole stop! One stop! He just couldn’t standing the idea of, well, standing for the two minutes it took to get to the next station.
Do you have a favorite candidate?
131 comments October 26th, 2007
Where in the World is WapakGram?
Since I have last blogged I have become a world traveler. Yes, a passport stamped traveling American. My son is in Oxford England at this time, so the entire family took the opportunity to go to Paris and London before we dumped left him at Oxford to be rained upon and flooded. And our 30th anniversary is this December so we combined all the excitement into one Griswald-ish trip.
Of course, it is the worst time in the history of mankind to travel to Paris and London as the dollar is at the all time low against the Euro and the pound. Figures.
What did I do on my summer vacation? It is more like what I learned about myself.
1. I still have NO F@#$%**ing idea what to do with a bidet. Much hilarity.
2. I do not react well to being two blocks from a car with a bomb in it. My voice tends to go up a few octaves on the phone and I tend to speak a wholelotfaster.
FOR MARY——I came out of the store where I was shopping and ALL TRAFFIC ALL 4 WAYS was stopped and backed up. I thought it was from rerouting everything from the bomb/car the night before. So I asked the MR. Policeman sir if I could walk a couple blocks somewhere else and get a cab. He informed me that I wasn’t walking anywhere and to stay put as they had “another situation,” just 2 blocks away. I called the men to tell them I didn’t know when I would ever get back to the hotel as all was halted. I found out on the news they towed the car out of a parking garage with a bomb in it. The garage was 2 blocks from where I was.
3. Watching my 2 grown sons act like goofballs with their dad or without can still bring a tear to my eye. And I still want to whap them upside the head when they all walk 10 miles ahead of me. I’m trying to figure out which way to look to cross the street without being maimed and they are onto the next museum.
4. After 2 weeks, I had my fill of DEAD PEOPLE! I put my foot down on the prison towers of London and went shopping. You could not sneeze in London without hitting a statue or a crypt or a tomb with a marble corpse on top. You should have seen me hopscotching around Westminster Abbey trying not to step on tombs.
5. I must fit some profile because I was double checked, wanded, and patted down in 3 countries! Maybe it was the amount of things stuffed into my purse and carry on. 
6. There’s no place like home. My regards to Dorothy.
Of course, I was only home for less than a week and we got in the car and headed to Atlanta to stay with MAX! while his parents went out. He is nearly 5 months old!!! I loved the heck out of my boys but having a Grandchild is another piece of your heart that opens out and lets the love out.
So to facilitate discussion-as if THIS group needed that- what was your favorite vacation and why? It can be virtual or still in the planning stage. We are CB’s after all.
Bryan I have my instructions right in front of me and I am going to do my best to get the MAX pictures on here. Be warned.
And reading the book his Grandpa got him. It is one of a set.
Carry on and talk amongst yourselves.
Pics are now clickable ~ bjw
107 comments July 25th, 2007
Mosquito Bites, Icky Things, and Charging Boys
I’ve been hanging around with a young man named Andy who is just about the biggest bundle of energy I have ever met. He talks in a very odd sing song way that most kids have out grown by his age. It’s an odd combination of simple sentences and run on sentences. He has added some interesting stories to my week, well, him and his dog Noah, a plush pound puppy who has to go outside every hour so he can “use the grass.” I had a few things happen to me this week that I’m going to share, in the style of Andy.
I have a mosquito bite. It’s on my neck. It is in one of those folds that I did not have twenty years ago. Every time I move my head the mosquito bite gets squished or pulled. It itches. Rubbing alcohol has not helped. I would like to use drinking alcohol but it is only Wednesday. It is also only June. It is hot. It is so hot I do not want to sleep inside. This is why I have the mosquito bite. I slept on the back porch. In the swingy chair. It is the most fabulous chair in the world and I love it and sit in it and sleep in it and, oops, got to keep it PG13 so anyway, the chair. It is lovely and I enjoy my chair. My dog sleeps beside me. I listen to the radio on the porch and read a book by lantern light. That is why I got bit by the mosquito. She likes the light of the lantern. I agree with her, it is pretty. I do not agree with her that I taste good. I remembered the mosquitos like the lantern light so I sprayed nasty harsh chemicals on my arms and legs. This was a good thing to do. I do not have any mosquito bites on my arms and legs. I did not spray any harsh chemicals on my neck or face. This was also a good thing because I did not die from the harsh chemicals. It was also a bad thing because I have a mosquito bite on my neck. Mosquito bites are bad things. You can die from them. I had West Nile two summers ago and I know these things that is why I use nasty harsh chemicals and make sure I don’t get bitten by the mosquitos. I did not use enough nasty harsh chemical last night and now I have a bite. The bite itches. I wish it would go away.
I have mice. The Fella says it is because I leave the back door open for the dog to come in and out. I do not like the mice. I wish they would go away. The do not want to go away so I pretend that I am the Great Hunter and I kill the mice. I get out my gun and I shoot them- bang bang yur ded- Not really. I take the scaredy cat way out and use poison. This is the second time today I have talked about poison. I do not want you to think I am a person who would poison another person. I would not do that. I do not mind poisoning icky things. What category do ex-boyfriends fall in? Are they people or icky things? And then the mice dies after it eats the poison. And they never have the courtesy to die in the back yard where I will never see them until they go flying in confetti sized pieces from the lawn mower. They die in my bedroom. At the foot of my bed. For me to step on. This is why mice are icky things. I have never had a boyfriend die at the foot of my bed for me to step on. I guess this means ex-boyfriends are not icky things. I did have one I wished would die. Does that make me the icky thing? Okay, I did not really want him to die. That would have made his grandmother sad and she was a very nice lady. But I did wish that he would be involved in a very bizarre automobile accident and the steering column would sever and the sharp piece of metal would sheer off a piece of his anatomy that he was very proud of. How do I know he was proud of it? He like to show it off to all of the girls. That would have made his grandmother sad but I don’t think she would have been as sad as I if had wished him to die.
The amazing thing about Andy? He is able to get through all these words, and more, on a single breath. No, that isn’t the amazing thing about Andy, it’s impressive, but not amazing. The amazing thing was that I met him for the first time Monday afternoon and that same day I just about got pushed to the ground when he came charging across the room and threw himself at my legs and said, “Love you!” That is the amazing thing about Andy, he is going so fast, often in his own world, and he still has the capacity to say I love you. A good lesson. So, even though I am going 90 to nothing this week, and I am in my own odd world, I would like to take a moment to calmly and quietly charge at each of you from across the room, throw my arms around your knees and yell, “Love you” before I charge back to my own world.
96 comments June 20th, 2007
My name is CMS and I am a blogoholic
It started with HeWroteSheWrote. I popped in every few days back in the beginning when it was first launched. I was a lurker. Laughed aloud a few times but didn’t really comment until the Moot Signal that the two Christinas put me in charge of at the NEC conference. Most of you know where it went from there and how we all got here.
Actually, it may have started with ArghInk but I wasn’t addicted at that point. I’d had a few tastes but was able to turn away. I didn’t need a daily fix.
The dueling blog led me to Bob’s blog. Then Literary Chicks. Then JenT’s blog which quickly gained momentum – Bryan, MCB,BCB,RSS,CC,Cherrybomb Ideas(hey Lori, want to update that?)ZaZa, Mary Stella, Btuda, and now I’m looking at nineteen blogs a day, not including my own. Which I started because Bryan double dog dared me(not exactly but he did use some peer pressure which given my addiction I was powerless to resist)
This excessive behaviour has led a friend to ask me if my sex life was alright(the visit to the Kinsey Institute was responsible for that), prompted me to buy better bras(thanks GlamourGeek) and forced me to engage in math(but my eyes didn’t bleed so it’s all good)
My fear that this would all cut into writing time has for the most part been put to rest. The writer blogs I visit have taught me about craft; the reader blogs have taught me about story. And all of them have inspired me to write with more heart, and often.
I’ve met some fantastic imaginary friends, learned more about latin declensions than I ever wanted to, and discovered that in the darkness there are cherrybombs.
My name is CMS and I embrace my addiction.
93 comments June 13th, 2007
Well, It’s Kind Of Like …
I don’t know how many people you’ve told about the Bar&Grill, but for me the number is pretty small. It’s not that I don’t adore all of you and what we’ve created; but I cringe at the idea of trying to explain it. The last time I made a real effort was when I tried to explain it to my best friend (well, we talk about books a lot and we all enjoy reading some of the same books). She’s decided its like a book club. I decided that was close enough.
Because trying to tell someone that you made friends by hanging out at somebody else’s blog and then you all decided to create your own blog so that you could keep talking to each other when the original bloggers decided to go on to other things and kicked you out of the basement (Basement? What basement? I thought it was a blog. Nevermind.) sounds pretty nutty when you try to put it into words. I mean what kind of nuts have internet friends? (Well, I guess that would be me.) And how do you explain why it mattered so much that you not lose touch with a bunch of people you’ve never met and with whom you have very little in common except that you’ve all read this one book (It’s about a guy, a girl, WonderWoman and an alligator. Huh? Nevermind.). Do you realize that this whole thing started because of one book? The last time one book had this kind of effect it changed the world.
(UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. Great book.)
Oh, and don’t forget to mention that you held polls to vote on how you were going to do it. Polls about what kind of forum you wanted (So we ended up with a blog because we liked things loose and informal, as if we’re all sitting around a table talking. There’s a table? Nevermind.), what you were going to call it, and who would be allowed in (Everyone.). Not closed polls. Oh no, you encouraged random passers-by to have a voice in it (You, over there. The person who lurks and never, ever comments, would never dream of commenting and thinks people who comment are nuts … would you go vote, please?). And then you all decided to collect money so that you could protect your right to call the blog by the name you (and 30 or 40 complete strangers) chose. And they paid up. Cheerfully and enthusiastically, without really knowing who they were paying it to, and foolishly trusting that the people who said they could make this work would actually follow through. And they did. (So people have to pay to belong? Oh, no, voluntary contributions. Some people contributed, some people didn’t. Nobody cares, as long as we have bail money. Bail money? Nevermind.)
Other people volunteered to keep it running by posting “conversation pieces” so that we wouldn’t run out of things to say (yeah, like that’s ever a problem). And no rules were ever written down. No discussion about just what people would blog about. (I thought it was a book club, don’t you talk about books? Sometimes. Sometimes we discuss art. Or how we spent our weekend. Or the color orange. Huh? Nevermind.) No guidelines, just a loosely cobbled together group of volunteers to keep things moving. No list of do’s and don’ts.
How do you explain something that doesn’t really have a purpose?
Go ahead, try it. Try writing down exactly what happened, why it happened and how we came to be. I tried it and I can’t even convince myself I’m not crazy. Nevermind. That’s my ‘topic’ if you really need one this morning. If you’ve truly run out of things to say to each other (and judging by the number of comments lately, I don’t think so) test your writing skills right here at the Bar&Grill. We’ll make it a contest to see who comes up with the best explanation of how our favorite watering hole came to be. Winner gets the honor of buying the next pitcher of margaritas.
82 comments May 12th, 2007
Posting Pictures
N.B. For this to work, you need to have your preferences set for the “visual rich editor.” Go to your user profile, the bottom of the page, to check that. If you don’t have it set for that, the pics won’t show up in your editing window.
Alrighty then. So you want to be a picture posting guru, eh? Well, listen up, ’cause we’re only going to do this once (of course you can always track it down later after you forget; I won’t delete the post).
First, you need a picture. So what about a screenshot of this here screen?
See, that’s all there is to it. Oh. You want step by step instructions? My bad. Take a look at this screen:
If you follow the instructions, you’ll see something similar to this:
So, we’re almost done. Now we need to make it so that the picture can be enlarged. Sorry, but this is where it gets complicated. First, click one time on the image in your post to select it.
Now get the link info:
Now let’s add it to the image we want:
Ta da!
Okay, this may not be the best way, or the right way, or the only way, but it works for me with the fewest problems.
(PS – I’ve been getting script errors today that I don’t normally get. If it happens to you, click Yes (twice) and go on as before. Not sure what’s going on with that.)
Edit ~ for those of you who are comment challenged and can’t see the Error Screen, here it is
72 comments May 8th, 2007
Where Did Week One Go?
That’s what I want to know. Because if this is week two for April that means there are three more weeks in this month which gives us five weeks – AGAIN! I think we’re messing with something cosmic here. You can’t just go around reconfiguring calendar months. Only Roman emporers are allowed to do that, I’m pretty sure. And the universe is a bit short on Roman emporers these days. Inflation. This is going to cause all kinds of problems. The months will start bumping into each other and overlapping, vying for dominance. June is right around the corner and then there’s going to be a big fight with July while they each try to wrest control over that poor lost little weekend. In a kinder, gentler world they would realize that they could put that weekend to better use. Maybe give it to poor February which always gets the short end.
So it should be pretty clear to everyone by this point that I have no topic. I think I left it in the pocket of my coat. Which is now at the cleaners. Hey, we had 80 degree elephants a few days ago. Possible snow flurries tonight. I’m sure its due to this whole messing around with the months thing.
Wiki has this to say about it:
April was originally the second month of the Roman calendar, before January and February were added by King Numa_Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it also was given 29 days. The Julian calendar reform of 46 BC gave April 30 days, effective in 45 BC.
So its really no wonder that poor April is so confused. And if I did this right, you should be able to click on good ol’ King Numa the Pompous to find out more about him, as well as one or two other items.
Speaking of finding out things, did you know that April begins on the same day of the week as July every year, and as January in leap years. You never can tell when it might be useful to know that. Go ahead, impress your friends.
But more importantly, for this group, is the fact that April is Chocolate Eaters Month, and the second week, specifically, is National Library Week.
108 comments April 6th, 2007