7 Feb
I’ve (sorta) been in social media land lately (call it about the last year, give or take), and mostly I like it. I do have a problem, though – and this shouldn’t really surprise any of you who know me at all: 140 characters isn’t always enough space.
Of course (and also not surprisingly), it took me a while to realize that, and even a little longer to slap myself on the forehead and say, “Duh, I have a blog.” After doing some updating and spam removal, I now even have a functional blog. The real question is, as always, do I have a regularly updated blog? Time will tell.
13 Dec
I’ve posted twenty-one recent poems in case you’re looking for something new to read.
26 Aug
I just called one of my credit card companies to check on some account discrepensies (all is fine, thank goodness!) and asked about lowering my payment plan and APR. After taking my information, the (very pleasant) woman on the other end of the phone exclaimed, “Your monthly income is negative!”
I said, “Tell me about it; why do you suppose I’m asking to reduce my payments and APR?”
Long story short, because my monthly income is negative, I don’t qualify to have my payments and rates reduced because “I can’t afford it.” Say what?
23 Aug
Zynga has made some changes to Mafia Wars in the last couple days, including “boosts” for characters. One of these boosts, “Mutts” has made robbing other players much more difficult.
But what happens if it’s not about making money, but causing damage? What if all you really need to do is retaliate against someone for infringing on your empire? Then by all means, rob ‘em. You’ll almost certainly fail, and your health will go down, but each attempt uses one of their boosts. At $2 million a crack, you can spend a lot of someone else’s hard-earned cash in a hurry. And at some point, they’ll be out of boosts, you’ll be inside their organization, then you can start with the body punches: putting their properties out of business.
I mean, if you wanted to be a jerk.
11 Aug
I’ve fallen to the dark side: I’ve started playing Mafia Wars on FaceBook (friend me on FB to join my mob). It’s fun, it’s addictive, and the game engine is designed to send lots and lots of updates to your FB posse. It’s that second part that kind of sucks.
I’m all for people posting news on FB. I love hearing about triumphs, disasters, and stuff in between. I’m especially a fan if folks use some flavor of an “F” webalism (web-based initialism):STFU, RTFM, LMFAO, and good ol’ WTF are among my favorites. And even in game, I’m all for hearing about how you just used an armored truck full of C4 to bitch-slap that jerk who’s been putting you on the hit list every hour on the hour. What I’m not down with is game comments that overflow into the regular (read: mundane) FB world.
This is where I take a time out to apologize for my contributions to this river of spam. Yeah, so, uh, sorry.
For those of you looking for ways to control what your FB account posts from Mafia Wars and other Zynga games, check out this FB note by John Cole. Onward.
22 Apr
Wow – That was… something. Normally, I’m a pretty big fan of the Times, but your op-ed on Twitter was just dreck. Could you have been any more biased and less clued in?
I mean, you must have done something right at some point, what with your Pulitzer and all, but that piece was worthy of the hacks at Fox. Except that they get Twitter.
It’s OK, though. In a couple of years, when the Times goes paperless, you’ll have your chance to be a Twitter ghost writer. Most likely, there’ll be something else new and interesting that you don’t understand and find intimidating, but since you’ll be using the venerable Twitter to broadcast your uninformed opinion, we’ll only have to wade through 140 characters of your “writing.”
Oh, hey Maureen, the phone is for you; it’s 1926 calling – they want their yellow journalism back.
20 Apr
You may have noticed &ndah; if you’ve bothered coming here over the last few months – a distinct lack of posts. Even more so than usual, which is really saying something. I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time in Social Networking Land. In fact, I even ran out of room in my passport for all the stamps I’ve collected…
I’ve been tweeting and FBing and checking out FriendFeed and Plurk and MeetUp and last.fm and even trying to build a little somethin’-somethin’. I have become an expert at referring to myself in third person via tiny jargon-filled snippets (and, FWIW, AJ finds this disturbing.). I’ve had conversations with friends I’ve bumped into for the first time in months, and when I try to fill them in on what’s been going on in my world, they invariably reply with, “Oh, I know. I saw it on FaceBook.”
Shit! That’s not how it’s supposed to work, is it? Don’t tell me we’re going to move toward a society of people who don’t have catch-up conversations on the sidewalk or over a beer; where we know all the news in each others’ lives, but haven’t seen anyone else in months. It’s great to be able to ask a question to a big audience, to get some help, or to celebrate a triumph in the moment, but isn’t it even better to do it with actual friends?
Let me know what you think: comment on this post, or hit me via twitter (@theaj42) or give me a shout on FB.
22 Mar
Lately – call it the last few months – I’ve been getting into posting online pictures of special culinary creations from the Casa del Beest kitchens.
I got bitten by this particular bug after visiting the Smitten Kitchen and Pioneer Woman (don’t ask; it’s a long story) blogs. From there it was a pretty short journey to picking up BigDigi (gotta control the whole shmear for these shots!) and having at it. And now, it’s kind of a tiny obsession.
The only bad part of shooting my meals is when there’s something that looks and smells fabulous and I’m really hungry. Camera or fork, camera or fork? And for what it’s worth, my experience suggests it’s not wise to aim for a “both/and” solution.
3 Mar
I must be on the rag this week, ’cause there’s all kinds of little shit that is just driving me up the walls. From people needing to take better notes when we meet (or is that me needing to rehash the meeting in an email that goes to all involved for their approval/records?) or needing a healthy dose of RTFM, to kids who, “don’t need to be paid; I just solve problems,” horning in on one of my clients, to co-workers who’ve “been ready to go for six months,” but can’t take five minutes to talk to me “because we just don’t have time,” it kind of seems like my universe has planted its head firmly up its ass.
To make matters even worse, this is the result of my latest Google query: “No results found for ‘acme giganto extractor’.” :/
9 Feb
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