Sometimes, store sales are just too good to miss. Like this one, link to the story at the Huffington Post.
Japanese Department Store Offers Unusual Deal
Finally, something worth braving the mall
Monthly Archives: January 2012
Word Press, I don’t “LIKE” this!
It happened again today. I’m sure it’s happened to you, too. Repeatedly. And Word Press, you need to do something about it — right away!
What happened was this: I was taking a nano-break at work, reading a post by Year-Struck that I did not “LIKE.” Oh it was good. Beautiful in fact, well written, and heart breaking. But no, I didn’t “LIKE” it in the Word Press sort of way.
What do you do then, when a piece is sad and beautiful and makes you want to make the writer feel better for getting it off their chest, for sharing, for, well, giving their story? Me, I stress out completely. And I don’t “LIKE” it.
I have puzzled about this before. When I first started blogging, I would read another’s blog and hit “LIKE” and then leave a lame comment saying,
“Well, I didn’t really‘LIKE’ it, but I clicked “LIKE” because, well, I needed to do something. But I really am sorry that you were hit on the head by a meteorite…” And I’d trail off. I’d feel inadequate. As if there was something else I could have done.
You know, Word Press, sometimes I just don’t want to tell somebody who has told me deep, dark stuff through their blog that I “LIKE” it. It doesn’t make sense. It is illogical. It is an oxy-moron to “LIKE” something “UN-LIKE-able.” Because the post was bad. Or sad. Or hard.
And sometimes, Word Press, I just don’t have time to write what I mean to say in a clever manner when:
- A blogger just told me the worst thing that has ever happened in their life and they still have the scars to prove it (hey, I “LIKE” it!);
- A blogger just told me that they have a terminal disease and they will die a horrible death, soon, but that I shouldn’t worry — other bloggers will survive (hey, I “LIKE” it!);
- My head has just exploded from the stress of not wanting to press “LIKE” but having no alternative.
Really, truly, I want to scream,
All right, I “LIKE” it!
But I don’t. “LIKE” it, that is. I want something else.
So for the months I’ve been blogging, I’ve puzzled. I’ve noodled. I’ve even gone so far as to put on my thinking cap. And you know things are pretty serious when that happens.
My first choice for an alternative was
S*cks!
But then I thought of my audience. We are all basically insecure writers. And I don’t think that everyone will TAKE that moniker in the manner I’m suggesting. Then again, some folks won’t USE this button in an empathetic manner. But that’s, of course, highly unlikely. We are all sweet and kind here in the ‘sphere.
Besides, I also realized that if I continue using naughty language on my blog, my dream of one day being Fresh Pressed will go down in a blaze of language my mother wouldn’t “LIKE.”
I continued to puzzle till my puzzler was sore. Until I thought of another option:
Sending Kisses to you!
Doesn’t that just make you feel good all over? But then, some of us are married and our spouses wouldn’t approve even of cyber kisses. So that won’t work.
What is a blogger to do?????
Word Press, we need an alternative.
May I humbly suggest you create the following alternative to the “LIKE” button:
The 54-1/2 Button
Click on it when your heart goes out to the blogger, when you think that their writing is strong and powerful but tells a story that is not necessarily fun or funny and you don’t “LIKE” them being in pain. Click on it when you think that a lovely photo of the shore will ease their pain.
Or click on it when you just want to confuse folks because they will have no clue what it means. I “LIKE” doing that.
Filed under Family, Humor, Stupidity, Word Press
Bees and other stings
Yesterday, I read on my office building’s elevator computer screen that someone had smuggled bees onto an airplane. The bees escaped and stung several people before brave airline personnel managed to capture and/or kill them.
I got nervous. After all, I was in an enclosed elevator, and people around me were carrying stuff.
“Whoa!” You say, “Your elevator has a computer screen?!”
Yes, but I can’t check my stats there. So don’t hate me.
But the news that someone had gotten bees onboard an airplane made me look around at the folks riding up with me in the elevator with greater concern. That man over there with the regular-sized briefcase looked “bee-free,” but what about the guy with the big square briefcase? He could have a whole hive squirreled away in there and I wouldn’t know.
The third and last person on the elevator with me had a bag that was big enough for a bunch of bees, but I was pretty sure that it was tuna. I don’t know if I could identify what bees smell like, but I do know tuna.
I was relieved when I got off on the 14th floor without being stung. Relieved that I didn’t suffer from somebody else’s, ummmm, mistake. That isn’t always the case, you know.
In addition to feeling relieved, though, I also felt stressed, and overloaded by information that I didn’t necessarily need. Like how many times things go wrong when you least expect it. And how frequently people don’t say anything about it. Well, until they sue, that is.
It was later on in the afternoon that I realized that the internet is, in fact, making me crazy. Paranoid. Thoughtful in ways I don’t like being thoughtful. Because I was sitting in a hospital waiting room reading an online New York Times article:
Report Finds Most Errors at Hospitals Go Unreported
Oh dear. Now I was just there for a blood test, not brain surgery (although I DID consider a lobotomy after watching the GOP candidates preening for New Hampshire on the TV in the waiting room). So you don’t need to worry about me.
I’m not so sure about you, though. I mean I’m not so sure that I don’t have to worry about YOU.
Full disclosure clause:
I AM NOT A DOCTOR!
I AM NOT A LAWYER!
I AM NOT AN INDIAN CHIEF!
And I have not jumped rope to that chant in decades. AND I am way more politically correct now than when I did. So don’t even go there.
I AM a patient, though. More often than I’d like. Consider me an expert patient, in fact. Assume it is has happened to me. Consider also the fact that I am married to a lawyer.
So I have some advice. Free. No charge.
In any medical-type situation, if something doesn’t seem right,
SAY SOMETHING!!!
Say it politely. Say it clearly. Keep saying it until someone looks you in the eye and answers your question, stops what they are doing and makes you comfortable that either: they will stop, or there really is no problem and you can now relax and let them continue doing their work correctly. Just remember that they are people too.
When your health or that of someone you love is the issue
DO NOT BE SHY
Pay attention
Ask questions
Speak up
Do your homework
Write down questions
Keep an updated list of your medications with you
And, if you frequent planes and elevators, keep something in your wallet that says whether or not you are allergic to bee stings.
Filed under Family, Humor, Science, Stupidity, Technology
Smarter than me
Lori over at Sunny Side Up posted a piece this morning about parallel parking. She can’t do it. Me, I can do it pretty well; I just can’t spell it without spell check.
And it made me think. Well, that and a cup of coffee.
Now, it may just be the Cheerios talking, but I am starting to be afraid of cars. Afraid of crossing in front of them, of crossing behind them and of driving anywhere near them.
I don’t like being around inanimate objects that are smarter than I am; and when they can move without my throwing them, well, it paralyzes me.
Have you seen the gizmos they’re putting in cars nowadays? Lori, you can get a car that can parallel park itself. Lori, wisely keeps looking for a place. (Me, I had a bad-boy boyfriend when I was a teenager who taught me how to do it. But I digress.)
But based on the commercials, by the time the Ford Focus maneuvers into the spot, I would have wet my pants, because these days I parallel park only when I stop to buy coffee/use the restroom after being stuck in traffic.
These gadgets though, terrify me. There’s one that will brake automatically if you get too close to the car ahead of you. What if you’re in the sort of traffic we have here in Northern Virginia. Hell, I’d have whiplash on my first commute.
Have you seen the one that keeps you from hitting the car in your blind spot? I’m not quite sure how that one works. It might involve wheel-destroying spikes, a la Ben Hur, or maybe flame throwers, but hey you won’t hit that car. And you won’t even need to look over your shoulder. Cause looking over your shoulder can be dangerous.
And then there is the one that vibrates when it thinks you’re falling asleep. I’m sure it will know exactly when you’re going onto the other side of the road to avoid pot holes, small animals and wheel-destroying spikes coming from the cars that won’t let their drivers look over their shoulders. I’m positive. Because no in-car gizmo has ever, ummmm, not worked properly, right?
I am surely not alone in my fear of these gizmos. Because anyone who has ever had a car with an electronic device in it knows that they break down all the time.
Me, I stopped trusting them about 2 months after I got my current car. It has lots of gizmos and I trusted one of them once, while backing up. My car has a Road Runner stuck in side of it. It goes “beep beep” when I get too close to anything behind me. It is supposed to “beep beep” in a progressive fashion, as I get closer to stuff. It goes apoplectic if I reverse to within 5 feet of a wall – knowing that I won’t be able to open the back hatch sends it into a frenzy. Especially since I only open the back on weekends and at places where there are no walls. The car will, of course, allow the nose of my car to be in the middle of the driving lane without a peep, though.
I trusted the “beep beep” once. I was backing up into the only spot left in a garage. It was the only way in. My car was filled with a bunch of kids who were being kids and making noise. Sadly, none of them said “beep beep.” Neither did the car. I inched into the wall, giving my new car a custom bumper. It is dented in as if someone hit it with a large muffin.
I’m pretty sure that these new safety features are going to lead to some pretty interesting reality TV shows. And I guess anything that can make those shows worth watching might be worth a shot.
Filed under Driving, Gizmos, Humor, Technology, Traffic
The Envelope Please, Part II
There’s a reason I got crap presents for Christmas this year. I’ve been a bad girl. All throughout the month of December, I failed to pass on awards that I received.
Santa, I can explain! For the rest of you, just sit back and set a spell. It’s gonna be a long night.
Now Santa, what with all the stuff I had to do for Christmas, and actually trying to keep my job and neurotically trying to get to 5,000 hits on my blog by New Year’s (I made it!), well, I just didn’t have time to really think about these awards.
Now, some folks don’t like these awards, and that’s OK. I’m giving it to you anyway. Get over it.
Me, I think it is nice to be appreciated, and it gives me an excuse to really look at the blogs I read, to see who is doing what. I also tried, I really tried to NOT give an award to someone who already has it. But since, like me, hardly anybody knows how to get those little pictures over at the side of their blogs, it’s hard to tell. That’s why I did a special page for my awards – not because I am such a snob (well, yes I am, but that’s not the reason I did it). It was because I got nominated for one award six times and felt that was the only way I could let you know.
So here are the awards I got, and the people I’m giving them to. Happy New Year!
Two special mentions here.
First, my friend Delajus at Higher and Higher is a woman I met in an online writing course. We became fast friends. She tells me the truth about my writing. She argues with me. She never hits “like” because she can’t find the “this is crap” button. She is a beginning blogger, and only writes when she has something important to share. She writes beautifully and is one incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking woman.
Nancy at notquiteold led me directly or indirectly to the whole gang of folks I now consider my blogging buddies. She wrote a comment on Crabby Old Fart that was funny, perceptive and right on target. So I clicked on her blog and found a wonderful site. Whenever I see that she has a new post, I wait until I have time to read it and synthesize it. Her posts are often about ordinary things in which she finds humor, whimsy and love. I started clicking on her commenters, and that’s how I found most of the rest of you.
As I said, I tried to look and see what blog awards folks have received, and give them ones they haven’t gotten yet. If I left you out, I didn’t mean it. Please let me know and I will rectify. Because my birthday is coming up and I don’t want no more crappy gifts!
Candle Lighter Award (Thanks to Ardinam at Being Arindam)
My friend Arindam awarded me the Candle Lighter Award a couple of weeks ago. There are no rules here, I get to award it to as many people as I choose.
Awesome Blog Content Award (Thanks to Susan at Susan Writes Precise)
This one is simple – to ‘accept’ the award you just add the abc award logo to your blog – the links are at the bottom of this page for you… and then you can share something about yourself with your readers and then pass the award on to other worthy bloggers – there’s no limit to how few – or how many – other bloggers you can send this to.
To share something about yourself – you will need to go through the alphabet and choose a word or phrase for each letter and use that to describe yourself – it might be something about you, something you like, or a place or thing you dream about. And that’s all – no long descriptions or detail – just create a new post, add your shiny new blog award badge and alphabet words and let your readers enjoy finding out a little more about you. Like Susan, I will do that separately.
So here are my choices:
Susan Writes Precise – because she’s good AND because of the post she did on the Penis Museum
Kreative Blogger Award (Thanks to Janice at Aurora Morealis)
Kreative Blogger Award started in 2008 when an Norwegian Lady named Hulda uses fabrics to create the first Kreative Blogger logo, and gave it to her sister and 3 other friends who she thought are creative. Her sister and friends passed the logo on to other bloggers whom they liked, and thus the trend began.
Today the Kreative Blogger Award logo has evolved, and along with the award that comes with some rules:
- The Kreativ Blogger image must be displayed on the blog.
- The nominator must be acknowledged.
- The recipient must state ten things about himself that his readers probably don’t know.
- The recipient must pass the award along by nominating at least six blogs to receive the award.
And the envelope, please:
One Lovely Blog Award (Thanks to Janice at Aurora Morealis)
One Lovely Blog Award Rules:
- Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
- Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.
- Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.
The envelope, please:
The Versatile Blogger Award (Thanks to Janice at Aurora Morealis and Prairie Wisdom)
The Rules for The Versatile Blogger Award:
- Thank and link back to the person that gave you the award.
- Share seven things about yourself.
- Pass the award to fifteen bloggers that you think deserve it. (Elyse here – there is lots of room. But many of my blogging buddies have already received this one)
- Lastly, contact all of the bloggers that you’ve picked for the award.
The envelope, please:
The Red Educational Shoe Award (Thanks to Lorre at Articles of Absurdity)
For this one, I first need crutches if I am expected to walk in that shoe. I also need to pass it on to 5 supportive commenters. OK, so I can’t count.
The envelope, please:
So, Santa, you see, I’ve been busy. But I am having a great time reading and commenting and sharing laughs with all of you guys. Thanks for reading my stuff, too!
OK, everybody. Wake up and look for your website.
FiftyFourandAHalf 