random – thisblogismyblog

What Happens In Vegas…

…Stays in Vegas. Probably not this weekend though.

After all, this weekend Vegas plays host to the BlogWorld Expo. If there's one thing bloggers are completely incapable of, it's keeping their mouths shut. Well, their mouths aren't the problem (unless of course their podcasting or vlogging, of course), it's those fingers, because first they'll twitter, then they'll post, and the diggs will follow. So gentlemen, try to remain as such at those gentlemen's clubs, and ladies, keep count of those cosmopolitans.

I was wavering about attending this conference or not, since I'd abandoned blogging and writing for awhile, because of many of life's constant distractions and sometimes derailments, but since I've got a few ideas up my sleeve, and am working with a new magazine on their blog. So here I am in Vegas.

Hell, maybe I'll even find some content while I'm here. Actually I found some already.

Tyra Banks was on my plane. Just saying her name in my head conjures up those old Nike commercials with Lil' Penny, which is kind of interesting since I once shared an elevator with Chris Rock.

I had to stare like an idiot while whatever facial recognition that came installed with my cerebrum confirmed it was indeed Ms. Banks. So like any smooth character would, I saunter through first class on the way to my seat in row 79 which is just a seatbelt strapped onto the rudder, in case you were wondering. But yeah, I lean over and casually say, “Hi Beyonce, I love your music,” and continue my stroll to my seat in untouchable class.

Nah, I didn't do that. I didn't think of that until I was hanging onto that rudder for my dear life. I had no reason to mess with her. But pretending to mistake one celebrity for another when approaching them seems like it could be a fun thing. I'm trying to think if I ever did this before, but probably not since my obliviousness would normally kick in.

Tyra looks great in person, by the way, the television does not deceive. One of my rowmates in solitary class, also noted the presence of Ms. Banks, so I consider this celebrity sighting confirmed, and blogworthy. Most of the time I'm oblivious to this sort of thing, until another member of my party tells me afterwards. Actually I was too drunk to realize that Chris Rock was on the elevator with me.

You think Tyra is here for BlogWorld?

Apple Scores a Hat Trick

Nothing tells people you know a Mac inside and out like wearing a hat. Maybe it prevents the knowledge from escaping through your hair follicles, trapping it so it can be re-absorbed through your scalp.

Don't believe me? Click on the image below to go view Apple's video introduction to their workshops. I counted at least 6 hats the first time. And it's clear that baseball caps are not the best choice. I only saw one of those. It's probably because of the big hole in the back above where you adjust the size. But if you must wear a baseball cap, be sure it is fitted to prevent information leakage.

Staples has no Sense of Humor

And to all the grammar geeks out there, it's “has” not “have”, since I'm talking about the chain of office superstores, and not individual staples, and they're a helluva lot more fun than the superstores. They would've posted my review.

Staples (the office superstore) asked me in an e-mail to submit a review of a recent purchase. And what I purchased was a 10-pack of blue two-pocket portfolio folders. And I typically don't buy these without first consulting Consumer Reports, but this time it was all impulse. No wonder my credit card bills exceed the per capita income of some less favored nations. (You know I really wanted to put the extra “u” in both “favor” and “humor” tonight. Is that the Brit in me that I never knew was there? Is that even an English thing? Granted it does look better, and so does “colour”. Well, maybe.)

So today I noticed that my review was no longer on their website. In the context of this blog it certainly may seem more of a lame stab at humour (ha-ha!), but was downright hysterical over at Staples (the website of the office superstore, not at the website of a collective group self-realizing staples that wrestled the URL from the corporate monolith). Alright, so it wasn't that funny, but here it is. If you can't fill the Internet with crap that has nowhere else to go, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing, say it again. Or not.

Staples product review for blue 2 pocket portfolios

By larzini from NJ on 3/7/2008

Your rating: 5 stars

Headline: Holds Papers Exactly As Described!

Pros : Easy To Open/Close, Durable Construction, 2 pockets,

Potty-trained, It's Blue, Nicely textured, Fun for the whole family

Cons : Poor gas mileage, No puree setting, Don't feed after midnight,

Slight metallic taste

Best Uses : Organizing Documents, Conversation piece, Bud vase, Holding

papers, Fanning, Placemat

Describe Yourself : Value Oriented

Primary use of this product : Business

These folders are great. First of all, they are blue. A blue so blue.

And blue is a color. And it is a color I enjoy wholeheartedly. I have

used many of these folders, and each time they lived up to my

expectations of holding my papers. Except one time when I turned a paper-filled

folder upside-down. Guess what? Yep. The papers fell out. Not just one.

All of them. DO NOT TURN UPSIDE-DOWN WHEN PAPERS ARE INSIDE. THEY WILL

FALL OUT! Sorry about yelling, but I cannot emphazise that point enough.

And I can't spell emphazies either. Did I mention there is not

spell-check feature? Well, there's not. Perhaps in the next release.

Unfortunately, Staples have not opened up the next version to users for beta

testing. By the way, the folders are blue. I opened the folder and closed

it numerous times. And it performed every time without fail. Another

nice thing is that there are 10 in a package. I really didn't need that

many, but rather than waste them, I spread whatever documents I need to

transport evenly among the 10 folders. If I have less than 10 papers I

need to transport, I grab magazine blow-in cards or junk mail and put

those in the empty folders. It kills me to have 10 folders and even

leave one empty. If you really need a folder, I would consider this one,

maybe the red model as well, but your insurance rates will go up, so let

the buyer beware.

All proper spacing removed for your inconvenience.

Did that post make this read like a splog? (That's “spam blog” for you home-gamers.)

Christmas in August on Valentine's Day

I should say St. Valentine's Day. Well, not anymore, it's now Friday, but this post somehow disappeared after writing it about 24 hours ago.

I never dreamt I'd someday look back fondly at the Crazy Eddie television commercials. Yet, here I find myself waxing nostalgically over some Northeastern pop culture detritus.

I never embed, I usually just link, but I've reconsidered my position on that. Why send the eyeballs elsewhere when they can stay right here.

I remember buying vinyl records and cassettes at Crazy Eddie, as well as a floppy disk drive for my Atari 800XL computer. These ads actually inspired the Seinfeld episode entitled, “The Junk Mail”. Elaine dates a guy who was once the fictional television pitchman known as “The Wiz”. Incidentally, The Wiz, later known as Nobody Beats The Wiz, was also an electronics retailer located predominantly in New York and New Jersey. But since their prices weren't completely insane they often used real-life characters in their ads, such as Joe Namath.

This was long before Namath went 0-for-2 in pass attempts on the sidelines, seeking out kisses from Suzy Kolber. (Yep, that link goes to the infamous video. I thought it would look kind of crappy to put two embedded videos in the same post. Especially when the point of this video was to highlight the Crazy Eddie ads, and not focus on the ancillary Joe Namath reference.)

Anybody home?

The driveway's been empty. The mail is overflowing out the mailbox. Nobody raked the leaves. The newspapers are strewn across the driveway. You'd think somebody died.

I've done more of these type of posts than I'm proud to admit. It's kind of like, “Oh yeah, I had a blog once. Wait a second…I still do! Oh, Shit! The blog! I forgot to feed the blog!” Some blogs are nearly living entities, when nurtured by a caring individual. I'm not certain I'm that type of individual. I'm kind of like an every-other-weekend parent these days. The one that 's not sure they want to visit the kids, but they feel obligated. I don't know how many of those there are out there, and I'm not sure I like using that metaphor to describe myself, especially since I'm married and very much involved with my kids' lives.

Now perhaps that's an accidental segway into the, you know, when you're a parent and a breadwinner, the blog doesn't come first. The blog is the red-headed stepchild. Now I know that re-headed stepchild needs love, too, but I'm just saying.

So, I'm back for at least the rest of this post. I took on another writing assignment, so this the WD-40 priming the typing fingers and working it's way through the brain.

Blog of Frustration

I did it again. I just erased whole post that I spent I don't know how long concocting. I'm so pissed at my own stupidity that I have to go to sleep since it's nearly 3 AM, which means I've deprived myself of sleep again for the purpose of posting on this lonely old blog. But if I re-write the post now, it will probably contain a good amount of bile in post that set out to be quite the opposite of a rant. You know what, it's not even going to be this post. It will be the next one.

Maybe.

Hopefully.

ARRGH! It's like baking a batch of cookies from scratch and then absentmindedly putting them down the garbage disposal.

I'm sure I'm not the only blogger to have done this. So perhaps I'll take comfort in the fact that I'm not alone. But comfort doesn't type the post again, now does it?

Beckham. Travolta. Cruise. Posh. Spice Girls. Planes. Movies. WTF?

Sorry for the title. It looks like some blatant sploggery, but the post is done and the clever title is nowhere to be found.

Current inertia has really reduced the amount of posting here, and writing anywhere else, and I find it a bit inexplicable, other than the drastic reduction in free time, and my refusal to abandon time with my family. that said, it's inexplicable that I'm not sleeping and actually posting, but I missed my niece's radio debut on last week, and needed to stay up late this week to hear her on the air. My first attempt at recording the stream has failed miserably, and to record a whole six hours looks like it will eat up a significant amount of hard drive space. But she sounded great, and I'm quite proud, not just that she's on the air, but that she stayed focused enough and worked hard enough to get this far. Focus is not easy for anyone anymore. Distractions seem to run the world. Shutting them off long enough to get something done is a feat that I find impressive.

Ok…so back to distractions, while listening to her show, I've been skipping around the Internets and found some individual pieces of information that add to a greater whole.

Item A

Victoria Beckham To Play Alien Bride In Scientology Film

Plus Item B

John Travolta offers to fly Spice Force One

Equals Conclusion C

Those Scientologists really loves them some Beckhams. I don't follow that close but I didn't think the Church of Hubbard had nabbed Posh and David yet, but come on. The Tom Cruise bankrolled movie that is not yet listed on IMDB.com and has been turned down by every studio is titled The Thetan. Can't we just go back to simpler, more innocent Hollywood? These developments would be significantly less creepy if this was just an outrageous lie constructed to bang Mrs. Beckham. Which this is obviously not, we're talking Cruise and Travolta here. I long to hear casting couch stories when I hear stuff like this. If I go to a hotel in the Los Angeles area will there be a copy of Dianetics in the night table?

If George Steinbrenner was this persistent maybe he would have landed David Ortiz years ago and saved himself some grief. You know, Air Force One is pretty cool plane, too, I hear, Travolta's not trying to fly that one, but with the President's approval rating lower than his college GPA plus his shoe size, I guess he's no trophy.

Blogging Professionally

Bloggers who are job hunting and use their blog as part of their portfolio shouldn't post on their personal blogs while at work. The message it says to those potential employers is, “I could really care less about your workload. My blog is more important.”

Now there's really nothing wrong with the spirit behind this, because I hope your life comes before your work. Work is what you do at the moment to allow you the funding to do what you want with the rest of your time.

But think before posting. Think about the message you are sending.

That said, I'm on Day 5 of a new job, and I'm at my desk writing this. Think about the message I'm sending. Or think about something else. Just think once and awhile. But don't hurt yourself doing it.

When the Time Comes…

…nothing.

For the last couple weeks, I've been talking and thinking about posts, and at last when there's a free moment the tank is empty. I seem to be changing into more of a morning person than an evening person, but the evening is still when the optimum times for me to post come up. This is one of those “take up space” kindof posts, that only serves to remind me, that indeed, I'm still here.

I Think I'm Cool Sometimes

But right now I'm just being a geek. I was heading home from a night class in financial planning, and had to use some coupons I found online at the local Barnes & Noble. (DISCLAIMER: This is not a paid placement.) But I had a coupon for 20 free Wi-Fi sessions, and one for a free stratta. A stratta seems to be a fancy word for quiche which is kind of fancy in itself. It's clearly fattening, contains eggs and cheese and along with coffee, I'm sure will have some fun with my insides, but whatever. I give you links to this free stuff to share with you and your friends that are Barnes & Noble members.

Free Stratta. Oh, the coupon is not legit at bn.com, for all of you that want a fancy slab of egg & cheese sent via UPS. Is it possible that someone would really try to order this online? I hope it was the coupon designers having a little chuckle. But it's probably not. Stupidity may not be a recessive gene in all human life forms.
Free Wi-Fi. This posting brought to you via that coupon.
Free James Brown.

Free Mike Tyson.

Free to do what I want any ol' time.

Like right now. Where I do this posty-posty thing with my laptop possessing questionable battery powerand the screen looking not as bright as it could be. Will I be smart enough to save this post along the way? Probably not. Just did. There will be a few less expletives heard by the gaggle of high school girls nearby. That is, if a gaggle is three, and I have any inkling as to determining ages.