Captain Planet XMAS Party...more

Hey, about that XMAS Party, did someone say bison?

Captain Planet Does It Again! XMAS PARTY a Blast.

The sessums don't leave their house much, but once a year we make the trek down to the Tabernacle to be part of Captian Planet's XMAS PARTY, which I've mentioned before here for it's great charity work AND FUN PARTIES!

Last night George took the night off work and we worked it at the XMAS Party. I have some great video and pics of the event, which I'll get posted eventually, but thought you'd be hankering for a taste of one of our favorite parts of the night -- the buffet!

Here's how it all begain. More later. Remember to click the audio button. ;-)

Another old dog, some other old tricks

Ever since our old dog diva died about a year ago, Bando's been lonely. It's a rather obvious thing, isn't it. You spend your whole life with someone -- someone to terrorize, to love, to chew on, to sleep on in the winter -- and then one day you find her curled up, asleep for the last time. I mean, that's how it was for him. And he's not the brightest biscuit in the box, so add that to the mix here and you'll get an idea of his emotional state a year later.

Blogging helps you remember things. Or makes it harder to forget them. I hadn't realized that it was the anniversary of old Diva's death, but I think Bando has. A couple of weeks ago, he started escaping from the yard. By hook or by crook, by digging under the fence or hopping over. These are things he could have been doing for six years. Same house. Same fence. Same ground. Same dog. For some reason though, he's determined now that his yard will not have the boundaries they once had.

Or he's looking for Diva.

He howls still--something he started the week after she died.

It would make sense, wouldn't it, for us to have spent more time with him this last year. To play with him not just at dinner time and in the morning, but more often. I did take him to carpool once. But that's pretty lame.

Partly, it's hard for me to recognize that he's not a young bothersome puppy anymore. That was always his role when Diva was around: Bando, the pain in the ass puppy. But now he's six, and his muzzle's gray, and he's not really so young anymore.

Except that he can jump a four foot fence. And he runs up to meet the kids at the bus stop.

Anyway, I'm writing this post partly to remember Diva, whose absence somehow grows the longer she's not here, and to say to myself it's time to change up how I see our little mutt, who's not so little anymore, and not so young.

Redneck Santa

Welcome to the neighborhood! Our santas are some of the laziest and drunkest in the southeastern united states! Thanks for stopping by!

Hey Atlanta, It's Willy's Time

One of my favorite things to eat out, since gaining my 833 pounds post-quitting-smoking and swearing off fast food, sort of, is a Willy's Super Veggie Burrito. Willy's has the best burritos in town, although the talent it takes to assemble and roll a truly delicious burrito varies by location, with the most talent at the Roswell Road Willy's, if you ask me.

Unfortunately, that's a little far for us on an average school night, so every now and then Jenna and I head over to the Willy's near us to crunch on some chips, cheese, and cilantro. Or one of those honking burritos they roll up into a stove pipe for you.

Of course, watching your burrito get rolled up in 8 megapixel zoomosity kind of, uh, takes the dreaminess out of it...

so as i was saying...

You all know by now that this is my 'group' night, so I'm back from seething and grieving, and sort of tired but mellow but tired but excited. I guess it worked.

Have I mentioned that I need to give a big SHOUT OUT to my ex-BigPR brother in arms, Michael O'Connor Clarke for his clarity of vision and all around big brotherness (it's a weird sibling thing--I'm the big sister and he's the big brother, only possible on the blogs you see) , as well as his incredible hookups and winning personality lately? I mean, when we talk by phone it's like lilting kersplosions of funniness and what ifs and knee slaping, wrapped up in conspiracy theory and good natured surrender. You can't beat that for any given monday.

In fact, the man's a gift to behold and a fit to be tied, whatever that is.

Thanks, bro.

You Be My Client, You Be Blogging

Obviously a lot of what I'm doing this week is getting my head and hands around my new friends at BubbleShare. Somehow I've managed to push (bully? convince? inspire?) both of my CEO blog clients into blogging. Matt Willer at ElimiTaste will have his blog up soon. And Albert Lai at BubbleShare has entered the blogworld in record time at Simply Albert, located on blogspot at least for now.

Both Albert and Matt are incredibly brilliant business men and inspiring leaders within their young, edgy companies. They know their industries, they know their markets, they know they want to be closer to their markets.

I have nothing to teach them in that regard.

What I can teach them is how to fall in love with blogging, and how to make meaning out of what we do here.

What a time to be alive. What a time to be a cat.

So, meet some of the folks at BubbleShare courtesy of Albert's blog and listen to Albert introduce the gang. (Click the little audio button to turn on the sound.)

Brought to you by Bio Protein Bars, our corporate sponsor (HAHA!)

Rocking Chair Study

I'm no Shelley Powers. Okay, we all know this. But still, I have an eye for ordinary things and what about them is a little bit special. I was at Jenna's friends' house and noticed this kid's rocking chair. Had some fun with it.

a geeky little christmas

George is getting me a headset/mic (a REAL one) for the holidays--he told me after I set out in search of one this morning--"Just wait a few days," and I said, "Why?" and defeated at having to blow the surprise, he said, "Cause one's on the way from Amazon," and I said, "I am SOO excited!" because I AM! Isn't that sweet? As much as blogging is a giant marital pain in the ass over the years, he still gets me the one thing a girl can't be without - a skype/podcast ready headset.

mmmm--dreamy! THANK YOU HONEY!

Voic.us Getting Better and Better...

Atlantans, if you haven't been over to Voic.Us yet, you should get over there and start reading, and hook up with Dana Blankenhorn about what you think of the blog engine. Don't be afeared. Just get going on it. I posted a couple of things formerly posted by the artist formerly known as me. Voic.Us has a sweet little backend on it. Give it a spin. And add it to your blogroll.

Atlanta Voic.Us

weee!

free me from menus

I was thinking yesterday as I was doing what I do a lot of - writing in MS Word - that my experience in 'browsing' over the last several years has made me tired of menus. Menus are so 1990s, and yet foundational applications like MS products (MS Word is the one that matters most to me) have changed very little in bringing a more web-like feel to word processing. And should we even call it 'word processing' any more?

Dear Microsoft: We could use some innovation on the destkop apps front.

Now, as I was writing something that required a little extra imagination yesterday, I decided to use a couple of the MS Word language tools that I don't use very often, one being "Thesaurus," and I realized after highlighting the word, that the menu item giving me what I need (essentially synonyms) is buried three levels down, right?

To get there, you select the Tools menu item, then you choose Language, then you scoot out to the right and pick Thesaurus.

I don't know about you, but by then I forget wtf I am doing because - thanks to the web - i have no attention span left.

Then I got to thinking if my 'word processing' tool were web-based, couldn't I just right click on a word and have everything I needed instantly available - synomyms, antonyms, origin, part of speech, pronunciation, spelling variations, related communities, related tags, who else used that word today on the net, common connotations, usage in a book title (via amazon), domain names associated, and so on. You could exclude words -- like articles (the, an, a, etc.) -- you could do lots of things.

Right?

In that way, every WORD (not just every link or every title or every tag) explodes into possibilites with a right click of the mouse button. That would tickle me pink: MS Word meets Google meets Wikipedia meets Friendster meets Amazon meets open source. The Best Part: I'm freed from the old Windows Menu, which I can't stand to drag my hand up to anymore, and my creativity soars exponentially as creative possibilities and storehouse entries of HOW I THINK multiply.

That's kind of what I was thinking about when Doc tackled monocultures and search recently and I responded about intitiveness and how search has to expand now to bring world of possibilities to us more intuitively than before, WAY more intuitively than me needing to frame a question or search phrase and reach to a menu or button to ask for assistance in finding some related stuff.

Okay--I ask, you answer.

That's how it works, right?

If you build it, at least I'll come. ;-)

If it's already built, someone tell me where and how much $.


Anyway,

What you really like

Is when you announce something really cool on your blog, and then your blogging service goes down for the rest of the day. Nice. Really. Thanks, blogger.

Well Blow Me a Bubble!

You know that I come to you first with all of the exciting news of my life, which thankfully doesn'?t happen too often, leaving me plenty of time to write about hamsters and PR and strep throat and Jenna.

But today is one of those big news days--?OH BOY!

Since leaving The Content Factor, I'?ve had lots of interesting opportunities pop up, but one is especially exciting and it all has to do with bubbles and pictures and sound. It'?s exciting for you too -- even though you might not know it yet. Not only do you get to sample the delectable posts I create using the awesome service called BubbleShare, but you can use it too. And you'?ll want to.

The long and short of it is this: Smart, geeky, energetic Canadians have been working like Santa's elves to build the world'?s simplest photo sharing tool. No registration. No profiles. No hoochie coochie community stuff. No muss, no fuss. No eyeballs to aggregate, no open marriage to consummate.

Just upload and share.

But what'?s even better is that BubbleShare is more than PHOTO sharing made easy. Because you can assemble albums, add voice or other audio to your pictures, along with captions and comments, and even post your albums in your blog.

So it's pretty much: Ready, set, tell stories. Just the way you like it.

Now this original cast of Upper North Americaners at BubbleShare, led by Mr. around-the-clock himself, Albert Lai, has decided to add some foreign aid to their all-star team, including yours truly. I'll be serving as blog strategist (read: chief blogging and editorial maven) for BubbleShare, and I'm pleased to join such a smart, funny group of people in enhancing the world of online conversation.

Even better than the fact that I get to consult without having to live among the snowdrifts Up North like I used to, is the fact that YOU can try BubbleShare too. A new Flash tutorial is up to show you just what to do.

In fact, I'd like you to take it for a test drive and let us know what you think. Email me as usual, or skype me if you'd like -- jeneanesessum. And please contact the folks at BubbleShare with your feedback and ideas (maybe tomorrow, after they get some sleep) at feedback@bubbleshare.com.