Cult U 3

The third in our series of Cult Universities this evening is The Kabbalah Center--and don't forget your shiny red string to protect against the "evil eye." Look, I'm Sicilian, I'll tell you about the evil eye, and no red string protects you from it, you too-much-money-having Madonna Wannabes. Unless it's a red string with an Italian Horn hanging from it. The thing that looks like a large penis that you wear around your neck.

Jeesh. Can't even rip off an ancient idea right.

Cult U2

Endeavor Academy is the second school in tonight's Cult University Classics.

RUN! It's A Course in Miracles Run Amuck (as if ACIM Light isn't amuck enough).

This is your mind.

This is your mind on the New Age.

Now is it time at last to free yourself from this chaotic world of loneliness and loss and pain and death. A world constructed by your own nightmare of self-identity. It was only a meaningless place that justified your continuing need of self-sacrifice and annihilation. You have been using it in order to verify and sustain your apparent existence, and now at last it has become intolerable to you.

errrr huh? I think I need to be held back a grade.

Cult U

This prep school is a boarding school for budding scientologists.

I wonder how many black scientologists there are? I'm thinking what, 1? 2?

fly me to the moon...

Remember, at Cult U, "philosophy" credits transfer as Mind Control 101 at most non-cult institutions.

Calling Smart CEOs

I'm writing an article for this year's Global PR Blog Week with some other smokin' authors. My article's entitled: Adding Your Voice to the Conversation — Why CEOs Should Blog. I'm taking the Yes You Should side of the coin, with some wise nuggets tossed in to make sure CEOs take the smart path to blogdom.

PR PEOPLE AND CORP COMM FOLKS: I want to interview a few blogging CEOs for this article. [i.e., get them some ink, get me some quotes--you know how it works.] So, get your blogging CEO's email addresses, contact info, and/or best times to talk to me next week, kay? ewriter@bellsouth.net. Cell: 678-294-0900.

peace-out.

cross posted at: the content factor blog

15th Day of Freedom

We had a Coco spotting today!!! She's alive and in our basement, under the drum stage. I spied her after Jenna as she scooted across the floor and behind the bookshelf! We are now coming up with ways to catch her.

Easy to find Corporate Blogging White Paper

I added a link to my corporate blogging white paper -- To Blog or Not to Blog? {PDF} -- on the sidebar so it's easy to get to. It's also linked over at The Content Factor blog and I think on our site.

A new version is coming when I figure out how to use indesign and make two corrections--spell Glenn Reynolds name right (two n's) and re-add Chief Blogging Officer to the resource list. Long story. Longer assignment considering I have to GET the templates from a design firm with whom I've had a ...errrr... little disagreement, and then figure out if I can afford to GET and LEARN InDesign.

Quark or InDesign--pros and cons? I need to get back to doing some low-level design stuff myself. I was never great, but I was okay back in the day.

This little widget looks cool.

This little widget from my google adsense ads, which I just clicked through -- seeing things about being tired up there in the ads, and still being tired myself -- looks pretty cool. You might say, Jeneane, it's august and you're in georgia. why are you thinking about seasonal affective disorder? I might answer--I'm not sure. I just feel like it's winter now and I'm holed up like it's 20 degrees out not 90. I think because school has started and I'm waking up when it's still dark. So it must be winter, right? No? Try telling my internal clock that.

I couldn't figure out how much this little lightbox is, but I'd actually think about getting something like this for the winter. I just wish it tanned too.

Of course, a trip to Jamaica in November might achieve the same effect...

Working all night working all day

With this schedule change I keep griping about, you see, is work--I'm like a trick worker (that's what we called them up north in the western ny belt of factories, kodak, baush & lomb, and the like. So I'm now switching shifts. All summer I slept in with Jenna and worked from about 10 a.m. - 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., with swimming and friends' houses interpsersed, so that's a usual 15 hour work day with five hours set aside for active momming (rather than passive momming) where we do stuff. I guess we'll call that B. Shift + C shift combo., which brings the average down to a 10 hour work day spread across late morning - late afternoon and picked up again early evening through early morning.

Now I'm on the damn A trick, up at the time I'd usually be doing my sleeping from the night shift, and tired when I should be awake, and now I've switched my active work versus active momming timeframes. And active work is from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m., then picked up again at 8 p.m. until 2 a.m., which essentally equals two additional hours of ACTIVE WORKING, since the time bewteen 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. is my active MOMMING time.

So essentially this new shift adds two extra hours of active work time (at the time I'm usually asleep) and one additional hour of active momming time (right in the middle of the day).

Ergo, I now need another three hours added on to my day, and I am not sure now when to be sleeping and when to be thinking.

I started to do both, which is probably why I keep having dreams about the missing hamster.

back to work.

Back to school 2

A month from now all of you northerners are going to be complaining about back to school time and school supplies and getting up early and carpool lines and foul-mouth bus language and uniforms (if you got 'em) and more. AND guess what. I'll be into our new routine by then, trapsing happily off to carpool with a half-gallon of coffee on the dashboard. So don't sit there all cavalier with your "summer is so much fun" posts and expect my sympathy after labor day, you late bloomers. What's the matter with you up there? Get those kids back to school!

The Name Game

Geek Streak has an interview with Kaneva's Chris Klaus here.

Here's how the 'marketplace' concept of Kaneva is shaking out:

Distribution and hosting are two of the biggest barriers that exist today in MMO game development. Distribution is also a major barrier for film makers today. At Kaneva, we offer game developers a fully featured, freely downloadable platform to easily and quickly create games along with Managed Game Services so that game developers can focus on making great games, bringing them to market quickly, and earning sizeable royalties for their work.

Once game development is complete or in beta, developers utilize Kaneva's Managed Game Services for game distribution and hosting. These services also include billing, tracking and security – basically everything you need to successfully host and earn money for your online game. We also provide the developer with an opportunity to earn up to 70% royalties based on revenue size. Our Managed Game Services eliminate the need for developers to make expensive investments in the infrastructure needed to run an MMO.

It's fun watching Kaneva take shape. What I like about these guys is that they've been willing to "open the kimono" and let developers and plain old curious noodlers like me sign up and go in and sniff around. Chris Klaus has been open to answering questions and taking feedback on how the platform CAN work for game developers, etc. To me, that's fun. Or maybe I've just got a thing for betas. ;-)

BlogHer Videos I can't wait to watch.

J.D. Lassica interviewed a bunch of folks at blogher, and his videos are up. Thanks to David for the link--I can't wait to watch!

Doc takes on the Hospitality Industry

THANK GOODNESS Doc is taking it to the hospitality industry in a post where he says "freaking" so you know he's really pissed off. And he's right. How "Duh" can one industry be?

Already it's 2005, and all the hotels (like all the airlines and rental car agencies) still sit out there in their silos, with their stupid, deaf, blind CRM systems, trying to trap and hold (or, in slaveholder parlance, own) customers — about whom their systems know as little as possible — inside. Rather than engage in a truly free (and therefore open) marketplace.

I wish some hospitality industry publications would pick up his post as an article so that the lodging industry's more narrow-thinking readers might catch a clue.

First day of school in da South

My baby girl started second grade this morning. They have guinnea pigs in her classrom. She is happy.

"FINALLY! A class pet!"

I remember starting second grade.

I don't remember it being so STINKING EARLY IN THE MORNING.

as you were.

What's worse than not blogging? Erratic blogging.

From a reader's perspective, don't you get all "rrrrghh" when your favorite bloggers start altering their usual posting schedule? No matter how loose that schedule might be, or how much of an unschedule it is, I get this quickening-skip-a-beat feeling when I see that my favorite reads aren't posting, then they will, then won't then will, then won't.

Now, with Bloglines, if I see that you're not bolded for one or two days, and you're someone who usually posts 22 in a day, and and then you start giving me only 2 or 3 a day for a while, I get momentarily mad at you. It would make me less mad if you didn't blog at all, because my scanning routine could resume without pause. The funny part is, that momentary disappointment doesn't last. It's a micro-emotion that forms and expunges itself in seconds. On online speed-of-feeling thing. It's weird.

So, you're probably micro-mad at me too. ;-)

Planning Your Wedding

If you're going to live in the south, and if you think you and your fiance might one day start a family, then do not get married August 7-14 because if you DO one day have a kid, you will learn that back-to-school eve (preceeded by back-to-school supplies rush) will coincide with your anniversary every year, which means you really can't tear yourself away from your child to have a couples' reunion on your anniversary night. Fortunately we had a friend with kids babysit while we went out and engulfed a great Japanese dinner. Then home to reality, combing my Jenna's special hair and trying to transform it into the style she wants by bedtime, while wondering how I forgot to get the washable markers and what about her asthma forms for the clinic.

So, I'd go for July. Or September. Unless you live in the north. Then be careful of Labor Day.

Just a tip.

Baby Microsofties

Jenna was how old when the first Monkey Boy video came out featuring Ballmer? You guys tell me. She's seven now--so that would have been what, 3 years ago? So she was like 4 maybe? She remembers. How could you forget if you were a kid, this sweaty guy running across your mommy's laptop screaming like a monkey boy?

Well, the other night I was laughing at the re-mix with George and Jenna's like, is that monkey boy?! And I'm like, "Yep, it is, remember?" And she comes to watch and falls on the floor, just like when she was four or five, "That crazy monkey guy--why does he do that?" and I said, "He's excited about his company."

Tonight she was in the bath, it's the night before school here, her first day of second grade tomorrow, and I hear her doing her usual bathtub jabber. Then I hear:

"Developers, developers, developers, developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers," punctuated with a big Monkey Yell. And she's doing the chant and swishing the water around, doing her own 7-year-old Ballmer remix.

And I wonder, what the heck kind of brand building is this?

CoCo, Melanie, Where are you?

You know the pig has been gone. I told you all I called the EPA and Code Enforcement at the beginning of summer when my stupidass neighbor began dumping pig manure in the runoff-creek that borders our yard with our neighbor's yard, making for the most godawful smell you can imagine, unless you're from Iowa, and then you know what I mean.

Well, add one more animal to the "where the hell did that pet end up?" list. It seems that the matriarch of our hamster family, Coco, renamed Melanie after she became a mother and ate 13 babies, is not to be found anywhere in this house. My sister was pet-sitting while we were away. Somehow the top door wasn't shut just right and she got out. That was about 10 days ago. No sigh of Melanie ever since.

Jenna has been beside herself. I even got her to clean her room by saying, well, maybe she's in here somewhere, but that backfired when she began having visions of the hamster "POPPING UP" in her bed at night and ended up sleeping next to me. "IT MIGHT POP UP!"

We've set traps, we've left out sweet baby carrots, and I hate to say it, but I dream about her every night. I think George has had two dreams about her. Last night in my dream she was as big as an infant and I was cradling her and she was glad to see me.

Ambien's good food.

I won't say it, but the dog looks content.

Shit.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAMES!

My brother-in-law James is always jittery that I'm going to drag him into my blog, some story of a family gathering gone haywire, or just talk about his big smile and happy eyes, or that picture of him holding Jenna on his chest when she was a baby. He does not want all that silly attention, but today he's getting it. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JAMES! I hope your day is peaceful and happy and that you and Annie have a GREAT GREAT day.

Jenna says hi and she liked riding in the front seat like a big kid. ;-)

Mike Remembers...

Mike Rodriquez remembers 10 years later....

We ended up spending that night in Wyoming, and thought we'd likely stop one last time, around Reno or Lake Tahoe, before heading home. We did notice some sundogs late that afternoon while driving through northern Colorado, and we did spy a long freight train, thought it wasn't north bound and it wasn't raining.

It's our 19th Wedding Anniversary Today...

Time flies when you're having conniptions. ;-)

I love you, honey.

There's no wrong time for a Ballmer Re-Mix

Just when it nearly slips from memory, there it is again, all newified.

Thanks Scobes. Can I call you Scobes?

Tools vs. Tendencies

Go read Shelley.

If women are not as visible in weblogging (or technology or politics and so on) because of some escoteric to do with technology, then our problems could be easily solved. I would personally devote my life to finding the Woman Algorithm — the algorithm to give equality to women. But, as we’ve seen with the recent linking to BlogHer reports, the issue isn’t that simple. Even considering the fact that BlogHer was about women in weblogging, the single most linked individual post on the conference, was Jay Rosen’s–one of the few men to attend the conference.

Why was Jay’s the most linked? Well, some of it was because he provided a viewpoint that led to debate. He used a ‘confrotational’ term that was guaranteed to trigger furious dicussion. I linked to him for that specific reason, as did other people. However, Halley Suitt also wrote a post that generated much debate, and though it was also well linked, not as much as Jay’s. Does this, then, mean that Jay’s was a better post? No, not necessarily.

Very significant post on weighing and ranking and linking and algorithms -- and HUMANs.