I've been using
Twitter for a couple of weeks now, at the urging of
a friend and a
fellow podcaster. They both make good cases for using it - it's easy, it's fun and it's a very easy way to keep a finger on the pulse of your personal network.
Then I come along.
I've twittered about the following items:
Drinking coffee
Blogging
Painting the hallway
Anna Nicole Smith
I'm sure you see a trend, good reader. I'm as boring on Twitter as I am on my blog and - one could argue - as I am in person.
This weekend I hope to do some twittering about
my yard, cleaning out the closet and maybe vacuuming. Definitely vacuuming. The rug is looking a little rough.
I keep it real people.
Labels: 2007, internet, weird stuff, yard
By: Alyssa | Friday, March 30, 2007 at Friday, March 30, 2007 | | 
I'm a big fan of the
Wicked Good Podcast and this week I've been tagged by
Steve of the WGP to answer the most confounding problem facing America today: What seven songs am I into right now?
*You are totally sorry you asked.
Swingin' by John Anderson
We Built This City by Starship
Making Love Out of Nothing at All by Air Supply
I Love You Period by Dan Baird
Wheel in the Sky by Journey
She Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby
The Mississippi Squirrel Revival by Ray Stevens
*In reality - I don't have any music loaded on my iPod - I've got hundreds of hours of podcasts and public radio. I'm slow to digitize my audio collection - which is also hopelessly outdated because I'm a fogey.
I keep up with lots of other pop culture - I call in music experts to pinch hit for
the podcast!
So - to follow the rules, I'm including the other cool kids tagged by
Steve -
Dan,
CJ,
Daryl N. Cognito, and
Jason Tucker. And those tagged with Steve -
Mrs. B,
Chris Penn,
Chris Brogan, and
Aidan Hatch.
They are much, much cooler than I am.
Labels: 2007, internet, weird stuff
By: Alyssa | Wednesday, March 28, 2007 at Wednesday, March 28, 2007 | |
I guess spam is becoming more clever. Most of the time they end up filtered out of my inbox. But I do have a couple of email accounts that I call the "spam accounts" that I use when I have to sign up for stuff.
These accounts are - more or less - unfiltered. Last night I was blazing through one spam inbox doing a little clean up when I saw a subject line that said something like:
O'Reilly to appear on the Colbert Report.
I thought, hmm, maybe this is a press release. A couple of months back during a podcast we discussed One Tree Hill (Derek watches it as a guilty pleasure, I mocked him for it) and the next week I started getting OTH (like the kids say) newsletters in my podcast email.
For our 2006 year in review
podcast we talked about how The Colbert Report really found its groove and what a great show it was and continues to be. So I thought, someone decided to send me a press release.
And so I was only half surprised to open the email and see it was a stock touting spam. Good one email spammers. Good one.
Labels: 2007, internet, weird stuff
By: Alyssa | Wednesday, January 10, 2007 at Wednesday, January 10, 2007 | |
I guess I'm in the middle of a low-level blog war with some nice people over at the
H20town site.
Well, maybe not a war - since I just referred to them as nice and they've referred to me as an "out-of-towner". Hardly the stuff of a war, hardly even a rivalry. But I'll take what I can get!
The war started when I wrote a piece about crazy holiday shoppers and
the nice lady at H20town linked to it with a funny little remark. See - I made a huge mistake and didn't qualify a statement I made about the much beloved Watertown, MA Target. For that I am sorry.
I should have said you should avoid it during the holiday shopping season because it is rough. Although, in fairness I have no idea where the people who shop in Watertown are from - I shopped there while inhabiting both Cambridge and Arlington. I unfairly singled out the people, implying the people of Watertown.
Anyway, I've sparked much lively discussion over parking problems in Watertown (apparently there are many problems!), socio-economic class (I never alluded to class, but whatever), vague racism (my post wasn't racist, but whatever), shopping in general, fond reminiscence about restaurants/shops past and a probably about how I'm stupid (I totally am!).
To counterpoint a few arguments: I didn't allude to class or race in my post - two white folks, strangers to me and each other, got into an argument in the cat food aisle at a Target. For the record, both people were better dressed than I was. Does it matter? Hell no! I thought this was funny and odd and to a degree embarrassing for both of them and me.
Funny/weird/embarrassing = blog entry. It's that simple. And if you're a regular reader you'll see I try to write something every day. Some days those are good posts and sometimes I write about planting grass seed. They aren't all winners!
And I'm sorry for not being more specific in my feedback - the Target is too small for the community it serves and the parking is atrocious. Those two specific people in the cat food aisle were a little nuts - yelling at strangers is weird, especially when you're sober - and that's what the holidays can do to you.
You can go a little loopy.
Now, who said something about my mama?
(kidding!)
Labels: 2007, internet, weird stuff
By: Alyssa | Tuesday, January 02, 2007 at Tuesday, January 02, 2007 | |
I forgot to mention - what with my trip to the ER and my flight home - that I got a big package from Donor's Choose. Inside the package I found about 30 thank you letters from students I'd helped earlier in the year when I spent about $75 to help buy dictionaries for kids at a school in northern Indiana.
Sometimes I'm amazed at what you can do with a little money - $75 to get a full set of dictionaries and thesauruses for a class. I remember the day I did it, I was kind of frustrated with myself and thought I might indulge in some retail therapy. Then I stopped and thought, what if I bought something for someone else? I felt just as good at the time. I had no idea I'd get the extra hit of good vibes a few months later when all these letters came in the mail.
Thanks for saying thanks, seventh graders in Hobart, Indiana. I'm glad I could help you out and you totally deserve it.
I understand not everyone has $75 to spend on someone else. I know for a long time I didn't. But with each year I find I get more settled and stable and I can find a few bucks now and then to help others. It's nice and I've
decided in 2007 I should really do it a little more.
I'm not so ambitious as to declare 107 or even 17 things I might do this year, but if I do - you'll hear about it first.
Happy New Year!
Labels: 2007, good stuff, internet
By: Alyssa | Monday, January 01, 2007 at Monday, January 01, 2007 | |
I
wrote before with thank yous, but I figure I can do it again. Thanks a million, Internets. The Big Red Blog's Decemberstravaganza fund raiser with
Donors Choose was wildly successful. The original goal was to raise $200 for some projects a public schools in Indiana (my home state). Thanks to you, we raised about $450 and helped approximately 300 students.
That's pretty impressive if you ask me - we're talking about relatively small sums of money having a huge impact on kids and their school experience.
I've never done a fund raiser like this with the blog, but given how well it went - we may do something again in the spring. So thanks again for donating, for your support and of course for reading my small corner of the Internet.
Labels: 2006, good stuff, internet
By: Alyssa | Sunday, December 17, 2006 at Sunday, December 17, 2006 | |
Yesterday was my birthday. I mention this because I received some very good news - which to me, is a gift.
We've blown out
my Donors Choose challenge. I originally wanted to raise $200. Thanks to some very generous readers and members of my family (also readers) we're now up to $345! So I moved the target a little and the new goal by Saturday is to raise $400.
We've been able to fund five reading programs in Indiana, which I think is so great. The kids - I hope - will hit the ground running when the second semester starts!
So if you have a few extra bucks and are inclined to donate, there is still time before Saturday. Just click that little thermometer on the right.
And if that's not enough to make you feel warm and fuzzy this morning, I got an email from one of the project sponsors - a fourth grade teacher - thanking us for the donations.
Good for you, Internets. Good for you.
Labels: 2006, good stuff, internet
By: Alyssa | Wednesday, December 13, 2006 at Wednesday, December 13, 2006 | |
The site is experiencing some technical problems, but don't worry.
Everything will be fine. Just fine. Sure, all of my archives are broken. I'm sure that's just something small. I'll think of something.
Eventually... it will be fixed.
God, do I really have over 1300 posts? Yikes!
*update - sometimes things are called
beta for a reason. Don't fall for their shiny promises. Let the chumps test the beta. You wait for the final release.
Labels: 2006, internet, weird stuff
By: Alyssa | Saturday, November 11, 2006 at Saturday, November 11, 2006 | |
I have had to wear glasses since the…. I think the fourth grade. Thanks to my mother and father I’m pretty vision-impaired. Not blind, but without glasses or contacts I’m able to vaguely distinguish shapes and colors – unless they are directly in my face.
Yesterday I popped my contacts in and noticed that my eyes looked a little red, but no big deal – sometimes that happens. At work I had a meeting around 10 AM and someone mentioned that my eyes looked bloodshot and asked if I was okay. Someone else suggested I had an allergy problem.
Nope. Not a sniffle or a sneeze. And my eyes felt okay. After the meeting I stopped by the ladies room to check in the mirror.
I looked like a crazed, bloody-eyed killer. I’m talking way beyond a little red – my eyes looked like I’d been on a 9-day bender/murder spree.
I was all weirded out and self-conscious about it for the rest of the day. After the
Blogtoberfest event (which was thankfully dimly lit) we stopped by the ol’ CVS to get some Visine. I am happy to report that I’ve gotten some of the red out but still look kind of scary this morning.
I’ve busted out my old-school eye glasses for work today so that I might give the eyeballs a rest. God knows that if I roll down to the in-laws tomorrow with bloodshot eyes, I’ll hear about it. They’ll assume that they don’t have any grandchildren because I’m a lush.
Labels: 2006, health, internet
By: Alyssa | Friday, October 20, 2006 at Friday, October 20, 2006 | |
Oh those crazy kids at the
Blogtoberfest – they are all
such pistols!
And Match is loud. Or we were loud. Or both. Regardless, I was in lots of photos (see how I was trying to pretend like I was cool) and everyone seemed to be having a good time.
All I know is that my voice is shot from yelling at my fellow bloggers while leaning close to read their name badges. I think if I was a dude, it’d be a good way to check out the ladies. There were lots of women, way to represent ladies.
I’ve also gone partially blind from the camera flashes (cameras are tiny!) and possibly a little deaf.
Anyway, it was nice to meet so many people and I found someone who’d actually a) read my blog and even better b) listened to my podcast. Amazing.
Some casual vision loss and light deafness are a small price to pay. More tomorrow – it’s a school night after all.
Labels: 2006, internet
By: Alyssa | Thursday, October 19, 2006 at Thursday, October 19, 2006 | |
From the always delighful
CitySlicker MomQ)What were you doing 10 years ago?I was in college and home in Indiana for winter break. I suspect I was scheming how I’d get back to school early to hang out with K.
Q)What were you doing 1 year ago?I had the most miserable cold/flu/plague ever thanks to my darling nieces and nephews from my trip home at Christmas. Thanks kids!
Five snacks I enjoy:Pub Mix from Costco (I call it crack mix)
Kashi Go Lean Crunch
Apples
Pringles BBQ Fat Free (don’t judge – they taste weird and pleasing to me)
Nutri Grain Cereal bars – strawberry or mixed berry
Five songs to which I know all the lyricsPlease…
Five things I would do if I were a millionaire: Pay off all debt
Get some super swanky capped teeth like I'm a celebrity
Hire a personal trainer for every day
Go on a swanky vacation for weeks and weeks with Deeps
Set up college funds for my nieces and nephews
Five bad habits: Wasting money on dumb stuff
Nagging my husband
Picking at my finger nails
Mindless snacking
Ordering in instead of cooking
Five things I like doing:Hanging out with my husband – especially if he has a hilarious story
Going to the movies
Doing house projects – especially if my drill or saws are involved
Hanging out with friends and family
Writing or blogging
Five things I would never wear, buy or get new again:Jeans with any kind of spandex in them
DuWop Lip Venom
Horizontal stripes
Nylon shirts
Pantyhose – unless it is an absolute emergency
Five favorite toys:Laptop
Digital camera
Flash drive
Sawzall
Toro leaf blower/vacuum/mulcher
So here's the deal: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot
Big red blog
Greensunflower
me vs. rut
ala carter
Unhip
Then select five people to tag:NabbaliciousJascloMilkweed HillPoppy CedesLook at me. I'm so important that I have a blog.Labels: 2005, internet
By: Alyssa | Saturday, December 31, 2005 at Saturday, December 31, 2005 | |
I found these flash movies on
Tom Tomorrow's site. Apparently they're little ads for a Panasonic product. I've watched them a few times (and don't speak Japanese), I haven't figured out what they might be advertising. I've since learned from Tom Tomorrow's site that they're ads for an ISP in Japan.
Despite the odd subjects, I think you'll enjoy Hi Ho -- I know that I do. Please visit any of the links below for some Hi Ho action.
I wish I was
famous like youMy friend died
and I lost all my moneySnow
hijinksI'd
watch out for that squirrel if I was you
Hi HO fun, I
have no idea why
Shark's
are killersI want you
to want meWhat's so
dangerous about fishing?
Boy
saves GirlHi Ho
Techno ChristmasLabels: 2002, internet, weird stuff
By: Alyssa | Wednesday, April 17, 2002 at Wednesday, April 17, 2002 | |
