A little more to get to know

5 things I am obsessed with:
1. bows
2. surprise kitten
3. perfect hair
4. new music
5. blogs

Quickfire questions about myself:
1. Your hair: red and messy
2. Where is your phone: to my left
3. Your father: In his office, working away
4. Your mother: working out in the field
5. Your favourite food: I don't know anymore
6. Your dream from last night: I was able to do many push ups
7. Your favourite drink: diet coke or chocolate milkshake
8. Your dream/goal: I have so many
9. What room are you in: My work office
10. What is your hobby: reading (blogs, books, magazines), collecting pictures (from blogs, magazines, newspapers, ads etc), taking pictures, blogging, crocheting
11. What is your fear: failure
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years: moved out of San Diego. Maybe in Nashville, maybe in San Francisco, maybe in the Carolinas, I don't know.
13. Where were you last night: in my new home
14. Something you are not: sporty
15. Muffins: blueberry!
16. Wish list items: new makeup to replace the old and drying out, some dresses, a piece or two of furniture to make my room feel homey
17. Where did you grow up: In my head
18. Last thing you did: Read blogs, sent work emails, listened to the conversation across the hallway
19. What are you wearing: jeans, black target flats, american apparel black hoodie, black tank from target and victoria's secret PINK gray sleep v neck
20. Your TV: I don't have one
21. Your pets: gorgeous and funny
22. Your friends: beautiful people
23. Your life: wonderful
24. Your mood: antsy
25. Missing someone: several
26. Vehicle: my baby
27. Something you're not wearing: socks
28. Your favourite store: I'm trying to stay away from stores right now.
29. Your favourite colour: I love purples
30. When's the last time you laughed: I laugh all the time, at least once a day, everyday
31. When's the last time you cried: Not sure
32. Your best friend: I have several, all fascinating people
33. One place you go over and over: target
34. One person who emails me regularly: facebook
35. Favourite place to eat: Portland, Oregon

hello again

Again I have been lagging on this, I'm sorry. So many blogs so little time. It seems the more I have/think about the less I write on any of them. I've almost completely given up on livejournal, my two deadjournals have been dormant for many many years, my tumblr sees no love and even my flickr (I know not a blog but still) has seen little activity lately.

New Year's Resolution: Organize and then revitalize what is left.
This means going through many online accounts/blogs/etc and deleting ones that I no longer have interest in, possibly saving posts or transferring them and then adding to and staying up on the ones I keep.

Things to look over:
Photobucket accounts (2)
Myspace account & Blog
Livejournal (2)
Tumblr
Blogger (this one and one more)
Flickr (add photos)
Twitter (2)

I swear there are more, but this is what I have for now.

I also need to learn how to source photos either by linking the picture to the source or making it look pretty when I put the source underneath...

Oh New Year's. At least this year's resolution will be fun.

Foursquare: the beginning trial

I recently got myself a full-time gig doing a bunch of stuff. Some of which includes researching different social media (mediums). Another part of my job is adding my undeniably intelligent insight to the company blog. I have been stumped when it came to a topic as of late until I came across several tweets on my twitter feed about a thing called Foursquare (www.foursquare.com). I kept seeing people tweet about becoming the mayor of a certain place that they went to a lot and I was confused. At first I thought it was another application like Farmville on Facebook. For the record, I detest Farmville. I've never played the silly and I never will (I should probably say I don't want to, saying "never" has always been dangerous for me... ex: I will never pierce ______, now 14 piercings later I must say I was wrong). Just seeing people's updates in my Facebook friend feed makes me want to scream, so I hid them (the updates, not my friends). Back to the point... one day I was browsing through blogs dedicated to social media and I came across a post about foursquare and the opportunities it was creating for businesses to reward customers. This caught my attention. So foursquare wasn't just another Farmville app for bored people with no better distractions on their browsers, it was a legitimate social networking site. Interesting. I dug deeper, searched for more articles. I found that Foursquare was created by the same people who created Dodgeball and eventually sold it to Google. Google disappointed these young genius (plural, genii? haha no) by not putting enough funds into the program which had a considerable about of users and eventually they left Google. Google then dropped Dodgeball without explanation, maybe it was too busy acquiring and ignoring other ventures, I don't know. But their drop of Dodgeball gave our genius crew room to create and improve their neglected child. Now we have foursquare.
I'm done with this current history lesson, now I'll move on to what I find most important, my experience with the site. Of course after reading about Foursquare's possible perks I had to try it. I mean, I could potentially be notified if one of my friends was in an area close to me when I went out, or I can see what recommendations people have for sightseeing or exploring my city. GREAT! So I sign up, and get my cell phone linked in... then I start texting my lovely new profile where I am at. I wonder how this is going to help me at all considering I am not posting the address and my In-n-out location can be very vague in San Diego. No worries I say to myself, I'll just edit the location when I get back to my computer. At least it shows that I have checked in at the right time.
Next day rolls around (I must say I don't go very many places so my Foursquare feed might be a bit dull) and I text again, this time with a new location for my lunch. When I get back to the office I try to edit the location that I have text in. I ran into some problems. 1) The sandwich shop I went to wasn't listed, some others downtown were, but I'm not downtown, I'm up north 2) I spelled In-n-out wrong (I know, unacceptable for the native californian) in my text and couldn't fix the check in.
I became frustrated and accidently erased my sandwich check in for the day. I realized later that it was still the same day and in an effort to learn this new thing I should work with the time lie. After adding in the North County location of the sandwich shop I text my check in (spelling everything exactly the same as it was entered in the computer before, capitalization and everything) and lo and behold, it worked. I even received the Newbie badge for being the first person to check in at that place. Awesome.
I wish this meant that all my problems with this social networking site were done and buried but alas they were, and still are not.
Here are my current grievances:

1) if I don't get the exact name/location of a place correct when I text how will I see if my friends are around me?
2) How do I check in online? I guess it has to be through my phone web browser. Unfortunate for sure, the screen is tiny and I'm not sure it will always work. I don't want to text because of grievance #1 above.
3) I have no friends on this thing, none of my facebook friends are on it and neither are my twitter followers or those I am following.

I can't blame number three on the website itself, it has no power over how many friends I do or do not have. Nor does it have power over the lame factor of those friends I do have who refuse to get themselves in the twitter or foursquare world. The loser-atti. (I don't really know where that came from, just go with it.) My friends aren't really losers, I mean, they have me as a friend, how could they be. I do really like my made up word however, so it stays.

The other two are probably more user related (again, blame on me) than them but I'll keep it as my grievance until I figure out how to use the site better.

I look forward to growing my "friend" list on yet another website. We'll see how long this profile lasts.

A short little note

Despite the fact that I like to tear apart the shows The Hills and Gossip Girl I would like to say that I do, in fact, enjoy both immensely. I sit and I watch them first for pure enjoyment and then later the academic side of my brain kicks in to tell me why these shows are so silly and unrealistic. But to be honest, I don't watch them for facts of life. I watch them to see beautiful people and honestly, fashion wise, both shows are incredibly inspiring which may not sound right coming out of my mouth or from my fingertips but alas I do believe it to be true.
I am not embarrassed, I just thought you, my numerous (haha) and loyal readers should know that.

I will stop neglecting this blog very soon. Look forward to it.

Laurie Halse Anderson's comments on censorship

"Literature is a safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from one generation to the next. Books save lives... America's teens are desperate for responsible, trustworthy adults to create situations in which they can discuss the issues that are of the highest concern for them...censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in darkness and makes them vulnerable... Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them. They need us to be brave enough to give them great books so they can learn how to grow up into the men and women we want them to be."

I agree with these parts, the only thing I had to add and or change for my own beliefs is the part at the end where she says "into the men and women we want them to be." I would say that I would change the we into a "they" saying, "so they can learn how to grow up into the men and women they want to be."

Find out more about her, her books and her thoughts on other things at
www.writerlady.com or
www.livejournal.com/~halseanderson

United Colors of Benetton

I don't think I have spent enough time looking at http://press.benettongroup.com/ben_en/ this website. I keep seeing their ads and liking them for their shock value or social critique but I don't really know what they are selling. I always assumed it was like a side cotton line but after a while realized that wasn't quite what it was. This particular picture is of a palestinian and an israeli kissing. It's from the "enemies" catalog. From my short time on the site reading the blurbs I got the idea that the whole catalog is full of pictures of supposed enemies engaged in friendly (or romantic) activities.
I'm going to look into it more. See what their purpose is besides selling clothes (if there is one).
If anyone knows about what their mission is or anything fill me in please.

-C

Prop 8 will not last!