LaurieWrites

Micro This

Melanie asked and I am answering.

I have been a TypePad user since April, 2005 (which reminds me I should update my credit card information to my new one so they don't suspend my account, yeah.) I was a writer and then a photographer first, concerned with design and content management very much second, so I was never that bothered by the way my blog functioned. I was concerned with getting posts written and shot and, well, posted.

Over the years I've been frustrated by my limitations here and have longed to move my blog. I wanted more freedom. What I really wanted - and still do - was to hit the design jackpot somewhere and have someone who really, really knows what she's doing to come along and love me so much that she just says, "Here. You're nice. Let me have your blog. I'll put it on its own platform and fix it and love it."

Needless to say that has never happened. I've haphazardly purchased a few other domains. I've downloaded WordPress and read about it thinking maybe that's the way to go. My primary complaints about TypePad have been about ease of use. As a way novice Web designer *which is more appropriately described as a wannabe, I'd like to have more obvious control over my masthead and my layout. I'd like templates that don't look like someone created them who's watched too many episodes of Microsoft Word. As someone who has paid for this service since day one, yes, I would like some updated stuff that isn't sixteen colors of the same pattern of leaves or paintbrushes.

And yes, I'm sure those hacks exist. I'm sure I could find them, but that's not the point. SixApart could do it, I'm quite sure. Vox looks kind of cool. I'm not sure why the ancestral platform has to look so...ancestral. 

I just haven't had the time I need to investigate my options. When I did I didn't feel competent enough with the lingo and was overwhelmed enough that I was sure I was...doing it wrong. And in the meantime I have never stopped writing and posting except for a brief hiatus here and there, so I just kept logging in and doing my thing, even though it's felt a little more underwhelming all the time.

What I need from TypePad is a better way to design and manage my existing blog, and this is why I'm confused about why you'd move to the micro phase before the macro is the best it can be. I'd like better templates, yes, and also a less antiquated way to do photos (PLEASE!) I don't want to log in and post into a little box. 

I want a way to do comment follow-up.

I want easier menus and help options to follow, instead of having to dig through a years-old library that feels like a rabbit hole. 

Did I mention I want better photo management? And it would be awesome if it would sync with iPhoto?

I want a golden ticket, Father.

I want a better blog, here- not a microblog. That's why I come here. I can micro everything everywhere else. I do micro everything. I tweet all the livelong day. I also have an abandoned Vox, and a Posterous, and a Tumblr. I don't know what I'm doing with any of those things, but I have them.

My blog is not Twitter. I don't want it to be Twitter. Just like everything does not have to be skiing or cellphones or pizza, everything does not have to be Twitter. 

I will say that I appreciate TypePad on my iPhone. I completed NaBloPoMo this year and it was cool to be able to post - a real, longish text post - from my phone. I'm satisfied with the interface and the way I can receive my comments there too.

But TypePad Micro, in my computer, is not what I need, because I can get it somewhere else. Call me crazy and demanding, but I'd like to get stuff I don't have here, where I pay for it.

"Pixellated" does not flow, therefore.

Yesterday I learned that "pixel" is short for "picture element" and not some mysterious free-standing term that I've just been blithely tossing around for years without once investigating what the hell it really meant?

Although I did recently learn due to circumstances beyond my control involving an exam question in my online journalism class that JPG is short for "Joint Photographic Experts Group," which is itself a committee that I imagine as the politburo of digital files.

I'll let you figure out "tif" and "gif" all on your own, thus concluding a descent into geekiness unparalleled in recent memory.

Details

Me: I love cute little geek boys who understand Photoshop
Lauren: That goes on your profile. Online geek seeks online geek, i.e., cute boy who knows Photoshop.
Me: I also love boys who clean their glasses carefully.
Lauren: Don't put that. That's weird.

It's easy as air

Suckers. I knew it.

Trying on for size

EDIT: Clearly that didn't last long.

I can't decide if I like this color scheme and design so I'm trying it out.

I think it looks kind of wimpy, to use an equally wimpy word. I love orange and I like the stars, but I feel like the banner just bleeds into yellow into white, like a pale sigh of a color fade.

I liked the black. It's all READ ME MAN. But I also fear stagnation, so when Typepad tells me they have new designs, I feel the need to at least give them a test drive.

This is not exciting. Apologies. But until I get my ass in gear to actually design my own site, I'm going to be locked in this vacancy. And apparently I feel the need to document that here. Boring, I know.

Genius

This week is awkward, for some more serious reasons that I'll talk about later because I don't feel like it now, and for several others that seems to be piling up like so much FRESH FALLEN SNOW, which apparently we're getting more of soon because Maryland, oh how we love the inconsistent winter.

My tetanus arm still hurts and it's making me cranky, but the real kicker is this typhoid vaccine. It's a four-pill series and you take them a day apart. My body does not care for the typhoid vaccine, not at all. I feel really weird, mostly just nauseous, which I suppose in the long run is preferable to typhoid fever, which sounds completely awesome, but still.

So my arm's sore and I'm weird, which means one thing is different than usual. The good news is that in addition to these afflictions, I'm officially Steve Jobs's bitch. The adapter was the problem with the laptop, at least the most pressing one. $79 for an adapter. Really, Steve? Really? $79! For a power cord! And I pay it, and I'm just all happy again because my computer works. Baaaaahhhh.

I had an appointment at the Genius Bar (so stupid, really. But oh how I do love them, the flock of black-clad, oh-so-serious Mac Geniuses.) yesterday at just after noon, which I thought would be great because who's going to be at the mall on a Wednesday at 12:20? Well, it turns out that no one in this county works, or has any other pressing responsibilities, or maybe is just as sickeningly dependent on their THINKING MACHINE as I am, because the place was packed. A man who had clearly never been there before got all in my personal space as he was walking in the store and unhelpfully bellowed, "There's more people here than in the ENTIRE MALL."

This is when I say things aloud that are going to get my ass kicked one day, i.e., "Thanks, Chief. Thanks for playing." He also had a phone holster. I'm so prejudiced against men with phone holsters.

I was on time, because, right, like I'm going to be late for my Genius Bar appointment, even though I'm late for 76 percent of all of my other responsibilities? No, I will not. I had to wait for quite some time, so I ambled around, checked my e-mail, glared at the Macbook Air, went and hung out with the iMac some more and felt honestly very disappointed that it didn't have PhotoBooth which means I'm insane, and did this really embarrassing, weight-comparison move with the Macbook and the Macbook Pro to see which one would cause me more herniation in my disks as I carry it for 12 straight days in Vietnam.

Please to note that in a previous life I was a very dispassionate shopper, particularly where electronic equipment was concerned. I looked at stuff and I bought it or I didn't. I did very little cost comparing or (God forbid) research. Now, I'm that person, reaching across the table to pick up the other laptop at the same time so I can compare, several times, because the first and second time you can't really tell. It is all silly. But at least I have a hobby, an expensive, addictive hobby. And it turns out that the two laptops, despite a deceptive size difference? Not so different weight-wise.

While I was standing there and they still hadn't called my name, I noticed that the laptop I was holding as part of my experiment was plugged into a power source with a charger. Much like, nay, the same, as the charger I was carrying in my bag that wasn't doing jack crap to make my computer work. So I looked around to see if anyone cared, pulled my computer out of my bag, unplugged the store laptop, and plugged the charger into my own machine.

Hallelujah and pass the ammunition, baby, the little green light went on on the adapter, and I was all kinds of excited. Genius bar, whatever. I was intrepid girl Mac shopper, unafraid to plug something in. There is no end to my super powers, seriously, and I swear...are you familiar with that scene in Christmas Vacation where the lights finally work on Clark's house? I heard the chorus and I wept with joy. Sort of, but that was how I felt inside anyway.

I immediately began reconfiguring the emergency computer-purchasing scenarios in my head into a more long-range, workable plan. And also breathing, and not being so hateful in general as I'd been for the past 24 hours.  I also tried to act as nonchalant as I could, like it was perfectly natural to be standing there holding a big old laptop (with a Spongebob sticker, even) that just happened to be mine, plugged into the cord that really belonged to the store computer, while said store computer languished there with no power source.

Mac salesman Robbie S. was having none of this. Did I need help? Hi Robbie S, could you pose a more loaded question? Well, yes, quite literally, and no. I told him I'd been waiting and just wanted to see if my terrible problem was immediately solvable, and why yes it was, but I was going to hang around and take my spot at the bar because there was something up with my cd drive anyway so I might as well get it checked out while I was there. He was happy to sell me the ridiculously priced adapter, and also an extended warranty that I'd never bought (I swear, I kept meaning to, but I was still within the year and I hadn't gotten my fellowship money, so there.) He seemed pretty cool and didn't speak slowly or extra loud to me as some men are wont to do with women in tech environments. It's so aggravating to feel like you have to throw around a little bit of lingo to show you know what you're talking about, and I like that that's less likely to be necessary in an Apple store than anywhere, honestly. I guess that's the carrot they throw you for being Steve's bitch, but whatever.

When I explained my dilemma about computer purchasing to Robbie - that I was taking my only computer to Vietnam, and I felt it was time to have a backup but I wasn't sure if I should get a smaller laptop and make the Pro my home computer or an iMac - he listened intently and earnestly and implied that all of my ideas and conclusions were right and good, but he himself felt quite strongly that I should get a Macbook Air.

Of course he thinks I should get a Macbook Air, with its $1800 base price and its new newness and cachet of being the lightest notebook on the market ever. But the thing is, I don't want a Macbook Air, and I  don't really like them. I do not want to own a computer with "air" in the name. Macbook Airs are for, like, dainty people in corsets and white puffy wigs who will type Olde English e-mails with porcelain fingers, not people like me who'll just pound out who-what-where-when-why stories, drop by people.com and drink out of the bottle, thanks.

Seriously? I don't trust it. It's too thin, and I am so totally capable of breaking things just by looking at them. Plus, what if I want to burn a cd? I don't want to deal with external drives and I especially don't want to pay 100 bucks for one when the computer is already pricey. Call me a relic or a control freak, but sometimes I like to put cds in my computer so I can work with music and photos, and for $2000, I really want to be able to do this on my existing computer.

I listened to and then ignored the man, who got all quietly indignant when I said I didn't like to buy first-generation products, which I only really said for kicks to piss him off. Then Adam at the bar fixed my cd drive (I think, I really haven't tested it yet) and he was all competent and genius-like, and I felt infinitely better when I left than when I walked in the door. And I think given the weight issue I'm going to go ahead and get the iMac, because I'm really liking the idea of the display, and the speed, and the storage again.

And I know it might seem silly to go on about computers all this time, but the truth is that if it weren't for these machines and their capabilities I wouldn't be able to do a lot of what it is that I currently do. And what I do is mostly fun, and it makes me happy, and it connects me with a larger world and lots of cool people, so it's a good thing. Genius, even.

Brought to you by the letter "O".

No, not THAT one. What kind of a page do you think this is?

(No answers, please.)

Thanks to Courtney the Wiccan Verizon supervisor (that's what the "Blessed be" necklace means, right?) I am now the proud owner, until I break or lose it, of the EnV! Also, it is orange.

My phone

matches my CAR. And no, I do not know why that photo won't flip. I DO NOT KNOW.

 

It's really bothering me though. I've only been screwing around with this webpage for two and a half years. That's all. Just more than two years, not at all enough time to FIGURE ANYTHING OUT.

Anyway, my phone is orange. It also has a 2.0 meg camera, which is going to be fun. And A KEYBOARD.

I am unstoppable. And also will officially have no capacity to focus on anything for more than the dwindling minutes I'm down to. It kills me that it's the EnV model, because that's the silliest thing I've ever heard, but whatever. A  functional camera and a keyboard, and it's orange.

Courtney, I need to say, is awesome. She singlehandedly made up for all of my pent-up hatred towards Verizon, because guess WHAT? She was REASONABLE. She was PLEASANT. She was RESPONSIVE. I didn't have to lose my cool even a little bit, even just inside. I didn't have to think bad things, not for one second. She just handled it. She saw that I had a problem. She responded to my e-mail when I wrote her to set up a time to come in, and she said, "I look forward to solving your problem." I think she even meant it.

And then she listened to me, which admittedly can be a little bit challenging when I'm in a state of this sort (No phone! Not responding other than e-mail to story needs and sources calling me back! For a week! No money to deal with unexpected technical glitches! Driving around in traffic that sucks as much as anything can! And also? cold! COLD! no heat in my house cold! I'm charming, no matter how hard I try...)

She listened without her wheels visibly turning on her face about how she was going to refute all of my "issues" (I hate that word) by quoting line item 27 from page 372 of the employee manual. She noted that this was my THIRD iteration of the SAME phone in less than a year. She didn't ask me if I'd jammed pliers into the slot where the charger element was, although it clearly looked like I'd either done that, or opened up the phone body itself and bit down really hard on it, stuck in my car in this demon traffic and totally hungry for some electronic equipment. She just nodded, and said clearly I'd had some "trouble with this device" and they'd be happy to switch it up.

And when she finally asked me if the newest LG model was okay as a replacement, and I managed to squeak out that I would sorta kinda really be down with the nicer orange phone with the keyboard and the camera?

She said, "One moment please, let's just walk over here," and came back and said, "It's only twenty dollars more. I will gladly change you to that phone, even exchange. No problem."

Seriously. This never happens. I didn't even care that they took all my text messages off that I kept meaning to transcribe  (because let me tell you, some of that shit is classic, although perhaps best left to the ether) and my pictures, and my crazily blown up list of contacts, but that's my fault because I didn't run the backup. Run the backup on your contacts, people. Take it from me, because the very day your phone dies is the day you need to talk to the most obscure person whose number you saved accidentally on purpose.

Courtney is a retail rock star. Maybe it's her necklace that gives her super powers, I don't know. But if it wasn't kind of weird and might could get me cited for some random infraction of the customer/supervisor separation rule, I'd bring her brownies or a Bath and Body Works gift basket or something.

Thank you Wiccan Courtney, high priestess of Verizon, for my kickass orange phone. And may it not break before July when I'm allowed to re-up for real, because I swear I'll snap like a twig. I won't want to, but I will.

Converge South Saturday

The main event for me today at Converge South was BlogHer co-founder Elisa Camahort's keynote.

Yesterday there was one female speaker. Today there were several. Anil Dash got stuck in Toronto and had to cancel. At the very fun (and delicious, I might add) barbecue hosted by a local blogger at his very cool house, replacements were found for him who happened to be women.

I believe that BlogHer's presence at this event was a good thing. Elisa did a great job this morning going in-depth into "how blogs change the world," with a focus on the "transformational quality of personal blogging." Here are some notes:

Blogs are changing...How we age. How we survive. The way we make a living. The way we participate.

How we age...Elisa mentioned Millie Garfield and Ronni Bennett  as examples of how older adults are getting online in larger numbers, and how writing about one's aging process is definitely approaching it in a different way than ever before. Here's a link to a shot of Ronni and Millie together, taken by Millie's son, Steve.

"This will be what the Ken Burns of the future uses", she said, indicating that blogs are recording our personal histories and will remain as a record of so many lives.

How we age...People go through events, acute and chronic, online. Katherine Stone blogged through post-partum depression, a personal act that turned into activism. Laurie blogs her experience with cancer. Not Just About Cancer. Diabetes Mine. Amanda blogged losing her husband to cancer at a young age.

Changing the way we make a living...Bloggers have business cards. They represent themselves as business people. Chloe Spencer and Elise Bauer have been financially successful with their blog efforts.

How we participate...Politicians realize that they ignore people in the blogosphere at their peril. Even nonpolitical blolggers are participating...Talking to millions of people, especially women, who can swing an election.

Blogs and Hurricane Katrina...Grace Davis and the team of Cooper Munro and Emily McKhann started blogs to collect resources to send to people who lost so much on the Gulf Coast. Blogs got stuff to people before the Red Cross and FEMA did.

Chez Pim's A Menu for Hope has food bloggers gathering to raise money for UNICEF. Last year they raised $17,000.

Elisa was on a panel about social networking immediately following the keynote with Soni Pitts and Ruby  Sinreich.

What is social networking? How has it changed
Ruby says grassroots organizing has happened since there have been humans.
Internet allows us to do a lot of the same things.
Bloggers spread news and media are forced to address the issue.
No organization orchestrating it, not even individual leaders.
Five aspects : strong social ties/trust. People in the network like each other, trust each other…
Dense communication grid.
Meta – sense of purpose. Are they aware this network exists?
(I must have missed the other two aspects...hmmm)
Soni Pitts – social networking in a business sense.
Social networking has enhanced her social life and networking opportunities because she works from home.
You have a group of friends that is real whether they’re in front of you or are pixels on a screen.

Elisa – doesn’t get a lot of the social networking she sees. It's better to be selective/having it mean something vs. collecting as many people as you can. I find it a little overwhelming.
I understand meeting people online and then personally - I've done it plenty of times.  Why do people I don't know follow me on Twitter?

Audience–I follow people I don’t know on Twitter to learn more about them in the industry.

Soni -  celebrity syndrome…we think we know them but they don’t know us.
Audience: Social networking is about "amplifying serendipity" He got involved in podcasting, met all these people, planned conference. Allowed me to do some really great things. I'm not a person who’s good at shaking hands – having the internet has helped me do that.

The next panel was on journalism schools and how they're changing to help students work in the new media environment. North Carolina A & T will have the second acccredited j-program in North Carolina. Panelists were

Joe Killian from the Greensboro News & Record,  Dr. Andy Bechtel from UNC-Chapel Hill and Dr. Teresa Styles from A&T's program were the panelists. Some more discussion here on "are bloggers journalists?" Dr. Styles says no. I disagreed. Another person in the audience said that blogs are free-for-alls. No one will ever sue you for what you write on your blog. Again, I disagreed. How do we know? "Show me one person who's lost their house because of something they wrote on their blog?" he said. I can't. But what I do know is that this is publishing, and especially if you're affiliated with a newspaper's website, I can't imagine there isn't any trouble involved with shooting your mouth off - especially if what you say is untrue...I don't see carte blanche to libel being okay for the web any more than it is for print.

The gist here seemed to be that there aren't any clear answers. The bottom line is that good content is still the key - solid writing, a sense of one's intent. But it sure does help these days to know how to work a video camera.

Hello?

Okay, going to rant for a minute here now. 

About this iPhone business, people. Really. Come on.

If you have the extraneous 600 dollars around that enabled you to buy an iPhone a couple of months ago, I do not feel sorry for you. So please stop complaining about a two-hundred dollar price break, and also you need to buy me a drink because clearly you have some money to burn. And also, there are several million people in Africa who would like water, some water, please? Water? GIMME SOME FUCKING WATER OVER HERE, WILL YA? And you’re complaining about Steve JOBS and how MEAN he is, and how he sucks because now he’s not selling any (a million is “not any”?) phones and now he’s going to go and drop the price so all the unwashed masses (water? Did someone say water?) can have one, and not just your cool early-adopter self. And that’s really shitty, Steve Jobs. It’s not just another one of your diabolical, mad-genius plans to keep us hooked. Could it be? You’re just not that into us, Steve Jobs. I get it.

Sorry to go all cantankerous here, but I really feel like we’ve gotten to an insane point. A, we’re thinking that Steve Jobs owes us something. I would love it if he did, because I would truly feel fine about cashing in, but the truth is he doesn’t owe me shit. This nation of millions is walking around with his ear buds in their ears, twirling their fingers around a plastic circle so we CAN HAS THE MUSIK NOW!!!!! You know, the music we used to have to cart around on cumbersome silver discs and actually pop into a player, like, one at a time. And sometimes you’d need cruel implements to help you play it, like batteries that didn’t plug into anything.

Is this an accident, these jillions of people with the gadgets, paying all the money and standing in line with their white plastic drawstring bags, standing around in the Mac store, blinking in the fluorescent light? I don’t think so. I’m not a business major by any means, but even I’m a crazy Mac geek at this point, and I really don’t think anyone could have foreseen that five years ago, when I was dorking around on geocities sites and instant messenger on a series of terrible pcs.

 I blame this VERY EXPENSIVE and oddly addictive transformation on an odd confluence of people and events that have put me in the shiny Mac path so many times I just couldn’t avoid that white, glowing light anymore. I got a MacBook, and went into a bit of debt for it for a few months. I also have a nice camera, and a cellphone. I don’t need an iPhone. I’d like one, sure, and would have LIKED one on the first day or so very much, thanks. I was in the mall the day they went on sale, and inwardly mocked the people waiting in line by the AT&T store, but really I was jealous. I admit it. I wanted to be sitting there in front of the PacSun knowing I’d be holding one of those gorgeously simple Mac boxes in my hand. It’s pure geek adrenaline, right? And it’s given me a bit of a pang to watch some of my internet people post lovely photos on Flickr that are cruelly tagged “iPhone” while I sit there taking my calls on a piece of crap LG that’s been replaced twice in six months, currently only takes photos with inexplicable tiny lines running all through them, and is generally one of the worst electronic devices I’ve ever owned. In fact, I think I’d have more luck taking calls on my long-dead grandfather’s ancient police scanner, but that’s another story.

Anyway, so yes. I have a phone, and a contract with Verizon for another sadly long number of months. Even with the price cut, I don’t have the money to put out for the iPhone, plus moving to another service provider (and do not speak to me of hackers. What kind of service plan do they offer? Things break. I need to know someone will fix it, because I am a slave to my gadgets. Hack that.) I know I’ll get one eventually. I’m not worried about it. What I don’t get are the complainers. This is the United States, center of capitalist everything. If I own a company, I can charge whatever I want, for whatever I want. Even if the price sounds absurd, it’s my absurd price. You can do whatever you want in response to that. You can pay it, or move along. Steve Jobs set the price for the iPhone at 600. I thought, “Dude, that’s crazy. That’s a ridiculous amount of money for this device,” and I knew I wouldn’t buy it. It had passed my single income, going back to school price point. But the thing sold, scads of them sold. Some people bought two! One girl I know got one for a graduation present. PEOPLE WERE BUYING THEM, and giggling over them. Geeks were arguing online about the relative merits of the iPhone vs. two soup cans tied together with string, and all the other senseless arguments that geeks have online. Response seemed to be good.

 Then the price cut. “Good for you, Steve Jobs,” I thought. Go ahead. Play with their minds. Don’t call. Then call. Promise you’ll come see me in the school play and then don’t show up. Whatever. I still won’t buy the phone yet. I want one, but I won’t. And to the people complaining, who are claiming Mac shouldn’t do this to loyal customers? Who do you think those initial exorbitant prices are for? Do you think maybe they’re testing the waters to see how much you’ll actually pay for a first-line product, especially a medium the company has never dabbled in before? Hmm? Like I said, not a business major, but that kind of actual data seems worth pissing you off for. Because guess what, if you’re a Mac person, especially of the more hardcore, more disposable variety than I am, you’ll be back. You just will. And I think that’s what bothers you. Become a second-stringer like me, and you might save a few bucks, but you’ll never get that first-day rush that just might be worth the cash.

Social Networking Without Shame, or "Friend Me and Nobody Gets Hurt"

So it occurred a few months ago that after I was accepted into graduate school at the University of Maryland, I made a real Facebook page, not just an old alumni blank-slate sort of page.

There. I said it. And with the addition of this site, it's also become clear to me that my presence in a growing number of online communities (some of which are beautiful things - some of which are just plain wacked out) is perhaps a sign that the Web is too much with us. I'm overloaded, maybe. But it's not like I plan on stopping.

I joined Facebook with a bit of a shaky hand ("You're joining Facebook? You poser dork? What? Haven't you sold your images and thereby your soul to enough 18-year-old programmers who will vacation in the deep Caribbean on the fruits of your social whoring while you sell your words for 50 cents a pop?") I did it mostly to see if there were other people from my program also on there, and to join the NYC network when I thought that that's where I was going to be moving. (Remind me why I didn't do that, by the way, please. Major issues with it this past week.) I felt legitimized by the fact that I was genuinely a student again, if a little bit of an older one, at a Facebook-y sort of school. This was a necessary step, in the most fragile sense of the word "necessary" (read: totally inaccurate). Besides, I had no plan to put pictures of myself in any state of undress (Lord no) or with anything intended to promote the ingestion of chemicals, even if I think some related decisions are paranoid and wrong..

Part of me did feel ridiculous because how much self-disclosure and how many different communities does one really need? How many screennames and how many security questions? It seems like it's the inevitable march of the online-driven knowledge and networking base, though. The more time I spend integrating myself into life online as well as off, my experience expands and the applications are so interesting that I just want to be a part of them to try them out. I've never cared so much about meeting people through them, which sounds strange, because I think that was the intent of these things, at least originally. I mostly like to see the people I already know in these environments instead - mostly. I've made a friend from a LiveJournal that is as close to a private diary as an online journal can approximate and one of the first sites I ever had (along with this one). That's the only "networking" thing that's worked out to the point where I feel like I have a friend I'll keep for a long time. I have met people via blogs, but mostly through Blogher and in a more organized way - not just by randomly trolling a social networking site. I'm pretty picky about the word "friend" and how it applies to my life, and just because you're a face or a name on my list or I'm on yours, I don't think the meaning of that word should get watered down at all.

It just seems like lately things online have gotten really dense, and I fear it's going to get to the point where I'm going to feel like I need a password to have a human conversation. I believe I've divulged here that I have a MySpace account also.  I signed up for Friendster for absolutely no reason, once upon a time, and it seemed equally stupid to get a MySpace, but I got it because I wanted to keep in touch with a friend in California who was really big into it at the time, and I could never seem to connect with her on chat because of the time difference. Over time, I started adding bands I liked to keep up with tour schedules, and then friends from different pockets and grooves of my existence started popping up. It felt vaguely uncomfortable, for some reason. I don't really like asking people to add me, unless I know them well, although I will if I find them interesting or we've had a conversation that seemed good at a conference or elsewhere, even online. It's this weird online equivalent of "Will you be my friend??", and since that question makes me a little queasy in real life, it's no surprise that it's no different on here. I've never done any online match.comming for that very reason, methinks.

I used to feel like one of the oldest people on Fox News Corporate Whore Central MySpace, until I realized in a blinding flash of inspiration that it didn't fucking matter. And also that on MySpace, it's kind of cool to be older because I don't have to make up places that I'm from, like Alabama or Outer Space, because who in the hell is going to come after me anyway? And if they do, once they get a load of this finely honed attitude, it just isn't going to matter anyway. They'll be gone in a split second. MySpace is sort of...oh I don't know what word to use....anticlimactic? Jarring? Weird? Just pick one. It's something. I do check it, and I usually enjoy seeing the bulletins that my long-lost friends have posted. I rarely send anything through there, and when someone messages me it's usually a guy from my zip code in a blue tank top with a buzz cut who looks inclined to bust out into 'roid rage at any moment. And also he usually sends me a message with numbers and single letters standing in for words, entitled something like "R U mY AnGeL?". That's a paraphrase of course, but it evokes the general mood, and of course phrases like that really get me hot. I just can't even tell you what the alternating caps and lower case letters do to me, either. I love affectations. So if the tank top didn't do it for me in the first place, the "U R my LA-DEE 2 B" would seal the deal.

The real time stuff is fun, because I've sadly lost interest in writing e-mails, whereas at one point I typed my little fingers off on them all the livelong day. Chances are I won't even send you a forward now (although I think most of my friends are really concerned about my safety and it's starting to weird me out, like I shouldn't leave the house, because I get one of those "Use your ELBOW and disable him in the KNEES" self-defense e-mails a few times a week lately! Okay, okay, I will not sit in the car and write a check. But please note that I'm now looking over my shoulder, constantly. Your work here is done, loves.) I loved Twitter in the beginning, although I clearly forget to update it now, and it surprises me that I've lost interest in it. I just need time to have in-person conversations! Maybe it's a summertime lull. I love the interesting "friends" I have on there, some of whom aren't really individuals, but concepts. My favorite is TwitterLit, that sends the first lines of books every day, (and of course Santa Claus, an individual AND a concept at the same time!!!!)

Flickr is my favorite "social networking" ANYTHING, because I think sharing photos (except for the gross and ugly groups on there, which are many and varied and profane and upsetting - ick) is one of the coolest things you can do online. I've been neglecting it lately and that's bothering me, because it is my favorite archive and were it ever to crash and die I'd definitely be in mourning. I have a ton of photos to upload still from vacation, and one of the favorite parts of my day is seeing the images that all of my contacts have uploaded. What I DO like about Facebook is that I could add a Flickr application, although I thought it would automatically upload to Facebook when I updated my Flickr stream, and it doesn't.

These problems, these pressing online problems!

Immediately after I made my Facebook profile more complete and actually started to pay attention to it, I realized that Blogher people were on there (and I'm still stupid enough about it all not to know if you can see anything related to groups if you're not signed in.) and that people who weren't in school were signing up too. I'd heard this was a possibility but somehow missed that it had happened so soon. Now we have a Blogher group, and a Bloghers Act group. People are talking on the boards and on their profiles about the conference, and I'm learning things about people and have a number of new contacts that I wouldn't have necessarily had otherwise, going in. So far it's far preferable to other programs, and although it felt a little silly going in, now I'm digging it.

This is how it sucks me in, and millions of other people too (good list of tech trends -most of which make sense to me.) If I was in Mark Zuckerberg's spot, I don't think I'd sell either.  And although I still do feel a little weird about how many different places I've got a tiny stake in the bandwidth, it's still more fun and occasionally useful than it is just a guilty pleasure. I've got more than enough of those.