Friend Me!

For a while I've been thinking up a long and nasty post about the problems with Facebook.

Then I realized the problem with Facebook is me.

If I'm not being uber freaky, obsessive, annoying, opinionated, possessive, curious et cetera, et cetera...then Facebook becomes email. Text. Telephone. I make it what it is.

Ahhhhh.

Where Have We Gone?

Has Facebook trumped Blogger?

In girlfriday's case, yes. I'd like to get back into writing, though. I have great ideas. Truly brilliant. Managing to get them hammered out and posted before my 20 pound package of whiny goodness claws at my pant leg is difficult.

Speaking of said whiny goodness, see above.

I Am So Bored Already

So I subscribe to The Stylephile, a fashion spin-off of Variety. It’s cute, but so irrelevant to my life I rarely read it. (But if it's schedules of upcoming trunk shows in L.A. you want, I'll forward it to you.)

This time I opened it. A Pea in the Pod month-long style drive for expectant moms, the subject line read. (Don't think I don't want the Secret Fit Belly pants.) I clicked through to the article:

Like EVERY website these days, there's a place to post your comments. Here was the sole contribution:

Really?

Poor Stacey forgot she was on a fashion website and not on her lavender-scented soap box.

Am I surprised? A Variety reader is a petty left winger? Okay, I wasn't. Timing and perspective are not strong points amongst the hoi polloi of web surfers and lefties seem particularly immune to them.

But seriously. This is just boring. And not funny. And boring.

Get a cause, Stacey! Fight a real enemy! Do anything but what you're doing now: giving voice to other people's severely limited view of humor.

Sorry I haven't been blogging.

All bloggers go through this. Something or other gets in the way every time they get an idea or sit down to write. For me this something was life.

I'm coming back though.

In the meantime, while I pull together my thoughts and those blog posts that I've started but never finished...what have you been up to?

Okay you Blogger Nerds

How do I get rid of the title of each post in the comment box? I'm tired of not being able to read the first comment on each post!

Hob at White Noise did it, but I can't figure it out.

ADDED: I opted to have my comments appear in a pop-up window and that did the trick!

Do we laugh enough on this blog?

I don't know. But I do know that if I post things that I think are funny, but no one else finds amusing, then it doesn't really fulfill the purpose of making our readers laugh. I'll try anyway.

Don't know why I'm so obsessed with this site, but I am. More from xkcd.com

Help a Girl Out

What's the good of a blog if you can't ask for help from your readers from time to time?

There are a couple of things I'm looking for:
1. Does anyone have any good resources for large-print books? I'd like to find Harry Potter in large print as well as the Trinity Hymnal (yes, both of these). Anything you know about a good place to buy books where the print is enlarged for the seeing-impaired would be really helpful.
2. I'd like to find an aerobics DVD that someone has used and actually recommends. It would be nice to have something to pop in in the mornings to get a little workout ("little" = 20 minute sessions or so).

Email me or put something in the comments if you can help me on either of these.

Thanks gang.

ADDED: How do I get rid of these annoying white borders on my gifs? Deleting "border=0" doesn't do it.

girlfriday: Expectations, Surprises and Existential Ramblings

I started this blog around three years ago so my now-husband could keep track of me.

That noble beginning filled me, like a lot of bloggers, with lofty ideas about what I would write and who would read it. Oh for a place to post my existential ramblings (affectionately named by my brother).

Now, 758 posts later and a lot of sitting back and watching the other five contributors write, I'm thrilled with where this tiny corner of the Internet has wandered.

I used to get annoyed at posts that I thought were below me. Typical, proud little me.

It's gone a completely different direction, but still ended up where I hoped it would: simply bursting with compassion, diversity of thought, a lot of love, and fun.

Thanks, fellow writers, for making this a place I love to come again and again.

Quick Housekeeping Issue

Have you, this means YOU, updated your links in your blog to reflect our new URL: http://www.girlfridayblog.com/. If not, please do so.

Back to whatever you were doing.

Now We Know What's More Boring than Watching Paint Dry

The Tooth Whitening Blog.

It's just what it sounds like.

Remember When Liberals Were the Tolerant Ones?

I have been laughing out loud and I'm going to keep laughing every time I recall the stupidity of what I'm about to relate.

I'm becoming a liberal.

But that's not what's funny.

New theory. The ratio of flaming left-wingers to conservatives on social networking sites is 10:1. I'm not saying right-wingers aren't on the Internet; I'm saying they don't spend (read: waste) as much of their time on like Digg.*

But I've been going there mostly just to Digg articles, but once or twice I've commented on another post. (I can feel my heart starting to bleed.)

That was the case when I saw someone's Digg for Jon Stewart’s Farewell to Mitt Romney: “F*c# Y%u. Watch it if you want to see what Jon Stewart really thinks. Oh, you already knew? Hmmm, he usually sticks to humor and avoids partisanship. How odd.

I think I pretty much summed it up when I commented, "Remember when Jon Stewart was funny? Now he's just a hack."

I SO offended 47 people who dugg this article, I got -47 diggs for my comment.

One of them, nogChoco, even went so far as to say, "Remember when your comment was still on +1 ?" And THAT was so well-received by readers that 16 people dugg HIS comment (to my comment, which was a comment).

As the kids say, ROFL.

PS: Digg this post.

*Note to the old fogies: If you don't know what Digg is or don't care, you may not understand this post. I'll call you on your green rotary phone later and explain.

Switcharoo

I am "moving" my blog to girlfridayblog.com. It's not leaving blogger.

I thought you should know, since you'll notice the changes in the next few days and will have to update your bookmarks, blogrolls, etc. (Is there really an etc? I feel compelled to add it, but what else is there?)

I'm excited, but nothing's changing except the domain name. Yet I'm still excited.

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

There and Back Again

I haven't been blogging. You might have noticed.

For about a week, I was busy fighting blog wars here and here. I should have known better. On the one hand the conversation dissolved into accusation and name-calling by a fellow blogger, and on the other, total nonsense.

It was so exhausting, I haven't had the energy to write more.

I learned something about myself and my blogging style, though: I am interested in the exchange of ideas. Numbers can be manipulated. In the end, ideology is what matters.

Get to the brass tax. Try being honest about what abortion is and its implication on the whole of society, not just women. Not satisfied? Let's talk about why caring about only women's health isn't enough. Call me anti-choice, and I'll take it. I believe in denying people certain choices. That's an honest position. Your turn.

Great, you're for universal health care. I don't think it's a wiser, safer, more compassionate path, but that doesn't assume I believe the "market can never fail" or that I am a "Republican schill." Quite the opposite, in fact, since I spent enough time answering phones, assisting on extractions and exchanging hugs with patients at a dental clinic for the uninsured (yeah, I'm proud of it; deal with it) that I began to question the health care system, too. I just don't think the opposite of supporting universal health coverage (coverage, coverage, alright already!) is cruelty.

Eventually I just had to walk away. I couldn't win either one. One, because she wouldn't listen to reason. The other because I wandered off track from my initial comment and should have stopped before the mud-slinging began.

Have you been there?

"Why Don't You Upgrade from the Blogger Template?"

One of my friends asked me this last night on the phone.

Sitting in front of my computer I had called her on a whim, just to talk. Which I don't do much. But she's been helping me with some tricky HTML (wondering about that rotating slideshow on the right?) and it was on my mind.

Not many readers, I said. I'd like to get readership up.

That's when she asked me the question in question.

The short answer is, I don't want to. I liked this template the first time I saw it: Clean lines, clever color combinations, simple, attractive and retro. There are limits to what can be done with this template without making it look ridiculous and these limitations intrigue me.

My work life is about making everybody else's stuff look better. It is about defying limitations, breaking outside the box, thinking two steps ahead of the competition, selling.

I am tired. My eyes are sore. If my brain could wince, it would.

Let everyone else update, revamp, improve, evolve. It's fun to watch. But I do enough of that professionally. I'll stick with my blogger blog, which not many read.

Of course, when I get that sidebar looking the way I want, look out.

You're Mean and I Don't Know Why

A growing pet peeve, in fact, an exponentially growing pet peeve: deleting or refusing to post other people's comments on your blog.

Blogging creates dialogue. If you don't want comments, don't make the option available. Unless a person is being profane, obscene or cruel,* I fail to see why you won't post their innocuous little blethers. Deleting them once they're published is babyish.

I have no time for you.

*Read the girlfriday policy here.

The End of One Thing, the Beginning of Another

Though I want to be posting about more important things, namely my reflections on marriage, tonight's powerful episode of House and the celebration of my 1 month anniversary, I choose the trivial instead.

Julie got me started.*

Most…
Disappointing teenage angst movie: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Satisfying teenage angst movie: Some Kind of Wonderful
Overlooked Tom Hanks film: Joe versus the Volcano
Overlooked Sylvester Stallone movie: Oscar
Overlooked Action Movie: Con Air

Best...
Anti-Commie Movie: The Hunt for Red October (Tied with Red Dawn)
Movie Where Famous Actor Breaks Into Song and it’s a Surprise but not a Disappointment : Moulin Rouge
Steve Zahn Movie: Happy, Texas
Gender-Bending Movie: Some Like it Hot
Movie for Watching with Expectations Created by False Marketing: The Upside of Anger
Superhero Movie: Batman and Spider-Man are tied. Forever
Movie that Launched the Best TV Series: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Kevin Costner Movie: Field of Dreams
Worst Superhero Movie: Supergirl

*She stole most of the good ones.

Be Gone!

Whoever has googled "O Holy Night terrible," can move along!

Meet the Contestants

Three smokin' hot, super smart, multi-talented, quick-witted contributors are here.

Also known as my sisters.

Welcome, ihearttexas, Lois E. Lane and Jeb2.

I've joined the ranks

The universe does not need another blog.

Yet here I am.

Expect simple and not very original comments on pop culture, family, religion...and flossing. It's important that readers comment if they're interested in the topic. Family and friends especially. This is important since family and friends will be the only readers. Back to the universe not needing another blog...