In this post I cover hatemail, lottery scammers, some Big Brother, friends that blog, how I discover new blogs, the relevance of memediggers and Chartreuse. For more information on the photo above, click on the link.
I dream I had gotten some really bad tattoos.
This is probably because I saw an ex-con at the grocery store yesterday. He was very courteous with my wife. I found that nice. His arms were covered with home made tattoos. His pants had holes in them as well as his T-shirt. His clothes weren't clean. Yet, I kind of liked him. It's like the kids that beg outside the grocery store. I always give them something. If I only have plastic, I give a fruit.
I have received a comment about my lack of apostrophes in earlier posts as well as my lack of capitalization. Just a reminder, I did not use either before for a reason. It’s a form of shorthand that I tried to use, it makes typing a lot faster and for some reason, I enjoy writing in small caps. I recently decided to do caps and apostrophes. I am unsure if I will go and correct all the other posts, there are quite a few of them. One of the main reasons is that it’s clearer to include them and standardized writing.
In Big Brother Uk news, Nikki is winging and complaining about her nomination. She is threatening to leave. In my opinion, it’s just show. She won’t leave. If I was her, I would have reconsidered her choice of wardrobe at the launch of BBUK, because her outfit didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. I’ve seen some pictures that must have shown more than she bargained. And speaking of skimpy outfits, what’s up with Aisleyne? She is constantly wearing a thong and exposing herself to the camera. It doesn’t get trashier than her. I don’t find her that attractive and I don’t want to see her bottom all the time.
The nominations are in for BBUK and Nikki was joined by Lisa, Imogen and Mikey. Here’s how the votes broke down:
Aisleyne: Lisa and Mikey
Mikey: Lea and Susie
Pete: Lisa and Imogen
Richard: Imogen and Glyn
Susie: Lisa and Mikey
Pete is the only housemate never to have been nominated.
Chartreuse has finally given a short interview to the Blog Herald.
After reddit and nsfw.reddit.com, the reddit guys are have started a memedigger for celebrity news called lipstick. It includes a shrewd marketing tactic. It is actually owned partially by a publishing company.
Chartreuse explains:
Condenast is a publisher of personality focused magazines.
by owning a part of something that actually promotes celebrity articles and reaches that audience without showing one ad is exactly what they want to do.They now know in real time what’s popular to their audience, meaning they can adjust their offerings according. But that’s all public anyway.
But they now have access to info it’s competitors don’t, i.e., where the readers of certain articles are coming from, etc.Plus they can see to it that all their magazine articles appear on the site.
I could go on, but the bottom line is they will increase sales and informing on their readership by not placing one ad.
I think that the format that reddit uses, with the possibility to push stories up or down, is the way to go. I don’t think that I will go into the relevance of memediggers. I do consult digg, reddit, nowpublic and a few other memediggers every day, though less than before. I prefer getting my news directly from the blogosphere. My way of getting news is that I read through Technorati the most popular blogs. I usually read the top 100. I also consult the most popular blogs on WordPress through botd.wordpress.com everyday as well as the growing blogs section. With 221000 blogs on WP alone, it isn’t always easy to find blogs that you can enjoy. I also consult the blogs that my neighbours on coComments comment on. It’s a great way to find blogs that you wouldn’t normally go to. Neighbours on coComments are bloggers that comment on the same blogs as you. These bloggers also comment on blogs you don’t usually know about, so it’s a great way to discover new writers.
I guess this kind of shit is bound to happen if 60 users control 60% of the front page content, like digg.
There is a large problem with the memediggers. It turns out, and I am not surprised by this, that 60% of digg's front page is controlled by 0.03% of users. Here is another post covering this fact.
Quoted from here, on The Memoirs
Also, I always visit the bloggers who comment on my blog and who comment on the blogs I like. I find the most important thing is to read blogs with similar interests.
I like reading blogs from writers and poets. Sweet Immolation is an example of a writer’s blog. His latest series of Nightwatch short stories are quite good. To see the blogs that I read mainly, consult my blogroll.
One of my good friends just started a blog. He blogs about philosophy and writing from Thailand. He just came back from there and he’s leaving again in 2 weeks. I spent the afternoon with him last Wednesday and I guess that my message about blogs got through to him. I am glad; he is a really good writer, one of the best I know personally.
It looks like I won the lottery! Yes, in a most surprising turn, I have received a letter from the International Lotto Commission Loteria Primitiva in Spain and I have won €615,810.00!
To begin your lottery claims, please fill and fax payment processing form with a copy of your identity (international passport, driver’s licence or any other form of ID attached with your passport photo) to your agent’s company, and contact your claim agent immediately.
Scammers have now passed into the snail mail world. I have been aware of this, but it’s still funny to receive one at home. They didn’t have the right condo number though. I have read about a woman in Quebec who did this and who lost C40000$. The money she lost was either on credit or a bank loan. After she was scammed, she was able to get an arrangement with her bank to only pay back half of the capital she had borrowed. How can anyone win a lottery without entering it himself? Makes me think of the new show Windfall on NBC.
I like getting dowtown with Charlie Brown.
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I have always found it in my best interest to not judge a person by their appearance. Yeah, we’ve all heard that one. Your ex-con experience reminded me of an occasion that I had pushed into the back of my mind and had really forgotten about.
In a past life, before I became a scientist, a barista, a courier, a printer, a music guru, etc…. I used to be a hairstylist. It was one of the things that I was actually damned good at (I competed and won team awards) and I was proud at the time of my abilities. Reasons for leaving that lifestyle behind are another story altogether, but one particular event will stick in my mind whenever judging on the basis of appearance is the topic of conversation…
It must have been near 1900 on a Wednesday or Thursday night (slow days, both). I hadn’t seen a client all night and the mall was empty of walk-ins. Long-time employees, with large client-bases, were sitting around with nothing to do. It was about as dead as you can get in a decent salon.
Then, he walked in, a wild mop of unruly, overpermed frizzy hair that fell to the middle of his back. He looked wild-eyed, like he was on speed or meth or something. He stared at each of us in turn. “Any of you got time to give me a fuckin’ haircut?”
Suddenly, everyone was busy with chores and I was standing by myself. I shrugged my shoulders. “Sure,” I told him, “I’ve got time.”
He whipped off his Metallica t-shirt and sat, bare-chested in my chair. “Don’ wanna itch all frickin’ night, man,” he told my raised eyebrows. I covered him with a cape and wondered what I had gotten myself into.
He loudly explained to me, with some choice expletives, that he’d received the same “oh gee, I’m too busy” routine at the other two salons in the mall. Frankly, he told me, it irritated the crap out of him.
I nodded and make affirmative-sounding noises and treated him as I would have treated anyone who sat in my chair — with dignity and grace. He asked me for solutions to his dry hair, for recommendations on how to style it so it didn’t look so wild and he suprised everyone in the salon by buying over $120 in products as he wnet to pay for his haircut. The cut itself was an additional $20, making the bill $140 total. He reached into his wallet and pulled out a wad of $100 bills. He gave me two of them, a few tickets to a concert the following week and told me to keep the change. A $60 tip for a $20 haircut….. Cash.
Turns out that he was a major rock promoter in the area and he had money to burn.
Needless to say — I have since treated everyone the same, regardless of how they look or act — with respect and dignity until they prove they don’t deserve it.
Long story, I know…. But, your ex-con reminded me of the tale and it seemed okay to share here.
Thanks for everything…
Thanks for that comment. Yes we do judge books by their cover most of the time, it’s hard not to. Sometimes I wonder if it’s not better to be blind, that way everybody “looks” the same, but I digress.
At the beginning, when I moved to Montreal from Quebec City, a smaller town, I ignored the beggars, there were just so many, and everybody did the same. When I moved to my condo 2 years ago, I think my attitude changed. We always have too much change and I wonder what happened to the streetkids for them to be outside. I always give whatever change I got to them, it’s always the same ones. That way I feel I make a bit of a difference.
And maybe it’s because my wife teaches kids at risk, maybe that’s why I have opened my mind to the possibilities of compassion, because a lot of us can fall throught the cracks without anyone noticing. And maybe it’s because they ask but not intrude. Even if you don’t give anything, they still are in a good mood.
Thanks Mick.
Yes, I have noticed that this blog is becoming more political and talks about social issues. I am aware, but I find my thoughts and writing gravitating more towards those subjects.
Soon I might write about Mr Bush and the war in Iraq.
I really enjoy writing a few thousand words a day. It makes my mind more focused, more concentrated at the tasks at hand.
Oh, we’d find some other reason to delineate.
“The tone of her voice is too low, she must be a rather shift sort of person.”
“Only criminals have that kind of BO.”
The list goes on.
But my comments are don’t nothing to steer you away from that dark and brambled path that eventually leads to writing about [shudders] that Bush guy.
Post more photos, instead.
That whole lottery thing was amusing
Good thing I have filters for my hotmail inbox. I’ve read a tale to do with a tsunami-money inheritance e-mail thing that some laywer claimed that a forum-friend was the next of kin for the money, weird, huh? I’m more worried about the viruses that we hear about in the news to open those sorts of mails, that’s why I never open them in the first place.
Yeah, I tooks some photos this morning, looking forward to seeing if they’re any good.
Loki: I also have filters, but this one came in my snail mail mailbox. At my house. That was weird.
Thanks for your comments.