Yay! Blog!

I enjoy Twitter. Lately, I've started following some celebrities which is VERY cool because it feels like I'm hanging out with them in a way. I can't really put it into words. I'm following Ellen Degeneres, Lisa Loeb, Kal Penn, Rob Thomas (from Matchbox 20), Mary Lynn Rajskub (Chloe from 24), John Larroquette and some of the American Idol contestants. The AI contestants are fun because they're tweeting about rehearsals for their upcoming tour.

One of my frustrations with Twitter is that sometimes I don't check it but once a day. At that point, I have hundreds of tweets to wade through. But wait... that's not the frustration. The frustration is, they're in reverse order. It wears me out to scroll through several pages of tweets to find where I left off and then start going back the other way. I wonder how hard it is for blind people who have to read one and then backtrack to read the next, etc. Or maybe I'm just weird and everyone else is happy reading them backwards.

Today, John Larroquette did something that made me very happy. He tweeted a quote that was too long for one tweet. He tweeted it in reverse so it showed up in order:



Thank you, John Larroquette. The first Twitter client to solve the reverse order annoyance is my new favorite client.

I'm singing on a new song from Osiris the Rebirth which is a reunion of the band, Osiris, that Miles Walsh (aka Milo Black, the silky half of Raspberry Silk) used to work with. It's called Dragonslayer, and it's available on the Osiris the Rebirth MySpace page. More to come.

I'm thinking about going through the Panda Express drive through for supper tonight. I wanted to look at the menu before I go, so I can consider ordering something different than usual. Drive throughs aren't conducive to thoughtful consideration of menu items.

They must have hired some fancy animated graphics person who knows nothing about good Web design, though, because it's freaking annoying. I wanted one page where I can scan the entrees. What I got, is game-like. There are little bowls that move when you try to click them. Chasing them with the mouse gave me a headache.

I suppose the people who approved of this site don't actually need to USE the site. Screw Panda Express.

I'll still eat there because it's fast, and I like the food. But their Web site sucks a$$.

See for yourself and let me know what you think.

I got hit by a spammer yesterday. He wasn't sending e-mails to me. He was using my domain as the "from" address on his e-mails, and I was getting all the bouncebacks from bad "to" addresses. Luckily, I have Mailwasher, where I can see the e-mails on the server before I download them and delete them before they go into my Outlook.

When it was happening, I could click "Get Mail" and it would add 10-20 e-mails to the list. A couple of seconds later, I'd click it again, and it would add another 10-20 e-mails. It was crazy. I ended up blocking the e-mails at the server after that, so I wouldn't have to deal with them in Mailwasher.

I had an aggravating exchange with tech support until someone who speaks English well finally took over my ticket. I'm not disparaging people who don't speak English well... I'm just saying it was a very frustrating conversation because I had no idea what the guy was saying. His responses didn't connect to my questions and concerns.

I also noticed a lot of referral spam in my Web stats. That's where a spammer makes it appear as if someone clicked on a link from their site to come to my site. That's supposed to make me say, "Oh look! Someone links to me!" and go to their site to see. Then they've got me on their site.

Sadly, most of the referrals in my stats now are spam, so the real referrals get lost in a long, long list.

The third kind of spam I've been aggravated with lately is Twitter spam. I said something about a RAV4 on Twitter yesterday, and shortly after, someone sent me a message to check out their site where I could watch video demos of RAV4 or something. So I blocked them. Not that they care. They already spammed me.

I didn't sleep much last night. Too many things going through my head that won't gel into something cohesive to allow me to get to a better place.

One thing I thought about is why people ask why, and why I get so defensive when they do. I think there are two reasons people ask why:

1. They genuinely want to learn something.
2. They want to gather evidence to mount their defense.

When someone asks me why I do something the way I do or why I'm telling them they need to change the way they do things, I tend to assume it's the second. A patient person would assume the first and go from there.

When people ask the second kind of why, I feel extremely disrespected. I'm not patient when I feel disrespected. They put me on the defensive instead of making me feel accepted.

I think if they said it differently... if they said, "Really? That's interesting. Why should it be done that way?" And then finish it with a reaction of appreciation for the new knowledge. But I can't control people, so that's just a nice dream. I just have to try to learn to not get defensive when I feel disrespected. Or get away from the people.

I'm tired.

One of the buzzes around the Web world is social media. Social media are fun ways to connect with people online. Facebook and Twitter are big ones right now.

I really hate reading articles and blog posts about how to use social media, though. I especially hate reading articles about how companies can use social media to get more customers. As a consumer, I would rather they keep their marketing scheming behind closed doors.

I think in the public eye, they could talk about how to use social media as a customer relations tool... to get feedback... to help solve problems customers are having. That tells the customer that they have their interests at heart. That's what I want to believe. What I don't want is to be spammed.

I was spammed by the Director of Public Relations at Frito Lay the other day on Twitter. His profile said he is a fan of social media. He doesn't get it. Here's what happened.

A friend of mine posted a picture of some Giant Cheetos. I responded, saying I'd never heard of them. He said he was kinda scared to open them. I laughed.

Two days later, I got a message from the Director of Public Relations at Frito Lay telling me I can get a big 7.75 oz bag or a single serve sleeve. I hadn't asked that, and it ticked me off that he butted into the conversation.

I thought about it a minute and decided if he was going to spam me, that I would ask for something in return. I asked if I could have a free sample. The response? Crickets. No response at all. He doesn't get it.

On another note: Dear ABC, Please don't cancel The Unusuals.

• I got a tiny tree a couple of weeks ago. It started as a stick with roots, but shortly after I planted it in a pot on my back porch, the leaves started sprouting. It was a real joy to see the progress every day. One evening this week, I watered the little tree and marveled out how much growth it had. The next morning, all the leaves were gone. My best guess is that something ate them. It really took the wind out of my sails that day, and I'm not sure that I've recovered. I don't know why it affected me so much.
• My out of the house adventure today will include Waterloo Ice House for chicken fried steak and eggs, and Target for toilet paper and Lipton onion soup mix.
• I watched the pilot of The Unusuals. Amber Tamblyn and Adam Goldberg attracted me to it. It's quirky and looks like it has a lot of potential.
• I wish networks would stagger the television season. There are months when there's nothing new on. And then months when I can't keep up.
• It wouldn't be April in America without taxes and my song Tax Lady Blues.