Ever had one of those days/months/quarters/years? You know, when some aspect of your life runs away with itself and doesn’t even send a postcard? Well, that was the blogging part of my life and I am mandating that it comes back home from it’s lolly-gagging holiday. There’s stuff to write about!
So I spent the past week catching up on the 1000 or so articles that I have been missing for the past month. I bookmarked my favs on my Google Reader and my Delicious pages, but here is some other random stuff I thought was worth blogging a short bit about. They go from inane to biz relevant. Think of it as me easing my way back into biz blogging.
– I just got back from a Scotland Highlands holiday with Izzy Neis (actually it’s been a few weeks now, but I miss it like it was yesterday.) If you go, DEFINITELY think about taking a tour with MacBackpackers. It was a great way to experience such complex, yet beautifully simple landscapes. Our guide was an amazing storyteller and shared the rich folklore and history of the Highlands. Hearing stories about faeries and dragons mixed in with war battles is definitely the way I want to think about history.
– The Artisan Cellar in River North (Chicago) has a salad of the day that is AWESOME consistently. Especially if you like fruit in your salads. I am not the biggest fruit-in-salad fan, but their non-fruit ones are REALLY good. Haven’t had the panini’s but they look fab too. They have a great wine store too to browse while you are waiting for your salads.
– I like Miley Cyrus’s song – The Climb. Not crazy proud about that, but I do.
– Star Trek rocked. Although it’s hard for me to think of Sylar as Spock
– Jake McKee – The Community Guy and Ant’s Eye View Chief Ant Wrangler and his family are moving to Seattle. Wanted to say good luck and I am SO jealous. Love that city!
– Disney is coming to HULU! That also means ABC is coming to HULU! I love this service and use it tons to catch up on shows that I forgot to DVR or I watch while working on other things on my computer. ABC was the last big station holding out in the states, so now ALL your fav shows are available. Too bad they cancelled Pushing Daisies. 😦
– That said, though, the TV season is just about over! I love me some prime time shows, but it’s starting to sink into my ME time, including my gaming time. I am excited to open all the windows in my house and play video games this summer. Sure, I will play outside, but now that TV-time is over, at least the shows I watch, I can get my game on. 🙂
– In catching up, I signed up for more sites (I would seriously love to know how many sites I am registered for. Must be approaching a thousand) and was reminded again of annoying registration processes. I know as well as the next person that implementing a registration process is more than making a simple form – there are objectives from many different areas. But please, if I forget to choose my state, don’t make me retype my password. Because what happens is I won’t realize that II needed to also retype my password, usually because your form is too long. Then I end up spending 5 minutes registering for your site instead of 1 or less. I was sent back 5 times the other day for random checks the other day (I am looking at you dotster.com). SO annoying! /END RANT
– I will write a separate post about my Twitter thoughts of late, but Facebook is now officially where my personal network is maintained. I guess it has been for a couple years, but now high school people, older relatives and random other people are there and en force. I will spare you laments about the corniness of the older generation embracing the platform. I am just happy they aren’t spewing the “Oh, you and your technology – that’s just over my head” garbage anymore. It’s nice, as I can keep in touch with people from a distance, which makes me sound a bit cold – but seriously, I think I know too many people now. Keeping in touch with them at all is impressive to me. Plus, the insurgence of older peeps might make the younger peeps think twice about posting their, sometimes impressively, inappropriate content they got into the habit of posting.
– Michelle Obama’s was on Sesame Street, reminding parents that they TOO have to have healthy habits, if they want their kids to have them. So sad that this gets forgotten. Also dig the fact that they are using some of that HUGE lawn to make a garden. Can’ remember the blogger who was wishing for this before the election, but glad they got their wish.
– I will end with bigger news – Hasbro/Discovery Channel on it’s way. I know there are tons of people incredibly wary of this, especially the worry of it’s blatant consumerism. I can completely see that position, although, I would argue, that most television is like that, especially kids tv. And while that doesn’t make it better, instead of lobbying for one extreme or the other, we should strive for a happy medium.
As some of this post will show, I am a media junkie, but I am not just a consumer automaton. Some would say, that’s because you are an adult and have reasoning capabilities (and I would say thank you). But I was also babysat by cartoons growing up and spent more than a few hours playing video games. It is possible to separate and learn to critique, either on your own but hopefully with the help of adults who care. Media criticism education should come from everywhere – not just in schools, but in informal situations too, at home, at friends/family houses, but especially at the store. It’s hard to tell a kid “No, you can’t have that” but that’s how most of us got over our consumerist yearnings growing up.
Joi Podgorny 