Monthly Archives: September 2011

Weekly Tweets 2011-09-18

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In Flight

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I’m probably having a little too much fun with inflight wi-fi. So’s David. So far I’ve tweeted, chatted on Second Life, read email, read Google Reader, and tried to “navigate.”

We’re off to Colorado for a week, photos galore await.

Weekly Tweets 2011-09-11

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  • Notice @RepJoeWalsh doesnt tweet the time, date, and location of his "small business forum" but never fails to tweet on-air appearances! #
  • My rep @RepJoeWalsh is an attention-seeking boor who never wastes an opportunity to grab attention. GOP block-and-blame strategy FAIL #p2 #
  • AUUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH!!! BING! Y U NO PLAY The Guild Episode 7???? #
  • My company lost some people on 9/11. Just now the lights were lowered for 2 minutes' silence. Quiet, but working. #BAU #
  • http://t.co/kBWnEjr #
  • "a small minority of know-nothing, born again, right-wing zealots" who're not just dead wrong, they’re absolutely certain they're right. #
  • I'm watching & chatting about #celebrityrehab – join the conversation at celebrityrehab.vh1.com #
  • Sorry for the autotweet, didn't know VH1's very annoying app would do that. #celebrityrehab @VH1: http://t.co/m8IUkYK #
  • Last tweet: VH1's repeating commercials are extremely annoying, too. #celebrityrehab @VH1: http://t.co/m8IUkYK #

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Annoying: VH1’s show viewer’s repeated adds, Twitter app, bling

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I’m currently watching an older series of VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab,” and aside from the “can’t look away from this trainwreck aspect,” there are several annoyances.

  1. Repeat commercials. Sometimes the same spot is repeated 4 times in a row. I started out watching last night using Firefox, and at one point the playback just stops on a black screen after several repeats. I’m now trying to watch using Google Chrome, just as an experiment.
  2. The Twitter app (login in the sidebar of VH1 pages) auto-posts the first time, saying “I’m watching and chatting about #[show name] – join the conversation at [show name].vh1.com” and you have no control over this.
  3. After that, it edits your tweets that you post from there to add the hashtag automatically (not that bad a feature) and a link to the social networking site (somewhat annoying).

I used to watch Celebrity Rehab online a year or more ago – got very involved with watching poor Jeff Conaway, who passed away in May of this year. That made me cry, because I’d always liked him and the things that he revealed about himself and his life during his stint on Rehab were just horrific. Also, his wife/girlfriend was a piece of work. I prefer to remember him from his performance in Babylon 5.

I’d fallen out of the habit of watching Rehab because it is itself somewhat addictive. If you get into watching it once, you want to see what happens next. I skipped a couple seasons, but there seem to be patterns that I can discern.

First, there’s Celebrities, and there’s celebrities. Most of these people, you’ve never heard of them, or you might have heard their name or seen it in a tabloid. There are a few truly celebrated people who have appeared on this show, and generally, there’s just one or two truly famous people per season. Then, there’s a few “also-rans” and at least one reality-show person.

In the fourth season, there’s a young woman woman who’s famous for being famous. I doubt she’d be on this show if she weren’t very pretty.

There are very few ugly women on this show. There can be ugly, unattractive young rich men (viz. Season 4’s Jason Davis, billionaire fat slob diabetic addicted asshole). There are damaged women, there are older women who were once very beautiful, but there are never life-long unattractive women. Would Ayn Rand have been on this show if she were alive and was an addict? Probably not. Perhaps this is a function of the extreme rarity of life-long unattractive women (let’s call this “LLUW” in the ranks of the famous).

Now that I’m watching via Chrome (in another window, using Scribe Fire to liveblog in a Firefox viewer), I’m finally getting to the spot last night where there was a long, long pause and a black screen. So far, there have been no black screens at all, and although the ads are repeating, there don’t seem to be as many.

So now I’m waiting, waiting to see the part of Episode 2 that froze up last night right after the dramatic “To Be Continued” card that came up near the end. At least my headseat has a volume control when the ads come on.

Well, this is probably what stopped me before. A survey popped up that I never saw using Firefox. Only about… 4 more little ads to go.

On to Episode 3 at last. I’ll probably watch a couple of episodes today, this kind of thing gets old if watched too much.

A related note: I recently caught up on all the existing episodes of Felicia Day’s “The Guild.” It’s frustrating; all of the ones through Season 4 are available on YouTube, and thus if I wanted to I could watch them via a link on the big-screen TV using TiVo. But Season 5 and on are sponsored/hosted at Bing/MSN unless you watch at www.WatchTheGuild.com. And Bing is really hard to search, ironically for a search tool (also there was a big “cloud” outage the other night and the links were broken). I finally was able to find the latest episode and watch, but it took a while.

Back In The Blog Saddle Again

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It’s been too long, so I’m just going to start blogging things again.

First up: it has to be said, AOL email addresses are not cool, they indicate that the sender is stuck in a rut, and sometimes people make value judgements about you if you’re using one.

If famous people are still using AOL emails, it’s because they can’t be bothered.

AOL addresses are not a status symbol. This is another example of the sycophantic logic that twists powerful people’s flaws into reinforcing how much better they are than normal people. Mark Zuckerberg’s too busy to buy presentable clothes! Steve Jobs can’t give to charity because it will distract him from the crucial work of figuring out how to make a computer .1 inches thinner. Barack Obama shouldn’t quit smoking, because it helps him run the country better.

The only status an AOL address symbolizes is your status as an old person, stuck in the mid-90s. Whether they are checked at the public library or on a media mogul’s purple Blackberry while flying first class, the AOL address is nothing more than a digital AARP card.

via Is an AOL Email Address a ‘Status Symbol?

Teabagger @RepJoeWalsh Sluffing Obama’s Speech in Schaumburg UPDATE: 5 Media Vans!

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UPDATE: Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t make a fuss about getting in – I was turned politely away by a nice lady who just kept repeating “It’s a Small. Businesss. Forum.” when I asked if it was open to the public.

If I’d pressed the issue (could have claimed I’m a really, really SMALL business owner since I have a shop on Second Life’s Marketplace), I might have ended up like these people.

When I got to the Prairie Center, there were FIVE media trucks, some guy with good hair smiling as he spoke on camera to the local FOX News affiliate, and a radio guy doing a live on-scene in a back corridor. I tip-toed past him as I was a few minutes late and wearing squeeky shoes. Sorry, WBBM listeners!

There were several shy looking women standing around looking baffled, watching the media guys. Most of them disappeared into a classroom for a CPR class or something. The meeting was already in progress and the doors were closed, but people were still arriving and signing “contact cards” at the welcome table and going in.

My conversation with the nice, perfectly coiffed and carefully accessorized lady at the sign-in table went like this:

Me: “Is this event open to the public?”

Lady: “It’s a Small. Business. Forum.” *brittle smile*

Me: “But is it open to anyone? I’m a constituent.”

Lady: “It’s a Small. Business. Forum…. Representative Walsh has done numerous Town Halls in the district – 10 in 10 days – and is happy to meet with constituents, Republicans, Independents…anyone.”

Me: “I’m a Democrat.”

Lady: “Those too.” *even brittler smile*

Me: “And they should be. *significant pause* Most of the Town Halls were held during my working hours.”

Lady: (gamely tries to list all the recent ones in the area)

Me: (tries to be agreeable, mentions the one in Barrington she missed)

Lady: “Yes, that was the most recent one nearby.”

Me: “So… it seems there is no point in waiting around.”

Lady: *silent smile as she welcomes a prosperous gentleman and signs him in*

As I left (I came in via the ticket office entrance, which was “the back way” as far as the media were concerned), I noticed 5 media trucks in the lot, one harried looking female producer talking to someone on a cell phone and looking irritated, and… a Schaumburg Police patrol car just pulling into the lot for a look-see.

I hardly think that was just for me – maybe it was just for all the media attention that the “small. business. forum.”had gotten because Walsh was a no-show at the President’s speech. I tweeted, I took a few pictures, I drove away.

Afterwards, I almost stopped at Oberweis but THAT’s owned by a GOP right-wint a-hole religious nut, so I went to Baskin-Robbins instead.

Ice cream never hurts.

Yes, my Congressman is that media-chasing guy who never misses an opportunity to bray about his nearly constant media appearances. He’s proud to represent IL-8 Second Sound Bite

WASHINGTON—Rep. Joe Walsh, who is skipping President Barack Obama’s speech before a joint session of Congress, has announced details of a forum he’ll host tonight in Schaumburg.

Walsh, a Republican from McHenry, is a freshman and allied with the tea party. His small-business forum on job creation will be held at 7 p.m. at the Prairie Center for the Arts, 201 Schaumburg Ct.

via Skipping Obama speech, Walsh will hold forum in Schaumburg – chicagotribune.com