Okay, I know I’m not the only one that does this. I really like to look at other people’s houses, yards and garages. Not in a peeping Tom or stalker way but as I drive by, sometimes I catch a little glimpse into the lives of the people who live there and it’s interesting. There are families sitting around the dinner table laughing and enjoying what I imagine to be a fantastic meal, Tata patiently pulling weeds one by one out of an immaculate front yard, six custom Harley Davidsons all lined up in the driveway, huge garden filled with colorful petunias, Sponge Bob on a big flat panel TV, fishing poles and huge ice chests in the garage, homemade picnic tables and benches underneath a double wide tarp, big trampoline with an enclosure, hunting dogs in kennels next to pickup trucks — the nice list could go on without end.
Every now and then, though? I like to hear my neighbors yelling at their children to clean their rooms or see a dining table piled with papers or boxes stacked in the garage threatening to overflow into the driveway or an overgrown jungle of a yard or a rusty roof or a house painted an off color. Why? Purely selfish reasons! I like to see that other people also love their children but sometimes want to hug their offspring really, really hard . . . around the neck. Other folks have problems with clutter. We’re not the only ones who need to save money to replace the roof. Someone else out there picked the perfect paint sample in the store only to find out that it looks 10 times brighter on the house than in the store, too.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging anyone or taking joy in the misfortune of others or sending out bad vibes. I guess what fuels my voyeurism is I want to remind myself of the good things that I already have and that are to come in the future and to also have the assurance that we’re all only human. I’m not the best or the worst or the only one to take missteps and make mistakes. We all do. It’s a common experience.
I signed up with the user name “paradiseali” for a Twitter account a little over a month ago just to check it out and see what the buzz was about. I started out following a few Hawai`i people that I remember from back in the day and it just expanded from there.
And guess what?! People tweet about family, what they’re eating, about traffic and weather and surf, share cute things about their children and pets, confess that their house or office is a mess, that they unclogged a toilet, where to go for KC Drive Inn waffle hot dogs or sushi or Hawaiian food and then some. Sometimes these tweets are linked to audio/video clips, pictures, books, event sign ups, and all sorts of juicy online tidbits.
The best part is . . . I get a peek into other people’s houses/yards/offices/cars/lives without getting into my car and taking out a loan to cover the price of gas!
I’m testing out blogging via cellphone using Jott.com. It is supposed to transcribe your voice into text and then post it to Twitter, or WordPress, or Google Calendar, or a whole bunch of other services. It can send text message reminders to your cell, and e-mail reminders. You can use it to keep To Do list by just calling and dictating. You just can take an e-mail and send it to a group of people all at once, too. The only thing I’m not so sure about is that it real showing me (will show a link) to actually hear your message, if it supposed (posts) to your Blog, or Twitter, or whatever, and I’m not so sure I want my voice all over the internet. (There was a link here to listen to the message but I deleted it!)
Turn off your lights for one hour between 8:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, March 29, 2008. Be a part of worldwide event to avoid global warming. Check it out!
You know those late night infomercials for “Hits of the 80’s” and “Smooth Soul” and other compilation CDs? They play just a tiny snippet of the song and move on to the next snippet while a bunch of titles and artists from the melodic past scrolls through the screen. I love that! It makes everyone else crazy but that’s how I listen to the radio. I watch TV like that, too.
Yesterday, I followed a link on Alltop (great site, by the way) to this article called “Describing Twitter in Plain English” at The Cranking Widgets Blog. At first, I thought, “Why would I want to broadcast the mundane little details of my life?” Well, after watching the little video, I decided to give it a try. It’s kind of fun! It’s perfect for attention deficit disorder me! Short–no more than 140 letters at a time. It’s interesting to read little blurbs of people’s day.
True, it’s not very productive (it’s filed under “distractions, practical, technology”) but it is entertaining . . . at least it is for now. There’s a Twitter thingy in the left column. Go sign up so I can stalk, just kidding, I mean follow you!
EDIT: The Twitter Badge is in the right column now.
I’m not sure if I can turn off the feed for individual items. So I apologize, I’m just playing around with new widgets and tweaking things here and there. Feel free to share your knowledge if you know of a way to control individual posts in the feed. Hope you’re all having a wonderful day!
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
- Dan Stanford
When I realized that I majorly screwed up by deleting an obviously vital file (you know, the one that actually forms a link to the database where all your stuff is stored?), I copied and saved the only thing I could access at the time, the RSS feed. I thought I could just repost the few entries that were made in between February 4th and now with a straight copy paste. Well, it worked like a charm with the first entry and I thought I was so clever. I patted myself on the back, curtsied, and went off to bed thinking that I’d finish the rest tomorrow.
It’s tomorrow and ha! I just had a “duh moment!” The feed only got the entries on the front page. If a reader wanted to continue reading anything after the <more> tag, the feed linked back to the site. The original first post didn’t include a <more> tag. Some of the longer posts did. (Those were the ones that contained certain words or subject matter that may not have been appropriate for all audiences.) Darn it!
Other things I learned from this experience:
Back up, back up, and back up!
Back up your links as well.
If you have random quotes, back up your quotes file, too!
If you are going to mess with the security settings, write the old ones down first so you can switch it back if it doesn’t work out as planned.
Explore the Wordpress docs and forums thoroughly before giving up and deleting anything.
Your feed will show the test post from Flickr even if you delete it right away.
<br> doesn’t work but <br /> does.
Firefox displays things differently than IE.
Online storage of important files may be something to consider “just in case.”
If you do need to re-do it all, think of it as an opportunity to update plugins and play with the template.
Oh! And I also wish I would have imported all my archives when I changed between the different blogging tools. Although my temperment has improved with age, my memory, sadly, has not.
So, all in all, the goof up turned out to be a good learning opportunity. I’ve channeled frustration into something positive. Now, I can pat myself on the back and curtsy.
Oops! Messed with some settings and couldn’t get it to work after that! Had to re-install and start all over again. Please bear with me (or if you are in the privacy of your own home or are a flagrant exhibitionist, nudist or hedonist, “bare” with me)!!! Sorry, couldn’t resist the pathetic play on words.
