BlogFerret

And you are already a famous blogger as well as a tech savvy individual, you might want to head over to Shiny Media’s Tech Digest and apply for a job.

Whatever you do, however, if you get the job, please, please PLEASE make sure that the “read more” style jumps actually work. Also, although shinyshiny.tv used to be one of my favorite daily rambles, on each page of multiple entries I am now finding both broken jumps and numerous pronoun agreement errors.

I know, I know. “Picky, picky, snarky whiner!” I can hear you all screaming it. No, really. Get off my lawn. But seriously, I understand the world of constant bloggers even if I am not one myself. The occasional typo that spell check doesn’t catch, a grammar mistake here and there . . . so what? It’s not the end of the world. Read the rest of this entry »

With graduation looming, er, I mean nearly dawning in my horizon, I’ve been noticing a few reactions that I’ve been getting when some of my friends hear that I plan to continue my education into the doctorate level. The conversation usually goes something like this:

Them: So you’re finally going to get that Masters’ Degree, huh?

Me (somewhat ironically): Um, yeah, it took me a year and half.

Them: Wow that’s forever! So what’re you gonna do with your degree? you’ve been in school forever.

Me (gritting my teeth because I know what’s coming): Well, since I went back to get my B.A. in 2003, I’ve planned on getting my doctorate and becoming a professor of literature. I will enter a program in Fall of 2009.

Them (laughing like they’re in on a joke): Heh heh, so you’re gonna just keep going to school so you don’t have to get a real job, huh? Heh heh heh.

To my credit, I don’t give out these people’s addresses and cell numbers to my numerous very computer savvy *wink wink* acquaintances. I don’t even scream at them or attempt to push them under a bus the next time I see them.

Most of my good friends know what blood, sweat, and tears (and beers) are involved in getting any sort of degree beyond the Bachelor’s. Some do not. This second group tends to assume that graduate courses and coursework are similar to one’s coursework as a senior in the undergrad degree. This error is not only grievous, I would go so far as to say it is egregious. Egregious, I tell you!

Also, apparently, a Senior-level or Graduate professorship is not a “real job” to aspire to. Professors of any kind do not deal with “office politics,” too much red tape, unsympathetic bosses or supervisors, irritating co-workers, or deadlines. Apparently, being a professor at a university merely involves wearing drab, natural fiber clothing and attending cocktail parties or something.

I guess I’ll go and watch tv or sit on a deck chair or something and let my thesis finish itself, and let my article for my tech writing class edit itself and add research to itself. The research is currently doing itself while I am writing this blog entry. Tomorrow, my final chapter will drive itself to Ruston in the morning while I have a lie-in and then dine on a huge delicious brunch of waffles and bacon. I will read a mystery novel while my Tech Writing textbook reads itself and answers the questions on Blackboard, and takes a quiz on its own material. By that time I will be ready for my daily 3 hour nap.

Yep, that’s right. I’m going to be reduced to one of those people who starts fights on the internet. No, I’m not a forum troll, although I have annoyed quite a few people in my intermittent forum rovings: I may have to fight over 30 bucks with an online merchant.

Read the rest of this entry »

I would love to make my first post in a very long time one of clever insight, great content, and pithy sayings. Instead I will whine about how other people whine on their blogs.

****I am a big fat meanie in this post. You have been warned. If you don’t like it you can’t say I didn’t warn you. It’s my blog, and why should I be the only person who doesn’t post self-indulgent, meaningless, uninteresting crap on her blog?****

This post makes me a big fat hypocrite, because I whine on my blog all the time when I can be bothered to write in it. I actually have interesting things to write about in my blog instead of whining, because I have been out living my life. Unfortunately, I have no time to write about the interesting stuff, because I have been out living my life. Now that I have free time for a few minutes, I will spend time whining about myself as a whiner, and other people as whiners. I’m such a whiner.

I did have time to do slacking Google searches, however, and came across a blog about someone who had infertility problems, got IVF even though she couldn’t really afford it, and was busily complaining about how badly everything was going. The whole infertility thing is a hot subject, and I’m reluctant to comment on how I specifically feel about it — even though I’m already an asshole here, because I don’t feel sorry for a person who couldn’t have kids, and so made herself very sick and poor so she could have one, then was unhappy about it. Still what struck me is that the woman wanted to know how much she had to “prostrate herself to the universe” (I think those were the words) in order to “deserve” to be a mom.

Well, it sounds like she got what she wants, but now she “don’t want what she gots.” Something I learned in my mid-20’s or thereabouts: Life is not about what you deserve. People never get what they deserve. Really nice people get shit on all the time, and supreme bottomfeeding pursesnatching assholes get Mazeratis and six figure incomes. It’s not about “deserve”, it’s about your response to the hand you’re dealt in the cosmic card game of the universe.

The Ancient Greeks had this concept of fate, which was really “whatever the gods want to do with you.” The gods put you on sort of a “fate wave,” which left untampered with, would deal out to you over your lifetime a certain amount of happiness and a certain amount of suffering. It was only when you tried to mess with it, i.e. take more than your fair share of happiness, that you increased your suffering. We are dealt whatever life we are dealt. This doesn’t mean we should not use our talents and abilities to try and live the life we desire, but sometimes we need the self-knowledge to realize when something we want is our fair portion - that is, our lot in life - and when we need to adjust our response to the hand we’ve been dealt.

Or in other words, if you have a phenomenal verbal SAT score but your math score is low to average, don’t go to college with the intention of becoming a Mathematics PhD with a specialty in differential equations. According to the Greeks, you will only bring suffering upon yourself.

Typekey sucks.  So yes, I’m about 3 years too late with that sentiment, but I was annoyed.

I do have a Typekey account, which I use to comment on other people’s blogs.  Lately, I must say that I haven’t had to use it very often.  Still, it annoys me to have to do so.

Why?  Because Typekey seems to be kaput.  When you click on a person’s nick who has commented via Typekey, you don’t get to see their profile or their website.  It just takes you to a page which promptly redirects you to a page that doesn’t load.

Look, if people comment on my blog, I like to be able to see if they have a website, too.  I also like for people to be able to go to my website if they read a comment on someone else’s site that fools them into thinking that makes them think I might provide an interesting read.  It’s what’s behind all this “virtual community” the sociologists and psychologists are rambling about these days.

I know I tend to be a bit self-serving, but I really feel like this problem is more than just an “I visit your site and contribute, so you should visit mine” thing.  Hah!  I have to admit to being a bit of a “maiden aunt” of the internet, though.  I believe in being “polite” in that way, and I freely admit to removing people from my links list because they were soliciting my participation in their site while not even bothering to put up a reciprocal link to mine.  I also believe, though, that one should at least visit someone’s website who comments on yours, if they have one, for the simple reasonn that if you really want to participate in and/or build an online community, then you need to try and connect in a meaningful way with some of your contributors.

I mean, sure, the copious commenters who have obviously been at the Wiki and have to post a twelve stanza poem every freaking time have perhaps betrayed too much of their natures already, but what about the person who only comments when he or she has something to say that is both relevant and intelligent?  Of course, here in my own little corner of the web my commenters are known to me and the comments are invariably of the latter sort.  Still, I have to say even the tumbleweed commenters have also been intelligent and relevant, and yes, I have visited your sites and probably will again even if I haven’t commented. Often I have nothing to add.

I guess I just wish people cared more.  These days, people just read all their stuff via RSS feed aggregators,and no one even reads comments.  Wil Wheaton says here that he cares, but admits that he himself reads all his stuff via aggregators.  Incidentally, he has also added some advertising to the ol’ blog, and perhaps this is why he’s so interested in getting traffic to his actual site rather than just being read through syndication? Now never fear, people, I refuse to commit geek blasphemy - I still love Wil.  In 7th grade I gave up watching Doogie Howser M.D. so I could watch Wesley instead!  At any rate, I seriously doubt Wil will ever hear of my criticism.  If he did, I assume he would leave an intelligent and relevant comment here, ’cause that’s just how he rolls.

Wil will never visit my weblog, though, because he uses the Typekey commenting system and is blissfully unaware of my web presence.  (Of course, never mind that he is a professional writer, actor, and charity poker player, with a fabulous family and house in California and probably doesn’t have time for such things.)

Did you notice we’re back around to Typekey again?  And you thought the ferret was taking you on yet another of her post-midnight pointless rambles! Shame on you!

Tune in tomorrow for my post on the Fujitsu Lifebook p1120: it lives! It, my Clie T1615C and my Nintendo DS are all gonna get together for a Sexy Party!  Okay, maybe not that last bit.

Wow - two posts in one day! I feel so opinionated. Yesterday I spoke in class for two minutes flat on what I thought was wrong with the novel Wide Sargasso Sea and also why I thought it was such a great success anyway. I think I’m turning into someone else…

Okay, so tonight is “junk food” night at the Newkirk household. I am making Natchitoches meat pies and french fries. Ah… Lasyone’s… Although mostly when I was at LSMSA got our meat pies from a place called “Leon’s,” which started out as a sort of lunch shack across the street from the LSMSA high school building. At any rate, I usually just did meat pies “my way,” but just for kicks I thought that I would look up meat pies on the internets and see how other people made them. What I found compelled me to make this post.

The reason they are called “Natchitoches” meat pies and not “Cajun” meat pies is because they are not, in fact Cajun. I swear. Natchitoches, being the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase (or so my LA history professor told me), was settled before the Acadians came and settled Acadiana (a portion of the state of Louisiana whose parishes, by the way, do not include Natchitoches Parish.) As many people should know by now, just because one is from Louisiana, or even has French heritage and is from Louisiana, does not mean that one is Cajun!

Similarly, just because one is from New Orleans and may happen to have French heritage does not mean one is Cajun. My friend Eric (who is most certainly Cajun) frequently professes to like me anyway, even if my family hails from “too far east”. My snooty New Orleans grandmother frequently asserted that our family was most certainly not Cajun. At our house we frequently had Creole dishes such as gumbo and Creole “barbeque” shrimp, but we hardly ever had etoufee or jambalaya. If you want to make a Cajun angry, imply that New Orleans is Cajun or that Creole is also Cajun. Also, let me know before you do this so I can be safely out of earshot so I don’t have to listen to the lectures and/or beatings.

So just remember: crawfish pies = Cajun, Natchitoches meat pies = not. Thank you.

Oh, and a personal note to all four of you who read this blog: I know that you already knew this. I just have to rant.

I know, I know, if I don’t like it, I shouldn’t live here. We didn’t move back purposefully, though. It’s true we’re staying a bit longer than I had intended, but it’ll be all right. I just keep telling myself that.

The city of Monroe, Louisiana is dismally uncultured. I know I seem to be extremely pompous by saying it, and saying it so often, but it’s true! All of the good restaurants close or have to “dumb down” their cuisine to stay open. The places everyone says are “fabulous” or “phenomenal” are, to me, anyway, purveyors of overpriced, mediocre food that is really just enough to make me pissed off that I’m not somewhere else having the real thing. The big theater productions only come to the Civic Center during the week, when they come at all, and then most people are too busy to go. Even the good MOVIES don’t play here — you have to drive to Shreveport to see an independent film. And I am actually racking my brains for a way to help change this. I promise. My reluctance to actually do anything is for a variety of reasons, the main one being the burning question, “Why should anyone listen to me?!”
Who the hell am I to talk? I am no Glen Kennedy or member of the Little Theater acting company. I am no restaurateur or writer for the News Star. Despite my reputation for intelligence, I am wallowing in career limbo while I finish up my belated degrees, and I’m almost certain people think I have an unfortunate fashion sense and an awkward turn of phrase. Who in the name of all that is holy would ever listen to me? The likliehood of anyone listening to me is probably lessened still by the fact that I also don’t care if they listen or not…

And yet, I must act. I must do something: if nothing else, find a way to get my opinion on one of these subjects aired. The reason being that it has started to actually anger me when I read the restaurant reviews in the News Star. Actually, I seem to get quite angry when I read most things in the News Star. Maybe I have an anger problem. I probably need to lay off the News Star. I doubt they would let me write for them. I don’t have a journalism degree or any real published clips to submit. All of my published writing is poetry. But… but…

Okay, y’all can read it and tell me if I’m crazy or too nitpicky or what. I will use an example of this article because it’s recent. One of my problems with the article is sort of irrelevant, I guess. I was sort of ticked off that the author and her buddy (husband?) who ate at the restaurant were vegetarian. I know that objection is a bit unreasonable, but let me go ahead and tell you why I didn’t think it was appropriate in this case for the food writer to be a vegetarian. First of all, I think it’s safe to assume that most people in Monroe, Louisana are not vegetarians, and therefore the author was not representing a typical slice of the Monroe population when she ate at the restaurant. She couldn’t possibly have a typical experience, because there’s an entire food group that she doesn’t eat. She might have gotten around this if she had brought someone else with her who wasn’t vegetarian, but apparently this didn’t occur to her.
Okay, with that out of the way, let us on the the meat, or rather, vegetables, of the article. (Ha ha.) The title of the article and the conclusion of the article imply that the experience was good, but every other sentence expresses dissatisfaction. There weren’t enough vegetarian items on the menu. The soup was too salty and there wasn’t any cheese on it. Then, she neglects to mention specifics about the specialties of the house (if you can’t eat them because you’re vegetarian, you should at least mention what the restaurant is famous for or bills itself as being famous for.)

The author neglects to offer a basic rundown of the name, address, hours, basic style, and average price range of the restaurant. The end of the article sort of peters out: there is cake and ice cream on the dessert menu, but she didn’t have any. Okay, so why does that make her want to go back? What kind of cake and ice cream? Guava cheesecake with a scoop of Aztec coffee ice cream and dulce de leche sauce would make me want to inquire further… The article does not convince me that the restaurant is worth a second visit, nor am I convinced that the author and “Carl” are going to return for second helpings of cheese and vegetables, either. Although… $1.50 for a margarita? We are so there. (Actually, I like Ernesto’s, but I’m just talking about the article.)
I know not many people are as obsessed with dining out as I am. I just think there has to be someone on the staff of the News Star better suited for writing about dining out, even in a place as barren as Monroe. Someone who would do things a little differently, like order from the chef’s specialties, or get a group together so they could all sample items more representative of what the restaurant has to offer. Someone who would be able to describe the food better — saying it is the best salsa in Monroe, maybe due to extra garlic, does not tell me why it’s so good. Is it fresh? Chunky? Complex in its flavor? And again, if she had problems with her order, and the service, why would she go back? Is it because she’s afraid to say “I disliked this restaurant and I do not recommend it to like-minded vegetarians like myself!” ?

Thing is, I haven’t ever been employed by a news paper. Maybe they told her she had to write a positive review because Ernesto’s paid for it, and she was actually fighting The Man by putting in that stuff about the negative side of it. In fact, the whole article could actually just be a cover for a freedom liberation movement and one day, when they have liberated us all, I will be sorry for criticizing it. So anyway, I might not even know what I’m talking about. I probably just have too much time on my hands. And I certainly wouldn’t be an expert on dining out. As much as I love it, I don’t get to do it much. I’m am going to go for a walk now, and then I have to do some laundry in preparation for this weekend.

Friday is my brithday, and James is taking me to Shreveport to eat sushi.

So I got distracted from developing a recipe blog here by the following article (by a girl who has fabulous Wordpress resources):

One man’s Trash…

Is it really “stealing” if you threw it away? I never thought of it like that. If I throw something away, then, by all means, if someone wants it, they are free to come along and grab it! If I am fortunate enough to be able to throw away still-functional objects, I would certainly hope that someone else could get good use out of it. In the best of all possible worlds, one would donate everything to Goodwill, but there’s really no shame in picking a perfectly good bookshelf up off the curb if you drive by and see that someone threw it out. Why should there be?

It is a shame that we are *so spoiled* in our society today that some of us wouldn’t want people to use something we don’t even want! Is it *really* preferable that the stuff we put on the curb goes to a landfill rather than helping someone out? Since we couldn’t be bothered, why shouldn’t someone else fix it up and use it in their own home or sell it to make a little extra money? Do we really begrudge the less fortunate something so simple?

Or perhaps we just don’t want to admit our own laziness, wastefulness, and materialism, and the people who pick up and use our trash remind us of this. I am not perfect, and I am probably just as lazy, wasteful, and materialistic as the next person. We lost a lot of furniture after hurricane Katrina. I would certainly have openly and without shame picked up perfectly good furniture on the side of the road if we had had a bigger car. I wouldn’t have been “discreet” about it. You threw it out, I needed it: it would be that simple. Why should I be ashamed of that?

Some people argue that they don’t want the “homeless element” combing through their trash in their neighborhood, and that’s why they have a problem with it. I have been on both sides of this issue: I have lived in a neighborhood that would be appalled if a homeless person was seen in it, and I have been homeless. Most people aren’t homeless by choice. If we don’t want homeless people in our neighborhoods, then we should donate our time and/or money to programs for free mental healthcare (most homeless people are mentally ill or drug addicted) and decent housing programs. If more people did this, fewer people would be homeless, and we wouldn’t have them desperately searching through our cast off goods for something they can sell so they can eat that day.

This has become one hell of a tangent, but it’s actually pretty rare that I feel so strongly about an issue in our society and actually feel as if I can say something. Most of the time I can’t say anything because I know very little about politics and running governments and what not. In this case it’s simple because I see firsthand every day how spoiled and materialistic our society has become. It really wasn’t that long ago that a village had to share an oven between all of its households, and it was very rare for someone to even own a book. Everyone wore one set of clothing all the time, maybe they had another for special occasions, if they were truly wealthy. So how in the world, only 13 generations later, can we be so caught up in the material, to the point where we can’t even share our trash?!

Think about that next time you see a ten year old child with a cell phone, or a mother with a $4,000 baby stroller. I bet the kind of people who consume in this manner are also the same people who would really hate it if someone came to their neighborhoods on trash day and picked up the sofa that didn’t match the new drapes. Of course, if they could be bothered to donate the stuff to Goodwill, or have a garage sale, they wouldn’t have to look at the icky poor people.

Now, I’m not targeting anyone in specific here. In fact, I happen to know that some people who can comfortably afford to consume “conspicuously” on occasion are actually very conscientious people who also wouldn’t mind someone taking their cast off furniture curbside. I just sometimes get angry that society has taken such a turn for the worse that we are capable of criticizing other people and making generalizations about them when they are in a situation we can’t even understand.