Month: February 2009

So, the other day I was tagged in a meme on YouTube. I hastily set up the camera on the floor in our master bathroom because I thought I’d have the best light in there (I was wrong) and as soon as I said I was going to vlog Cassidy’s eyes lit up and she was fast on my heels up the stairs.

What’s a vlog? It’s a VIDEO!? It goes on YouTube? Can I watch? Can I talk? Can I see? Can I sit here and ask you 10,000 questions and annoy you till you let me do it too?!

So after I recorded my video I asked her if she wanted me to do one of her. She said, “But what will we do?!” So I told her, “How about I ask you questions and you answer.” She squeeled, “Like an interview on tv?! THAT IS SO AWESOME!” Then she ran to her room to get her Hannah Montana microphone because anybody being interviewed, OBVIOUSLY, needs a microphone.

I’ve taken shots before because I don’t write about her here that much lately and normally I just ignore that crap but here’s your explanation:

She’s getting to the age where she specifically asks me NOT to write some things about her. Gone are the days where I could tell you all about her more embarrassing moments, like the time she let a kid stick a pencil up her nose, and that makes me kinda sad, but I always want to respect her wishes and never make her feel like my blog is more important or there to harm her. With the popularity of the internet these days and knowing that her friends could happen across the site, I don’t ever want her to SUFFER because of anything I’ve written here.

And it kind of fucking sucks! Because she’s at that awkward airheaded stage where she does crazy things ALL THE TIME that have Ben and I stand back with puzzled expressions wondering where in the hell did THAT come from!? And things are happening. Like, developing and there are questions being asked and there has been more than once when, after a particularly nerve racking set of questions from her, I’ve wanted to run to the laptop and be all YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT I JUST HAD TO EXPLAIN TO MY DAUGHTER!! NOT TO GIVE ANYTHING AWAY BUT IT RHYMES WITH “DRAW” AND WHY SHE HAD TO WEAR ONE BECAUSE OF THOSE THINGS ON HER CHEST THAT ARE DEVELOPING THAT RHYME WITH “CRESTS”.

And yes, they are capslock moments because I am blond, and a mom, and in slight total denial of the fact that my LITTLE GIRL is becoming a WOMAN. With CRESTS!

So during the taping of her video I asked her what SHE would blog about and in the midst of some pretty funny answers, she gave one that actually made sense! THEN! She plugged her own blog! A blog that has been sitting there, unsued, untouched, and unthought about for years now.

After the videos were posted that night I spent some time looking for new themes for her site and found one, pretty much recoded the entire thing because it was a MESS, and put it up. So, her blog is back and this post is where I’m going to point people to when I get that eventual email asking me how it feels to be “exploiting my daughter to the internet for the amusement of my flickr friends, YouTube subscribers and blog readers”.

My answer is simple. She asked for it, she wanted it, and it’s a way that she gets the chance to really express herself while I still retain control over it. I will moderate all the blog posts, I will moderate all the comments, I will get all the emails, etc. She just gets to write up some of her own stuff and make fun videos and she is thrilled about that.

I went ahead and threw up some quick posts to cover the last few months and to give her an example of things that could be written/talked about and then put up the video.

And also, I’m including the video here because it’s funny, and silly and I totally got her to finally admit that she’s in LUV with Joe Jonas.

I had to go to campus today to get my annual TB test. If you work for the hospital you have to have one every year. It’s some kind of Supreme Bullshit Rule handed down by some Supreme Bullshit Hospital Ruler. The thing is, I DON’T WORK AT THE HOSPITAL! I don’t even work FOR the hospital, I work for the PHYSICIANS but apparently they’re all totally against that SEMANTICS stuff and are all pissy and threaten to withhold your paycheck if you don’t have the test done. Normally with something like this I’d not get it in protest of The Supreme LAMENESS but when they threaten to take away my money I fold like *insert witty folding thing here*. I work about a mile off campus and the only time I ever set foot in the hospital is for my annual TB test!

The good thing (to me, I guess this really depends on how much you hate blood) is that they just draw blood now instead of the normal prick that you have to have checked again within three days. But they take THREE VIALS of blood for ONE TB test?! I really don’t think so. I’m pretty sure they are testing for drugs too but unless they look down on quadruple doses of Tylanol Sinus I’m pretty sure I’m okay in that department.

A few months ago they had a fleet of nurses come to our off site building to administer flu shots. I was here that day but REALLY busy and the line was REALLY long and by the time I remembered to head over, they had already packed up. So when I was there today the Occupational Health Nurse Nazi screamed:

Nurse Nazi(NN): YOU NEVER HAD YOUR FLU SHOT!!
Me: It’s FEBRUARY! I think that flu season is pretty much over.
NN: You have to have a flu shot.
Me: It. Is. FEBRUARY.
NN: You have to have a flu shot.
Me: February.
NN: Flu shot.
Me: I don’t want it.
NN: You don’t WANT IT?!
Me: I would like to NOT have the flu shot. Isn’t there some kind of paperwork I can fill out to NOT have the it? Certainly you can’t FORCE somebody to take a flu shot.
NN: You have to have a valid medical reason or a religious belief against medicine, use of animal products or…
Me: Yeah, I have that, I want to not get the shot because of the animal thing.
NN: *sigh* Fine. You’ll have to fill out this paperwork.
NN: *pulls out a fucking EPIC NOVEL of paperwork so thick the staple hardly sticks through the back*
Me: Are you serious?
NN: *looks at me*
Me: Fine, I’ll just get the shot.
NN: There is still paperwork you have to fill out.
Me: I’d like to do whatever requires me to do the least amount of paperwork.

Had I actually been thinking I’d have double checked WHO would be giving me that shot. Turns out, it was the Nurse Nazi. And it hurt. And the slight smile as she shoved the plunger down a little bit faster than necessary gave her away, she enjoyed it. Also, I’d have remembered that last year I had that bastard shot and I got so sick that I missed an entire week of work and wrote out my last will and testament because I was certain such agony could only be caused by a DEATH PLAGUE.

When I got back to my office this was the exchange via google chat:

me: Motherfuckers made me get the flu vaccine too.
Benjamin:
well, although it hurts like a mofo, maybe it will help you
Sent at 1:58 PM on Thursday
me: Help me be PISSED!
Benjamin: heh
seriously
me: I don’t have the flu. I have a sinus headache!
Benjamin: well
you don’t know exactly what you have
(to be objective)
you’re guessing
(dr hirsch)
heh
me: If I get sick now I’m going to go down there and vomit on the carpet in occupations health’s office.
And be all “SEE THAT! THAT’S WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH YOUR FLU SHOT!”
Benjamin:: glad you’re taking this well
hehe
me: 🙂

I could have found any number of ways to wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day with hearts and cherubs and sentiments of love… but lets face it, I’m keepin’ it real here.

So, Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! Kiss the one you love and hug the one that doesn’t have somebody to spoil them today/tomorrow, they deserve love too. And most of all, eat LOTS AND LOTS OF CHOCOLATE!

more animals

PS – The LOLCAT is an attempt to keep my mind off the fact that it’s Friday the 13th. OH CRAP, I JUST REMINDED MYSELF AGAIN! DAMMIT!

I had to cut about four minutes off this video because stupid YouTube is all Nazi and demands that videos be under ten minutes. I was really serious in the video when I said that I could blather on about this stuff forever.

For some reason Viddler is crapping out for all the computers in the house even though it works for everybody else. I’m pretty sure it’s just a problem with our ISP since I’ve run across a few other sites with issues. Hopefully I can get that issue resolved sometime soon because I like it better than YouTube.

ANYWAY! Here ya go! Watch, listen, learn.

Last last night, possibly very early this morning as we were getting into bed:

Me: If you get up before 9:00AM I am going to kill you.
Ben: That wasn’t nice.
Me: …

4:43AM this morning:

Me: SHIT! Honey, it’s 4:43!
Ben: It’s SATURDAY!
Me: Oh.
Ben: So should I kill you now?
Me: Shut up.

So I mention various bits of geekery on different websites like twitter and then end up having to explain it and often times I think, “HEY YOU! YOU SHOULD BlOG THAT!” So I’m going to start tying to be better about letting you all know about cool things as I come across them

First up: bit.ly

Bit.ly is a great little web app similar to tinyurl. Only on steroids. When you create an account and log in, it does cool stuff like keep track of your most recent shortened urls so that you can go back and easily find them to post other places.

That’s not really what I’m wanting to tell you about. I know that a lot of my readers are really into twitter and THANK GOD because how else am I supposed to stalk you all?! Well, bit.ly had this awesome FireFox plugin that makes surfing twitter so much more fantastic.

Here are three of the many reasons it rocks hardcore.

#1 – Follow conversations! It makes following conversation much easier. When you see that somebody has “in reply to *username*” at the bottom of their tweet you can mouse over it and it will pop up a little box that shows you the tweet it’s in reply to. See the screenshot below:

#2 – Picture preview! If you upload a picture to any of the most popular twitter image apps, like twitpic then then when you mouse over the link it pops up a thumbnail preview of the image before you click on it. This is especially great if NSFW images are a problem. Not that they necessarily would be since SURELY you wouldn’t follow anybody that would do that! 😉

#3 – Information overload! This is actually a pretty dang cool feature. When you mouseover any bit.ly link (and some other tiny links) then the box pops up and gives you some pretty cool information. Mainly, it shows the number of time that the link has been clicked. But it goes further! If you click the more information button it redirects you to a page on the bit.ly site that has a wealth of information about your link including where the clicks are happening, the country and if it’s a blog post, it will even list comment responses to the blog and any other backlinks to the post. Here is an example from a tweet I made earlier today about a techcrunch article.

By clicking the “more information” link I can see that it’s been clicked 55 times, 3 other people on twitter tweeted the same link, 0 people posted it on friendfeed and a short preview of all the comments on the techcruch article.

Here is an example of a tweet that ijustine made earlier today:

So, if you use Firefox (YOU SHOULD) and twitter (YOU BETTER*) then bit.ly is just something you are going to have to have. So go get it now!

*And also, if I’m not following you already, leave me your username so I can.