Category Archives: Work

I’ll Tumble For Ya. Or Not.

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So, Tumblr‘s been around for a while now and while I am an “early adopter” and “social media geek” and a professional web designer, I still do not understand the thrill of Tumblr. Perhaps you can convince me why I should like it. I do know of friends who use it — and I have my own (unused) account as well, just to see.  There are sites I like that use it (Clients from Hell, specifically), so I don’t hate it, I just don’t “get it”. Why not just use a regular blog?

My issues with Tumblr:

You can’t like it or share it unless you’re on Tumblr.

I find this totally frustrating. I see something interesting on Tumblr and there is no “Share to Facebook” or “Tweet this” or any other built-in feature like this. If I want to share it with someone else, I seem to be only able to share it with other Tumblr users via my own Tumblr account. I can’t even “like” it.  The only default way to share it is to copy the link and share it that way, which I’ve done, but it seems silly to not have that built-in.

I have seen a few Tumblrs customized to include these features, but few… very few.

Micro-Blogging vagueness

Microblogging makes me crazy. I realize that Twitter is technically microblogging, but at least there’s usually context and the links go to the original source. When I go to someone’s primary website and all I see are vague images with unspecific or no titles, an occasional quote or some out-of-context screenshot, I go away. I click off. I find a happy place somewhere else where people use their words.

Link It, Bitches

No one seems to know how to link to anything on Tumblr. When I go to Pinterest, I see a zillion cool posts, but when I click the photo and can’t find what I’m looking for 99.9% of the time it’s because they found it on Tumblr. Now, I realize some onus is on the Pinterest pinner to link appropriately, but if it’s not obvious how to get a permalink or permalinks aren’t a regular part of the user interface, I can’t blame the pinner entirely.

Hey, That’s My Post!

I know a few quality posters on Tumblr. My friend Will posts really thoughtful full-text posts on Tumblr in A Year of Billy Joel, which is awesome if you’re not reading it.  This I can abide.

However, if it were me, I wouldn’t want someone to be able to simply click “tumble it” or whatever and have my entire, well-thought-out, well-written post suddenly appearing on someone else’s Tumblr account. People don’t always link to the original source, so it’s too easy to claim the work as your own. AND, if anyone is looking for your post or do any Google searches, it’s possible that they’ll end up at Joe Schmo’s Tumblr where once upon a time they tumbled one of your blog posts and now they’re there instead of at your post, where they should be. It just seems to dilute your content and spread it a little thin, in my opinion.

I’ve heard arguments that you can do the same thing with Facebook, with Twitter and you can, to an extent. But when I share a post on Twitter, it goes to the original link. When I share a post on Facebook, the links go to the original article. They don’t go to Joe Bob’s Tumblr where I see that he shared it from Tim Bob who shared it from Bob Bob and maybe someday, I’ll find the original article.

Spreading Yourself Too Thin

If you use Tumblr as your primary blog, your domain, your one-stop shop to find all things you, fine. Go to town. But most people don’t. They have a website which may or may not have a blog (but usually does), they’ll have Twitter and Facebook and then also a Tumblr.  I have good friends who do this, so I’m not bashing them, I just don’t get it.   Why do I want to read your Tumblr when I could just read your blog? Why not just pull your Tumblr into your blog? Or just skip the Tumblr entirely and post it on your blog. Isn’t that what it’s for?

But hey, maybe I’m just an old school blogger fart who doesn’t get it. Maybe I’m unaware of Tumblr features that allow/prevent the things I’m bitching about. I’ll be happy to claim ignorance and am totally open to being educated otherwise. But for now, I just don’t get it.

Hit me with your best shot. Convert me, Tumblrites.

Yeah, You Know Me

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Last night, I made a Pinterest board called “OPP” because I sometimes have things I want to pin specifically for other people. Stuff I wouldn’t necessarily re-pin for myself, but things that I know someone else would love. Hence, OPP — Other People’s Pins.

While discussing this with Kathy this morning, we started discussing what O.P.P. stands for.  I had a similar conversation with coworkers in a bar in 2000, but can’t recall what the consensus was.

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Rich in Proteins and Emollients

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So this conversation just happened.

Kathy: How am I supposed to take a product seriously if they claim it contains ” summer snowflake bulb extract”? Was it harvested by nymphs on the Isles de Harmony?

Me: “It contains the tears of rare pink-tailed unicorns and the crystaline ballsweat of the enchanted forest imp.”

Kathy: Certified Organic ballsweat of the enchanted forest imp…
Kathy: this is another ingredient, and they’re totally serious
Kathy: Monk’s Pepper Berry Extract

Me: Ingredients: twigs, leaves, tibetan monk balls, water, fairy dander, pegasus dandelion ear wax and natural fragrances.

Kathy: tibetan monk ball extract.
Kathy: I dont pay 30 bucks for monk ball extract

Me: Warning: Processed in a facility that also processes pixie farts.

GoDaddy is Holding Me Captive

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As you may have heard, recently GoDaddy caused a big hubbub when it was discovered they supported SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).  Anyone who supports the freedom of the internet should NOT support SOPA, especially an internet-based corporation! In addition to being ridiculous, it could hinder the livelihoods of anyone working on the internet and everyone’s access to valuable information, among other things.

Anyway, when I found this out, I, along with a lot of other people, moved their domains from GoDaddy to NameCheap or another registrar. (I picked NameCheap because they seem much more transparent as a business, their prices are comparable, their customer service was really awesome and they are openly anti-SOPA.)

Once I cleared out and transferred all our domains from GoDaddy for both my personal account and our Moxie account, I tried to close my accounts. You know, delete them. Like you should be able to since they were your accounts to open in the first place. But guess what? Apparently, you can’t.

I searched high and low on that site and found nothing. I did Google searches. And finally, I called their customer support and was informed that I cannot actually delete my account. Their recommendations are as follows:

  • Remove all your products and domains from your account.
  • Disconnect any payment methods.

That’s it. So your account just sits there, with your personal information in it, just in case you might ever want to return.  But what if you don’t want to return?  I just want to delete my accounts!

I asked the customer service person — quite nicely, actually — if there’s someone else higher up I could speak to about this. They insisted no, there wasn’t and bid me a nice day. Seriously!  She said, “I’m sorry, no. You can’t delete your accounts with GoDaddy and there’s no one higher than me on this subject. Have a nice day.”

Apparently, this woman is the Grand Poobah Empress of GoDaddy Account Deletions.

I hung up and went about my day, but now I’m still getting GoDaddy emails with no access or link to unsubscribe at the bottom. And the real pisser? They close every email “Thank you for being a GoDaddy customer.”

That just frosts me. I AM NOT A GODADDY CUSTOMER and I DONT WANT TO BE and STOP ACTING LIKE I AM. It borders in harassment.

With all the recent accessibility issues regarding GoDaddy, I’m concerned that accounts with our business name, personal information and usernames are just sitting there, empty, waiting to be exploited by hackers or GoDaddy themselves. This is unacceptable to me. It has my name on it, I want it deleted. It seems unethical and maybe even illegal to deny that, no? (I don’t know about the legality, but if it’s not, it’s certainly FISHY.)

I wanted to login and change my username and email address to something fake, but it wouldn’t let me. It said you have to verify the email address change — obviously I can’t do that if the email address I entered is fake.

So you’re just stuck. I suppose they probably expect us to just sit on it and forget, but I’m not forgetting. I’m going to raise a stink. I will call and demand to talk to supervisors until someone can pull their thumb out of their ass long enough to hit “delete”.

GoDaddy, you may have changed your tune about SOPA, but that was only because you were scared of losing business, which you did — a lot of it. It has nothing to do with your business ethics, which are questionable, at best.

Some might see it as no big deal, but I care about what happens to my personal information. I admit, I sign up for a LOT of stuff on the internet, but if I don’t use it, I try to go back and delete the unused accounts. I don’t like all my cheese hanging in the wind, so to speak.  (Who thought of that expression?)  This is no exception.

Dramatic as it might seem, I feel as though I’m being held against my will and it pisses me off.

*Vajazzle Hands*

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Courtesy of vajazzleville.com

Recently, Mel and I had a conversation about vajazzling. Then we tweeted a bit about it and then Kathy was like “What the hell is that and why are you guys discussing this without me?”

The following is this morning’s follow up conversation on said topic.

  • Joelle: tell me the truth. did you Google “vajazzle”?
  • Kathy: no but I have a good idea of what it is lol
  • Joelle: Vajazzling: (v.) The act of applying glitter and jewels to a woman’s nether regions for aesthetic purposes.
  • Kathy: That’s what I figured
  • Kathy: I feel like when you show someone your vajazzle, you should do jazz hands
  • Kathy: Mel thinks its overkill
  • Joelle: dude, by the time someone is down there, they’re so thankful to be there that as long as it doesn’t stink, I think they’re happy
  • Kathy: HAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
  • Kathy: You can’t tell someone “Your vajazzle stinks.”
  • Joelle: my waxer does that service now… she says people come in for it more often these days.
  • Joelle: it reminds me of when people used to stencil trim and dye their bushes, like hearts and bullseyes.
  • Joelle: I mean, why not grow it long, braid it and hang crystal beads? you could call it The Bo Derek.
  • Joelle: you could run along the beach in slow motion with your beav out
  • Kathy: I think it’s pointless
  • Kathy: if you’re into vajeens in general (men or women) i think all they care about is that they get to get near it. they dont care of it looks like a disco ball
  • Joelle: right? I was like, “what if you turn out the lights and have a strobe? do people start doing blow and dressing like Bianca Jagger?” You don’t need to turn your twat into Studio 54.
  • Kathy: I could have a synthetic wart hog attached to mine and Steve would still be like “wanna do it?”
  • Kathy: what if you implanted a strobe light in your uterus?
  • Kathy: so every time you opened your legs it was like showing up at Friday Night Wrestling
  • Kathy: “Come on DOWN!”
  • Kathy: I wonder if you can make your bush a mullet.
  • Joelle: that would definitely be “party in the front, business in the back”
  • Kathy: I’m googling that
  • Kathy: interestingly when you google [bush mullet], you get a lot of images of George Bush…
m0xiegirl: oh, I did vajazzle listener just for you
m0xiegirl: and tell me the truth.
m0xiegirl: did you Google “vajazzle”?
m0xiegirl: hahaha
Kathy: no but I have a good idea of what it is lol
m0xiegirl: Vajazzling: The act of applying glitter and jewels to a woman’s nether regions for aesthetic purposes.
Kathy: That’s what I figured
Kathy: I feel like when you show someone your vajazzle
Kathy: you should do jazz hands
m0xiegirl: http://www.vajazzleville.com/files/imagecache/main/99134856.jpg
Start Photo Sharing
m0xiegirl: HAHAHAHAHAH
Kathy: Mel thinks its overkill lol
m0xiegirl: dude
m0xiegirl: by the time someone is there
m0xiegirl: they’re so thankful to be there
m0xiegirl: as long as it doesn’t stink, I think they’re happy
Kathy: and hypnotized by the bling
Kathy: HAHAHAHAHAAHAHA
Kathy: “Your vajazzles stink”
m0xiegirl: can you imagine where that might end up?
m0xiegirl: what if it falls off?
m0xiegirl: my waxer does that service now… she says people come in for it more often now
m0xiegirl: it reminds me of when people used to stencil trim and dye their bushes.
m0xiegirl: I mean, why not grow it long, braid it and hang crystal beads? you could call it The Bo Derek
m0xiegirl: you could run along the beach with your beav out in slow motion
Kathy: I think it’s pointless
m0xiegirl: wax or don’t, just keep it clean and tidy and no one is complaining.
Kathy: if you’re into vajeens in general men/women… i think all they care about is that they get to get near it
Kathy: they dont care of it looks like a disco ball
Kathy: but what do i know
m0xiegirl: right? I was like, “what if you turn out the lights and have a strobe? do people start doing blow and dressing like Biana Jagger?”
m0xiegirl: I mean, you don’t need to turn your twat into Studio 54.
Kathy: I could have a synthetic wart hog attached to mine and Steve would still be like “wanna do it?”
m0xiegirl: omg
m0xiegirl: please.
m0xiegirl: I’ll omit the word steve
m0xiegirl: but I MUST TWEET THAT
Kathy: Biana Jagger ahahahaha
Kathy: go for it
Kathy: what if you made it strobe from your uterus
Kathy: so every time you opened your legs it was like showing up at Friday Night Wrestling
m0xiegirl: OMG
m0xiegirl: ok, I might need to blog this conversation
Kathy: with those like giant beams into the sky
m0xiegirl: hahahahahaha
Kathy: hhaahahaah
Kathy: “Come on DOWN!”
m0xiegirl: just add a buy with a mullet and you’ve got a Monster Truck Rally
m0xiegirl: guy
Kathy: totally!
Kathy: or make your bush a mullet
m0xiegirl: bush mullet.
Kathy: that would be funny
m0xiegirl: it’s definitely party in the front, business in the back.
Kathy: I’m googling that
m0xiegirl: LOL
m0xiegirl: reverse mullet. haha
Kathy: interesingly when you google that
Kathy: you get a lot of images of George Bush

“Faaaaabulous!” (or, My Requisite BlogHer Recap)

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Now with photos and embarrassing video! Alright, so it’s not as exciting as all that, but we did have a really good time. :)

I left San Diego Wednesday at noon on Jet Blue, who despite the bird-flipping, slide-exiting, job-quitting flight attendant’s recent escapades, is a pretty awesome airline. The seats were roomy, I could stretch out my legs completely in front of me, there was free DirecTV (so I timed my entire trip by how many 30 minute Food Network shows I watched) and the snacks were tasty items like Terra Chips instead of crappy peanuts. And the pilot got us there almost 40 minutes before he said he would, so that was nice.

I took a cab into Manhattan from the airport and proceeded to spastically tweet about how to tip the cabbie. I’m an overtipper and standard tipping here is 20% for like, everything, it seems like, so with a $50 cab ride, I was concerned about giving too much. Of course, despite the encouraging 10% recommendations from Twitter, I still overtipped.

Kathy modeling in our roomWe decided to escape the hub-bub of Blogher, we’d stay elsewhere… so we booked ourselves at Empire Hotel. We found out after we made our reservations that it’s Chuck Bass’ hotel in Gossip Girl, which was pretty funny. While the staff and management at Empire were really lovely, the place was a total Monet. It’s much better on TV.  It looks beautiful from a distance, but when you get up close, it’s much shabbier than the marketing implies. We knew it was a vintage building that had been renovated, but how long ago? There was water damage on the walls, the chairs were pretty worn, our rooms had cobwebs in the corners and the beds… oh my god, the beds. It was like sleeping in a mausoleum — hard, hard mattresses.  HARD.  We both were in pain by the end of the trip.

Oh, also? Apparently, the rooftop deck bar is the hot place to be on a Thursday night. There were lines of short skirts around the block to get upstairs.  If they offer you the 11th floor, despite the spectacular views of Lincoln Center, don’t take it. You’ll hear remixes of Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam and hooker heels on your ceiling until 3:30am (and heat rises, so the hallways were constantly like, Africa Hot, while our rooms were Meat Locker Cold).  Given that we had to be up at 8am for the conference, we sweetly called down to management — I swear! I even made him laugh — and they moved our luggage to the old people’s floor for us the next day and knocked $75 off our bill for two nights. Like I said, great management, mediocre rooms, granite mattresses.  It does have a lovely lobby bar, though.  We called it our Brokedown Palace. With lube.

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Mommy No Like

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Kathy: i had this vision of when [my kids] teenagers
Kathy: and they come in all dirty and sweaty with a pack of friends
Kathy: and raid my fridge

Me: and drink Sunny D from the carton and demand to know where their Pizza Rolls are?
Me: and you waltz in with a strategically positioned bag of Doritos and they all exclaim how you’re the best mom in the world?

Kathy: something like that
Kathy: only I’ll tell them to make their own damn pizza rolls and I wont be wearing a matching sweater set

Me: well, you DO drive a mini van… it’s a gateway stereotype. Next you’ll be getting drunk at 3 in the afternoon while your kids nap. Oh… wait…

Kathy: i dont drive a minivan THANK YOU

Me: I love that that is the part you took offense to.

Boss Man Bing

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I don’t know if I’m a very good boss.  I’m a bit of a control freak, admittedly, and while I don’t really think others are incapable of handling something, I do often feel it’s easier to do it myself than to spend time explaining something that may not be done “right” the first time.  And when I do take the time to explain something that needs to be done, if it’s not done right the first time, I get a little bent — because I could have done it myself and not had to repeat myself.  This is not to say I’m not open to questions and dialog and suggestions, I totally am.  Input is totally great, but in general, I’m on a schedule and I need stuff done at the same quality level as if I were doing it myself.   Period.

Doesn’t that sound like every boss you’ve ever hated?  When I remove myself from it and look at it as an observer, I feel like now, if I were in a traditional office, I’d be that boss that no one invites to anything.  Except… I’m usually the girl that people do invite to things, that coworkers and colleagues want to have around. It occured to me the other night that, now that I’m my own boss and I hire people to do things for me,  I’m totally Chandler when he gets his promotion in Friends.

“Perfectionist” ranks up there with “she’s got a great personality” in terms of desirability, and it makes people think you’re an overbearing pain in the ass, but without perfectionists in this world, the Earth would be (and sometimes is) one giant orb of mediocrity. It drives me crazy when the opportunity for greatness presents itself and it’s met with “good enough”.  Why be good enough when it can be great?

Of course, we’re only human and sometimes things won’t be perfect. And I know I am imperfect, despite my many creative efforts to blind you all with my glorious gloriousness.  (*clap clap*  Look over here!  Awesomeness!  Shiny!)  I don’t think that means I should stop trying to excel, to go beyond and to achieve something greater than was there before.

But it can be… well, a little exhausting.

Along with accepting responsibility for own my quirks and shortcomings, I blame my detail-oriented, perfection-seeking, boss-man-type tendencies on the former Boss Men in my own life.

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How to Be a Wanker: Lesson 1

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As you may know, we’re fairly regularly encounter people who rip off our work, be it writing or design. I think any designer worth their salt has had at least one thing stolen from them somewhere. Or they will, eventually. I used to get really super upset about it, but now I just calmly issue them an email and if I don’t get a response, I send their host a DMCA violation notice. That usually does the trick. No sense in getting all riled up about it — unless they’re actually touting themselves as professionals and attempting to get jobs based on our work. Then I absolutely won’t stand for it.

But never — never! — has anyone ever sent me an email like this. Never ever and I’m rather glad because I’d probably have some kind of rage aneurysm and collapse muttering really classy things like “I’ll cut a bitch!” or similar.

Lawrie (@indextwo on twitter) gave me permission to repost this letter he posted on Facebook. Umar can suck it.
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Testing! Testing! Windows Live Writer!

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I have a client who wants to use Windows Live Writer, so I wanted to give it a go to see if it would deliver. As much as I loathe Internet Explorer, this particular Windows goodie is pretty awesome. As I type this, it looks like I’m writing it on my live blog, not within WordPress, but on my actual blog as if I could actually do that.

With this… I can!  Let’s try uploading a photo:

My Erin Rachel HibiscusHuh. This is interesting.  I’m not sure if these effects I’m seeing in Windows Live Writer will show up and my images don’t seem to be floating properly, but we’ll see what happens when I publish.

Carry on!

Ok, I’ve since published this and I must say… I’m pretty impressed. I checked out the html code within WordPress and it’s not a big hot mess. And I’m editing it right now within WordPress and it’s keeping all the effects and styling. I don’t know if i’d use this all the time ,but for clients who really need this kind of WYSIWYG type interface, this would be a lifesaver. Kudos, Windows Live Writer!