Blogging is a fun hobby for me. I’ll never be a professional blogger — I don’t want to be tied to a computer anymore. I don’t want to write fake “reviews” of products (while being compensated by the product’s manufacturer) or join groups of people together in virtual communities. I prefer my friends to be right in the crosshairs live breathing people who I can actually hang out with…in real time. Real life.
But I certainly see the appeal of professional blogging to those who lean towards the geekier tech side of things. It makes sense that they blog for a living. Me — not so much.
But when I think of what a blog really is…what comes to mind is the quirky sites….ones that take something completely random and seemingly mundane, and inject some passion into it. Sites like this one. I never put much thought into the topic of bags in trees…until I started reading this blog — now I smile whenever I see them.
So my neighborhood is going through this wierd transitional phase — I wonder sometimes if it won’t get even worse before it gets better. Hence the junkie I saw earlier today. Barely able to stand up, let alone make it down Washington Boulevard with two grocery bags…I was afraid he’d wander into the middle of the road. I called 911. And of course, as usual, I’m sorry I involved myself with Baltimore City’s 911 system. The police and fire dispatchers argued for a while about who was coming to pick the poor guy up — and of course the ambulance shows up at my door instead of down the 800 block, as indicated when I called. An absolute exercise in futility, especially when the ambulance driver said to me “Well we can’t find him.”
Um, maybe the guy a block and a half away — that one. Yes, the one swaying back and forth, carrying two grocery bags….maybe that guy? Huh? YOU THINK?
Sigh…
I love this city, but damn.
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I’ve opened the coffeehouse – so I spend my days there, and not at home sitting in front of my computer. I have to say — I really like not being tied to my computer anymore, and being out in the world again.
Things are going well — I’m definitely hoping (and praying) that business picks up very soon…but so far so good. It’s funny — when you open a business it’s not who shows up…it’s who doesn’t show up — that’s the surprising part. Ah well — there’s always tomorrow.
If you get a chance to stop by — the address is 784 Washington Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21230.
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…it’s really pea, and not pee.
I never tried the turkey soda, though. There’s a limit to my madness with food, and turkey soda hits the end of the line.
Speaking of which…between getting the coffeehouse ready, baking enough pastries, cookies, and cupcakes to feed an army…let me take this moment to say an early Happy Thanksgiving!
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For once I’m impressed by a decision made by Rupert Murdoch.
He cancelled OJ’s appearance to plug his “If I Did It” book, and the book deal…
…has been cancelled, too.
And I really hope that Harper-Collins rethinks its agreement with ReganBooks, the owner of which was quoted as saying:
…she pursued the project because she too had been a victim of abuse and wanted “to hear him say, ‘I did it and I am sorry.’ ”
“I wanted his confession,” she said.
Oh bullcrap. She wanted the noteriety and the money. Wah, wah cry me a river. I hope she ends up in the gutter with OJ.
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This challenge sounds like fun — I’m in. You have to photograph and list every single thing you eat or drink between Monday, November 20 and Sunday, November 26. And yes, that includes the “just a small slice” of pumpkin pie, cranberry sauce, turkey — everything on Thanksgiving.
And in case you’re wondering — so far I’ve lost 16 lbs. on Weight Watchers, so it will be fun to totally go nuts next week. Within reason. Not enough to cause me to go into the double digit sizes. I hope.
Anyway - who’s in?
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I’m so annoyed. I want to add the RSS feed to my blog to my Google web clips — if you have Gmail, you’ll know these are the links that appear at the top of your inbox.
When I try to add the feed for this site, it says “No feed was found at the URL you provided.”
Yes there IS a feed there — I can see it.
When I add the feedburner url, it gives me the same message. GAAH. Of course it’s there!
I think I’m doomed to having a blog that only three or four people ever read. Google hates me.
Sigh…
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OJ “Killer” Simpson is back in the news again, this time for the crime of pedalling his tell-all book published by ReganBooks, an imprint of the formerly respectable publishing house HarperCollins. Sadly, he details the crime of killing his former wife (and mother of his two children) Nicole Brown Simpson and a friend, Andrew Goldman, from the perspective of “if I really did it, this is how it was done.” His publisher was quoted by Forbes as saying that she considers this book to be “his confession”.
And if all of this isn’t nauseating enough, since Simpson was set free by a jury, he’s going on Fox News to promote the book. Which…isn’t surprising, considering the typical Fox News demographic.
How incredibly sad for the families of the two victims, and I hope that OJ Simpson doesn’t make a thin dime off this book.
I wonder how libraries will justify buying the book — granted, I’m not a big proponent of banning books, but this might push me to think this is the one time a book shouldn’t be purchased with taxpayer money. Being a donor to the library, I’d be a little upset if I saw it in the prominent place with all of the other new acquisitions.
It would be nice if OJ Simpson would just…go away. Stop drawing attention to himself. I completely agree with the blogger who said
It’s time for us to blame ourselves for this nonsense. To blame our culture for letting it go on so long. For still being interested. For laughing at the jokes on late-night television. It’s all on us. If we had paid no attention to this in the first place, it wouldn’t be the phenomenon that it is.
Sometimes ignoring the crazy really does work. It’s time we try it with OJ Simpson — ignore him, and ignore his desperate ploy to make money off the sad deaths he caused.
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So I was sitting here messing around with the Web Archive, looking at all of the pages I had on my old website — I started this in 1998 or so, so it’s been through many revisions. My old website was more like a blog…just with more pages, and it didn’t get updated as often. Now I’ve brought back more of the recipes that I was able to find, and some of the genealogy pages that people seem to still be searching for.
I also found a page I called “Lists”. A list of things that make me happy, and a list of things that royally piss me off. (Or, as I said back then…”are a constant source of ire”.) That page was fun — and not much has changed. I still love driving too fast on twisty country roads, I still own well over a dozen turtlenecks, mostly black…and I still hate ISP tech support people and so-called “religious” people who shove their views down everyone else’s throat.
Then I came across a page I grandly titled “Life Changing Snippets”. I enjoyed that one. Now I send my daughter random photos I take with my cel phone as I’m going about my day — an egg, my feet, a lizard….(yes, I really came across a live lizard once — I was at the PetsMart.) But back then, I had no cel phone, certainly not with a camera…and I don’t even think digital cameras were the norm. Maybe….but I definitely didn’t own one. I used to write things down as I’d hear snippets of conversations, and some of the good stuff stuck with me. Remember — it was 1999.
A sampling:
Overheard From A Schizophrenic Homeless Man on the L2 Bus 11/15/99
Janet Reno has a secret POCKET!
That Mao-Tse Tung was a blowhard.
Nobody would want a roll in the hay with Hillary Clinton, not for any amount of money.
From A Book About Helen Keller
The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.
Dating Advice From My Mother
Never date a man you met in a bar. He’s in that bar because nobody else wants him.
What does his father do?
What kind of relationship does he have with his mother?
Dump him. He sounds just like your father.
Life Advice From My Cousin Stephanie
Choose your battles wisely.
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As you know, I’m opening a coffeehouse in my “up-and-coming” neighborhood. It should be open in just a couple of weeks, pending a health department review — something that I’ve been agonizing over for months. But there’s another part of this that bothers me. The potential for failure.
Granted, if one is worried about failure, starting a business isn’t the best way to cure that worry. But it’s more than that, really. There’s talk of a splashy grand opening “ceremony” (what the hell? I thought they only did that for public buildings like libraries and hospitals) — a speech, presumably made by me. Did I mention that I abhor public speaking? Really, all I have to say can be summed up in two words: “Thank you.”
Thank you to my father, my mother, my grandmother, my friends, my children, my neighbors, and the builder.
That’s it. No grand proclamations, no grandiose promises to the community. Just a simple phrase of thanks, and nothing more. Anything else seems insincere to me, like the “common man” speeches politicians make. Haven’t we had enough of that for a while? I’m not a politician, I don’t want to be anything more than someone who’s known for selling good food at a fair price, in a place where people feel good. Period.
I just want to serve coffee…and leave the speeches to someone else.
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Today is the 231st anniversary of the United States Marine Corps. Congratulations, and OO-RAH!
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