The Day I Ousted the DJ

Sharing is Caring

Ever had a day that seemed to have a theme? Today appeared to be brought to me by Foursquare. 

If you have managed to find the one rock left to live under (Pass Go and collect $200), you are scratching your head wondering what a Foursquare is? I believe sharing is caring, so let’s talk a little about this location based social networking site currently swiffering the nation. All you need is a mobile phone or text enabled device type thing and you can play.

Why would you want to join another social network site, you ask (Yes, I can hear your thoughts. My ESPN is all the way on)?  This one comes with benefits and badges along with discounts from businesses that participate in the game. You can also find out where your friends are, allow them to stalk you, meet you out for dinner or drinks or give you tips around town. It’s a really cool fun way to play with your friends and do your part in supporting businesses or providing them feedback you may not necessarily give face to face. There are many reasons to play and you can learn more here.

Why does this day remind me of Foursquare? It all started in a parking garage in Midtown, Atlanta. I pulled in with my usual expectations of parking on one of the upper levels visitor parking spaces. I remember getting out of the car and getting my Foursquare application ready to check in. The Blackberry app will locate businesses within a few mile radius and let you select from the list.  The coffee shop I was going to check in at was not entered so I put all my energy into proactively getting my game on.

I went on to get a lack luster Chai Tea Latte and headed up the elevator to the top floor of my fabulous new digs. Cubed as I am, I love being in a fun office space with other creatives. I checked in there too, though some people think business check ins are not cool. I am not one of those people, providing you work in an office that does not offer a deal for services based on check ins. In other words, if you work at a bar or boutique you are banned from checking in so you don’t waste a hookup for a patron. 

Do a little Google (Topeka) magic on the subject and you will see a lot of people weigh in on their rules of checking in. To each his own on this, unless you cheat or add a duplicate record because you are too lame to double check your venue or do not spell it properly. The one thing I do get ornery about is when people add silly records like the highway or toll booth plazas. These clutter up the game and could be dangerous if you are driving while checking in. 

Public safety announcements aside, I finally found a new reason to not complain about all the random entries. I LOST my car! I played the part of space cadet for at least 15 minutes (a role I play well despite my high IQ) walking between levels to remember where my car may have been parked? I realized at that moment had I checked in on Level 11 of the parking garage, I would be getting in my car and not playing hide and go seek with it. Novel concept. I shared my moment of clarity with the DJ who thought this was cute.

I finally found my four wheel friend and took my show on the road (pun not intended, but it did work there). As I drove around to run errands, I got stuck behind this hotrod of horse power that seemed to think brushing her hair was more important then pushing the gas pedal. I was befuddled. I wanted her to check in on the side of the road and put a stop to this Marsha Brady 100 strokes a day hair brushing. She should have her hotrod privileges revoked and give that baby to someone one who will drive like she means it. Not me. I already lost one car today.

She finally got moving with her bad self and I was able to drive along to DSW where I had buyers rewards and would ultimately check in on Foursquare. I was on a specific mission for wedges and sandals and felt the best way to maintain accountability would be to shout that on my check in. Goal = wedges and sandals, must ignore heels. It’s a hard one for me. Higher the heel, happier the girl. 

Feeling fabulous and footloose (Again, she goes with the pun. I mean really?), I message the DJ that I am feeling very girly today. He responded with matched enthusiasm and *gasp* a grocery list. I said girly, not “to-do girly”? Or worse… domestic. 

I decide to take the list and own it. Best. Decision. EVER. 

I ousted the DJ as Mayor of Publix on Foursquare!!!! He has like 64 million check ins there and of all the days to take the title, I get the one themed Foursquare day or as it will now be known, the day I ousted the DJ and he still cooked me dinner.

Tags: Foursquare, I Ousted the DJ

Just Say No, to SPAM!

Writing is my anti-spam

This weekend I used some of my super powers to stop an insidious amount of spam comments on an older blog post. Some evil spider style attack of the x-rated kind tried to infiltrate mass amounts of linkage, but I stopped their stupidity with a little something I like to call brains. 

Brains are good for you. Tastes great with sentences, sandwiches, song lyrics and consumption of any kind. Not in a Hannibal Lecter way though. 

Back to the spam at hand… 

There appears to be a bored nerd using the same lame domain name or IP address to send 50+ comment spams a day to my blog. Thanks to the help of WordPress (Yes, you read that right, the WP hate is waning) I am able to block these sloppy spam attacks and spare my readers unnecessary assaults of their pathetic kind.

Seriously spammer, do you really have nothing better to do?? Is World of War Craft down? Did you get kicked out of Game Stop for being the nerd without brains again? Would it help if I bought you Hackers for Dummies or something? What about some one on one time with a real nerd to harness your powers for good not evil? The DJ is available for a small fee, which I am happy to pay if you BACK UP OFF MY BLOG COMMENTS ALREADY!

Please let me know what it will take for you to use your copious amount of spare time and pseudo techie knowledge (real hackers don’t leave such obvious traces of their existence) to stop wasting my time. You are starting to get on my almost birthday nerves and that is just not cute! I am making some pretty generous offers here. All you need to do is disappear and we can all go back to normal. Well, what ever “normal” means to you and your sad spammy existence , which incidentally I can have wiped away with one phone call. Let’s try to part ways peacefully. 

Thanks for playing!

Tags: Brains for sale, Captain Obvious, Go Away, Say no to spam, Spam sucks, Watch Yourself

The Fairy Tale Theme

I am starting to think finding a WordPress Theme is like choosing a husband? Something I am NOT good at which coincidentally runs in my family. Hi Mom!

Is there no such thing as a Fairy Tale Theme or happily ever after? With all due respect… Damn you, Disney! 

I want to be a believer. I do. 

Ever the optimist.

This week it was revealed that my current theme will not allow me to create multiple tabs on the main page. Two is the magic number. Must life be so limiting?

My initial plans for this site have yet to be revealed due to lack of love from my theme. I like the design and feel of this template, but it’s not reciprocating in the functionality department. RUDE!

It was free though. Makes it hard to complain about the generous designer who kindly shared. Thank you, Laptop Geek. 

Also, I must note that the DJ did spend hours on some “behind the scene nerd stuff” so that I may add tabs, but they are static pages. For those more green then me (if you still exist), this means I can only write one post per page. 

Now back to the complaint department.

My decision to move to WordPress was based on all the glowing reviews from current users about the ability to customize my page and content management capability. I have been trying to manage and add more content only to find my theme FAILS in this department. I want sections and tabs that exceed the boundaries of this relationship. I think some may call this customization? 

When I set out on my theme picking mission, I had a few clear goals in mind:

• Originality – I did not want to go with the same traditional Thesis theme all the pros are already using. I wanted to create my own special sauce from a template with tweaks to enhance the Simply Sharpeness of it all. It is apparently not that simple. The DJ has spent many nights working on code and I have wasted hours not posting out of frustration with the two previous themes. Both issues are being addressed as I type.
• Pretty in Pink - Love it. No explanation necessary. Pink makes me happy.
• Functionality – I want to be a writer, not a coder. I understand that all good things require hard work and learning a little code never hurt anyone. I like learning. I also like writing. Currently, I have spent more hours working on the appearance of this page then I have on writing content or posting because the layout is not to my liking. Must strike this and reverse it. 
• Sustainable – I want a Fairy Tale Theme. One that I can live happily ever after with.

That should cover my WordPress whining for this weekend. I want to *love* it like all the other cool kids. I do. 

Off to research more themes and quite likely to join the Thesis bandwagon. 

Thanks for playing!

Tags: complaint department, Happily Ever After, Oh no she di'int, The Fairy Tale Theme, Thesis, whining, Wordpress Themes

Backnoise is Awesomesauce & Annoying.

Today I discovered the coolest thing since sliced bread, it’s called BackNoise.

What is this awesomesauce she speaks of?

It’s a website where you say all the things you are thinking (but not supposed to verbalize) during a meeting. It’s free, it’s fabulous, it’s fun! It can also be an extremely helpful tool when a few of the coolest cats in the ATL are hosting their first Social Media Conference and people want to give feedback. Even the snarky stuff. In fact, it says on the front page V2.0, now with more snark. Set the expectations.

In the morning, I was not that into Backnoise and found it distracting, annoying, addicting and overwhelming. I could not wrap my big brain around the concept of people using yet another third party application to comment on anything. More noise? Why are you even attending this conference if you are not feeling it?

Then the cool cats started to up the ante. They were following the commentary too. Playing the game if you will. In a good way. There was one person I wanted to hurt and a few friends who went so boldly anonymous with snarkiness. It’s easy to do anything anonymously. Yeah, remember my old blog Randomly Fabulous? Enough said.

So the snarky chatter went on and on for eternity until the perfect panel happened. Jeff Turner, Bert Dumars, Peter Fasano and Seth Miller. The dream team. If you have any interest in Social Media or life in general your ears and eyes were on them.

Backnoise just got awesome! Plus, my Tweetdeck was down making it mandatory for my sanity. I have severe ADD if you don’t know me (yet) and need to be communicating at all times. I am working on my talk time issues. Promise!

While I do that, I hope I just spilled some awesomesauce on your shoes.

Thanks for playing!

Tags: Awesomesauce, Backnoise, New Media Atlanta, Noise, Overthinking sucks

The Follow Up Email

This is a real email. I changed the names of the ridiculously amused. This was sent out as a follow up to yesterday’s urgent birthday cake incident. Not by the HR Manager who caused aforementioned incident, but by Mr. Fix It. 

Subject: upcoming birthdays

Guys,

As our records show we have several upcoming birthdays this month. (The DJ has one today!!!, 12th,14th a double on the 17th, and one on the 22nd, Da Man has one on the 15th 3 on the 18th and one each from the 23rd till the 27th, just as examples. Please check you employee calendar to see all listed birthdays. I think we should get together to celebrate The DJ’s 138th today. Vinings grill 5:30?

***

Well played Mr. Fix it.

Please include me in your next round of office-capades! I work for Dunder Mifflin. Life would not be so funny if we did not have an occasional episode at the Office. 

Another Random Disclaimer: This was not my Office. To date, nothing this funny has ever happened in my place of BIZNESS! I only write true stories on here. I promise to change names or assign nicknames when necessary. If you feel this is too much, turn me down. 

Tags: office capades, silly me

Addicted to the Noise

I probably should not post anything given my current state of mind (lost), but I am breaking habits hard and fast. Watch out world. You have been warned.

I generally admit to addictions at my convenience. Right now, I am coming clean about my social media obsession. I have been without Twitter during the day due to new employment and some upgrade delay. I just read about DJ AM about an hour ago and decided to log into MySpace (a rare occurrence these days) to update my profile song. At the very least, you must admit MySpace was the forefront of music media scene.

I’m tired of Twitternerds talking smack about MySpace. When everyone left and went to Facebook I bitched about it. Now that everyone is on Facebook, I still find something to complain about. I feel all these Facebookers are making up for lost MySpace time or lack of Friendster experience.

While I may have taken down some of the old “digital dirt” in my portfolio, I still write behind the scenes.

I am and forever will be, addicted to the noise. It makes life sound better and you can expect more where this came from.

My current profile song DJ AM “Attention Deficit” is what life sounds like when you have that much talent.

RIP DJ AM. Thank you for making an impact in this world!

Tags: Addiction, DJ AM, Facebook, Myspace, Noise, Respect, Sadness, writing

Houston, we have HOSTING!

Finally, after tons of research, reading way too many reviews and uncertainty on whether or not I needed a self hosted WordPress Blog, Tech Support (AKA, the hub) has decided to go with Hostgator. 

I feel somewhat obligated now to share my experience with hosting after all those reviews I read. 24 hours and no complaints.